One Million Platforms, Nothing Solved
Behind The Scenes of Business
Dear Reader,
I write to you from my couch, a place I have written to you one hundred times before. I write to you from humility, a place I find myself stretching in to inhabit with more ease and less shame.
Today I write you the story of changing tech platforms in creative business — nothing short of three times in the past month. Something I would never recommend to any business owner or artist. A story that I hope prevents you from chasing the thing that was right in front of you the whole time.
Today you can read this column for free and also explore Cody’s World for free too. I don’t feel clear yet on what a paid newsletter or recurring revenue model will look like long-term. Every time I think I’ve found clarity, it reshapes itself into something else. So I’m practicing trust by moving slowly with generosity and care.
A short history of changing platforms :
In 2012 I started a marketing newsletter on Mailchimp for my shop Have Company and in 2017 it became the Monday Newsletter you still receive today.
At the end of 2020 I started The Planetarium Portal on Patreon - a space where I wrote essays and interviewed artists over video while I still wrote the free Monday Newsletter.
In 2021, Substack appeared with the promise of combining both efforts. This required me to financially start from zero and take a huge pay cut. I was happy there for years and at some point I almost doubled what I was able to make on Patreon. Then Substack made an app with social media functionality, our values drifted apart, and it got complicated for my tech addiction. At the beginning of 2025 I moved to Buttondown to send out my free + paid newsletter.
Financially this was seamless and I was able to use the same Stripe account. There were some glitches sure, and people naturally fell off, but I didn’t experience a huge income dip. I love using Buttondown to write emails, I’ve never met a tech company with better customer service, and I had no complaints.
What I did have was an idea I would start to chase for the last month - to be visible. With my next book coming out in four months and no social media to my name I felt like I HAD to be seen somewhere. I needed a place to be tagged, to be reshared, to be celebrated. So In October of 2025 I decided to move back to Substack with great enthusiasm from my readers.
At first it felt fun and cute and easy to be there, just like when I would deactivate Instagram and then return. And then it started to feel horrible again. The addiction of the app, scrolling Notes, metrics in my face, information overload from a sea of people I did not opt in to knowing. All the reasons I left were waiting for me right where I left them.
I felt I would look nuts but I knew I should just migrate back to Buttondown, until I decided to be even more nuts and keep chasing the ghost and went to Patreon. Tiers! I thought. Lots of offerings! Many things to have! Many price points to enter at!
This required me to delete my Substack and send prorated refunds to all annual subscribers - one of the biggest hits to my business I’ve ever had. This was more than a paycut, it was a swift move with no patience and no plan.
I launched Public Access Studio on Patreon without warming up my audience (a classic mistake) and heard silence. The truth was obvious: my readers didn’t want another platform either.
My deepest readers want an email, in their email inbox, every Monday, and the occasional Thursday.
The straw that broke the camel’s back and brought me back to Buttondown was when yesterday Patreon announced they would add the same type of social media features and discoverability functions that Substack has. I also could never get ahold of anyone to migrate my mailing list there, so I was sending Monday emails from Flodesk (where I send marketing emails from) and that felt clunky.
My friends Ellen and Nic both asked me — when will I stop chasing the right platform and get back to my craft? The craft of writing, of dance, of quilting, of movement.
Asking this shifted something for me : My work has never been about the platform, it is about my practice. I also do think the right platform matters for how you feel creatively. But it does not define your art making, writing, or efforts.
My work has never lived on a platform.
It has only ever lived in my practice.
Every time I chase visibility, I move further away from what actually works: writing, quilting, movement, research, attention. I try to solve something externally when it is indeed an inside job.
My Monday newsletter will always remain free, and eventually this column may move back behind the paywall. Enjoy exploring Cody’s World for free today as I root back into the simplicity I should have chosen from the start.
With all the changes I have really had to face the fear of what are people thinking of me. Especially as someone who is public about experiencing mania, depression, addiction, and ADHD. The past few weeks have felt clunky to say the least, and I wish I’d had the privilege of doing it all in private, to spare me any feeling of embarrassment. But that wasn’t the job I signed up for almost fifteen years ago.
The job requires a level of transparency, radical visibility, and endless hope that I try my best to muster everyday. In all my years of business, sending you my newsletter — straight to your inbox — is how I have been best able to do all three.
Thank you for being here. Hundreds of people have left my ecosystem in the last few weeks, and I completely understand when too much motion creates a lack of trust or an unregulated nervous system. Before I present how to engage financially with this newsletter I want to be really clear and rooted in how that will work.
Respond to this email : I’d love to hear what tech, platform, or system is bringing you closer to your practice lately. Have you tried Capacities? Loving Notion? Good ole fashion notebook?
Sometimes there is nothing to be solved, nothing to be fixed. Starting from scratch is a divine invitation. I stand in its wake rattled but grateful. Being visible or having a profile on a platform didn’t solve what I was truly looking for — connection. With the self and with others in my offline life.
Trying things on to see if they are the right fit is often my chaotic way. May it mellow out onwards.
Some Announcements :
→ Registration for my class in December Offline Practice opens next week — get on the waitlist for early bird pricing and all the emails.
→ Cody’s Big Week of Sales starts Nov 24 : Click here to opt into the list to hear all about discounted classes, Creative Advising, and brand new things!
→ Quilt In A Weekend is this Sat and Sun with me and Christi Johnson
→ I interviewed the amazing Podge Thomas this week on Common Shapes
→ info@codycookparrott.com
→ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel
→ www.codycookparrott.com
→ Follow Along on Are.na
P.S. Apologies if you unsubscribed before and need to click below to unsubscribe again. Your flight is not taken personally and I appreciate your patience with any glitches. If you stay on this list you’ll get my main emails on Mondays.