I wanted to share two quick updates about my newsletter, Birch Bark.

First, I've disabled all tracking in the emails that get sent out. I had this on at first since I wanted to be able to see what items people found the most interesting and got the most engagement. After doing this for 17 issues, I've learned that this is not particularly useful to me and has had zero impact on what I choose to share in the newsletter. So as of this Friday's newsletter, it's all gone. My life won't change at all since I wasn't using the data in the first place, and yours will either stay the same or get better since sometimes ad blockers would block the tracking links.

Second, and this is an experiment, I've added a sign up form inline on this site. I know, I know, I'm not a huge fan either, but I want to try it for a few days at least and see if it drives any additional subscribers. The newsletter has been growing slowly, but the churn is really low and I think the people who are subscribed like it (this is mostly based on anecdotal feedback, although a glance at the analytics I just turned off back this up) and I think more people would too, they just don't know it's a thing. You should be able to dismiss it once and never see it again, but let me know if it's constantly pestering you and I'll either tweak it or remove it.

If you've made it this far, you have probably already seen the form, so I hope you filled it out, but you can also head on over here to signed up today.