Hello again – a return to Substack, and a new era for this newsletter

'Who is this guy and what is he doing back in my inbox?'

It’s been a while, hasn’t it? 551 days, to be precise, since the last update on The Pinnacle landed in your inbox. So I’m not surprised that you’re scratching your head and wondering what on Earth this is and why some guy called Alex has sent you a newsletter out of the blue.

In this newsletter’s about page it says the following: ‘The Pinnacle is a weekly publication by outdoor writer and editorial professional Alex Roddie. The Pinnacle aims to break down barriers between genres and provide a conversation space for how we communicate the wonder and beauty of the great outdoors to all of our audiences.’

I feel a bit guilty about this, because The Pinnacle hasn’t been weekly for a long time. Much longer than the 551 days for which it has been entirely dormant… and it long ago veered away from the clear purpose stated above, too. But it did start off as a weekly newsletter, back in the pre-Covid days of 2018, and it stayed as more-or-less weekly for quite a run.

It’s going to be weekly once again. In time it will become something much bigger – a journey I hope that you’ll join me on. But small steps first.

So what happened?

In November 2022, I wrote that I planned to retire this Substack newsletter and consolidate all my online writing on my blog. Why? ‘I have struggled with the distinction between newsletter and blog right from the start,’ I wrote. ‘For about a year now I've been convinced that the best way forward is to merge the two platforms.’ So that’s what I did. I put The Pinnacle into mothballs and I went all-in on alexroddie.com.

The problem is that, even long before this newsletter was put on ice, I was treating it like an extension of my own blog. A more personal way to reach my readers and colleagues, sure – but still essentially talking about me and my stuff, with a bit of the wider world thrown in. I know that people found it interesting and useful, because I always received a lot of generous feedback. But it lacked the focus to survive as something distinct from my own blog.

Fundamentally, The Pinnacle failed because it lacked a clear unifying purpose.

The Pinnacle 2.0 and beyond

Or is it 3.0? I think it is. The Tinyletter to Substack migration in 2021 counted as 2.0. Anyway, I am changing course, and this newsletter will once again be reinvented. Currently I’m still working out what I want to write about and what form it will eventually take, so it would be premature for me to set out any manifesto here. But I can tell you a few things about what I want to do.

It will remain on Substack. Although I have concerns about Substack trying to turn into a social network, this is clearly the right platform for a publication like this at the moment. I’ve seen a lot of momentum in recent months with folk in my field turning to Substack. In short, I’ve let myself be convinced.

It will no longer be a personal newsletter with updates on what I’ve published. That will remain on my blog.

It will no longer attempt to demystify and improve outdoor publishing. My energies in that direction are focused elsewhere at the moment.

Although it will no longer be mostly about me, it will be strongly opinionated, its content and themes guided by the things I am passionate about.

It will be about the world of adventure. Real adventure. Stories, photography, writing, and art.

It will steer clear of the outdoor industry as we know it: the exhausting, consumerism-saturated, Instagram-friendly online content machine. I can’t promise a total break from this world, because I work there and so do many other outdoor creative professionals, but I can promise something different.

It will steer towards physical things, slow things, valuable things. People who do things a bit differently – who write their adventure diaries in rain-damp notebooks or turn their phones off while they’re on the hill, who take pictures on film cameras or erect makeshift darkrooms on the edges of crags, who take a box of oil paints with them to a bothy, who make music from rocks and bits of wood, who tell stories around the campfire that are never written down. People who understand that an experience is valuable even if it’s never posted online and no likes are ever gained from it. People who would rather read a good book than scroll social media.

However, it will not judge and it will not preach. Nobody is going to get burnt at the stake for posting a few Instagram stories from their wild camp. Everyone’s on their own journey here.

It will be a bit political, but only a bit – promise. I want to help people to use adventure as a tool to resist the attention economy and the hegemonic power of big tech, to reclaim time just for themselves. (My book The Farthest Shore was my first clumsy stab at this, but I have learnt a lot since 2021 – and the world has moved on.)

It will be positive. It will be real. It will be intentional. In other words, it’s going to be a bit analogue, and hopefully in time a lot analogue.

Next steps

1. Firm up my ideas for what this journal will and won’t be. The above is a good starting point, but I need to be able to state this both simply and specifically.

2. Create a content plan. I hope to return to a weekly posting schedule for a regular free newsletter. In time, I want to be able to add paid membership tiers including features and other material, but my intention is that the basic newsletter will always remain free. My long-term goal is to be able to support other writers by commissioning features, but that’s some way off yet.

3. Firm up my ideas for the new branding… and maybe hire a graphic designer. The journal’s name and logo will almost certainly change.

4. Formal launch! All being well, I hope to do this in July. There will likely be one or two informal updates between now and then.

Thanks for reading, if indeed you still are – and I really hope that you’ll join me as I launch this new journal. If you want to continue receiving this newsletter, thank you. If not, please do feel free to unsubscribe at any time. I understand that the new direction won’t be for everyone! Remember, if you simply want to read my regular blog posts and personal updates, you can always subscribe to alexroddie.com. That blog isn’t going anywhere.

As I write this, The Pinnacle has 754 subscribers. I know that not all of you will choose to continue receiving it as it moves into its new iteration, but I hope that this can become the core of a new community – and the first readers of a new kind of outdoor journal.