A Short Break to Recalibrate
Note to Readers
You might have noticed that Local Food Forum has been publishing a little sporadically lately. It turns out that running a publication by yourself while doing a pretty heavy load of contract work isn’t as easy as I thought it would be.
People thought I was a little crazy when I started publishing daily. They may have been right. But there are so many interesting stories and important issues to cover, and I am so passionate about helping advance our local food community. And the truth is, it was a pretty easy lift… while it was the only thing I was doing.
Unfortunately, the newsletter isn’t yet supporting itself through paid subscriptions, which prompted me to take on the contract work to pay the bills. I tried not to cut back on the frequency of Local Food Forum, but all that juggling was bound to take a toll, and over the past couple of weeks I’ve had some health issues that just can’t be ignored.
So it’s time to recalibrate. First, I assure you that I continue my commitment to Local Food Forum and our local food community, and I will continue publishing. Just a little less often. I’m not going to set a publishing schedule, say two or three days a week. I prefer to be flexible and make that determination based on the immediacy of the content and my other obligations.
Second, I am going to re-up my efforts to recruit contributed stories. With farmers markets and the outdoor growing season winding down, I’ll feel more comfortable reaching out to the very busy folks in this community. There are so many people in this community who have great stories to tell: we’ve published a number of them, we want lots more, and if you have a story to tell, feel free to reach out to me at bob@localfoodforum.com.
Third, cutting back on publication frequency will give me time and space to explore an idea I’ve been incubating that I think could take this concept to the next level: A Local Food Forum website that can be a platform for stories, events, farmers markets lists, and other materials… and which would have a searchable archive, something not possible with the newsletter format. The newsletter wouldn’t go away, and in fact I could develop features that would make it more valuable to paid subscribers.
In the meantime, I’m going to declare this an impromptu vacation week so I can decompress a little and make some catchup plans. Thank you all for your continued support and please know you’ll always have mine.
Bob