Jasper, an Early Generative AI Winner, Cuts Internal Valuation as Growth SlowsRead more

Matt Kirkland, creator of the Dracula Daily newsletter. Photo via Matt Kirkland. Art by Shane Burke.

The Substacker Whose Dracula Serial Spawned a Newsletter Craze

By  |  May 16, 2023 2:47 PM PDT
Photo: Matt Kirkland, creator of the Dracula Daily newsletter. Photo via Matt Kirkland. Art by Shane Burke.

Everyone has a hefty classic sitting on their bookshelf collecting dust that they swear they’ll eventually get to but never do. Matt Kirkland has made a side project of helping some of those intimidated readers: Over 262,000 have signed up to read Bram Stoker’s “Dracula" serialized in his free Substack newsletter, Dracula Daily.

Kirkland, 42, works as a full-time web designer in Lawrence, Kan. After he re-read a copy of “Dracula” during the pandemic, he came up with the idea of republishing the epistolary novel split into 110 parts as a newsletter. Kirkland schedules Dracula Daily to send one section each day on dates that correspond to the novel’s letters, journal entries and newsletter articles, prefaced by a joke he writes. He started the May 16 newsletter, which contains an entry from one of the main character’s journals, with “Hold on a minute, you're telling me Dracula has roommates?”

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