Two months of The Aggregate
What’s happening, who’s reading, and a call for more voices to join the discussion
We launched The Aggregate in late January, which for some of us, already feels like a lifetime ago. Our founding crew was discussing the progress in our meeting yesterday, and decided it would be nice to bring our readership into the conversation.
First, a peek behind our substack dashboard! In these early days, who’s reading The Aggregate?
We have had over 6,700 views of the posts on The Aggregate since launch.
Our readership is global, spread across 21 countries and 31 states! It is so far concentrated in the United States. This isn’t too surprising, given that our editorial team is all currently located in the US.
We have over 200 subscribers, and an average “open rate” on emails of posts of 44%. Currently, each post is viewed, on average, by 150-300 readers. While this certainly isn’t large, our group is very happy with that growth in this short time. We are fairly certain we’ve reached people who care about this topic - quality over quantity.
Second, are we achieving our mission to “create a community that is working on these issues, and interested in connecting and discussing”?
Well, we think we’ve made a good start. To our small team, it feels like we have the seeds of a new community, and that this platform can, and will continue to, foster new connections.
We would however love to see more of the “discussing”! With that end in mind, here is a 2-months post-launch call to action:
We want to hear more from you! (yes, you! And don’t stop yourself from contributing because you don’t think you are “enough” of an agroecologist, we want to include all voices in this conversation)
What can that look like?
If you read a post, and you like it, take a moment to show the author with a “like.”
If you have a thought or question, take a (few) moments to write a comment! Posting comments enriches the content of any single post, and turns the post into a…discussion!
Write (or draw, paint, photograph, video!?) something yourself! See our Submit your work section to learn more about how to do this. But it’s simple, and we want to hear from you. We are particularly interested right now in seeing posts from our readers about what you are working on, or agroecological questions that you are pondering.
Why would I take the time to write a post, you might ask? Well, here is our answer: (maybe some of you have other answers? Or reasons why you have not written a post? Put them in the comments!?)
This is a platform in that others interested in Agroecology, writ large, are paying attention to. If you would like to share your work, your thoughts, your questions, your challenges…beyond your current personal network, The Aggregate is a great place to do it.
We are informal and open-minded about post format. Have an idea that isn’t academic journal material? A creative talent that has been simmering? Want to share your thoughts with the world more quickly? The Aggregate is a great place to do it.
Writing is a fantastic (if challenging) way to work through ideas or questions. And blog writing is meant to be unpolished and thought provoking. Need some motivation to get that nagging unanswered question out of your head and onto “paper”? Yup, The Aggregate is a great place to do it.
If none of these convince you, and you really just want to be a reader for now, well, don’t despair. We’ve got some exciting content in the pipeline, including a whole series from an Agroecology class at North Carolina State University! And our editorial team is busy cooking up more posts as well.
Thank you to all of our readers for embarking on this adventure with us. We are excited to write, read, and discuss our way through the next few months with all of you.