It seems like writers have a six-month burn rate where they come in excited, start to build, grind, and burn out. How do we live better lives in the meat grinder of capitalism?
As a reader, I would actually prefer if people wrote less. I don’t want more for my money. I also think there might be an opportunity for writers on here to establish ‘seasons’ like on podcasts and TV shows. I want writers to take a break so I have a break as a reader too. It’s not less value, it’s more
Applause for this… knucks, high fives, love. I started my own stack on a 2/month, both for my own sanity and to avoid contributing to reader overwhelm (of which I suffer myself!!). I’m so new to all this I have zero idea how it impacts my ‘success,’ but it’s really more of a values decision.
I write a lot here for various reasons - mostly because I'm trying to make this a big archive/library of a specific topic so I'm always adding to it although I am not sure this will end up being the right platform for that in the end.
To help counter the "noise" for people, I created a monthly roundup of links to each thing I wrote that month and the option to subscribe only to that roundup post so you get only one email per month. Then you can choose what to go visit from those links. I hope that this is one helpful solution for people.
Love this! A lot of my posts here are just resources that I have created for my private clients, and Substack offers a way to have a nice archive I can use to give people my particular topic resources instead of recreating the same information over and over and over again.
And from the other side of the coin - as a reader of quite a few Substacks, I first signed up willy-nilly - I mean it was only $ 5.00 - what is that? Like the price of a milkshake at McDonalds. I can handle $ 5.00. But then the monthly statements came in and those individual $ 5.00s added up, so now I was spending $100+ a month to receive newsletters I used to get for free and I was deleting half of them because my whole day was taken up just reading them. So burnout's occuring on both sides.
This article really resonates and it also decreases trust in the premise in some ways (of Substack, not of your words). I subscribed for an annual subscription to a Substack stamped and approved publication that had all the big names on here praising her- and her work was Beautiful!! And one day it was just all gone. No substack. Google links to substack, X, Instagram, all broken. And Substack is just 🤷♀️. Which really sucks and makes me way less likely to invest annually going forward because there is no recourse when creators disappear and like another commenter said- $5x so many publications really adds up so I had liked “treating myself” to more of a “course” or “book” with the occasional annual purchase. (My reference is to Chapin of A Sourdough Story if you have any clue to that mystery!!)
100% makes sense. I think for most people buying a single book from somebody, or a course, makes more sense than being on the hook in perpetuity for things. I know I have A LOT more readers who prefer the discreteness of a book, even though you get more when you buy a subscription in terms of content.
So true! But I think that is that one book you own for a lifetime but you only have access to an archive of content for the time you maintain payment. I think your encouragement to use a newsletter as an invitation to other elements and diversifying income for different personalities of purchasers makes sense. I think Monday Monday showed that well with trying all paid but realizing a free newsletter every week held a community that served their other offerings and kept them from feeling too much pressure on one element of income (thus equalling burn out). It is all a learning curve and certainly not one size fits all! I appreciate that you are sharing observations along the path!
Some of the Substack folks said that Chapin "took a break". I am not sure exactly what that means. Maybe she got too big to fast and couldn't handle it. I agree with you that is frustrating, particularly when you may want to support other writers but are concerned about something similar happening.
Interesting!! I completely understand folks needing and talking breaks but it is the first time I have had an experience seeing someone take all their modes down (substack, twitter, instagram) completely with no notice rather than just advertise a break and bring in guests or pause subscriptions and saying they need a break or are burnt out.
Wow thank you for highlighting one of my little Substack rants. I feel heard! Totally agree with your message here. Ppl should view their work as a brand development, rather than direct monetization. The bigger the audience the greater proof of the intangible. As for substack, I pray to the tech lords above that someone on Substack team sees this and thinks seriously about building better tech because that'll be the end of it faster than the revenue side. The direct message feature makes me feel like we are shopping for features at the out-of-the-box software store!
This really hits on so many levels. First off, I love "planned serendipity." How do people come up w/ these? And the burnout factor -- for me it's not burnout on writing. That's not a problem. It's keeping up w/ the reading that's tough. I've re-arranged my schedule to try and do so and also comment, and it is one tough cookie to do so. (and I read fast). So, will address that as time goes on. Thanks for this.
You're welcome! I get it. I like to contain my reading to specific times of day, and just consume what I consume and archive the rest. IDK if you have the temperment for that, but it helps me.
Thanks and actually yes, that’s my MO. First thing with coffee I tackle what I can and then later on bike-gym dive in again. Must say though my fiction reading is suffering ):
I've been here for close to five months. I imported most of my subscribers. I've added a few more. I've thoroughly enjoyed the platform, the people, the tremendous writing, and the environment. I've built social media platforms before. I didn't come here to get to a big number in a few months. I came for the experience I already described. I know it takes time. I also know myself. I work a full-time job, write for a magazine, just finished my first book, love to read, and keep a toe in a few other hobbies. I can't commit hours and hours to this, so I won't be mad when I don't have 1,000 subscribers in six months. I'll enjoy meeting more people, reading more content, and hopefully doing a better job of sharing my own work.
I think anytime you’re being performative for money, it takes some of the fun out of the work. But the quality of the work on Substack has shown itself to be beyond top notch — so I’d also say that writing weekly paid pieces that are the equivalent of winning the world series every week is damn hard to do.
What’s the answer? Maybe a better ratio of paid and free content, so not every post is designed to feed the beast, as it were? Obviously you want to showcase your style every chance you get, but the relentless pressure to monetize everything can get overwhelming. Make the conversation paramount, not the conversion.
I think most people would be better compiling their work into a book or something tangible like a course or workship people can buy one time. It's way easier to sell a one-off product, and then I would include with that purchase some amount of free trial to your paid content. Additionally, I would try to confine worrying about that stuff to "pledge drive" periods every year instead of all the time, like how PBS works.
I was researching starting a Substack today, so thank you for this post and this comment.
Several years ago, I had a self-hosted WP horses-in-culture blog no one wanted to advertise on except for bookies from the UK. My readership was retired women and girls. Not British horseplayers.
As self-hosting expenses mounted and then hackers making me play whack-a-mole, I thought, maybe I should've compiled these into books to self-pub. When my web host jacked up their prices, I closed the blog after twelve years. The good news is, I still have the posts. And some of my RSS subscribers followed me to my newsletter.
Part of the problem is that people here - and this is not their fault, it was egged on by the people in charge - can't just be writers, they have to be SUBSTACK WRITERS (TM). They don't have newsletters or blogs, they have SUBSTACKS.
I've had my site for 28 years (!) but I don't call myself a "WordPress writer." But on Substack, you don't only have a newsletter, you have a social network you have to keep up with, recommendations coming at you, chats, emails all the time, they're living in the app. You're pushed to grow grow grow, do as many posts as possible, etc. You have to market yourself constantly and people are always talking about how many subscribers they have and goals they've reached .... it's exhausting. Writers have always had to market themselves, but a lot of people on here aren't professional writers and they're not used to it (and because of the way Substack is structured/hyped, expectations might be unrealistic).
I think if people simply used it as a platform for their newsletter/site and didn't do Notes and marinate in all of the other Substack stuff they'd be better off (though I'm not sure Substack would).
This was a good one for me to read, thanks. Im so frustrated that even with free content I still haven't gotten to 100 Subscribers yet and I've been on Substack since July 2023. I'm q decent writer so unsure what I'm doing wrong. I do believe the content I offer for free needs to be free for those who need it. It's my gift, amends, and penance to the world. I also need to be making some money.
Your posts look pretty interesting to me. It seems like you should try to do guest posts on your friend blogs and try to build a network. We talk a lot about fandom, but a network is usually more important/powerful. https://www.theauthorstack.com/p/network
It's reminding me of the rush to start a blog back in the day - how many were begun in an excited flurry (I mean, a lot by me!) and then went by the wayside when the readers didn't come in droves. But then, apart from maybe ad money, no-one was thinking of making money, just getting the stats. Now people want the paid subs. I'd say it is extraordinarily hard to get someone to pay for content long term (how many of us won't go past a news paywall?) and in a flooded market, as substack is becoming, this only going to get harder. The content has to be truly valuable/ entertaining.
I pay for two subs on here, for info/community I can't get anywhere else. I have my own substack but I haven't enabled payment as I don't want to lock myself into a schedule or write to order and I don't think I am yet offering anything worth paying for. There are so many potentially good things about a social platform for newsletter, but it seems to be drifting off path. The idea that we are all going to be able to read hundreds of long form pieces a week is insane but people are subbed to that many. The follow as well as subscribe thing muddies the waters. And the way you can turn off emails and just get notified in the ap, even when subscribed, means it isn't actually that useful for the main thing we wanted a newsletter for - to have direct contact with our audience.
I am also not enjoying how many HOW TO DO SUBSTACK posts there are. It has a whiff of pyramid schemes! I generally come to substack instead of reading the news because, despite all of the above, the vibe is wholesome and well intentioned if somewhat veering on a nervous breakdown! 🤣
This is why I've tried to frame my Substack as a hobby. When I started, I was towing the line between hobby and money-making side hustle. I put too much pressure on myself to deliver too large an output and quickly got burnt out and hated feeling like I had another job. When I stopped looking at this as a side hustle and found a better posting cadence that worked for me, I fully embraced my Substack as a hobby. Whatever happens with growth, happens. My goal is simply to post because I enjoy it. There's no other objective.
So much about this is encouraging to read. 🥰 I came to Substack to write about thriving as a multifaceted creative... and I want to actually *do* that by participating in a slew of channels that I'm genuinely interested in and landing cool opportunities, just like you described. Glad to hear it's possible!! 🙌
Love the questions and suggestions you pose here Russell!
One pattern I see floating between the lines in relevant posts and comments here on Substack is unmanaged expectations. It's not something new I know, but we are humans and we more than often forget to do so. (Guilty for it as well)
On a more practical tone, I think the one thing that could improve the whole culture in the platform —with ripples to our everyday lives— is to practice some asynchronous communication.
I can imagine, with all the support and comments you've been receiving in your posts, you are doing this already. In big part probably out of practical necessity. You and all the writers with big communities, I mean.
What if we all practiced this a bit more deliberately and intentionally?
Let's not forget that the initial identity of the platform is 'electronic correspondence'.
At least those of us who have also lived part of our lives in the pre-social media era, have probably experienced the concept of sending out a physical letter and waiting for days or even months for a response to get back to us.
Really sorry for this somehow long comment that will take a little more of your valuable mental bandwidth and time 😅
Your post, as well as Jane Friedman's, jump-started my own introspection on how I use Substack. I switched to Substack from a traditional type of email marketing provider for its ease of use and community-building opportunities. I'm a creative writer who wants to build interest and community in the genre I write in. I only send out a newsletter once a month, so that I have time for my creative writing. For me, this is a good pace that can show writing consistency, avoid burnout, and still grow readership.
Lots of good helpful information here. And it helps add food for thought for me. I switched to a paid newsletter format after years of doing other kind of work because honestly I don't want to do the other work. I want to just research and write and connect to the community of people who care about the same topics that I do. Although I do write and sell books, I don't particularly want to sell merchandise or PDFs or conferences or workshops even though I've done a little of all of those things over the years. I started this paid newsletter on Patreon and it was doing moderately okay there (where no free version was available) and I had hoped that coming here would ramp things up for me.
I remember early on you warned me that my "1000 true fans" dream here would take a really really long time. And honestly, I kind of dismissed you because I had really latched on to that and was riding a wave of optimism around it. But, ten months in, I realize that it's not happening the way I thought. And that's okay. As a full time writer for the past twenty years, I've had to pivot many times, and that's all just part of the creative process.
I'm not sure exactly where it goes for me from here on this particular platform. I have to admit that when I see your numbers, what comes to mind (for myself, not for you) is that I cringe at the idea of 30,000 subscribers but only 500 of them paying. Absolutely if you're selling other things and this newsletter is just part of the "funnel" then that's wonderful. But it doesn't work for me if what I want to be the thing of value is the newsletter.
Although it's not really just the newsletter. What I'm really about is trying to promote a concept that I deeply believe in, which I currently phrase on my posts as this: "A reminder: When you invest in Create Me Free, you invest in a value system, a community, the creation of a library of online resources about the complex relationship between art and mental health. This supports a societal shift away from a productivity-driven consumer market where your money buys x product that you can use for y amount of time on your own towards a model that supports holistic wellness, deep creative process, and meaningful social contributions."
Before I close, a note that I recognize that we are all here for different reasons, in different stages of different kinds of work, and I value all of the different voices and approaches to what this place can be for all of us. (AND I echo that I wish Substack's newest features that they're rolling out were less geared towards the social media aspect and more geared towards the writing and sharing of newsletters.)
As a reader, I would actually prefer if people wrote less. I don’t want more for my money. I also think there might be an opportunity for writers on here to establish ‘seasons’ like on podcasts and TV shows. I want writers to take a break so I have a break as a reader too. It’s not less value, it’s more
Good point! I know some publications do this, but it's a great option.
Same here. I definitely don't require more writing just because I choose to pay a subscription fee.
Applause for this… knucks, high fives, love. I started my own stack on a 2/month, both for my own sanity and to avoid contributing to reader overwhelm (of which I suffer myself!!). I’m so new to all this I have zero idea how it impacts my ‘success,’ but it’s really more of a values decision.
This framing is awesome and affirming. 🙌🏻
What a brilliant concept
I so agree, I’ve drafted a post about this - relating to honouring menstrual cycles and seasons of creating
I’ve been thinking about this topic too. Would love your take on it.
Thank you for this comment... I like the seasons idea 💡! I was just thinking about writing a series of posts.
I write a lot here for various reasons - mostly because I'm trying to make this a big archive/library of a specific topic so I'm always adding to it although I am not sure this will end up being the right platform for that in the end.
To help counter the "noise" for people, I created a monthly roundup of links to each thing I wrote that month and the option to subscribe only to that roundup post so you get only one email per month. Then you can choose what to go visit from those links. I hope that this is one helpful solution for people.
https://createmefree.substack.com/p/want-less-email-from-create-me-free
Love this! A lot of my posts here are just resources that I have created for my private clients, and Substack offers a way to have a nice archive I can use to give people my particular topic resources instead of recreating the same information over and over and over again.
And from the other side of the coin - as a reader of quite a few Substacks, I first signed up willy-nilly - I mean it was only $ 5.00 - what is that? Like the price of a milkshake at McDonalds. I can handle $ 5.00. But then the monthly statements came in and those individual $ 5.00s added up, so now I was spending $100+ a month to receive newsletters I used to get for free and I was deleting half of them because my whole day was taken up just reading them. So burnout's occuring on both sides.
Yaaas! I mean I curate from hundreds of blogs and it's very tiring every week, but I do it for basically a living and it's still hard for me.
This article really resonates and it also decreases trust in the premise in some ways (of Substack, not of your words). I subscribed for an annual subscription to a Substack stamped and approved publication that had all the big names on here praising her- and her work was Beautiful!! And one day it was just all gone. No substack. Google links to substack, X, Instagram, all broken. And Substack is just 🤷♀️. Which really sucks and makes me way less likely to invest annually going forward because there is no recourse when creators disappear and like another commenter said- $5x so many publications really adds up so I had liked “treating myself” to more of a “course” or “book” with the occasional annual purchase. (My reference is to Chapin of A Sourdough Story if you have any clue to that mystery!!)
100% makes sense. I think for most people buying a single book from somebody, or a course, makes more sense than being on the hook in perpetuity for things. I know I have A LOT more readers who prefer the discreteness of a book, even though you get more when you buy a subscription in terms of content.
So true! But I think that is that one book you own for a lifetime but you only have access to an archive of content for the time you maintain payment. I think your encouragement to use a newsletter as an invitation to other elements and diversifying income for different personalities of purchasers makes sense. I think Monday Monday showed that well with trying all paid but realizing a free newsletter every week held a community that served their other offerings and kept them from feeling too much pressure on one element of income (thus equalling burn out). It is all a learning curve and certainly not one size fits all! I appreciate that you are sharing observations along the path!
Some of the Substack folks said that Chapin "took a break". I am not sure exactly what that means. Maybe she got too big to fast and couldn't handle it. I agree with you that is frustrating, particularly when you may want to support other writers but are concerned about something similar happening.
Interesting!! I completely understand folks needing and talking breaks but it is the first time I have had an experience seeing someone take all their modes down (substack, twitter, instagram) completely with no notice rather than just advertise a break and bring in guests or pause subscriptions and saying they need a break or are burnt out.
Wow thank you for highlighting one of my little Substack rants. I feel heard! Totally agree with your message here. Ppl should view their work as a brand development, rather than direct monetization. The bigger the audience the greater proof of the intangible. As for substack, I pray to the tech lords above that someone on Substack team sees this and thinks seriously about building better tech because that'll be the end of it faster than the revenue side. The direct message feature makes me feel like we are shopping for features at the out-of-the-box software store!
100%. I hate this new feature.
Likewise, I don’t understand what is the added value with direct messages.
This really hits on so many levels. First off, I love "planned serendipity." How do people come up w/ these? And the burnout factor -- for me it's not burnout on writing. That's not a problem. It's keeping up w/ the reading that's tough. I've re-arranged my schedule to try and do so and also comment, and it is one tough cookie to do so. (and I read fast). So, will address that as time goes on. Thanks for this.
You're welcome! I get it. I like to contain my reading to specific times of day, and just consume what I consume and archive the rest. IDK if you have the temperment for that, but it helps me.
Thanks and actually yes, that’s my MO. First thing with coffee I tackle what I can and then later on bike-gym dive in again. Must say though my fiction reading is suffering ):
Just remember it’s supposed to be fun :)
Right!
I've been here for close to five months. I imported most of my subscribers. I've added a few more. I've thoroughly enjoyed the platform, the people, the tremendous writing, and the environment. I've built social media platforms before. I didn't come here to get to a big number in a few months. I came for the experience I already described. I know it takes time. I also know myself. I work a full-time job, write for a magazine, just finished my first book, love to read, and keep a toe in a few other hobbies. I can't commit hours and hours to this, so I won't be mad when I don't have 1,000 subscribers in six months. I'll enjoy meeting more people, reading more content, and hopefully doing a better job of sharing my own work.
Cool!
A very interesting piece, Russell.
I think anytime you’re being performative for money, it takes some of the fun out of the work. But the quality of the work on Substack has shown itself to be beyond top notch — so I’d also say that writing weekly paid pieces that are the equivalent of winning the world series every week is damn hard to do.
What’s the answer? Maybe a better ratio of paid and free content, so not every post is designed to feed the beast, as it were? Obviously you want to showcase your style every chance you get, but the relentless pressure to monetize everything can get overwhelming. Make the conversation paramount, not the conversion.
I think most people would be better compiling their work into a book or something tangible like a course or workship people can buy one time. It's way easier to sell a one-off product, and then I would include with that purchase some amount of free trial to your paid content. Additionally, I would try to confine worrying about that stuff to "pledge drive" periods every year instead of all the time, like how PBS works.
I was researching starting a Substack today, so thank you for this post and this comment.
Several years ago, I had a self-hosted WP horses-in-culture blog no one wanted to advertise on except for bookies from the UK. My readership was retired women and girls. Not British horseplayers.
As self-hosting expenses mounted and then hackers making me play whack-a-mole, I thought, maybe I should've compiled these into books to self-pub. When my web host jacked up their prices, I closed the blog after twelve years. The good news is, I still have the posts. And some of my RSS subscribers followed me to my newsletter.
Thank you for your insights.
Excellent point.
Part of the problem is that people here - and this is not their fault, it was egged on by the people in charge - can't just be writers, they have to be SUBSTACK WRITERS (TM). They don't have newsletters or blogs, they have SUBSTACKS.
I've had my site for 28 years (!) but I don't call myself a "WordPress writer." But on Substack, you don't only have a newsletter, you have a social network you have to keep up with, recommendations coming at you, chats, emails all the time, they're living in the app. You're pushed to grow grow grow, do as many posts as possible, etc. You have to market yourself constantly and people are always talking about how many subscribers they have and goals they've reached .... it's exhausting. Writers have always had to market themselves, but a lot of people on here aren't professional writers and they're not used to it (and because of the way Substack is structured/hyped, expectations might be unrealistic).
I think if people simply used it as a platform for their newsletter/site and didn't do Notes and marinate in all of the other Substack stuff they'd be better off (though I'm not sure Substack would).
I agree
This was a good one for me to read, thanks. Im so frustrated that even with free content I still haven't gotten to 100 Subscribers yet and I've been on Substack since July 2023. I'm q decent writer so unsure what I'm doing wrong. I do believe the content I offer for free needs to be free for those who need it. It's my gift, amends, and penance to the world. I also need to be making some money.
Your posts look pretty interesting to me. It seems like you should try to do guest posts on your friend blogs and try to build a network. We talk a lot about fandom, but a network is usually more important/powerful. https://www.theauthorstack.com/p/network
I also recommend maybe augmenting your work with some crossposts from other people you respect at your level (ask them first), or doing some sort of roundup to get people's attention that you are promoting them. https://www.theauthorstack.com/p/why-and-how-to-do-a-roundup?utm_source=%2Fsearch%2Froundup&utm_medium=reader2
Thanks! I saw your post about a round-up a few weeks ago and have intended to make one myself. I'm going to try that.
Cool!
I definitely need breaks instead of a break-down.
Hey! I have a post for that too :) https://www.theauthorstack.com/p/why-you-probably-need-a-breakright
Of course you do. 🙏❤️
All so true.
It's reminding me of the rush to start a blog back in the day - how many were begun in an excited flurry (I mean, a lot by me!) and then went by the wayside when the readers didn't come in droves. But then, apart from maybe ad money, no-one was thinking of making money, just getting the stats. Now people want the paid subs. I'd say it is extraordinarily hard to get someone to pay for content long term (how many of us won't go past a news paywall?) and in a flooded market, as substack is becoming, this only going to get harder. The content has to be truly valuable/ entertaining.
I pay for two subs on here, for info/community I can't get anywhere else. I have my own substack but I haven't enabled payment as I don't want to lock myself into a schedule or write to order and I don't think I am yet offering anything worth paying for. There are so many potentially good things about a social platform for newsletter, but it seems to be drifting off path. The idea that we are all going to be able to read hundreds of long form pieces a week is insane but people are subbed to that many. The follow as well as subscribe thing muddies the waters. And the way you can turn off emails and just get notified in the ap, even when subscribed, means it isn't actually that useful for the main thing we wanted a newsletter for - to have direct contact with our audience.
I am also not enjoying how many HOW TO DO SUBSTACK posts there are. It has a whiff of pyramid schemes! I generally come to substack instead of reading the news because, despite all of the above, the vibe is wholesome and well intentioned if somewhat veering on a nervous breakdown! 🤣
Yeah, I think I agree with all of this.
This is why I've tried to frame my Substack as a hobby. When I started, I was towing the line between hobby and money-making side hustle. I put too much pressure on myself to deliver too large an output and quickly got burnt out and hated feeling like I had another job. When I stopped looking at this as a side hustle and found a better posting cadence that worked for me, I fully embraced my Substack as a hobby. Whatever happens with growth, happens. My goal is simply to post because I enjoy it. There's no other objective.
Cool!
So much about this is encouraging to read. 🥰 I came to Substack to write about thriving as a multifaceted creative... and I want to actually *do* that by participating in a slew of channels that I'm genuinely interested in and landing cool opportunities, just like you described. Glad to hear it's possible!! 🙌
Yay!!
Love the questions and suggestions you pose here Russell!
One pattern I see floating between the lines in relevant posts and comments here on Substack is unmanaged expectations. It's not something new I know, but we are humans and we more than often forget to do so. (Guilty for it as well)
On a more practical tone, I think the one thing that could improve the whole culture in the platform —with ripples to our everyday lives— is to practice some asynchronous communication.
I can imagine, with all the support and comments you've been receiving in your posts, you are doing this already. In big part probably out of practical necessity. You and all the writers with big communities, I mean.
What if we all practiced this a bit more deliberately and intentionally?
Let's not forget that the initial identity of the platform is 'electronic correspondence'.
At least those of us who have also lived part of our lives in the pre-social media era, have probably experienced the concept of sending out a physical letter and waiting for days or even months for a response to get back to us.
Really sorry for this somehow long comment that will take a little more of your valuable mental bandwidth and time 😅
Greetings from Greece!
Mainly, I think people should do more things with intention, so I agree with you there.
This is so great, Russell!
Yay! That means a lot to me :) Glad it resonated!
Your post, as well as Jane Friedman's, jump-started my own introspection on how I use Substack. I switched to Substack from a traditional type of email marketing provider for its ease of use and community-building opportunities. I'm a creative writer who wants to build interest and community in the genre I write in. I only send out a newsletter once a month, so that I have time for my creative writing. For me, this is a good pace that can show writing consistency, avoid burnout, and still grow readership.
Yay! Glad it was helpful
Lots of good helpful information here. And it helps add food for thought for me. I switched to a paid newsletter format after years of doing other kind of work because honestly I don't want to do the other work. I want to just research and write and connect to the community of people who care about the same topics that I do. Although I do write and sell books, I don't particularly want to sell merchandise or PDFs or conferences or workshops even though I've done a little of all of those things over the years. I started this paid newsletter on Patreon and it was doing moderately okay there (where no free version was available) and I had hoped that coming here would ramp things up for me.
I remember early on you warned me that my "1000 true fans" dream here would take a really really long time. And honestly, I kind of dismissed you because I had really latched on to that and was riding a wave of optimism around it. But, ten months in, I realize that it's not happening the way I thought. And that's okay. As a full time writer for the past twenty years, I've had to pivot many times, and that's all just part of the creative process.
I'm not sure exactly where it goes for me from here on this particular platform. I have to admit that when I see your numbers, what comes to mind (for myself, not for you) is that I cringe at the idea of 30,000 subscribers but only 500 of them paying. Absolutely if you're selling other things and this newsletter is just part of the "funnel" then that's wonderful. But it doesn't work for me if what I want to be the thing of value is the newsletter.
Although it's not really just the newsletter. What I'm really about is trying to promote a concept that I deeply believe in, which I currently phrase on my posts as this: "A reminder: When you invest in Create Me Free, you invest in a value system, a community, the creation of a library of online resources about the complex relationship between art and mental health. This supports a societal shift away from a productivity-driven consumer market where your money buys x product that you can use for y amount of time on your own towards a model that supports holistic wellness, deep creative process, and meaningful social contributions."
Before I close, a note that I recognize that we are all here for different reasons, in different stages of different kinds of work, and I value all of the different voices and approaches to what this place can be for all of us. (AND I echo that I wish Substack's newest features that they're rolling out were less geared towards the social media aspect and more geared towards the writing and sharing of newsletters.)