Is it ever too late to launch a newsletter?

A New York Magazine writer just launched a new Substack all about books.

Good morning. Hope everyone stayed dry last night in New York.

I think Tembe Denton-Hurst has the best beat in magazines: beauty and books. She previously wrote about beauty and culture for Nylon and Elle, but I first came across her work while reading her weekly pieces for New York Magazine. Two summers ago, she posted a photo of her manuscript for Homebodies, her first novel which became a Most Anticipated Book of 2023 by Elle, USA Today, Bustle, Ebony, Harper’s Bazaar, PopSugar, and New York Post, and a Best Book of 2023 by Marie Claire, Esquire, Vogue, them, Autostraddle, Betches, Gay Times,and Cosmopolitan. Not bad.

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Tembe Denton-Hurst on Instagram: “planned to skip the recap but I woke up in ghana and remembered that this year was a big year and it’s important to honor that (in true me fashion I’m cool to blow right past it). homebodies year, fiancé year! it was the year I became an author and the year I deepened commitments in every part of my life. even with the big changes a lot of things stayed the same like 5AMs and soft serve season and fishkill farms and walks in astoria park and pictures of the sunset (so many) and plotting new projects and writing novels and sister weekends and talking to my friends in five hour stretches on the phone. grateful for the things i’ve built and the people i’ve built them with. to more life, big love, and the biggest bags i’ve ever seen 🤑”

January 10, 2024

Tembe launched hew Substack, Extracurricular, around noon yesterday. It started the way many people’s newsletters do… a few attempts at cataloging thoughts about books — on a now-defunct book blog and Instagram page, on her personal Instagram page, and on Post-it notes in the books themselves. In her announcement post, she writes, “books have always been an opportunity for me to go deeper, think bigger and find new vantage points and tbh I was tired of writing bite-sized reviews when what I really wanted was to dig deeper and spark more expansive, critical conversations. so that’s what I’ll do here. expect: book thoughts, close reads, essays about books, occasional dispatches about what I’m reading, listening to and buying. good for: anyone who wants to talk about books, find new books to read or just read my ramblings.”

One of the most common question I get from my readers is, Is it too late for me to start a newsletter? and the answer is always, no (as long as it’s a good idea). I spoke to Tembe about why she started the letter, BookTok, and what subscribers can expect: