My favorite change from 2024, an invitation to you, and a table of contents look-back to see what you may have missed.

Jan 04, 2025

I sat down to write this morning and found I am still in a bit of a reflecting mood despite being a few days into a new year. As such it’s worth spending a little more time looking back in order to plan forward. We are so quick to jump from reflection to go mode, and I’m just not quite there yet.

Today I reflected on writing on Substack in 2024.

Favorite change I made in 2024

In 2024 I transitioned my writing from Wordpress (Renee-Robinson.com), where I’d written for nearly 15 years completely unpaid and spending my own money in order to host and maintain the website, to Substack.

I still actually pay to host www.renee-robinson.com as it houses a history of writing I want to stay around forever. In addition to paying to host the site, it required a subscription to email my subscribers. The more subscribers, the more it cost. I was paying over $75 month to be able to write and send it to you all. For about 15 years. Yikes.

Substack doesn’t charge me to send emails to my subscribers. Instead, they withhold a portion of the fees from paid subscribers. So paid subscribers support the ability to send content without breaking the bank.

Why am I telling you all of this? Because I believe you need to understand why I offer levels of subscriptions. The bottom line, no pun intended, is that I want to write for the long haul - until the day the Lord takes me home or tells me to lay down my pen.

When Steve and I dream together about the future and I begin to talk about my dream job, it always comes back to writing. It awakens me to life.

While my writing is nearly purely ministry based and led, it still requires a significant amount of time and commitment. The paid subscriptions support my efforts and ability to continue to write to offset some of the costs associated with being a freelancer.

Ok- if you are still reading. Here’s a few more reasons I moved to Substack.

1- The ease and ability to create posts with audio and video

2-The trend of readers moving to the Substack platform

3-The death of traditional blogging

4-A hope to connect with readers in a more personal way that Wordpress doesn’t allow

5-The ability to share content and material that I don’t want the internet at large to read (through the paid/non-paid subscriber options)

So one of my favorite moves of 2024 was to Substack.

Invitation to you

You are invited to subscribe if you aren’t already. Why subscribe rather than simply hopping on the Substack app? Well, it comes straight to your inbox so you never miss a post.

Free subscribers receive 1-2 posts a month. One is a month end summary and the other is typically a devotion.

Paid subscribers receive:

full access to archives, meaning anytime you upgrade to paid you have access to anything ever shared with paid subscribers.
writings that are part of a series. In 2024 I shared 3 different series - one for Holy Week, one for just because, and one for Christmas.
posts that have video/audio
more frequent posts 2-4/month.
access to live online bible studies. In 2024 paid subscribers participated via Zoom with me as we studied Soul Keeping by John Ortberg. It was fabulous!

Some stats

In 2024 I published 84 pieces on Substack - 37 for paid subscribers and 47 for all subscribers. About 65,000 words. Basically I wrote a book last year!

Most Read Post of 2024:

I’m Fine But Hold My Hand Please

My personal favorite:

Why You Should Let Those Tears Flow

Below is a table of contents to preview all posts shared with paid subscribers in 2024. If you are a paid subscriber, this is a good index to keep to read any you may have missed. If you are a free subscriber, you can see a preview of each post:

From strife to peace and everything in between

Don’t borrow anxiety from tomorrow

Illuminate Holy Week - A 9 day series

Declarations of His Beauty

From Home to Not Home to Yet to Come

Persistence pays and compassion helps

Quick update for paid subscribers

Are we gravitating toward artificial over authentic

Illuminate - Seeing God by the Light of His Word- A 14 day audio devotion

In a time where everyone spews opinions, let’s be different

How to make friends as a grown up

Just Believe