I do think Substack and its readers and writers must be missing out by not allowing the readers to buy individual articles, and setting the minimum at £5 a month. It's quite hard to justify to one's self paying £5 a month for an unspecified number of pay-walled articles. This is my only paid for substack now as it's consistently very good. I'd like to get a few more, but for less than the same money as two substack subscriptions, I got a year's subscription to The Economist. A different experience, for sure, but plenty more consistently well written content for one's money. Newspapers often offer cut price subscriptions too for less than £5 a month, offering lots of opinion columnists daily plus news, obviously, and puzzles and increasingly subscriber-only events and podcasts too. And one can get a few articles a month for free typically.
I think the minimum Substack subscription of £5 is set too high. If it were more like £3, with an option to buy individual articles at £1-£2, I could imagine spending considerably more on Substack.
I did ask them about that, as £1-2 seemed more competitive to me, which is why I set mine at the lowest possible price, but the model seems to work financially.
I pay for 3 substacks and I switch them around after a year. I did Tiabbi Razib and Darryl Cooper last year and I'm doing Ed this year and undecided on the other two. My wish is that Substack would offer a "5 subs for the price of 3" type option. I want to support writers I enjoy but it starts to add up. Especially when this comes from the same budgetary line item as Netflix and Hulu etc. Anyway, keep up the great work, Ed. I've been reading you for quite some time, buying your history books on Amazon etc.
I currently pay for four (you, Razib Khan, Rob Henderson, and Damian Counsell (the last because I think he's a good bloke, rather than because he posts a lot). I think three is about the right number. I've subscribed to both Taibbi and de Boer but both post rather too much, and I found I didn't read everything, and felt rather nagged by the emails. I think two to three posts a week is about right (maybe 10 a month). No more, because I think the point is, like reading a newspaper, exposure to different views, and besides, I was to read books too.
Anyway, I've been meaning to start my own substack for ages, and there is much good advice here. I always had the problem with blogging that I'd publish as soon as I felt I'd finished, as going back meant despair and having said everything so badly, and besides, having said it in the wrong order, and most of it quite wrong. I'll certainly bear in mind "in my experience the longer the time between first draft and publication, the better the piece."
I can't help thinking that Bryan Caplan has got his ratio wrong or is more interested in getting his message out there than making money since almost all his posts are free and he posts almost every day. Admittedly they are short posts but they're the ones I like! I sometimes feel guilty about taking advantage of his generosity yet not guilty enough to actually become a paying subscriber!
I like Konstantin Kisin but am so familiar with his views from Triggernometry that it hardly seems worth subscribing to his personal Substack.
Aporia and Ed Dutton, after starting off mainly free, both seem to be putting most of their content behind a paywall and at some point I may have to subscribe.
A month ago I became a paying subscriber to Alex Kaschuta's Substack, despite knowing she rarely puts out new content and even that soon soon becomes accessible to the hoipoloi. It was just that she is such a nice person and after having a second child probably needs paying subscribers more than, say, Robin Hanson or Konstantin.
If more of Richard Hanania's stuff was behind a paywall, and to a slightly lesser extent Rob Henderson's, I would perhaps also become a paying subscriber. Yet there comes a saturation point. If I'm going to read everything that arrives in my inbox, mostly free content but also Unherd, The Spectator and The New Culture Forum, it means I have no time to read a novel, something I like to do every once in a while. And unless you read your Substack posts immediately they go stale!
Matt Goodwin is great but I quickly get bored with figures and am less excited about predictions, no matter how accurate, than profound insights into old problems.
Rod Liddle and Douglas Murray seem to have no need for a Substack but would make a killing if they did. I can't go to YouTube without seeing Douglas Murray's face, for which I'm profoundly grateful.
But just as I couldn't bear to miss a new album by Elvis Costello when I was young, now I'm old I can't bear to miss a post by Ed. This Substack is the only one I feel that way about.
Mine pays for a monthly artisan beer supply plus some other luxuries. Which is nice for something I'd be doing anyway. Audience capture is the biggest worry. Subscriber growth for me was much faster when I was laying into the left, from a broadly left perspective. People sign up because they feel good about some invective or other that you published and then sign off again when you don't give them more of the same. My reading habit now is to only subscribe to things that offer a variety of perspectives, so that I can avoid being too vibe driven. Fwiw yours is one of very few paid subs I maintain at this point, because it fulfils that criteria.
audience capture is definitely a big problem. I think my problem is it's too tempting to write about immigration because there are too many angles not covered by the commentariat because of taboo, but I think writing too much about it makes me seem both a) tedious and b) a bit sinister when I have other interests, I just dont particularly have an original angle on them.
I think you have it about right on immigration. The Torygraph is some way down the tedious route, and bordering on the sinister. But at least they're stalwarts on Ukraine; Israel not so much.
Maybe it's because you don't succumb to playing the greatest hits all the time that you have a high standard of commenter. I'm often liking reader remarks here, whereas I'm mostly bored or slightly irritated by the comments on other conservative-leaning stacks.
I think this approach is sensible but I do think there is work to be done in honing arguments in relation to immigration that can pick the locks of the prevailing ideology. What makes this tricky is that we all agree with the ideology at a certain scale of resolution. If a singe family from foreign parts arrives in a British town we should treat them well and with civility. But if this becomes an open route to the much larger group from which they initially came it is obv. an entirely different proposition. I sometimes think its a pity that Enoch Powell's famous speech was quite so florid. Powell being a sort of British Hitler is a common view amongst normies and a good example of both the power of the prevailing ideology and why expressing these views carefully matters. He'd have been better saying the whole thing was just wildly undemocratic and did not bear to stand for that reason alone.
people debate how much he intended to provoke - he clearly knew it would send shockwaves and said to his wife on the day - but there is also the argument that he didn't really understand that most people dont understand the classics and it came across as overly excitable and extreme as a result.
Obv, Powell was sacked by Heath the day after the Birmingham speech despite his overall message resonating with three quarters of the electorate . It is said he closed out the decade as the most popular public figure in Britain. If he had not been sacked there would have been absolutely NO democratic consequence for the the Heath opposition (the opposite in fact) so it is very curious why he was sacked and it seems an early version of the elite group think on the issue detached from the electorate. In addition, Heath and other elites would have been aware that Powell was actually a reflective and erudite man - and he later gave context for his speech. See also his discussion with Jonathan Miller on Calvert I think. It seems an important moment in our incapacity to be able to discuss immigration in a sensible and open way. The events would make for an interesting article but I'm not sure if you think significant. Someone quite right wing (but not especially informed) seemed to have picked up the idea that he was virtually Hitler but without knowing why he thought that.
I subscribe to Ed because he provides an intellectual platform of great clarity and eloquence (and even occasional wit) from which we can counter the increasingly hard lies of an ideology that has suddenly set around us.
You're one of three substacks I pay for, Ed. I've just read that one of the others makes $1 million a year, so I assume your earnings are around the same.
I can't recall how I was drawn to your Substack, probably because I am interested in Saxon England. I subscribe to about a 25 and pay for 5. Honestly, the reason I recently converted to paid on your susbstack is because the good stuff is behind the paywall. There are a few others that are mostly free articles and I would become paid on some of them if they went to mostly behind the paywall.
You're definitely one of the best writers (stylistically, in your ability to surprise your readers by following your ideas to their endpoints, in your honesty) about "The Way We Live Now"; so much so that I think the subscription is a bargain. I think/hope we're evolving to a world where one makes one's own newspaper: mine is you, Bari Weiss, Matt Goodwin, an English chef who lives in Sweden and a couple who write about AIML/Statistics. It's neither the old model ("Buy this newspaper and support everything it publishes, even the stuff you loathe - mmm, another article about snowboarding in Hawaii") nor the most recent social media echo chamber ("You liked this rant by someone so here are six thousand similar rants to flick through, eyes glazed".) I almost wish Substack had been around earlier, because I'd probably have continued writing; instead, with immaculate timing, I decided to grind out a full stop just before Substack took off. (I stopped because of all the things about hackery that you list which are abominations. The letters from Telegraph readers, all nicely parcelled up and sent to my home, contained some of the foulest malevolence I have ever read. I keep them in a folder in the attic, almost-honestly too scared to throw them away lest that act would trigger some sort of Casting of the Runes revenge!) Happy Christmas Ed!
Your writing is great, Graeme, always interesting - you should definitely start a substack even if it’s just a free one as a hobby for now. And have a merry Christmas you too!
Bravo. I personally don't feel that authors should be obliged to reply to their readers' comments, but it is certainly nice when they do.
Moving the URL away from 'substack.com' is actually rather tricky in my experience and I'm surprised they haven't made it easier.
I'm surprised to read that Mr. West "doesn’t want to be too controversial," since I have long admired him as one of the few mainstream media figures genuinely willing to blaspheme against progressive dogmas, but I do appreciate the commitment to civility.
I know I would say this but I view my own opinions - esp on immigration - as being pretty mainstream and the supposedly mainstream ones as totally insane.
I appreciate that's exactly what an insane person would say though.
Thanks, I really enjoy your substack. I do follow a few others, I was a paying subscriber of Scott Alexander and I actually cancelled because he posts *too much* material, and so I just got scared off my inbox as I just felt bad about all the stuff I needed to catch up on.
Thank you very much. I read this month ago and I’m rereading it. I write columns daily for myself and publish one a week in a local paper. I may move into professional writing.
Thanks for this useful post which I've finally got around to reading. I didn't know about X blocking links which is a shame as that is my entire social media strategy blown. Yours is one of a small number of Substacks I pay to read so keep up the good work.
I started my Anti-Human Substack after mulling over doing it for a while. Oct 7th pushed me into getting started. Mine is unpaid but have been pleasantly surprised to get a couple of pledges from the US which means the money would flow if I turned on subscription. The Daily Sceptic sometimes reposts which is great. Very early days.
"In my view, much of the writing on Substack is better than newspaper comment pieces."
Very, very true. Substack has been a great discovery for me this year. Have got quite bored by newspaper columnists (with a few exceptions). Too conservative, safe and predictable, offering little new to a topic.
I'd regard myself as a liberal/centre left person who's become extremely disillusioned with what's happened to the political left and its various activists and groups. But, I loathe this government more than any other in my lifetime. What's funny (maybe not that funny...) is how often I read your writing and agree. Never thought I would considering we (probably) come at things from the opposite side of the political divide. But, having a go at 'wokeism' (or whatever we call it) is something that unites a lot of people.
Anyway, I'm rambling. I think your Blackadder post was one of my favourites. Just terrific.
Btw, the Blackadder post prompted me to watch them all again. That first series is quite bonkers. It's all over the place. Feels like it was improvised. Like watching a play by your local amateur drama centre.
Interesting to learn how the sausage gets made.
I do think Substack and its readers and writers must be missing out by not allowing the readers to buy individual articles, and setting the minimum at £5 a month. It's quite hard to justify to one's self paying £5 a month for an unspecified number of pay-walled articles. This is my only paid for substack now as it's consistently very good. I'd like to get a few more, but for less than the same money as two substack subscriptions, I got a year's subscription to The Economist. A different experience, for sure, but plenty more consistently well written content for one's money. Newspapers often offer cut price subscriptions too for less than £5 a month, offering lots of opinion columnists daily plus news, obviously, and puzzles and increasingly subscriber-only events and podcasts too. And one can get a few articles a month for free typically.
I think the minimum Substack subscription of £5 is set too high. If it were more like £3, with an option to buy individual articles at £1-£2, I could imagine spending considerably more on Substack.
I did ask them about that, as £1-2 seemed more competitive to me, which is why I set mine at the lowest possible price, but the model seems to work financially.
I pay for 3 substacks and I switch them around after a year. I did Tiabbi Razib and Darryl Cooper last year and I'm doing Ed this year and undecided on the other two. My wish is that Substack would offer a "5 subs for the price of 3" type option. I want to support writers I enjoy but it starts to add up. Especially when this comes from the same budgetary line item as Netflix and Hulu etc. Anyway, keep up the great work, Ed. I've been reading you for quite some time, buying your history books on Amazon etc.
Thank you for all your support.
I wonder if that is the way forward - to buy combinations of writers. It's definitely one option for the future.
I currently pay for four (you, Razib Khan, Rob Henderson, and Damian Counsell (the last because I think he's a good bloke, rather than because he posts a lot). I think three is about the right number. I've subscribed to both Taibbi and de Boer but both post rather too much, and I found I didn't read everything, and felt rather nagged by the emails. I think two to three posts a week is about right (maybe 10 a month). No more, because I think the point is, like reading a newspaper, exposure to different views, and besides, I was to read books too.
Anyway, I've been meaning to start my own substack for ages, and there is much good advice here. I always had the problem with blogging that I'd publish as soon as I felt I'd finished, as going back meant despair and having said everything so badly, and besides, having said it in the wrong order, and most of it quite wrong. I'll certainly bear in mind "in my experience the longer the time between first draft and publication, the better the piece."
Happy New Year.
Thank you very much, and definitely give it a go! And thanks for all the referrals BTW - at 21, you're my biggest referrer, so really appreciate it.
And happy new year to you too!
I can't help thinking that Bryan Caplan has got his ratio wrong or is more interested in getting his message out there than making money since almost all his posts are free and he posts almost every day. Admittedly they are short posts but they're the ones I like! I sometimes feel guilty about taking advantage of his generosity yet not guilty enough to actually become a paying subscriber!
I like Konstantin Kisin but am so familiar with his views from Triggernometry that it hardly seems worth subscribing to his personal Substack.
Aporia and Ed Dutton, after starting off mainly free, both seem to be putting most of their content behind a paywall and at some point I may have to subscribe.
A month ago I became a paying subscriber to Alex Kaschuta's Substack, despite knowing she rarely puts out new content and even that soon soon becomes accessible to the hoipoloi. It was just that she is such a nice person and after having a second child probably needs paying subscribers more than, say, Robin Hanson or Konstantin.
If more of Richard Hanania's stuff was behind a paywall, and to a slightly lesser extent Rob Henderson's, I would perhaps also become a paying subscriber. Yet there comes a saturation point. If I'm going to read everything that arrives in my inbox, mostly free content but also Unherd, The Spectator and The New Culture Forum, it means I have no time to read a novel, something I like to do every once in a while. And unless you read your Substack posts immediately they go stale!
Matt Goodwin is great but I quickly get bored with figures and am less excited about predictions, no matter how accurate, than profound insights into old problems.
Rod Liddle and Douglas Murray seem to have no need for a Substack but would make a killing if they did. I can't go to YouTube without seeing Douglas Murray's face, for which I'm profoundly grateful.
But just as I couldn't bear to miss a new album by Elvis Costello when I was young, now I'm old I can't bear to miss a post by Ed. This Substack is the only one I feel that way about.
Thank you so much, that means a lot to me.
Highly recommend Dutton, I have actually come around to his grim biological explanations for everything awful today.
I'm surprised Steve Sailer hasn't started one yet, especially since he's always doing fundraisers. He'd make a killing on here.
thank you!
Also, forgot to mention there *is* a kindle version of the UK edition of Saxons vs Vikings
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Saxons-versus-Vikings-Alfred-England-ebook/dp/B0CPTXFHQV/ref=tmm_kin_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=
If you like please do review on Amazon or Goodreads
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/203515515-saxons-versus-vikings
Mine pays for a monthly artisan beer supply plus some other luxuries. Which is nice for something I'd be doing anyway. Audience capture is the biggest worry. Subscriber growth for me was much faster when I was laying into the left, from a broadly left perspective. People sign up because they feel good about some invective or other that you published and then sign off again when you don't give them more of the same. My reading habit now is to only subscribe to things that offer a variety of perspectives, so that I can avoid being too vibe driven. Fwiw yours is one of very few paid subs I maintain at this point, because it fulfils that criteria.
audience capture is definitely a big problem. I think my problem is it's too tempting to write about immigration because there are too many angles not covered by the commentariat because of taboo, but I think writing too much about it makes me seem both a) tedious and b) a bit sinister when I have other interests, I just dont particularly have an original angle on them.
I think you have it about right on immigration. The Torygraph is some way down the tedious route, and bordering on the sinister. But at least they're stalwarts on Ukraine; Israel not so much.
Maybe it's because you don't succumb to playing the greatest hits all the time that you have a high standard of commenter. I'm often liking reader remarks here, whereas I'm mostly bored or slightly irritated by the comments on other conservative-leaning stacks.
there are some great comments here tbf
I think this approach is sensible but I do think there is work to be done in honing arguments in relation to immigration that can pick the locks of the prevailing ideology. What makes this tricky is that we all agree with the ideology at a certain scale of resolution. If a singe family from foreign parts arrives in a British town we should treat them well and with civility. But if this becomes an open route to the much larger group from which they initially came it is obv. an entirely different proposition. I sometimes think its a pity that Enoch Powell's famous speech was quite so florid. Powell being a sort of British Hitler is a common view amongst normies and a good example of both the power of the prevailing ideology and why expressing these views carefully matters. He'd have been better saying the whole thing was just wildly undemocratic and did not bear to stand for that reason alone.
people debate how much he intended to provoke - he clearly knew it would send shockwaves and said to his wife on the day - but there is also the argument that he didn't really understand that most people dont understand the classics and it came across as overly excitable and extreme as a result.
Obv, Powell was sacked by Heath the day after the Birmingham speech despite his overall message resonating with three quarters of the electorate . It is said he closed out the decade as the most popular public figure in Britain. If he had not been sacked there would have been absolutely NO democratic consequence for the the Heath opposition (the opposite in fact) so it is very curious why he was sacked and it seems an early version of the elite group think on the issue detached from the electorate. In addition, Heath and other elites would have been aware that Powell was actually a reflective and erudite man - and he later gave context for his speech. See also his discussion with Jonathan Miller on Calvert I think. It seems an important moment in our incapacity to be able to discuss immigration in a sensible and open way. The events would make for an interesting article but I'm not sure if you think significant. Someone quite right wing (but not especially informed) seemed to have picked up the idea that he was virtually Hitler but without knowing why he thought that.
I subscribe to Ed because he provides an intellectual platform of great clarity and eloquence (and even occasional wit) from which we can counter the increasingly hard lies of an ideology that has suddenly set around us.
thanks!
You're one of three substacks I pay for, Ed. I've just read that one of the others makes $1 million a year, so I assume your earnings are around the same.
Haha no
I can't recall how I was drawn to your Substack, probably because I am interested in Saxon England. I subscribe to about a 25 and pay for 5. Honestly, the reason I recently converted to paid on your susbstack is because the good stuff is behind the paywall. There are a few others that are mostly free articles and I would become paid on some of them if they went to mostly behind the paywall.
it's all part of the cunning plan!
You're definitely one of the best writers (stylistically, in your ability to surprise your readers by following your ideas to their endpoints, in your honesty) about "The Way We Live Now"; so much so that I think the subscription is a bargain. I think/hope we're evolving to a world where one makes one's own newspaper: mine is you, Bari Weiss, Matt Goodwin, an English chef who lives in Sweden and a couple who write about AIML/Statistics. It's neither the old model ("Buy this newspaper and support everything it publishes, even the stuff you loathe - mmm, another article about snowboarding in Hawaii") nor the most recent social media echo chamber ("You liked this rant by someone so here are six thousand similar rants to flick through, eyes glazed".) I almost wish Substack had been around earlier, because I'd probably have continued writing; instead, with immaculate timing, I decided to grind out a full stop just before Substack took off. (I stopped because of all the things about hackery that you list which are abominations. The letters from Telegraph readers, all nicely parcelled up and sent to my home, contained some of the foulest malevolence I have ever read. I keep them in a folder in the attic, almost-honestly too scared to throw them away lest that act would trigger some sort of Casting of the Runes revenge!) Happy Christmas Ed!
Your writing is great, Graeme, always interesting - you should definitely start a substack even if it’s just a free one as a hobby for now. And have a merry Christmas you too!
Bravo. I personally don't feel that authors should be obliged to reply to their readers' comments, but it is certainly nice when they do.
Moving the URL away from 'substack.com' is actually rather tricky in my experience and I'm surprised they haven't made it easier.
I'm surprised to read that Mr. West "doesn’t want to be too controversial," since I have long admired him as one of the few mainstream media figures genuinely willing to blaspheme against progressive dogmas, but I do appreciate the commitment to civility.
I know I would say this but I view my own opinions - esp on immigration - as being pretty mainstream and the supposedly mainstream ones as totally insane.
I appreciate that's exactly what an insane person would say though.
Thanks, I really enjoy your substack. I do follow a few others, I was a paying subscriber of Scott Alexander and I actually cancelled because he posts *too much* material, and so I just got scared off my inbox as I just felt bad about all the stuff I needed to catch up on.
Thank you.
Scott A is a god to me but my only problem is I'm just too stupid to understand some of the stuff he writes about.
Honoured to be maned Gen Z and not 'youthful millennial.'
Honoured to be maned Gen Z and not 'youthful millennial.'
'no caps' Tom
Thank you very much. I read this month ago and I’m rereading it. I write columns daily for myself and publish one a week in a local paper. I may move into professional writing.
Thanks for this useful post which I've finally got around to reading. I didn't know about X blocking links which is a shame as that is my entire social media strategy blown. Yours is one of a small number of Substacks I pay to read so keep up the good work.
I started my Anti-Human Substack after mulling over doing it for a while. Oct 7th pushed me into getting started. Mine is unpaid but have been pleasantly surprised to get a couple of pledges from the US which means the money would flow if I turned on subscription. The Daily Sceptic sometimes reposts which is great. Very early days.
"In my view, much of the writing on Substack is better than newspaper comment pieces."
Very, very true. Substack has been a great discovery for me this year. Have got quite bored by newspaper columnists (with a few exceptions). Too conservative, safe and predictable, offering little new to a topic.
I'd regard myself as a liberal/centre left person who's become extremely disillusioned with what's happened to the political left and its various activists and groups. But, I loathe this government more than any other in my lifetime. What's funny (maybe not that funny...) is how often I read your writing and agree. Never thought I would considering we (probably) come at things from the opposite side of the political divide. But, having a go at 'wokeism' (or whatever we call it) is something that unites a lot of people.
Anyway, I'm rambling. I think your Blackadder post was one of my favourites. Just terrific.
thank you! I lovedwriting it too, such fun.
And I probably agree about the government.
Btw, the Blackadder post prompted me to watch them all again. That first series is quite bonkers. It's all over the place. Feels like it was improvised. Like watching a play by your local amateur drama centre.