How Sarah Becan uses Buttondown

– Tell us a bit about yourself and your background.

I'm a comics artist, illustrator and designer in Chicago. A lot of my work involves food, recipes, food-centric travelogues, and other culinary subjects. I got my start by drawing an autobiographical webcomic called "I Think You're Sauceome", that was often about food and cooking, which led to commercial illustration gigs with restaurants, which led to my first cookbook work. In the last several years I've been making full-length comic book cookbooks; so, functional cookbooks that use the comics format to demonstrate each step of the recipes. The first one was called Let's Make Ramen!, and the most recent is Let's Make Bread!, which I coauthored with baker Ken Forkish. And I have a new one coming out in the spring called Let's Make Cocktails!

– What do you write about in your newsletter?

I've been using my newsletter mostly to share comics! I really missed having a regular webcomic. It was my excuse to draw regularly, but it was also my artistic sandbox where I experimented freely with different layouts and materials. I've been using my newsletter to scratch that itch: I've been drawing weekly comics about dishes I'm cooking or foods I'm really into lately. A lot of times, I'll turn those dishes into a recipe comic so people can cook the dishes in their own kitchens. I've also been writing about my process with the newest book I'm working on, which has been a great way of keeping people updated on my progress. And my newsletters always include a picture of my cat Toki, who's pretty ridiculous and absurdly photogenic. 

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

I want to share my comics with people for free! But I was getting really disillusioned about sharing my art on social media platforms for a number of reasons. My partner had been pushing me to start a newsletter for ages, and my literary agent thought it was a great idea too. A lot of artists I know use Patreon to keep in touch with their followers, but I'm not crazy about their interface. I knew a lot of people using Substack, but I kept reading about controversies involving some of the extremist content they were hosting. I wanted to find a newsletter run by smaller, independent developers, and a friend recommended I look into Buttondown. I love how intuitive the posting interface is, and the testimonials about the personal and responsive customer service sealed the deal for me. 

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

Buttondown was so easy to use right from the start! Incorporating imagery into my text was immediately intuitive. I love how easy it is to add alt-text to imagery, too. My newsletter is still pretty new, so I don't have an enormous number of followers yet, but it's growing, and the analytics have been immensely useful to see where people are subscribing from. One of the things I've been most interested in watching is which devices and browsers my subscribers are using - that lets me know if I need to adjust layouts to make my comics easier to read on a desktop display or a mobile one. 

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

As a visual artist, I'd love to see some features that would show off imagery better! Buttondown's interface is refreshingly minimalist, but from an art standpoint, that can also make it feel a bit spare and boring. I'd love to see some design options for more attractive subscribe and archive page layouts, and I'd really especially love to have image thumbnails on the post excerpts on the archive landing page. 

– Anything else you’d like to add?

Earlier this year, I was having some issues with how imagery was displayed on my newsletter. It looked great in an email inbox, but taller images (like the full page comics I was posting) were shrinking illegibly on the desktop display if you clicked on the email from the archive page. I sent an email to Buttondown asking about it, and got a personal response the same day asking for more details, and within a week my issue was completely fixed. I probably only had 100 subscribers at the time, but the support team was so fast and so helpful, it felt like VIP treatment! It really made me feel great about choosing Buttondown.