Detail behind sections five and six
The two things that decide whether the work above ever reaches anybody. Both are mostly free, and most of the work is things you already do.
Part one · Links
Forty sounds close to sixty-four. It isn't — about twenty-seven of yours are junk.
The reassuring part
We checked Sophie's. She has the identical set of junk links — the same handful of overseas link-shortener and blog-spam domains, most of them registered in Moldova. It's an automated scrape of Squarespace ceramics sites. Nothing you did caused it.
Don't try to remove it. Google ignores it, and the tool for disowning links does more harm than good in inexperienced hands.
Craft across Australia and the Asia-Pacific. Sophie has a link from them. You apprenticed in Kent in 1974, worked in Hong Kong, judged the Hong Kong Biennale and taught at the Hong Kong Museum of Art. That is exactly what a magazine like that publishes, and almost nobody else has it.
Australia's biggest design publication, and the highest-value single target on the list. Sophie has eight links from them.
Both have to come from you. An editor can tell immediately whether they're reading a maker writing about her own work or somebody doing it on her behalf. Adam will help draft and will find the right editor — your name goes at the bottom.
Sophie has a link from a tea company she worked with — each side links to the other. Your equivalent is already on your Collabs page: Muse Restaurant and Clay Cups. Neither links to you. Just ask.
Realistically: the free tier alone would roughly double your genuine link count. Free tier plus the events would put you past Sophie's within a year — and all of it is either free or already part of your working life.
Part two · Your list
Squarespace sends email campaigns. Don't add Mailchimp or anything else.
The website persuades browsers to sign up at just under one in a hundred. A market puts you in front of people who are already holding the pot. Six markets a year at fifteen sign-ups each is ninety names — over half the website's entire annual output, from a channel producing nothing today.
Why fixing the leaks matters more than sending
At today's rate, reaching 500 subscribers takes about 32 months.
With the leaks fixed and markets capturing, about 12.
That's the difference between a mailing-list business being nearly three years away and being next year. It's also why we fix capture before sending the first email — a campaign to a still-leaking list wastes the one moment when re-appearing is novel.
Australian spam law needs people to have agreed in some form. Squarespace handles the unsubscribe link and your sender details automatically. The judgement is about who goes on the list at all.
Where we're unsure, one short personal note — "I'm starting a newsletter about new work and kiln openings, would you like to be on it?" — and add only the people who reply. Slower, cleaner, and it performs far better than a cold import. This isn't legal advice; the ACCC and ACMA publish free small-business guidance.
Not a campaign. A note.
Four to six a year. The only job of the first one is to establish that the channel exists and is worth opening. Everything after that is easier.