Site News: You like our new digs?
Welcome to the new home of The Towel Rack.
When The Towel Rack launched in the fall of 2016, we did so with the intention of becoming the destination for Western Kentucky news and analysis. And, five-plus years later, we are sitting pretty well on our way to reaching that goal (though it’s one that you can never be sure you’ve actually reached, but we do try our best to do so every day).
Today is the dawn of a new era for The Towel Rack as, going forward, this will be our new home, right here on Substack.
Or old site, hosted on Medium, served us well for a half decade, but we’ve been considering a change for a bit of a refresh for a while and today is the day.
You no doubt have questions about our new home and how everything works. While we do have a fancy new “about” page, below is a quick Q&A to run you through how this site will work.
Substack? What on earth is that?
Great question! There’s a good chance you’ve heard about Substack in some form or fashion over the last year or so. A lot of high-profile journalists, both in news and sports, have moved to the platform, who’s big selling point is that of newsletter publishing.
With our new home on Substack, we’ll be able to do a few different things. The foremost reason for the move is some improvements on the backend that don’t effect you, nor do you care about. What does effect you is the ease with which you can receive our content via Substack’s newsletter feature.
I would like to stress the following: You do not have to subscribe to our newsletter in order to continue to enjoy The Towel Rack.
While we do encourage you to subscribe for the email newsletter (that way you’ll never miss when The Towel Rack publishes an article), it’s far from a requirement to continue to enjoy our content.
Newsletter? Subscribe? That all sounds really expensive.
Fear not. While there are some Substack newsletters that you’ll come across that charge money, we don’t and we never will. We are dedicated to making WKU information, opinions and analysis as easy to find as possible and we’ll never put anything behind a paywall. The Towel Rack was free on Medium and will continue to be free on our new home.
Do I need an account to view your articles?
An account is not necessary but we do highly recommend subscribing by adding your email like we mentioned. It’s free and you’ll get every article straight to your inbox. If you make an account, you won’t be prompted to the page where it says to subscribe or “let me read first” instead, you’ll go straight to the home page.
Also, Substack will allow us to do a lot of interactive things, like an easier commenting system, that will require an account to take part in.
Is there an mobile app for Substack like there is one for Medium?
There isn’t a Substack app per se, but what you can do (this definitely works for iOS) is when you get to the main page, click on the share option on your web browser (the box with the up arrow) and hit “add to Home Screen” and it will make a button on your phone just like an app would show up and would take you directly to the site.
We can’t wait to get started in our new home and we can’t wait to not only have you along with us, but hopefully improve the user experience to make The Towel Rack better than ever.