The Forms Are Fantasy / 4 June 2026

One of the more entertaining surprises of preparing to publish a first book is discovering that “building a mailing list” is spoken about in the same hushed, reverent tones once reserved for hidden treasure or lost civilisations.

Apparently, if one is a proper author, one must have a mailing list.

At first this sounded encouraging. A mailing list, I thought, is surely just a list of people who might like to hear about the book. Sensible. Modest. Civilised.

What I had not grasped was that this simple idea comes attached to an entire ecosystem of forms, landing pages, automated replies, sign-up incentives, newsletter providers, welcome sequences, and advice from cheerful experts who make it sound as though everyone should already know how to do this before breakfast.

I do not.

So there has been a certain amount of fumbling. Not disastrous fumbling, I hope. More the sort of respectable confusion that comes from trying to look competent while quietly wondering whether a “lead magnet” is a marketing tool or a piece of industrial equipment.

Being post chemotherapy, I had imagined I might ease myself gently back into ordinary creative life. Instead I seem to have wandered into a complicated social ritual in which I am expected to invite people onto an electronic list without sounding overeager, desperate, or like a man trying to sell enchanted cookware from the back of a cart.

Still, I can see the value in it. A mailing list is not really about numbers for the sake of numbers. It’s about having a direct, friendly way to speak to readers who actually want to hear from you. That seems both useful and rather lovely.

So I’m learning. Slowly, with occasional muttering, and with a growing respect for people who manage newsletters without needing a restorative lie-down afterwards.

The book, at least, is easier. The imaginary world makes sense to me. It’s the forms that are fantasy.