You do the work. You have the technology. It’s embarrassing that you are slowing it down. Deliver to every reader what they want to read. You know how to do it. Forget about all the extras. All the extras mean nothing if we can’t locate our writers.
I know you must understand this. You seem like a smart man.
Or you can play bitch... and decide who gets a few writers they like.
Bad business model.
Don’t fall into abyss of every other failed media. You are never going to be the perfect. Only excellent example of the only selected. We’ve all seen How that goes.
Please. Reconsider. Most poor people don’t read Substack. lol.
It’s up to you.
There always another idea around the corner ready for people.
I am rooting for Substack. You’ve created a monster and I still cheer you on. It’s beautiful and totally takes care of itself.
I actually think this is brilliant. As a lifelong journalist (who started the first 'digital products' at a global news co) I have been saying for awhile that we need to rebuild the industry, made it writer-focused (i.e voices you trust) and go from there. Can be a shared revenue model. If Substack is hitting up traditional media outlets and wants help, let me know.
"Subscriptions are good because you only get paid if your readers believe you’re doing good work. You don’t have to worry about reaching a mass audience, so you can focus on maximizing trust instead of pageviews. Meanwhile, since you’re exclusively serving readers instead of advertisers, your subscribers are more likely to trust that you have editorial independence and intellectual freedom. (See: Matt Taibbi, Judd Legum.) Also, selling ads sucks."
I disagree with much of this statement and heartily disagree with the final sentence. Selling ads requires product knowledge, market knowledge, customer knowledge, skill, advertising expertise, command of the language, understanding of business, and much more. A good personality helps if dealing with people one-on-one, and skill at writing proposals, pitches, and ad concepts keeps one's mind sharp. Selling ads doesn't suck. It's business and the best ad salespeople - back in the days of newspapers, magazines, TV, radio, pre-internet - made oodles of cash. It's just a job nobody wants to do anymore, especially people under the age of 40.
As far as the subscription model is concerned, my main opposition to it is that it imposes a form of quiet self-censorship and is counter-intuitive to freedom of expression. Not everybody can afford 2, 3, 10, 20 subscriptions, especially at the levels they're offered on Substack. They should be pennies, not dollars. Those who cannot afford to subscribe are inadvertently deprived and their ability to form opinions is censored. Sure, writers need to make money, that's why the best get hired by established media. But, in today's environment, media is totally OWNED, and not by the right people. That's why Substack will succeed until it doesn't.
Hamish. Where is the menu of other writers to follow? How do I access new writers? There are so many. Why is the whole thing set up so Substack suggests 6 out of the many. Why not? Keep suggesting?
What a waste of an algorithm.
Open it up. All these writers are joining. And we have no way of reaching them. I don’t know who they are. So. How can I search them out.
Making the whole thing into a daily... twitter like list thing is excellent. Also slow and weird. You are not twitter.
This little twitter look a like thing would be cute. If we also had a way to access all the other writers in an efficient Search Engine kind of way.
You need to be promoting the writers now. Now that you have so many of them that you have been recruiting feverishly since the beginning.
How do we access them?
Who knows? Maybe the people that aren’t able to pay... someday will be able to.. I know my life goes up and down like a roller coaster. Rich to poor and the whatever. look towards the future and leave Your Snob behind. We live in a different world now Hamish.
Hi Hamish, I am actually trying to figure out how to put a 45-year-old print magazine on Substack. This post was helpful. But I'm still wondering how you could sign people up to receive print editions as you would a newsletter. Do you have any ideas?
What do you have to do to allow Substack to become the "Shopify for Writers"? It's not just in the stack, it's in facilitating writers to make "diversified revenue from many sources" and not just paid subs.
Paid subs don't pay the bills unless you are a Finance, Crypto or Political writer that can scale. That's not a big audience of Substack's creators am I right?
It's not difficult to imagine how you could do this.
So inspiring I love it. 😻
You do the work. You have the technology. It’s embarrassing that you are slowing it down. Deliver to every reader what they want to read. You know how to do it. Forget about all the extras. All the extras mean nothing if we can’t locate our writers.
I know you must understand this. You seem like a smart man.
Or you can play bitch... and decide who gets a few writers they like.
Bad business model.
Don’t fall into abyss of every other failed media. You are never going to be the perfect. Only excellent example of the only selected. We’ve all seen How that goes.
Please. Reconsider. Most poor people don’t read Substack. lol.
It’s up to you.
There always another idea around the corner ready for people.
I am rooting for Substack. You’ve created a monster and I still cheer you on. It’s beautiful and totally takes care of itself.
I wrote my comment before seeing yours and we're in agreement. Poor people get shut out and censored.
"It’s a quiet space far removed from the tumult of social media--"
And this is why I am here. I hope to find my way around.
Selling subscriptions sucks too, especially if you don't have ads to sell. And, no, New Zealand media is not coming to Substack.
Spot on. Selling ads does not suck, BTW, if you have a solid publication and ejoy interfacing with business people.
Appreciating your leadership and vision.
I actually think this is brilliant. As a lifelong journalist (who started the first 'digital products' at a global news co) I have been saying for awhile that we need to rebuild the industry, made it writer-focused (i.e voices you trust) and go from there. Can be a shared revenue model. If Substack is hitting up traditional media outlets and wants help, let me know.
Reinventing the stone ax eh?
I wrote a comic. It is a pdf. But the graphics are numerous and detailed. I am on firefox. Can't upload PDF by drag and drop. Ideas?
Graphics intensive content.
Hamish:
"Subscriptions are good because you only get paid if your readers believe you’re doing good work. You don’t have to worry about reaching a mass audience, so you can focus on maximizing trust instead of pageviews. Meanwhile, since you’re exclusively serving readers instead of advertisers, your subscribers are more likely to trust that you have editorial independence and intellectual freedom. (See: Matt Taibbi, Judd Legum.) Also, selling ads sucks."
I disagree with much of this statement and heartily disagree with the final sentence. Selling ads requires product knowledge, market knowledge, customer knowledge, skill, advertising expertise, command of the language, understanding of business, and much more. A good personality helps if dealing with people one-on-one, and skill at writing proposals, pitches, and ad concepts keeps one's mind sharp. Selling ads doesn't suck. It's business and the best ad salespeople - back in the days of newspapers, magazines, TV, radio, pre-internet - made oodles of cash. It's just a job nobody wants to do anymore, especially people under the age of 40.
As far as the subscription model is concerned, my main opposition to it is that it imposes a form of quiet self-censorship and is counter-intuitive to freedom of expression. Not everybody can afford 2, 3, 10, 20 subscriptions, especially at the levels they're offered on Substack. They should be pennies, not dollars. Those who cannot afford to subscribe are inadvertently deprived and their ability to form opinions is censored. Sure, writers need to make money, that's why the best get hired by established media. But, in today's environment, media is totally OWNED, and not by the right people. That's why Substack will succeed until it doesn't.
Don’t be afraid.
Hamish. Where is the menu of other writers to follow? How do I access new writers? There are so many. Why is the whole thing set up so Substack suggests 6 out of the many. Why not? Keep suggesting?
What a waste of an algorithm.
Open it up. All these writers are joining. And we have no way of reaching them. I don’t know who they are. So. How can I search them out.
Making the whole thing into a daily... twitter like list thing is excellent. Also slow and weird. You are not twitter.
This little twitter look a like thing would be cute. If we also had a way to access all the other writers in an efficient Search Engine kind of way.
You need to be promoting the writers now. Now that you have so many of them that you have been recruiting feverishly since the beginning.
How do we access them?
Who knows? Maybe the people that aren’t able to pay... someday will be able to.. I know my life goes up and down like a roller coaster. Rich to poor and the whatever. look towards the future and leave Your Snob behind. We live in a different world now Hamish.
Feels like stifled and bad marketing of writers.
CLEAN IT UP. It’s getting stale.
Dude, don't compare Substack to Twitter. Otherwise, you will reach the sad end of Twitter.
Good concept in theory. How will it different from what happened to artists with spotify? https://www.netflix.com/watch/81238047?source=35
Hi Hamish, I am actually trying to figure out how to put a 45-year-old print magazine on Substack. This post was helpful. But I'm still wondering how you could sign people up to receive print editions as you would a newsletter. Do you have any ideas?
What do you have to do to allow Substack to become the "Shopify for Writers"? It's not just in the stack, it's in facilitating writers to make "diversified revenue from many sources" and not just paid subs.
Paid subs don't pay the bills unless you are a Finance, Crypto or Political writer that can scale. That's not a big audience of Substack's creators am I right?
It's not difficult to imagine how you could do this.
Thanks
Wow