What value do I add to the Substack ecosystem?
I've been thinking about this question a bit lately. I have had a blog on Substack for a while now, but I haven't really had a strategy for it. I like to have a place where I can just...blog. Write short essays about whatever pops into my head or follow a trail of thought in an essay to see where it takes me, with the garage door open. Last semester I began posting some of my US History primary sources as I edited them for my class and open textbook. I think these will become more valuable as I write some framing paragraphs for each one that provides background about what is going on at the time and context regarding how it might relate to the issues of the present.
In terms of where all this may fit, though, I am not yet 100% sure. My former dissertation advisor, HCR, writes a nearly daily blog called Letters From an American that seems to get hundreds of thousands of reads. It deals with detailed, blow-by-blow descriptions of all the latest political developments. Especially the ongoing culture-war battles and the the run-up to the next national elections. I can't even force myself to read a lot of this in order to try to understand what others find so engaging. I certainly don't consider it history. Heather has a second project with Joanne B. Freeman (who teaches History at Yale) which seems to be currently on hiatus although it may resume again now that the academic year has ended. It is called "The Now and Then Podcast" and promises to use history to improve listeners' understanding of contemporary issues and events. Some topics they have covered include "Nostalgia and Political Power", the nature of money and NFTs, Queer History, etc. These episodes run between 45 and 50 minutes, generally. This podcast doesn't seem as successful as Heather's daily blog. Episodes typically get a few dozen likes as opposed to a couple of thousand for the daily installments.
One thing that interests me about the Letters posts is that as far as I can tell, Heather doesn't seem to hide any of her content behind the paywall, despite claiming to have 1.1 million total and hundreds of thousands of paying subscribers (I can't find exactly where I saw that claim, but I'm pretty sure that's what I saw). I was also able to like a post and I think I could comment on one without being a subscriber. I wonder how frequently she actually sends posts to subscribers only? Or whether there is more to the "community" she describes than the ability to post comments?
On the other side of the spectrum of both popularity and paywalling is someone called "Holly Math Nerd". Their name popped up in my Substack Notes, apparently commenting on something said by someone I subscribe to. I noticed they are working on a series of posts looking at US History from what promises to be an "anti-Woke cultural commentary" perspective. This interested me a bit, but their posts are paywalled to the tune of $64 for an annual subscription (mine is currently $30). Comments are also paywalled, so there's no opportunity to see whether this is a community it might be fun to engage with. While I suppose it's possible that Holly is just so insanely popular in the world of maths that they will develop an instant following for their history posts, I don't think this exclusivity is something I want to emulate. I DID actually email Holly, suggesting we "trade" premium subscriptions. But no reply.
Another substack I subscribe to which seems to make a lot of content available to non-paying readers is BIG by Matt Stoller, which has 90,000 subs and deals with historical and current monopolies. Stoller adds weekly open threads and a Discord server for paying subscribers. Matt Taibbi's Racket News (378,000 subs) also includes a lot of content that makes the subscription worthwhile.
One of the important elements for a successful blog is consistency. People have to be able to trust that you're going to produce something attractive on a regular basis. Something that keeps them coming back. Even if I don't find it attractive, I have to admit that HCR has cracked this code. So what would I want to put out into the world on a regular basis that would attract readers? Probably a couple of things, so I should probably have a couple of "channels" on my page. At least one for Note-making and another for Primary Sources. Maybe a third for more random musings about history and one for book reviews. All the stuff I used to do on my dedicated websites.
I think I will begin this immediately on my return from my Iceland vacation, first week of June.
Perhaps you're conflating too many things? Ask first, what value do I add to the world? (Arguably loads.) Then ask: How do I (best) distribute this value? To this perhaps one of your answers is Substack, which may or may not be one of many tools you use for this purpose. Then the follow on question is what value do you get back from it?
Given HCR's numbers (especially in comparison with Twitter) and her time on the platform, I suspect she may have (or at this point had) some sort of special platform deal with Substack which isn't publicly known beyond the basics of what the typical person could get. It's probably the modern digital equivalent of the sort of deal a highly visible academic might get from a magazine like The Atlantic. The pay scale may be different but we can obviously see that the daily output is wildly different too. If you're not aware, when Substack started they reached out to a wide variety of famous/semi-famous people and helped them to build a quick audience that would have taken them far more time and effort than they would otherwise have ever invested. Part of this was providing initial payment/seed money which was really their early investment for getting lots of quality content on the platform as a means of drawing the masses to come to the platform to both read and create as well. Unless you're a massive name working with them directly, you're unlikely to get this sort of deal today, and this means a tougher up hill slog for the "rest of us" as the platform doesn't need to pay for this sort of scaling/network effect now. If nothing else, knowing these early economies of Substack (and really lots of other social platforms, Medium certainly followed this script as an example) will help you to have a broader perspective and better compare your apples to others' oranges.