Welcome to A-Mail, a newsletter about nothing and everything.

šŸ‘©ā€šŸ’» Iā€™m Anna Codrea-Rado, a journalist, author and podcaster. Iā€™m the author of Youā€™re The Business and the co-host of the Is This Working? podcast. My work appears in the New York Times, Financial Times, Wired, BBC and many other places. Before going freelance in 2017 (pivot to video, yo!) I was on staff at Vice, and before that, at the Guardian.

šŸ’Œ I write about nothing and everything. Maybe that sounds clever, or maybe it sounds dumb, but itā€™s really just a cop-out because I donā€™t have a neat way to describe my beat. Iā€™m obsessed with the paradoxes and contradictions, big and small, of life. There are some topics I keep coming back to, like work and how it makes us feel; small-town life; calling bullshit on the things we put up with without question; my dogs, and anything else that I canā€™t stop thinking about. I like to say that I keep my writing free, both literally and creatively.

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šŸ’° I also write about money and how I make mine as a freelance writer. These are the only posts I paywall because writing about money on the internet is fraught and itā€™s a practical way to draw a boundary. In my quarterly income reports and monthly money memos, I share how much money I make (revenue AND profit). I share my figures and feelings about the realities of making it work as a freelance writer.

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šŸš€ 18,000+ readers love A-Mail for lots of different reasons. The vibe of this newsletter is somewhere between a reporterā€™s notebook and an email to a long-distance friend. Iā€™ve been writing it since July 2017. Much like my journalistic interests, itā€™s meandered through many topics. Itā€™s always, however, been led by my curiosity about how the world works and my place in it. To paraphrase the late, great David Carr, the best newsletters are hard to describe but easy to enjoy. Thatā€™s what I aim to do with A-Mail.

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šŸ° Rules of engagement. Iā€™m a follower of the greatest guitarist of all time, Sir Brian Mayā€™s, approach to running online communities: ā€œEveryone who is here is here at my invitation. Iā€™m no more important than anyone else; we all have the right in our own small corner of the Internet to run things the way we see fit.ā€

This is how I run A-Mail:

  • Pay what you like. Despite the payment mechanism being on a monthly/yearly cycle, I donā€™t view it as a subscription. You're not paying to access content, but instead, you're supporting my work more generally. In other words: you're my reader, not my customer. You are under no obligation to continue paying each month ā€“Ā I encourage you to cancel at any point.

  • No refunds. Any financial support you offer me will be considered patronage, meaning I see it as the equivalent of arts funding rather than payment for a business service.Ā 

  • Seasons. Rather than commit to delivering a set amount of content per week, I publish in seasons. My guiding principle is that if I donā€™t have anything to say, youā€™re not going to want to read a whole lot of nothing.Ā 

  • Iā€™m not for everyone. And thatā€™s ok! You have my permission to scroll on by. Weā€™re cool.

If youā€™re still reading this, I think youā€™ll like what Iā€™m doing with this newsletter. Iā€™d love to see you in your inbox.

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People

šŸ‘©ā€šŸ’» Writer & journalist ā€¢ WritesĀ A-Mail on Substack ā€¢Ā Trad media bylines include NYT, FT, Guardian, Wired, Vice etc ā€¢ Likes stories about nothing and everything ā€¢ Good at writing emails, bad at replying to them