How Robert Kingett uses Buttondown

– Tell us a bit about yourself and your background.

I'm a Blind writer. I'm a digital nomad, so I work almost anywhere and everywhere, but generally, at the moment, I'm in the United States. I’d love to do more international travel, though!

This may seem strange to some who can clearly see my picture, but I'm a white/Caucasian American. Still, you never know who might be reading this article/testimonial! The picture could fail to load for whatever reason, or you could have someone reading this who has facial blindness, so a little description such as this could help someone. I have ivory skin, and my whole frame is tiny. Tiny ears, tiny hands, tiny everything. I could even fit in one of those giant suitcases in high school, lying down!

I have a speech disability, so I really lean into writing. Writing is the best way for me to express myself. Writing is the only way I can fully express all the metaphors that live inside my head, so writing is more than just a creative expression for me. It's an accessibility aid. It's a way I can effortlessly communicate and never have people take advantage of my stutter/stammer. Writing, to me, is the optimal expression because I can also take my time, think about what I want to say and how I want to say it, and craft a message that's going to resonate with everybody.

I'm a huge reader. I love reading everything! Especially personal newsletters. Newsletters with a lot of fiction. I love listening to audiobooks, and I especially love listening to fiction podcasts of all kinds. Audiobook excerpts. Narrated short stories. You name it. This goes for TV shows and movies with audio description, as yet another thing I absolutely love listening to.

I'm also relatively tech-savvy. I can't code to save my life, but I can read code, and I can translate vast technical jargon into plain language for the less tech-savvy, so I guess you can add technical writer to my list of under-utilized skills.

Offline, I'm strangely very likable! A lot of people think I'm warm and funny and fuzzy. To them, I'm a very sweet kitten. Online, I'm far more direct, more assertive, surer of my space and my worth, so the personalities might appear to be contradictions, but I view the online me and offline me as two halves of a whole that's always running parallel, side by side, but just barely converging.

– What do you write about in your newsletter?

My newsletter, which is called Sightless Scribbles, has a few things. It's an update mechanism. When people subscribe, they'll get a monthly roundup of everything I've published on my website for that month. It's a space where people directly fund my writing. Since Buttondown introduced pay-per-email, I can fund writing that way without external pressure to create in order to meet a quota for one month. My readers fund essays, short stories, and original fun things like an ongoing dream diary, for people who have pay-per-email subscriptions to my newsletter. I really like this model the best, and it's the one thing that funds my writing. I do have other payment options on my website, of course, but this way, I can create something, check a box so that it charges readers when I hit publish, and then the premium readers get charged for original work, or original essays, or short stories.

People can find fiction and nonfiction within my newsletter. For my fiction, I'll often post novel excerpts that are soon to be released. I'll request that my beta readers give me feedback on a manuscript. I'll share fiction publishing news with people. I'll even just come right out and ask my readers what they think about a thing or topic and get all their feedback. It's a very informal list. For my fiction, I write romances where characters have a lot of healing before they can get to their happily ever after. I write in multiple subgenres of romance, from bully romances to dark romances, to very light and fluffy romances, to charged and challenging romances where characters examine classism, ableism, queerphobia, and intimacy, sex, and desire after trauma. 

I never shy away from unconventional families either. For example, in one of my recently finished works, a young adult romance, there's a blind white teen who was adopted by two Black dads. I never shy away from sex in my manuscripts, but sex is always a form of profound healing in my books, with a lot of discussion about autonomy and agency, consent, discussions about trust and agency after a traumatic event, and how to be the best version of yourself when you’re giving all your sexual power to someone in the bedroom. I write about what it's like to claim your autonomy through your body and your desires. All of my romances feature disabled characters, either as main leads or love interests, because disabled people deserve happy endings too.

I write a lot of nonfiction. Sometimes it's rants against inequalities of any kind. Sometimes, it's a love letter to an accessible lever handle on a door. Sometimes it's a narrative, where I detail something funny but profound that day. It isn't an opinion; it's a full narrative from beginning to end. Sometimes, I write responses to blog posts I read. Sometimes I write essays about people, places, and things. I don't just stick to one thing. You'll also get news of book releases, upcoming literary appearances, and announcements, such as when I publish a new podcast episode. My newsletter isn't just one thing. It's all me, and I contain multitudes of a literary palette.

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

I first heard of Buttondown on Mastodon. It looked very interesting, and I knew it was going to be an amazing resource, so I gave it a try! I had significant accessibility feedback since I use a screen reader. They were more than willing to reach out, to ask questions, to propose solutions, and keep their accessibility driven focus a priority, which is a huge feat because newsletter services such as Mailchimp don't have a consistent accessibility presence. They say they care about accessibility, but their actions speak the very opposite sentiment. Buttondown didn't fill me with empty accessibility promises.

I also didn't want to actually write on the platform itself. I just needed one central place I could store all my fanbase. From my book writing to my blog writing, I needed a central hub to gather everybody. I needed a simple Markdown interface because a WYSIWYG editor would be an accessibility hit or miss. With code and Markdown, and other languages, I can craft my newsletters exactly how I want without getting anything in the way. It's clean. It's efficient. It's powerful! It's given me far more control than any other newsletter platform has done so far. It's simple. It delivers newsletters. It doesn’t try to sell you something other than what it's good at offering. It's offering exactly what it's designed for, delivering email. It's giving me fantastic infrastructure.

I wanted a good RSS-to-email newsletter, and Buttondown gave me that. I also love the fact that I can just contribute to their documentation when I feel like it and don't necessarily have to send my suggestions for later adoption. I love the fact that it's open source. This allows me the freedom to just work on accessibility documentation when everybody thinks I'm offline, as an example.

I wanted a central place I could send advanced reader copies to. I wanted a place where I could have my entire beta reading team jump in and claim manuscripts when I ask for a beta reading team. I wanted a central hub for all my fans who don't know how to use RSS or can't use RSS for whatever reason. I wanted a central hub for all my street team to collaborate and plan outreach campaigns.

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

Buttondown has been perfect for my email list. There are so many tools that help me, from the ability to post email via the terminal, so I can send updates without having to log on to the website. The wonderful RSS integration, where I can send my feeds to my list, which also allows me to send individual updates from my website as needed, the dozens of automation options that make introductions and list management reminders for my fans/subscribers super easy to handle. Buttondown has a wonderful tagging system that allows me to segment my list without having to manage multiple email lists. I can manage everything under one email list but also have the freedom to segment my list, so everything is neatly organized, and people aren't getting updates they don't care about. Buttondown has extensive Markdown support, which allows me, as a blind writer, to format my text in a plain text markup that will translate and look nice, in addition to being an accessible, text-based writing medium. Buttondown has wonderful list management features that allow me to solve the little issues I do have relatively quickly, and for more complex stuff, the Buttondown team is always ready to answer more complex questions. Buttondown has a lot of tools and services that make managing and running an email list wickedly easy, especially because Buttondown aims to be accessible and really cares about screen reader access and always improving its screen reader access.

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

Buttondown is working on a lot of things I'm excited about, so it's hard to pick some things I'm looking for in particular because there are a lot of good things going on with the development of the service, but I'm very excited for their revamped subscriber portal, as I'm calling it. I am also looking for the pay-per-post premium option to get some love, perhaps in the way of allowing subscribers to decide how much they want to pay per email. For example, in my case, I have subscribers who want to support me financially when I publish an email. They don't want to support me every month because my output is very sporadic due to my chronic illnesses and my disabilities, so this way, they can support me without any pressure, because if I don't publish something and mark it as premium, they don't get charged. They trust me when it comes to marking things as premium, and that's a huge bonus for our relationships. Of course, I do have people who support me, financially, on a yearly and monthly basis, but the pay-per-email option works fantastically for me as a writer. I can publish original stuff, and I can get paid for that hard work or that writing, and readers get original stuff. I’d like to have subscribers input their own amounts regarding how much they want to support me per email. I want to give readers the option of giving me $5 per email or $500 per email if they wish.   

– Anything else you’d like to add?

Buttondown has always met my accessibility and screen reader feedback with absolute, validating, and unwavering enthusiasm with a commitment to get it right. This is why I stay here, and this is why I refer others to Buttondown. I'm not leaving anytime soon. I'm also very pleased to know Buttondown isn't venture-backed, so it will never succumb to all those pitfalls that come with venture-backed services, such as the need to constantly get higher returns on investments. Buttondown has always had knowledgeable staff when it comes to accessibility, and I couldn't be any happier here at Buttondown!