In this newsletter
Hello
Latest blog post
A year in summary
Looking ahead
Hello
Hello once again to my lovely readers, and welcome to the final Just History Posts newsletter of 2023! I feel like a broken record, but I can’t believe there are only a few days left to the end of the year. I have no idea where this year has gone. This year has been a great one for my career and for the blog, and we’ve had lots of changes going on, so I hope you’ll forgive me for a bit of a more reflective newsletter than my usual ones. I wish you all a happy and healthy Christmas season and I look forwards to reconnecting in the New Year!
Latest Blog Post
I managed to squeeze in one last blog post this year with the help of medieval reenactor Ari Ryan. Ari reached out to me as he is planning to build a recreation of a medieval village in the USA as a place for reenactors to gather, have fun together, and test their kit or partake in living history experiments. He is running a kickstarter which ends at the end of December, and so we had a great chat together about reenacting in general and what his plans and vision for the village is. If you want to catch up on the post, you can do so here.
A Year in Summary
At the start of 2023, as we are all wont to do, I had many grand plans for the blog. I was going to write loads more posts, and spend loads of time on social media, and all other sorts of things. Of course, life and billionaires got in the way and that didn’t quite pan out: I got a new job, which was very fulfilling personally but which means I get home later in the evenings and so had less time to dedicate to the blog; Elon Musk’s takeover of Twitter/X completely changed the face of the platform, and I took the difficult decision to close my blog account there; I found it too taxing on my time to continue to do daily social media posts, as had been my pattern for many years, and I stepped back to instead post on alternating days; and all those many, many blog posts didn’t quite materialise.
However, despite these setbacks, I’m very proud with how the blog has been this year. The alternate days social media posting has been so much more sustainable, and it means I’ve had more time to dedicate to researching new posts, instead of reusing ones from years gone by. Although I didn’t write quite as many blog posts as I had intended, I still managed 13 this year which is just over 1 a month and matched the amount of posts I wrote last year. And the blog Facebook page continued to go from strength to strength, the community there continuing to be utterly fabulous. I also had the luck this month of two Facebook posts going what I consider viral, and this has brought a flurry of new wonderful followers into our group. I’m excited to see where we go next year.
The other thing that’s been great with my in-depth blog posts is that this year I’ve finally sat down to write numerous blog posts which have been on my to-write list for literally years - and in some cases since the day I started the blog. From dispelling the myth that medieval people believed the world was flat, to the Fayum Mummy Portraits and Childeric I’s bees, it’s been great to tick some things off my list and finally share them all with you.
Looking Ahead
So that all being said, where do we go in 2024? Well I do still hope to write more blog posts next year, and in a funny way this newsletter that I started is a great motivator. As I often mention my latest blog post in the newsletter, and I try to write the newsletter 1-2 times a month, it motivates me to have something new to share in each one! I want to try and keep on top of more regular social media posting now that I’ve finally found my rhythm with it, and it’d also be great if I can get some more guest posters on the blog. I’ve also had some plans for a long time now to explore different types of content, and whilst I might not have time to do this next year, balancing my two book contracts, I’ll definitely keep it on the back-burner to drop into when I can.
All that remains to say is thank you all for being so wonderful for another year. It’s hard to believe Just History Posts has been going for 7 years now and is still going from strength to strength, and that wouldn’t be the case without all of your support. I wish you all the best for the New Year and, as always, thank you for reading.
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I've just discovered your blog & Substack after seeing your fascinating talk to the Richard III Society. Looking forward to exploring the blog & reading your books. Best wishes for a Happy New Year!