How Mark Slutsky uses Buttondown

Tell us a bit about yourself and your background.

I’m a filmmaker, a narrative director for video games, and in a past life, I was a journalist. 

What do you write about in your newsletter?

I started writing Something Good in early 2021, when the production of my first feature, You Can Live Forever, was delayed six months due to Covid shooting restrictions. Suddenly, I found myself with a lot of time on my hands. It was originally a recommendation letter; I’d write about a book, or a movie, or a record I liked. But that mutated quickly, and the recommendations format became a blank canvas for whatever I wanted to write about that week: interviews with fascinating people, some of which went terribly wrong, memories, musings, playlists, etc. At one point, I spun out a book club in the form of a sub-newsletter, Barely a Book Club, focused on travel writing. I don’t charge for subscriptions, but every fall I run a fundraiser for my readers where their donations go towards causes I care about, like Doctors Without Borders. In return, they are rewarded with Something Good merch.

What I was most concerned about was migrating my readers and archive to Buttondown without anything breaking terribly. I was happy to find that Buttondown’s founder, Justin, and later the company’s team, were extremely available to hold my hand throughout the process.

Where did you first learn of Buttondown, and what made you decide to give it a try?

I had become disenchanted with my previous choice of platform and was looking for a new home. I wanted to find a place that felt less like an aspiring social platform, somewhere that wasn’t looking to lock in its users, and with values I felt more aligned with. Something Good has always been a proudly money-losing newsletter, so I didn’t mind paying, particularly as with “free” services, you always feel like some terrible shoe is about to drop. That said, my budget wasn’t infinite, and I found Buttondown’s pricing to hit the sweet spot for me.

What I was most concerned about was migrating my readers and archive to Buttondown without anything breaking terribly. I was happy to find that Buttondown’s founder, Justin, and later the company’s team, were extremely available to hold my hand throughout the process. Since then, they’ve been very responsive with my many, probably annoying, questions and suggestions.

I like how transparent the development of the product is and the feeling that it is constantly improving and iterating.

What are some ways Buttondown has helped you run your email?

I like how transparent the development of the product is and the feeling that it is constantly improving and iterating. The editor-to-email pipeline is really thoughtfully designed, as is subscriber management.

What are some things you’d be excited to see Buttondown build in the next few months?

More themes and/or options to style emails and archive pages would be really great, particularly as I’m a total fool when it comes to CSS. I’d love to feel like I have more power over how my emails look and feel. The ability to have different modules of the editor open at the same time (like having your design tab open while also editing an email in another tab for easier testing) would be really great.

Anything else you’d like to add?

I’m always happy when I subscribe to a newsletter and it’s hosted on Buttondown (and which doesn’t ask me to run through an onboarding gauntlet where I’m pressured to subscribe to three more, open its app, etc).