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Hello and welcome to the website and newsletter home of me, Catherine Tavares! I am a speculative fiction author across multiple genres of fiction, nonfiction, and games. This site is where you will be able to access all of my work, get in contact with me, and subscribe and access my newsletters/posts.
I've recently packed up shop with my old web and newsletter services and moved instead over here to Ghost. Most everything is the same as before, but there are a few key differences, so I thought I'd give a little tour of the site and its features.
The Home Page
When you first come to the website, you'll be directed to the home page.
Here you'll see my lovely banner (which is also at the top of all other pages), and all the navigation tabs. You'll notice that there is a little ellipsis there at the top. There are more tabs hidden under it. Click it to expand the navigation menu:
A little annoying to have the extra step, I know. I am working on possibly creating drop down menus to help with this, so it might change in the future. On mobile, however, everything is listed in full view under the hamburger menu.
On the right hand side of the navigation bar you'll see a magnifying glass search icon.
This is a handy little tool to search the Archive of posts and newsletters based on the tags I've assigned to them. You can do so from any page of the website; you do not have to be on the Archive page. But you might have to be logged in to view the posts you find. Speaking of...
Subscriptions & Accounts
Here is where things get really different from how my old site and newsletter used to run:
Subscribing
Up at the top of every page, there are two buttons: Sign In and Subscribe.
Starting with Subscribe: if you want to receive any or all of my newsletter communications to your email and/or access the Archive here on the website, you need to become a "member." You do so by hitting Subscribe. From there, it works much the same as any web subscription.
You'll be asked to give your name and email. Then you hit sign up and you'll be asked to confirm via an automatic email sent to the address you gave:
(This email is automatically created by Ghost. I did not write it, and I do not know if I can edit it, so if it doesn't quite match my vibe, that's why.) Click the link and then you'll officially be subscribed!
After that you should get a welcome email from Catherine's Curios, my main newsletter. Future emails will come from that sender.
Your Account
Back to that Sign In button. After subscribing, you can now "sign in" to the website because you have an account with it.
However, this language is a little misleading on Ghost's part. You don't have an account so much as you have access to content directly. When you hit Sign In after subscribing, you'll enter your email into the pop-up and then be sent a code:
Copy and paste the code into this popup, and that signals to the website that you are allowed to access the content that is restricted to members/paid members only. When you are signed in, the top of the navigation bar changes to reflect this access:
Your account is also your place manage your information and data. Just click that account button in the top right and you'll get this:
All your details will be here for you to edit, including potentially which newsletters you are subscribed to (if I ever make more than one) and your payment details (if I start a paid newsletter and you subscribe to it). From here, you can also sign back out (or just leave; the site will auto-log-off for you) and contact support (that's me) if you have any questions.
Data Deletion
I really have been enjoying using Ghost, but there is one thing that I find absolutely annoying: unsubscribing.
At the bottom of every email, there is the unsubscribe/manage your preferences link. You are free to click that and unsubscribe whenever you like. However,
Unsubscribing does not delete you as a member from the website.
Unsubscribing removes you from the email list only. Because it doesn't delete your account, you can still access the archive directly on the website when logged in (or via an RSS feed if I ever figure out how to set that up). Hate getting emails, but don't mind hopping over to the site to check in once in awhile? This feature is for you.
But it's not for everyone, and because Ghost isn't upfront about it, I felt it a bit disingenuous and decided to include a couple options for account deletion:
- You can contact me directly to have it deleted immediately. Simply fill out the contact form with such a request or reply to any email you've been sent with the request. I'll confirm the deletion with you as soon as I am able to do it.
- Unsubscribe and then...wait. I will periodically check in with my subscriber list and delete the accounts of anyone who is unsubscribed from all emails and has not been active on the site for at least 30 days.
If you do not want me to delete your account, be sure to either be subscribed to at least one email newsletter or log in to the site at least once a month.
(If I see a lot of subscribers preferring the account/no email option, I will stop doing the monthly purge and update the privacy policy accordingly.)
Contact
Contact by the following methods should be limited to professional/business related issues, questions/concerns about subscriptions and accounts, and/or comments pertaining to my work or the relevant post. Please respect this boundary.
Emails
If you choose to receive emailed newsletters/posts, you are able to reply to them, like requesting the account deletion. This is not the most reliable way to get in touch because it is running through a chain of forwards before reaching me. So, as a better alternative, I have made a...
Contact Form
Over on the contact page you will find a Google Form to get in touch with me with specific messages:
There are no native contact forms for Ghost, and so I have to use a third party service. I chose Google for now, but that might change in the future.
Comments
Ghost has a comments feature on web posts. At the bottom of some posts, you will see a member discussion section:
You have to be logged in, a.k.a. a member, to comment, and there might be a point where that is restricted further or disabled altogether if the comments become inappropriate or too much work for me to manage. Standard moderation rules apply: be kind, be respectful, or be blocked.
Changes
I am still very new to Ghost, and my work is updating and shifting all the time. That means this website is likely to look a little, or a lot, different in the days/months to come. Updates to anything that pertains to your information/data will be reflected in the privacy policy, and anything relevant to a subscription will be communicated within the associated newsletter/post.
And that's the tour! Be sure to keep checking in to see what's new, or follow me over on my socials to get more real-time updates (alongside a bunch of stuff about fiber arts, video games, books, food, and the occasional rage post against ableism). I'm happy to have you here and would be delighted if you subscribed and joined me on this new adventure with Ghost as I move into the next stage of my writing career.
Keep on writing on.
—Catherine
