Moving to Substack

Why and What it means

Hey friend,

I started Mektup on Substack. Right after the first issue, I migrated to ConvertKit, where I hosted Mektup for 36 issues, and then moved it to Ghost, where I hosted my blog to merge everything into one place. Ghost was a great host providing enough flexibility for me to be creative on the website using templates. At the same time, it took care of many things I didn’t want to deal with, such as infrastructure, emailing, security, and spam.

I have been using Ghost Pro since December 2021. I have seen its development, direction, and growth. Although it has been great—and I’m sure it is still great for many people—it’s not working for me. I realized I don’t fit into their audience, and the new features are going toward content creators with big audiences.

Also, the freedom in the design of the website brought me a lot of burdens that I didn’t want to deal with anymore. I am okay not working on customizing my home page, footer, or website font. I often found myself working on my website’s UI while I actually wanted to do something else. That moment has passed, and I want to focus on writing.

Therefore, I moved to Substack today, where I fit into their target audience, “independent writers and podcasters.”

I also renamed my online space to “Mediations with Candost.” For a long time, I realized that I’m trying to mediate the multiple aspects of my life that are pulling me in many directions. Every day, I debate with myself and try to find common ground where I can satisfy multiple aspects of my life, such as work, writing, leadership, software engineering, health, music, family, friends, reading, etc., which all have importance, and I want to get better in each front. So, “Mediations” is a better name that reflects my life.

Meanwhile, Mektup and Software World with Candost will keep their names, and I will keep writing Mektup in the same way.

In theory, this move shouldn’t change anything for you. However, there are limitations of Subsctack and, thus, consequences for all of us.

Due to Substack’s setup, all my mailing lists (that you’re part of it) will start receiving every post I write as an email. And Mektup is now an additional newsletter. You may have subscribed to either Mektup or podcast or each blog post only previously on my website. You will also start receiving other posts I write even though you didn’t subscribe to receive every post. You will get all emails regardless of your previous subscription.

I’m sorry, but Substack doesn’t allow me to subscribe you to the right newsletter list, but YOU CAN. Click the unsubscribe button at the bottom of this email to unsubscribe from lists you don’t want emails for.

There are four email lists to which I will distribute:

1. Mediations with Candost

   This section includes all posts I write (excluding Mektup and book notes).

2. Mektup
   This is the bi-weekly newsletter that I send as casual letters reflecting my learnings and thoughts about software engineering leadership and life, arriving every second Tuesday.

3. Book Notes (BRAND NEW)

   I decided to separate book notes from my main articles and created a new section on my newsletter that you can subscribe to separately.

4. Software World with Candost (podcast)

I don’t think I will send more than two emails per week overall; mostly, it will be once a week. Feel free to unsubscribe from any list you want. By default, you’re subscribed to all of them.

Thank you for staying with me through different journeys.

P.S. If you see any broken links in any article, please let me know.