Pulse
In which we try to diagnose a flutter of a newsletter's heart
This is the pulse of Thinking Ahead, taken over the last 30 days:
Well, crap. Looks like it’s dying.
Some churn is normal, of course, but when you’re a tiny Substack, even small changes spur existential dread. Fortunately (?), I’m good at existential dread.
So, diagnosis, doc?
A few options:
People are simply getting tired of Thinking Ahead. Maybe, but the open rate continues to hover slightly north of 40%. So, there is a sizable chunk of you who keep reading my rambling. (Thanks, by the way.)
We’ve reached the saturation point. This is as far as it goes. The combination of topics, the writing… Perhaps Thinking Ahead doesn’t have mass appeal. That’s never been the goal, so that’s fine. And yet, 470 subscribers at the time of writing (I knew you were curious about that) suggests that the ‘sampling’ of all possible subscribers so far has been minimal.
That brings me to option three: even on the best of days, I suck at self-promo. If no one knows a newsletter exists, does it make a sound? And just like the rich get richer, it’s mostly big newsletters that get bigger. Snowball effects are not evenly distributed.
Of course, the final option is also the most obvious one. Maybe I’m the problem; it’s me (any Swifties reading this?). In the last few weeks, I wrote about fear, struggling with self-image, and the near-universal dip in life satisfaction during adulthood. Uplifting, to say the least. Will definitely go viral and draw in more subscribers. As my wonderful mother is eager to point out: I make things (too) difficult for myself.
Let me tap into the wisdom of the crowds. What’s your diagnosis for Thinking Ahead’s flatlining pulse? The poll will be open for three days.
As always, thanks for stopping by.
More soon.
More behind-the-scenes:
Amazon is a store with infinite shelf space. Substack is on the way to becoming a library/newsstand with infinite shelf space. Self-promotion is hard. I've failed at it for all of my 75 years. But it doesn't work very well anyway. Seth Godin, the guru of all things marketing, stresses the concept of a "minimum viable audience". It's exceptionally difficult to provide a plethora of topics in the hope that it will attract readers looking for a variety of topics - they already have that just by being on Substack. Instead narrow your focus to more specific interests. I would start by looking at your previous posts to see which ones got the most likes. That might help to determine your target audience. Once you know that, work to surprising and delighting just them. They will bring the others, via restocks, notes, and the like. Consider that Mark Twain didn't do horror, and Stephen King is know for it. But each were/are successful in their genre. My Substack is just a hobby, a diversion. The real writing I do for money is apps, focused on a very narrow niche. My sales are less than a rounding error on the Apple spreadsheet, but it's enough to sustain life in retirement. At least so far.
Without a life goal (or in my case an afterlife goal) people lack commitment to that goal and periodically chase shiny objects. Stay the course. Be the beacon they return to.