/reader

Thank you for keeping RSS alive. You're awesome.

Email me :: Sign my guestbook :: Support for 1$/month :: See my awesome supporters :: Subscribe to People and Blogs

To follow this series subscribe to the newsletter. A new interview will land in your inbox every Friday. Not a fan of newsletters? No problem! You can read the interviews here on the blog or you can subscribe to the RSS feed.

If you're enjoying the People and Blogs series and you want to see it grow, consider supporting on Ko-Fi.

Let's start from the basics: can you introduce yourself?

¡Hola! I’m Erica, a multidisciplinary designer from Spain, currently based in Mataró, a city by the sea near Barcelona.

I like doing many different things. I've usually paid my bills working in visual design and marketing, but I always tend to gravitate towards illustration and comics.

Right now I'm mildly obsessed with photography and have been making a drawing a day for 7 months (and counting) illustrating my life's adventures.

Aside from making things, I also like listening to music, watching movies, reading, surrounding myself with beautiful objects, meeting people, cooking and eating, discovering interesting places around me... And of course, talking about all these things on my blog.

What's the story behind your blog?

When I was a teenager I got into punk-rock and alternative music. It was because I started posting on music forums that I met my friend Andrea. She was very active on the Internet and, inspired by her, I also started using platforms like LiveJournal, Fotolog, MySpace or Flickr.

In 2007, I started a blog on Blogger. On it, like on all those other platforms, I shared comics, photos, thoughts, and things I liked.

After a while of posting regularly, there always came a time when I felt the need to delete everything and start over. Sadly, I never saved my posts, so I'm grateful to Wayback Machine for letting me take a look at some of the things I wrote.

I also had a few collaborative blogs along the way, like Fresquito de cagar (Poop chills), where my friend José and I posted comic strips, Muertos de asco (Bored stiff), a webcomic series written by María Rubio and drawn by me, or Primera vez (First time), a collective project where we drew things we had never drawn before.

In 2015, I moved to a self-hosted website built using WordPress. My website has gone through many versions, with and without a blog. For years, I used my website as a portfolio and Instagram as a substitute for a blog. Then, in 2022, I felt like I needed a place outside of social media where all my work, drawings, photos, and writing could co-exist, so I added a blog again and have been posting ever since.

What does your creative process look like when it comes to blogging?

I don't have a set frequency. Sometimes I post three days in a row, sometimes I go quiet for weeks. I usually get the urge to write when I have new projects to share, when I've visited somewhere interesting, or when I've been trying something new with photography.

I start my drafts in Obsidian, the app I use for all my writing. I try to make my texts as spontaneous as possible (which means there are sometimes typos). In the past, some versions of my blog were in English or bilingual, but now I write mostly in Spanish, because I feel like I edit myself too much in English. Plus, I'm funnier in Spanish (or so I'd like to think).

Do you have an ideal creative environment? Also do you believe the physical space influences your creativity?

I prefer to write in a quiet, calm space, so I usually write from home. If inspiration strikes I don't mind writing a draft on my phone or scribbling down some notes in the corner of a notebook, but I always write the final version on my laptop, which I rarely take out of the house.

Drawing is different though. I carry my notebooks and iPad everywhere, I like to draw in cafes and on trains, and I often listen to music or talk to friends while I draw.

But for sure, the right environment definitely does it for me. When I force myself to write or draw in a place where I don't feel comfortable, I often don't like the end result.

A question for the techie readers: can you run us through your tech stack?

My website is built on Wordpress.org, hosted by Cdmon and designed with Semplice.

Semplice is a visual and highly customizable theme that allowed me to forget about coding to make my website look the way I wanted. It is meant to be used with portfolios, so the default blog is a bit simple but fits most of my blogging needs.

Given your experience, if you were to start a blog today, would you do anything differently?

For years I was obsessed with having the right design for my blog, using the right platform, publishing the right content. What I was doing never fit with the idea I had in my head or what other people were doing.

It took me many years to realize that the only thing that matters is accepting who you are and being consistent. So I guess if I were to start a blog now, I would try to be kinder to myself.

Wordpress frustrates me sometimes, but I don't want to go through another redesign right now. However, if I were to build my website now, I would probably go with a static site generator.

Financial question since the Web is obsessed with money: how much does it cost to run your blog? Is it just a cost, or does it generate some revenue? And what's your position on people monetising personal blogs?

I switched to self-hosting through Promsite, a Cdmon program that sponsors hosting for creatives. I've been part of this program since 2012, so I don't pay anything for hosting. I had to buy a license to use Semplice (about 150€) and I pay about 20€ a year for the domain.

Aside from the occasional donation to Ko-Fi, I don't make any revenue from my blog, but I think it's only natural to try to make a living doing something you're passionate about.

Time for some recommendations: any blog you think is worth checking out? And also, who do you think I should be interviewing next?

I like to collect interesting blogs and websites in the Internet friends section on my website.

I love blogs that feel like you're reading someone else's diary, so I'm always excited when Javier and Muan post a new entry. I also enjoy reading Christoph's and Anh’s monthly posts.

And because newsletters are the new blogs of these days, some of my favorite newsletters include my friend Andrea's What I learnt from teenage films, Nazaret Escobedo's autobiographical writings on Fetén, Kristoffer’s Naive weekly, which is part postcard, part ode to the odd and poetic internet, and Abel Cuevas' El Drugstore, a newsletter about pop culture and design, mixed with autobiographical anecdotes.

I'd love to hear what each of them has to say.

Final question: is there anything you want to share with us?

As much as I love the internet, I'm all about physical objects. I have a lot of records, books, comics, zines, clothes and designer objects. I also collect ephemera and vintage toys.

I love doing swaps and seeing other people’s collections. Maybe you can share your collection with me if you have one?

Beside my website I'm on many social networks, so don't be a stranger :)

This was the 67th edition of People and Blogs. Hope you enjoyed this interview with Erica. Make sure to follow her blog (RSS) and get in touch with her if you have any questions.

Awesome supporters

You can support this series on Ko-Fi and all supporters will be listed here as well as on the official site of the newsletter.

Jamie Thingelstad (RSS) — Piet Terheyden — Eleonora — Carl Barenbrug (RSS) — Steve Ledlow (RSS) — Paolo Ruggeri (RSS) — Nicolas Magand (RSS) — Rob Hope — Chris Hannah (RSS) — Pedro Corá (RSS) — Colin Walker (RSS) — Sixian Lim (RSS) — Matt Stein (RSS) — Winnie Lim (RSS) — Flamed (RSS) — C Jackdaw (RSS) — Kevin Humdrum (RSS) — Fabricio Teixeira (RSS) — Rosalind Croad — Frank Meeuwsen (RSS) — Mike Walsh (RSS) — Markus Heurung — Michael Warren (RSS) — Chuck Grimmett (RSS) — Robin Harford (RSS) — Bryan Maniotakis (RSS) — Barry Hess (RSS) — Ivan Moreale — Khürt Williams (RSS) — Ben Werdmuller (RSS) — Cory Gibbons — Luke Harris (RSS) — Lars-Christian Simonsen (RSS) — Cody Schultz — Brad Barrish (RSS) — Nikita Galaiko — Erik Blankvoort — Jaga Santagostino — Andrew Zuckerman — Mattia Compagnucci (RSS) — Thord D. Hedengren (RSS) — Fabien Sauser (RSS) — Maxwell Omdal — Numeric Citizen (RSS) — Jarrod Blundy (RSS) — Andrea Contino (RSS) — Sebastian De Deyne (RSS) — Nicola Losito (RSS) — Lou Plummer (RSS) — Leon Mika (RSS) — Veronique (RSS) — Neil Gorman (RSS) — Reaper (RSS) — Matt Rutherford (RSS) — Aleem Ali (RSS) — Nikkin (RSS) — Jeremy Felt (RSS) — Hans (RSS) — Matt Katz (RSS) — Ilja Panić — Emmanuel Odongo — Kev Quirk (RSS) — Peter Rukavina (RSS) — jsrn (RSS) — Adam Keys (RSS) — Alexey Staroselets (RSS) — John L — Minsuk Kang (RSS) — Kechi Ladapo (RSS) — Naz Hamid (RSS) — Lincoln Stewart (RSS) — Ken Zinser (RSS) — Jan — Grey Vugrin (RSS) — Luigi Mozzillo (RSS) — Alex Hyett (RSS) — Andy Piper — Hrvoje Šimić (RSS) — Rhodia Square — Travis Schmeisser — Doug Jones — Vincent Ritter (RSS) — Shen — Fabian Holzer (RSS) — Zenpen — Courtney (RSS) — Karl Prieb

Want to support P&B?

If you like this series and want to help it grow, you can:

1. support on Ko-Fi;
2. post about it on your own blog and let your readers know about its existence;
3. email me comments and feedback on the series;
4. suggest a person to interview next. I'm especially interested in people and blogs outside the tech/web bubble.

Thank you for keeping RSS alive. You're awesome.

Email me :: Sign my guestbook :: Support for 1$/month :: See my awesome supporters :: Subscribe to People and Blogs

Thank you for keeping RSS alive. You're awesome.

Email me :: Sign my guestbook :: Support for 1$/month :: See my awesome supporters :: Subscribe to People and Blogs

Subscribers will also get access to full-text RSS feeds

Hell yeah, full RSS feeds are back. That said though, one thing is a big no-no:

You can now pay to get fewer ads

The correct amount of ads for a publication that’s directly supported is zero. That’s the amount we should get. I don’t care about the rationale behind it. I’m giving you money, you decided how much money I should be giving you for your product, you don’t get to double dip and also sell my data to your advertisers and earn more on the side. I’ll say it again: the correct amount of ads, in this case, is zero. Get your shit together verge people.

Thank you for keeping RSS alive. You're awesome.

Email me :: Sign my guestbook :: Support for 1$/month :: See my awesome supporters :: Subscribe to People and Blogs

The first reason is that it’s incredibly easy to get started on Substack and also very easy to get going but most non-tech savvy people don’t realise that by not owning their domain name they don’t really own anything. If you run your publication on Substack using a subdomain, Substack owns those URLs, not you. If tomorrow they have a change of hearts and they decide to pivot from being a blog platform to selling human organs and you’re like “Well, fuck that” all the content you posted is stuck there. Sure you can grab the actual content and post it somewhere else but the original URLs are gone and, as we all know, “Cool URIs don't change”. So, if you really want to use Substack, please, I beg you, get your own domain name.

That’s reason number one. Reason number two is the business model. Substack makes money when you make money. That’s their entire business model. You use the platform for free but if you start a paid publication, they get a %. Sounds reasonable right? No, not really. The transaction itself is reasonable but the problem it creates is one of incentives. Substack has to convince you to start a paid publication. It has to push people towards paywalling as much content as possible because that’s how it makes money. And you might be thinking that it is a good thing, that we need more people to earn a living in this stupid “creators economy”. That’s false.

Let me rant for a second. I’m fucking tired of living in a society where everything is monetised, where nothing is safe from speculation, where every passion has to be turned into a business. “But why shouldn’t you turn your passion into a business?” you might ask. Because this endless pursuit of money is fucking up society. The incentives you set up, when you run a platform like Substack, matter a lot. It’s not an accident that, like Kevin said, after a while people on Substack start writing about Substack. Substack has no interest in promoting the people who write candidly about their inner struggles, their dreams and hopes, and their everyday lives. They have nothing to earn from that. They would, in fact, lose money if all of you out there started using the platform simply to share what you think, and what you’re going through, with no intention of ever turning it into a side hustle.

This is why Substack is constantly nudging you to subscribe and to give them your email address. It’s why they’re slowly trying to morph into this somewhat guarded garden where people on Substack are used to promote other people inside Substack. Some people think this is a good thing, using the network effect to help blogs grow. I’m not one of those people.

And the reason why I am not is because this is a VC-backed company. And they’re playing the traditional corporate game so they need to increase revenues over time. And there’s a cap on that because there’s a finite amount of people willing to pay for premium content. So at some point, they’ll be forced to start doing shitty things in order to extract more value. And it’s not a matter of if, it’s a matter of when. The old advice is still true “If you’re not paying for a product, you’re the product”.

Maybe I’ll be proven wrong. Maybe Substack will keep growing and evolving into a beautiful digital space. As of right now, I seriously doubt it.

Oh, one final note. In his post, Jacobs quoted Fredrik deBoer who wrote:

At some point the “own your turf” people have to recognize that the vast majority just aren’t going to roll their own platforms and services, and to insist that they do is simply to insist that a lot of voices aren’t heard anywhere.

Kinda ironic coming from someone who has his own domain name that’s already powered by WordPress and yet is running a substack publication under a substack.com subdomain.

Anyway, if you care about the web, get off social media platforms and get yourself your own piece of digital real estate. And if you don’t know where or how to start, reach out. There are plenty of people out there—including myself—who are more than happy to help you.

Thank you for keeping RSS alive. You're awesome.

Email me :: Sign my guestbook :: Support for 1$/month :: See my awesome supporters :: Subscribe to People and Blogs