I don't like this post. But thanks for the dose of reality, as bubble-bursting it may be for this aspiring new content creator. It's probably better than living in fantasy. And I appreciate the solutions, especially genuine communication with other creators, and being creative about my product's value.
Just discovered your Substack. Great material. Three touchpoints.
1. Two decades ago I was a paid columnist for a local newspaper. I had become friends with the president and publisher in the late 90s. As a leadership guy, he had me come an speak to his leadership team. I talked about the importance of making the newspaper the go-to-place for information about the community. The idea fell on deaf ears. A decade later, Facebook was mastering this approach to community information gathering and distribution.
2. My first writing gig as a columnist began in 1999. It last a year or so. Then in 2004, I was paid to write 700 words twice a month on business leadership. At the same time, I began a weblog. Five years later, my weblog was ranked in the top 50 leadership weblogs in the world. That ranking did not translate to more clients. In 2018, I published my first book, having started a new weblog six months before. The launch was a failure. In my analysis, I determined that we did all the right things, but none of it produced an audience anticipating the publication of the book. So, I spent a year traveling the country doing book events. I learned a lot, but it still did not produce an audience. At that point, I still had my WordPress weblog and MailChimp newsletter, with about 350 subscribers. None of that translated into booksales. During the first 15 months of the pandemic, I wrote 7 short books and self-published them on Amazon. I used them as reference points to talk about topics that I thought needing to be discussed. Still, no appreciable increase in audience or sales. There are other reasons as to why, but they really don't matter when your focus actually suggests a more narrow market. In January of last year, I began to write on Substack - edbrenegar.substack.com. I transfered my MailChimp mailing list and ended that relationship. I stopped posting on WordPress which is embedded on my website. I decided to write what I wanted to write in the manner that I wanted to write all along. So, I'm writing on leadership and culture long, deeply philosophical, yet practical essays. The low in subscribers came in April and May last year as my numbers dropped to 336. Then in the summer, my numbers began to grow to the point that I realized that it was time to create the podcast that I had had in the back of my mind for about 5 years. So, in February, I started The Eddy Network Podcast - https://tinyurl.com/42xx39ph. I post twice a week on Mondays and Thursdays. My subscribers peaked yesterday at 711. My paid subscribers are few because I don't want a divided audience.
3. What explains the kind of growth that I have had over the past year, where nothing in the previous forty years of my work ever looked like this? Simple. First, I'm not a commodity. I'm engaging with people at their Substacks and on LinkedIn. By treating the comment sections as sort of "third places" for positive, constructive conversation, people get a taste for how your think and interact. Because local newspapers are really advertising driven enterprises, there doesn't seem to be a place for actual conversation there. My podcast is organized as a networking demonstration platform. "I ask people that I know to come on the show. I also ask people that I want to meet and get to know to be a guest. I ask my guests, 'Who do you know that you think I should know because they, too, would be a good person to interview. And would you introduce us?' " You were recommended to me. I believe the future will be partially determined by how well we are able to talk to one another in respectful conversations of openness and curiosity. And how we develop our networks to facilitate these conversations. I'm glad to have been pointed toward your Substack by one of your subscribers. I'd like to invite you to come on my podcast. Let's connect soon. Thank you.
Isn't the remedy of paid churn actually diversifying your revenue streams to make you more resilient in your business model? Why do publishers think pure play business models are a great idea? Even YouTube is lowering its standards to be able to monetize now.
It‘s not easy and everybody who is saying otherwise is probably lying.
As a writer (or creator to use a more general term) you do not only need to put out interesting content for your target group, but you also need to constantly bang the drum to get attention and subscribers.
I don't like this post. But thanks for the dose of reality, as bubble-bursting it may be for this aspiring new content creator. It's probably better than living in fantasy. And I appreciate the solutions, especially genuine communication with other creators, and being creative about my product's value.
Just discovered your Substack. Great material. Three touchpoints.
1. Two decades ago I was a paid columnist for a local newspaper. I had become friends with the president and publisher in the late 90s. As a leadership guy, he had me come an speak to his leadership team. I talked about the importance of making the newspaper the go-to-place for information about the community. The idea fell on deaf ears. A decade later, Facebook was mastering this approach to community information gathering and distribution.
2. My first writing gig as a columnist began in 1999. It last a year or so. Then in 2004, I was paid to write 700 words twice a month on business leadership. At the same time, I began a weblog. Five years later, my weblog was ranked in the top 50 leadership weblogs in the world. That ranking did not translate to more clients. In 2018, I published my first book, having started a new weblog six months before. The launch was a failure. In my analysis, I determined that we did all the right things, but none of it produced an audience anticipating the publication of the book. So, I spent a year traveling the country doing book events. I learned a lot, but it still did not produce an audience. At that point, I still had my WordPress weblog and MailChimp newsletter, with about 350 subscribers. None of that translated into booksales. During the first 15 months of the pandemic, I wrote 7 short books and self-published them on Amazon. I used them as reference points to talk about topics that I thought needing to be discussed. Still, no appreciable increase in audience or sales. There are other reasons as to why, but they really don't matter when your focus actually suggests a more narrow market. In January of last year, I began to write on Substack - edbrenegar.substack.com. I transfered my MailChimp mailing list and ended that relationship. I stopped posting on WordPress which is embedded on my website. I decided to write what I wanted to write in the manner that I wanted to write all along. So, I'm writing on leadership and culture long, deeply philosophical, yet practical essays. The low in subscribers came in April and May last year as my numbers dropped to 336. Then in the summer, my numbers began to grow to the point that I realized that it was time to create the podcast that I had had in the back of my mind for about 5 years. So, in February, I started The Eddy Network Podcast - https://tinyurl.com/42xx39ph. I post twice a week on Mondays and Thursdays. My subscribers peaked yesterday at 711. My paid subscribers are few because I don't want a divided audience.
3. What explains the kind of growth that I have had over the past year, where nothing in the previous forty years of my work ever looked like this? Simple. First, I'm not a commodity. I'm engaging with people at their Substacks and on LinkedIn. By treating the comment sections as sort of "third places" for positive, constructive conversation, people get a taste for how your think and interact. Because local newspapers are really advertising driven enterprises, there doesn't seem to be a place for actual conversation there. My podcast is organized as a networking demonstration platform. "I ask people that I know to come on the show. I also ask people that I want to meet and get to know to be a guest. I ask my guests, 'Who do you know that you think I should know because they, too, would be a good person to interview. And would you introduce us?' " You were recommended to me. I believe the future will be partially determined by how well we are able to talk to one another in respectful conversations of openness and curiosity. And how we develop our networks to facilitate these conversations. I'm glad to have been pointed toward your Substack by one of your subscribers. I'd like to invite you to come on my podcast. Let's connect soon. Thank you.
Isn't the remedy of paid churn actually diversifying your revenue streams to make you more resilient in your business model? Why do publishers think pure play business models are a great idea? Even YouTube is lowering its standards to be able to monetize now.
It‘s not easy and everybody who is saying otherwise is probably lying.
As a writer (or creator to use a more general term) you do not only need to put out interesting content for your target group, but you also need to constantly bang the drum to get attention and subscribers.
didn't know about wordpress' newsletter, but I'd be interested in your thoughts on beehiiv: https://techcrunch.com/2023/06/21/beehiiv-a-newsletter-platform-gets-12-5m-in-its-inbox/