An Exciting Milestone
Blowing out the first year candles on this Substack!
I launched this Substack in May 2023 without a clear idea of what I was doing but I had two goals: first, to find a place to easily, quickly, and frequently publish my thoughts about how post-pandemic cities are changing; and second, to make a substantial chunk of my income through Substack.
I accomplished the first goal pretty instantly — the second I can tell is going to take a pretty long time. More on that below.
I will say that it’s been so tremendously gratifying to have about 3,000 readers, with more than 200 paying ones, each week. It really is a privilege to be in your inbox and I don’t take that position lightly. I really do cherish each subscriber and each bit of feedback I’ve gotten along the way. It’s been especially poignant to do this work after the experience of launching my book Brave New Home during the height of the pandemic when engagement levels were really low and in-person opportunities to share the book were non-existent.
So I want to say THANK YOU to everyone who is reading and making this a really fun experience. I also want to say that if you enjoy my Substack and have been reading this content for months, do not pass GO, do not collect $200, please STOP and take a minute to subscribe. It makes all the difference, and you won’t have to feel weird about not subscribing anymore! It’s great.
Without further ado, some big takeaways from my first year on Substack:
1. More isn’t necessarily more
I imagined that posting more frequent content would mean more subscribers. This hasn’t been the case. When I post twice as much content, I haven’t seen twice as many subscribers. In fact, I actually think paid subscriptions go down with more frequent content because people figure they’re getting enough content for free. This is a little frustrating, as I thought I could grow faster by producing more content. Instead, I am trying to find more ways to engage readers, produce more subscription-worthy content, and consider Substack as a marketing tool in addition to being a revenue source.
2. Free isn’t necessarily better
A lot of writers on Substack encourage you to post a lot of free content and only paywall some of it. This way you get more overall readers and then you convert people on the paywalled pieces. This may work very well if you’re writing about beauty, fashion, parenting, etc. but for a niche topic like mine, I actually don’t think this works that well.
While I will continue tinkering, I’ve found this formula for my content works best:
One totally free piece per month
Three or four articles per month with a paywall half way through
Two extra articles per month that go just to paying subscribers
3. I don’t know that Substack will ever pay the bills, but it might be a good marketing tool
When I started this endeavor a year ago, I hoped that one day my Substack revenue would be a substantial chunk of my earnings. This hasn’t really been the case. If I’m lucky I gross about $1,000 per month. But then Substack and Stripe (the credit card processor) take percentages. It’s really not much after that.
But it’s only year one! And I hope I’ll keep growing, and things may look different in five years.
That said, I’m realizing that another big value in having the Substack (aside from the personal fulfillment, which is huge) is getting my name out there on a frequent basis. I’ve seen the inquiries for speaking and writing increase in the past year (reach out at dianalindheller@gmail.com if interested!), and for that reason alone I wish I’d done this sooner.
4. I still don’t entirely know what kind of content readers really want
About 65 posts and a year later, it’s interesting to see what kind of content resonates — and how it resonates in different ways. It’s also interesting to note that the most liked article hasn’t generated a single paid subscriber! So I’m trying to balance the content that people like but won’t pay for versus the content a smaller subset of people find valuable enough to pay for.
The most “liked” article is:
The article with the most pageviews is:
The article that generated the most revenue is:
The article with the highest subscriber open rate is* (note this article had a different email subject line: The Tortured Relationship Between Cities and Sports):
5. I want to make The New Urban Order about more than just articles, but it’s hard to keep up with the other forms of engagement
I really enjoyed putting together subscriber events in D.C. and Boston last fall. I also love the idea of launching a book club this spring. I was tempted by the idea of a podcast but found editing audio took longer than editing writing. It’s hard to do these extra things, but excuses aside, I hope to continue both subscriber events and launch a book club this year. Hold me to it!
6. Substack is good for the cities conversation; it could be great
I’m heartened to see how many urbanist publications there are on Substack and I’ve enjoyed reading their content. I think we can make Substack a great platform for discourse about housing, transportation, urban tech, climate and more – even better than Twitter or Linked In. Take a look at the dozens of publications I’m reading and subscribe to them as well.
https://substack.com/@dianalind/reads
If you’ve made it this far and have been reading and enjoying my Substack the past year, please do consider upgrading!
Congratulations, Diana! Keep up the great work!
Thanks for thinking out loud. The free/paid thing is an eternal question. This summer I'm starting a similar pattern you described.