In his latest issue, Sloan had this excellent bit about newsletters. (His archives are closed so I’m linking to the signup.)
In addition to sending several email newsletters, I subscribe to many, and I talk about them a lot; you might have heard me say this at some point (or seen me type it) but I think any artist or scholar or person-in-the-world today, if they don’t have one already, needs to start an email list immediately. […]
Why? Because we simply cannot trust the social networks, or any centralized commercial platform, with these cliques and crews most vital to our lives, these bands of fellow-travelers who are — who must be — the first to hear about all good things. Email is definitely not ideal, but it is: decentralized, reliable, and not going anywhere — and more and more, those feel like quasi-magical properties.