Is churn quietly killing your Author Business?

A clear-eyed look at audience churn for authors—why it happens, why it’s normal, and how to build an ecosystem that outpaces it.

I pulled up my membership numbers the other day and realized something pretty depressing. I have fewer paid members today than I did at the start of the year.

This wasn’t surprising. It was just… bleak.

Not because I’ve been slacking. Since January 1st, I’ve added almost 4,000 new subscribers to my list. That’s a lot.

But my paid membership is flat—or slightly down. You can see below I started this year with 1,184 members, and now I have 1,172, even though I now have 4,000 new members.

You might think I’m not converting new members anymore, but I have consistently had a 2–3% of new subscribers to paid memb . So out of those 4,000, I’ve added somewhere between 100–120 new members.

Seems good, except I also have about a 66% retention rate, which is pretty average, according to Substack.