Some Changes to the Newsletter

Some might call it a "rebrand." Others, a "pivot." I call it doing the thing I want to do based on zero market research.

Hey everyone,

Lots of changes are afoot so I’ll get right to it. This newsletter will now be a dedicated non-fiction books recommendation newsletter, with a focus on history and cities. I will be changing the name to Book Time.

In addition, I’m moving back to Buttondown, an independent newsletter platform with more flexibility and customization options.

Finally, I will be introducing affiliate links to Bookshop.org for the books I recommend.

Sounds good? Great! Don’t care about non-fiction books? I understand. Want to learn more? Read on!

Why I’m Making the Change

I started Urbababble as a way for me to keep in touch with you all as I discontinued social media use. But it didn’t have a clear focus. I’ve realized the book recommendations are the part of the newsletter I most enjoy doing. I love reading. I read around 15,000-20,000 pages a year purely for pleasure, which comes out to about 50 non-fiction books a year. And I love talking about and sharing good books with people. And I love that many of you respond with your own recommendations. So I’m going to build on those things.

As for changing the name, Urbababble was always a silly name—although the pamphlet it’s based on remains one of the greatest finds of my professional research—and now that the newsletter has a specific focus I want it to have a name that reflects that. So you’ll still be getting emails from me, but the name of the newsletter will be Book Time and you can find it by going to booktime.email.

Why I’m Switching to Buttondown

I’m leaving Substack because it doesn’t have the features I want and it comes with too much baggage. I don’t just mean the political stuff. There is now a Twitter-like functionality, Reposts and Restacks, Chats, and god knows what other features I have less than no interest in. I don’t care about any of that stuff and I find it all increasingly annoying. I want to read good books and recommend them to you all and get emails back from you about good books you like, too. And if you choose to share the newsletter with others, that’s awesome.

So I’m going back to Buttondown, a platform run by a person named Justin who responds to all my questions quickly and works with me to build the newsletter experience I want. Buttondown also respects user privacy in a way I value.

Why I’m Introducing Affiliate Links

However, Buttondown costs money. So, to help defray those costs, I’m introducing affiliate links to the books I recommend through Bookshop.org. If you want to buy one of the books I recommend and do so through the links provided, you’ll help support the newsletter. I will also create lists on Bookshop of all the books I have recommended, broken down by a few distinct categories.

My goal is to cover the costs of running the newsletter the way I want to run it. And if I want to add features in the future, I’ll be able to do that, too.

Will You Get More Emails?

You might get fewer.

When it comes to newsletters, I believe in the Less Is More approach, both in terms of the frequency of emails and the length of each edition.

I imagine that for most people the main utility of Book Time will be the time they save hunting for book recommendations. So I’m aiming to send somewhere between 6 to 12 emails a year with brief book recommendations like I’ve been doing here on occasion. The less time I spend writing newsletters is more time we all spend reading good books.

If this all sounds good to you and you want to subscribe to Book Time, then do absolutely nothing. If book recommendations or non-fiction books aren’t your thing and you wish to unsubscribe, it’s been a pleasure to have you. I will wait two weeks from the time I send this email to migrate the subscriber list to Buttondown.

I’m super excited to start Book Time and hope to see you all there. And thanks as always for reading and supporting my work!

Cheers,

Aaron