Starting a newsletter as a disabled user: a journalist’s story

My vision only took me so far without my sight

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After becoming blind 13 years ago, I no longer had a plan for my life. I felt like my dreams of ever making a difference were over.

After making some deeply personal promises to myself, I decided to make sure my life was still worth something. Using my story to help others who are living in the disabled community remain positive was my new goal.

But, to do this I would need to be able to share my story somehow. I decided I would use my lifelong love of sports as the vehicle, and the internet would be my road.

Diabetes took my sight. But it left me with vision.

After spending a lot of time re-learning how to use a computer and contacting hundreds of people with thousands of emails, I found some small platforms — nothing big enough to satisfy my desires and no one willing to provide that level of interaction.

But where could I do this?

The obvious choice is Substack. It was the biggest platform out there for such adventures so surely, they were also accessible for me to use.

This was my first mistake.

After spending more than a few hours getting signed up and attempting to get all the settings correct, I found the platform less than accommodating.

Not only was it exceedingly unfriendly, but it also had buttons I could not find, and toggles not labelled. I found it to be a nightmare, so I attempted to connect with customer service through their website and even LinkedIn.

This was another disaster as I received no reply for over a month before finally finding someone on LinkedIn who told me the company was short staffed on customer service agents. He spoke with someone and had them reach out to me.

Instead of finding my email and replying, they reached out asking what the issue was. After explaining to them by email, I waited.

And waited.

Finally, after about six weeks, I received a response.

Or so I thought.

Instead, it was a survey asking how my support went and thanking me for allowing them to fix the issue. It asked me how I felt about the completion of the service.

After informing them that I had not received any help or response, I never heard back again. I ended up deleting my account due to not being able to use it.

That was 2024. Surely by 2026 things would be different.

Last week, I joined the site again. The buttons are labeled better. But the settings and other options are even harder to find. Not to mention it takes multiple steps to find anything you need to do.

I am sure this is different for sighted users but, for disabled users it is still a nightmare scenario.

After attempting other sites such as Buttondown and BeeHiiv, I have regrettably decided to stay with Substack this time.

I did not go far into Buttondown. As for BeeHiiv, while there was a bit more functionality and tools to make things easier, the cost is a major drawback. If you have a free account, there is not much you can do. BeeHiiv gives you their premium membership free for a month, but this still does not help with the way the site is set up.

I will say, their customer service response is wonderful. Even when short staffed. Which they were on my date of sign-up as most of the staff was on a mental health day per the lady who responded to me. I also received a nice email response the following business day.

But it still seems like a lot to deal with. Besides, BeeHiiv starts at $43/month for a paid plan, and only these plans allow full functionality. (There’s a free version with more limited functionality.)

If I ever get my newsletter to be bigger, I will certainly attempt to migrate everything from Substack. BeeHiiv may cost a lot, but they do not take any fees from your premium membership.

On the other hand, Substack takes 10% of all transactions. Yikes.

But, Substack is free to use.

And for now, Substack will have to do. Hopefully, they can take some of that money and update their functionality, and streamline how to do things.

I’ll keep you updated on my accessible newsletter journey. For now, subscribe to my new newsletter on Substack, currently titled, Dom’s Blind Sports Thoughts.

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Dominick Petrillo is a freelance writer. He previously wrote for the PhiladelphiaEagles.com, The Athletic, and other sports sections. You can now find Petrillo writing his thoughts on sports on Substack at Dom’s Blind Sports Thoughts and follow him on Bluesky at @Blind-Dominick.bsky.social.

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