ENTER: A tale of two coffees

Where to put that paywall is a worthy struggle

Coffee #1: You go to coffee with a friend every week and every week the friend says, “It took me over an hour to get here and you just walked across the street … you pay.” You enjoy your conversations, your friend tells you stories, you laugh and talk and you always learn something, so you always agree to pay … but it niggles at you.

Coffee #2: You have another friend that you have coffee with every day and she tells amazing stories that make you feel stronger and more confident. And, what’s truly amazing is that she hands you a list of other things to read if you want more. Yesterday, her list for you had 27 links on it. You never read them, but you could. She never mentions money and you know she’s rich, but you appreciate her so much you always grab the check, even when it includes a breakfast bagel that only she ate.

This is the Substack Cafe

This morning I began to eavesdrop on the conversations beyond those two stories and this is some of what what I heard:

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And then, I got distracted by

Kathryn Vercillo

talking about the subtleties of the paywall … which spun me off thinking about what divides us … author from reader, fellow Substacker from fellow Substacker. 

My take: This subscriber business model is one of the most confusing, complicated, contradictory, and challenging aspects of Substack. 

We writers want to write, need to write. Readers want to read, need to read. People buy books … or borrow them from a library. Readers buy mini-books (magazines) which are mainly paid for by ads, and often hit paywalls when they want to read an article or story from the “biggies.” Money is the COVID of newsletters.

Information and creativity are not free; they don’t fall out of the sky … they come from the brain, time and effort of writers and creators. Yesterday, a friend ranted about a $150 bra and I came back with a story of being fitted for one that cost $600. (I didn’t buy it.)

We pay outlandish amounts for some things and cheap out on other things. Nothing that any of us do here on Substack is going to change that. That we should be paid for our creative talents and efforts is a given. That people want information/entertainment for free is also a given. That we are building relationships and starting to think of readers as our friends is a complication. Maybe that’s a critical distinction.

Are our readers friends or fans?

We can’t expect to go to Eric Clapton’s Crossroads Guitar Festival 2023 which is starting later today in LA for free. We can’t expect

Heather Cox Richardson

to give us a copy of her just released new book. Why do we give our readers our writings for free?

Answer: because most of our subscribers aren’t fans … yet. They are potential fans. And, we are trying to tease, seduce, or rationalize them into becoming fans.

Imagine John Lennon singing “Imagine there’s no … “ (insert paywall).

Substack is something like an art gallery. Everything is free to look at and enjoy. However, if you want to take something home with you; if you want to “own” it, you have to pay for it. However, lacking any physicality, it’s impossible to own a newsletter post especially when it walks into a reader’s private email box and says, “Hey, read me … oh I’m sorry … just kidding … you can’t really read me unless you pay.”

So, we’re back to the beginning … most of us want or need to make money with our writing … from people used to getting information/entertainment for nothing … without irritating their last nerve. I calculate that I’ve skimmed or read close to 50,000 posts over the past 4-5 months and I’ve grown progressively more weary and more irritated by our paywall efforts. Not the fact of paywalls as much as the method of dealing with them.

It makes me think about The Grateful Dead concerts. Although I missed that entire experience, a friend once explained to me why he had attended 26 of their concerts.

“Their concerts became places where the barrier between audience and band was broken down, with every person in the room collectively experiencing the same transcendent and entirely unplanned moment.”

—Ashwin Tharoor on The Grateful Dead

Beyond the drugs, the concerts were known for their generosity of spirit, often three hours of bringing everyone together in a common experience. Rather than all the exhortations about audiences not recording … bootlegging, taping and trading became a Grateful Dead sub-culture with even a special section for “tapers.” Ever evolving, the band became known for never playing songs the same way and these tapes became part of their living history, a platform of the community that gathered around them.

Answer #1 of “what makes a fan?” Shared experience and engagement. I think it’s safe to say that Grateful Dead fans didn’t go to a concert to sit in a chair and clap politely. Being there … the music, the crowd, the drugs, the paraphenalia made them feel part of something … made them feel alive.

Another example comes from Chenell Basilio on Growth in Reverse’s deep dive into Professor Heather Cox Richardson’s newsletter Letters from an American. The story of the rise of a history professor to super fandom and an astronomical level of revenue is well worth reading. Basilio breaks down Richardson’s three main “growth levers:”

“

1. Simplify & tell stories. Instead of simply sharing the news, she’s helping you understand why it’s important and providing content.

2. Become a habit. Not all habits are bad ones. And the way Heather writes makes her readers crave her content on a daily basis. This is a foundation for getting her readers to share and talk about her newsletter.

3. Signal vs. noise. While she writes about the news, she doesn’t write about ALL of the news. Just the stories that will matter in 100 years.

“

Answer #2 Become a habit. Professor Richardson has long been a hero that I’ve happily paid for even though she offers it for free. She has been a one-woman sanity pill during the trying political times we’re experiencing. I am a fan and read or at least skim each of her posts … every day.

The flip side: I wouldn’t dig a ditch for you unless you paid me.

I don’t want to dig ditches. I do want to write … about what I want to write about. A huge part of the joy for me is the conversation that follows the writing. While money is important for eating and paying the bills, the feeling of connection is the soul satisfying part of the process. for me. 

Thus, the question becomes: will I have more soul-satisfaction by leaving the financial gates open or installing the Demon Paywall between me and potential readers?

For the past five months I’ve waffled and wavered, lifted the gate and took it down again. I keep remembering my heroes … Maria Popova who has succeeded enormously on donations, never mentioning them except in one box that accompanies every post … and the amazing Heather Cox Richardson who never mentions payment at all except in the prompts from Substack … and has still created a stunning level of success.

And then there is the probably involvement of the Imposter Syndrome, that I’m not worthy of being paid, that I am neither Maria Popova nor Professor Richardson. Actually, that’s reality. I am me; I can only write from who I am. 

And, what if there are only 5 people in the world who might need what I might write enough to pay for it … might become fans? Would I keep writing? Of course. I wrote for 14 years on an absolutely unpaid blog. I can’t imagine not writing, whether I am read or not read.

Once again, perhaps number 27 or number 72, I go back to Settings: Payments and fill in the blanks with different words, shifting the paywall to a different place … probably to a place it has already been.

I still don’t know if this is my final answer, but I would love to hear your thoughts.

No Right … No Wrong … but Powerful

I do not believe there is a right or wrong paywall strategy. I do believe it affects the relationship you build with your readers as well as your relationship with yourself as a writer. It is a worthy struggle deciding where to put that borderline.