Four more years! Four more years!
Plus: A special birthday edition of The State of the Boozeletter™️!
In late May of 2020, I published the first edition of Fingers. I had a hand-drawn logo, a cobbled-together list, and zero paid subscribers. Today is roughly four years later. It’s not exactly Fingers’ fourth anniversary (that would’ve been 5/26/24), but it’s close enough to call it. Huzzah! Happy birthday Fingers!
In lieu of gifts celebrating the boozeletter’s fourth trip around the sun, please fill out this SHORT three-question survey to help me steer the boozeletter towards a stable, solvent four more years of independent journalism about drinking in America:
It’s been a hell of a ride, and we’ve got lots to celebrate. In the sections below, I’ve laid out some facts, figures, and plans for the future for those media-curious Friends of Fingers who are interested in how the independent drinks-journalism sausage (?) gets made.
The upshot: this project continues to grow both readership and revenue to the degree that I’m able to afford to continue publishing it. Four more years! Up with Fingers! Scream it from the rooftops, folks.
That’s not to say every indicator is flashing bright green on the big boozeletter dashboard here at HQ. Fingers is still not quite generating the revenue that—when combined with my contributing editor role at VinePair and the sundry freelance gigs that I manage to gin up—will afford me a comfortable life here in Richmond, enable me to save prudently as an almost-36-year-old, and maybe even grow my earning power and career.1 My open rate has swooned over the past few months for reasons that I think I understand but am not quite sure how to fix yet. Those reasons are at least indirectly related to the (comparatively expensive) software I use to publish Fingers. It’s just the latest impetus to seek out a new platform, which I’ve been putting off for about six months in earnest due to my workload, dread for tech legwork, and fear of disrupting the factors that have contributed to Fingers growth thus far. Quoth Billy Ray Cyrus, “Much to think about.”
But enough morose ruminating! Today is a day of celebration! (Please celebrate by filling out this extremely short survey, it’d truly be a big help.) Friends of Fingers can find plenty more inside-baseball boozeletter data and forecasting below. I’m truly grateful for all your support. Happy birthday Fingers, and onward, Fingers Fam!
📬 Good post alert
If you see a good post that the Fingers Fam should know about, please send me that good post via email or Instagram DM.