Who Are You?
The ACBN is turning the microphone around today, as I'd like to hear from you.
Hello, friends!
It’s hard to believe it, but 2022 is already winding down. The days are getting shorter (too short, if you ask me), stores have flipped the switch to full holiday cheer, and we just got our first snow of the season here in Kentucky.
Here at The Action Cookbook Newsletter, I’m gearing up for an exciting final seven weeks of the year. I’ve got a lot of great stuff in the pipeline, and I can’t wait to share it all with you very soon.
Today, however, I’d like do a quick diagnostic check on the newsletter.
The ACBN has been in operation more than three years now, with more than 500 newsletters sent to date. In that time, this plucky little indie startup has gone from an initial subscriber base of few hundred people who knew me from previous writing gigs to a broad-ranging readership of many thousands, and the growth has only accelerated this year.
This is fantastic, of course!
I am thrilled to see this newsletter grow, and I can only hope that it continues on that same upward trajectory for a long time to come.
The only downside to this rapid growth—if any—is that with so many new people around, I end up knowing less about who I’m writing for.
I like knowing who’s out there!
With that in mind, I’ve got a few questions for you today.
These questions are meant to give me a better feel for who all’s out there, and I’d really appreciate if you’re willing to answer some or all of them. If you’re comfortable sharing your answers in the comments section, please do, but if you’d like to respond privately you can also just respond to this email directly.
Tell me about yourself, to the extent you feel comfortable.
Anything you’d like. Pretend this is Jeopardy! and I’m the new host. (Which, frankly, I should have been.) Give me a quick biography!
Where are you in the world?
I know from previous merch distributions and other such physical mailings that readers hail from all over the United States, Canada, and a handful of other countries, but I don’t know the full spread. Who reads this newsletter from the furthest away?
How did you arrive here?
Twitter? A referral from another newsletter? Someone forwarded an email? How did you learn about The Action Cookbook Newsletter?
Was there a particular post that drew you in?
This might be the question I’m most interested to hear your answers to, because I have a very short memory for the things that I write. Are there any that stand out as particularly memorable?
What type of things do you enjoy most here?
Is it the food and drink content? The sentimental parenting essays? The times I get really weird with an offbeat concept? Any topics that I’ve touched on that you’ve especially appreciated?
What would you like to see more of?
It could be anything!
Is it Olaf?
Fine, here’s Olaf.
(It took nearly a year, but I finally caught him asleep.)
Thanks in advance for your feedback, and I hope you have a great start to the week!
—Scott Hines (@actioncookbook)
Also, for those of you who don't know, I'll offer a quick bio of my own:
I'm Scott, an architect by day and writer by nights/weekends/any time I can be. I'm originally from Ohio, and after a decade living in New York City after college, I've now lived in my current home of Louisville, Kentucky for almost eight years. I'm married with two kids (ages 7 and 6) and two dogs (ages 12 and maybe 1-2?). I started writing online in 2014 for Every Day Should Be Saturday, a now-defunct college football blog that a number of people have already mentioned in their comments, and I also do frequent freelance writing for Decider.
I launched what would become The Action Cookbook Newsletter in 2019, first to support a short-lived podcast project ("The Seventh Circle", whose DNA remains in me having seven items in each Friday Newsletter), but then as a place to write with more creative freedom and diversity of subject than I'd had in work for others.
I have a very short memory for things I write, as I noted in the post, but last year's Christmas epic, "All of the Other Reindeer" (https://actioncookbook.substack.com/p/theotherreindeer) is probably my proudest achievement.
My name is Diego Montoya. You killed my father. (You know the rest.)