77 Comments

My feedback is, I appreciate that I can leave this window open with the audio playing when I’m looking at other things or even commenting on a post, like this one.

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'There are three of them in my little notepad and none of them make any sense.' Hilarious. This is how all interviews should start.

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It feels good to be seen by a fellow journalist

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Utter carnage.

(Fun carnage, though! I think you've made something here that will be put to great use. Also awful use, but that's part of the fun too.)

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I put the "age" in carnage

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I had no idea you were australian, Hamish. I love your accent. 😂

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Excuse me. I’m a New Zealander

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Isn't it more or less the same place? I mean, you all look alike as far as I can tell and your island is near theirs, right? 😅

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Australia is New Zealand’s largest and most obnoxious suburb

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Aaah, I see. Can't you attack them or something to get rid of them? Drive them out of your territory? Send them all back to England, where they came from in the first place. They are all convicts, you know. Don't turn you back on them.

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I like a Kiwi's wit!

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to be clear, i don't need to see "OnlyFans" and "Chris Best" in the same headline again.... ;-)

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I dunno, seems like seeing it once got you to click!

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I didn't "click" precisely because of "OnlyFans." Would have done so if the clickbait hadn't been present (I mean, why??)

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Yes! I am an avid livestreamer and have created large followings on Periscope (16k) before it shut down and FB (8k). Livestreaming is the way I have changed lives through my coaching practice and grow incredibly as an introvert. Re: Instagram Live: I have 128k followers on Instagram and it is my LEAST favorite platform to go live on. I like the clean connection that you have here. The fact that I can comment and this is still playing on my computer is GOLD. Having viewer data (name and email) and the ability to gate the livestream is GOLD. No other platform has ever given me the ability to email my subscribers. This is a total gamechanger. I can't wait until this rolls out to non-best sellers on this platform.

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Also: I was able to re-watch this live on 2x. EPIC time saver to have this built into to the media player.

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Video reveals all. Waving from Melbourne (Australia, not Florida)

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Melbourne is great

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It has its moments! It was great to see you two come to life. I’m not a huge video fan in general though I can see the value of bringing writers to life on this platform.

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You guys are hilarious! I would have never known this without video. Thanks for continually evolving the playground for creatives. I’m looking forward to providing more value to my subs.

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Loved it :-)

You and Chris are hilarious.

So excited for the Live video function.

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On "reading the great books" by Hamish and you Chris was a moment to cherish--as I keep listening. Still waiting for the Substack sandwich. And it is riveting and funny content. Here from a nerdy author who is accidentally funny--wish I could figure out how I do that. I've found so many folks, not only other authors, here: Gotta love what you doing and have done. How could I possibly disparage? No way!

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I just love you two!

“Having an interesting conversation” is one of the main reasons I joined Substack. As well as the enormous amount of intelligent minds. It’s mind blowing and total awesome sauce.

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Is Hamish okay?

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Probably not

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Can anyone tell me how to turn off email notifications for every single post? If it’s not possible, please talk to Chris about that

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I cannot wait to go live! So exciting! Thanks guys for supporting our careers and being so present and open here on Substack! ✨

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This is a fascinating addition to your platform, gentlemen.

I love to see people making money.

Seeing the people who are making money could be even better!

Not to rattle any cages or worse—corporate mantras—but wouldn't it make sense to let authors set their own prices here on Substack?

I point to Hugh Howey who was able to set his serialized novella "Wool" at 99¢.

(He's sailing around the world in his custom catamaran these days, so I'm not sure if he's available for comment.)

His book took off because it was well done, but at the time he was a little known author. Readers were willing to take a chance with his novella due to the low digital rate he set.

All puns intended, but the word spread.

Here is a short clip:

https://www.wsj.com/video/is-wool-the-next-hunger-games/4C410244-1FF8-4D73-8F50-41663143D3F9

Speaking for myself, I'd rather have 10k paid subscribers at 99¢ per piece than 1k paid subscribers at $10 per piece.

I can't see why Substack wouldn't want more traffic, either.

Either way, thank you for building this platform.

Regards,

Steve

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You can charge whatever price you want—you’d just have to set a discount (which you can do through your dashboard under “special offers”).

However, we set $5/month as the default minimum for two reasons:

1. Writers tend to undervalue themselves and their work, and there’s a huge difference between $2/month and $5/month to the writer even if not all that much of a psychological difference to the subscriber.

2. Stripe, our payments processor, charges a fee of 2.9% AND a flat fee of 30 cents per transaction, so if you only charge a dollar you’re giving up more than a third of the revenue for each subscription. Raising it to $5 means that the fee takes less of a bite

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I appreciate your taking time to reply to my post. Thank you.

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Has any of the authors here shared that they are making 10k a month here? Unless you were already famous to begin with, that might be quite an optimistic goal. If you are already there, please share. If not, I wish you good fortunes. $5 is better because it has already been carefully pre-planned by business experts to include the authors bottom line as well.

Plus, you would have to round up an additional 9k more quality subscribers that would have to think your product is worth spending any money on just to break even.

I think there really wasn't enough time or space in the comment section for Hamish to explain to us the in depth business model workings and financials of a tech company of this scale.

Then there’s the authors with a steady steam of $5 a month subscriptions. You be the one to tell them that you have decided that you want to significantly reduce their income… by a lot.

Feb 2024, Substack said they had 3M subscribers. What would happen when a flood of yearly subscribers cancel for refunds to jump ship for the $1 plan?

Substack's 10% cut comes off the top. From 1k to 10k subscribers per author, that's a big hit having to provide support, tech, and overhead for 90% more traffic, for the same money. I think they may have already gauged the quality of the $1 traffic as well.

In conclusion: My first thought, $5 scares off a large swath of haters and disruptors (and MAGA) that $1 would open this environment to. Commenters that you would spend x% more of your time maintaining and banning. Spend a $1, new account, hate some more.

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By far my favorite part is Chris getting distracted by the realization he can keep pressing little hearts to heart his own livestream. (And seems truly disappointed this must stop for a "discussion.")

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Is that what he was doing!!??

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