Newsletter Process
Here are some examples of ways to come up with ideas for content for the Project Mushroom newsletter:
Review this list of any specific topics that have been identified for upcoming newsletters, which may be time-sensitive. Add items to this list if you become aware of a topic that needs to be in a future newsletter.
| Date created | Deadline to post? | Topic | Details |
|---|---|---|---|
| January 21, 2024 | NA | Creator spotlight: The Fire These Times | https://buy.stripe.com/6oEeVpfO9eeKao8fYY |
| December 13, 2023 | NA | Alt text: why is it important, best practices, how frequently do we use it | There is an account that regularly posts comparisons of alt-text frequency among instances |
| January 21, 2024 | NA | Creator spotlight: Rewilding Magazine | https://spore.social/@rewildingmag |
- Activist initiatives with specific calls to action (petitions, mutual aid, etc.)
- Recruit authors from the PM Community to write guest posts
- Identify a public post about an event being run by a Project Mushroom member. (It's recommended to check in with the poster as a courtesy even though the post is public.)
- Find a thread written by a Project Mushroom member; write a brief summary and quick bio of the author and link to the thread
- Most frequent hashtags / most discussed posts
NOTE: If featuring a post from an individual who has both spore.social and project.mushroom accounts, encourage them to post on spore.social for visibility in the newsletter.
- How to get involved in Project Mushroom / Spore Social (e.g. volunteer recruitment or recruitment for compensated positions)
- New features on the site
- Governance updates, AMAs, etc.
- Go to the Ghost admin login page: https://account.ghost.org/signin
- The Project Mushroom site address is newsletters.projectmushroom.xyz
- Sign in with the same account you used to sign up for the Project Mushroom newsletter
- If you need admin access contact Francis L
- In Ghost, go to "Posts" in the lefthand navigation menu and create a new post
- Don't forget to upload the Feature Image, which is the "Project Mushroom" banner in the Resources section of this page.
- The titles typically take the format "Topic 1 + Topic 2: Project Mushroom's Latest"
- Typical order of sections is: Topic 1, Topic 2, Chanterelle Chatter (number), Closing Section (see Resources section below for an example)
- To add headers between sections, start a new paragraph, hover the mouse over the left margin until a "+" button appears. Press the button and select "Header"
- Add a divider, and then a short biography for the curator / editor of the newsletter. Italicize the text, and provide a 2-3 sentence bio: who are they, what is their connection to Project Mushroom, what is an interesting project they are working on?
- Feature image alt text is limited to 150 characters, but this limit does not apply to images within the body of the newsletter
- Links to posts on spore.social will generate previews in the newsletter, but links to posts on project.mushroom won't due to visibility limitations. To allow newsletter readers to access the post, mention that the need to log in to view the post and provide two links: one for spore.social users, and one for project.mushroom users. The second section of this newsletter provides an example of this: https://newsletters.projectmushroom.xyz/a-book-club-and-a/
Suggested Alt text: "Project Mushroom" in black text on a yellow background next to a yellow-and-black image of a mushroom.
(In small headline font): How to get involved in Project Mushroom
(In paragraph font): Project Mushroom is a Mastodon-based social network focused on climate and social justice. With over TBD monthly active users, we are one of the biggest activist communities on Mastodon. If you're not in the space yet, you can click here for an in-depth guide on how to get started on either our projectmushroom.social or spore.social servers.
Project Mushroom recently became independent of its former parent company, Currently Weather Service, and is now fully led by the community. Paid subscriptions to this newsletter now go 100% to funding Project Mushroom expenses, which are primarily server costs. We've recently added the option to make a one-time contribution as well. If you have the means, please consider joining the 199 other supporters who help us keep the lights on!
To update the number of supporters in the "Closing Section," a Project Team member with access to Stripe can filter records for "Total spend > 0" and count the number of people in the report. This ensures that we include members who have made one-time contributions or who have previously contributed, but do not have active paid subscriptions in Ghost.
This is just a rough outline right now, for a "crash course" identifying the key steps to cover in order to create and send a newsletter
- Logging in to the Project Mushroom Ghost admin account
- Creating a draft post
- Adding the feature image + alt text
- Changing the post settings (e.g. adding a co-author)
- Adding and formatting text
- Saving the draft and accessing it again to continue working on it
- Adding images and alt text
- Adding divider lines
- Previewing the page
- Sending a newsletter to a test account