With the success of Substack and the many people talking about how they, with some efforts, can earn a decent living from it – it is easy to believe that it is possible for everybody.
There are many suggestions when it comes to exactly how to do it, and what is needed, such as:
Consistency, publish exactly one time per week at the same time
Write what people want to hear: self-help, juicy secrets about VIPs, sarcastic articles about politicians and billionaires
Offer chats and other personal encounters
Be kind and positive
Etc.1
Self-help and blogging gurus have plans, courses, and apparently an enormous amount of energy to put into their project – and they all succeed, even though they can tell stories about how they had a small hiccups once where they gained only a few hundred new followers in a month!
Setbacks are there to overcome, they say.
I agree. I also agree that life is a long-term project with ups and downs, and what we do with it should be mostly circling around such things that we like to do, and things that a beneficial to us. Hopefully some of these things will then also be good for others, if we happen to be people who can feel empathetic at times, but even if we are not that kinds of humans, we will probably live longer if we can avoid being a plague to our surroundings.
In other words, “long-term” is not a tough duty that we must observe in everything we do – it’s an option for those things that fit the requirements above.
It happens at times that we start doing something without knowing how it will feel to be in it, and what will happen next. We just start from one end, ready to learn from whatever appears as a result.
That is one of the beautiful things about life: tomorrow is another day, so tomorrow we can adjust the course, change the plans, or run away from it all, depending on what we see as appropriate at that time.
We do not need to be afraid of hitting a wall, as I wrote about the other day, we just find a new direction if it happens.
As for the premium plans that I had set afoot, I have decided to increase the percentage – you’ll now save all the money, not just the 50%, since I will drop the idea of monetizing the publication, for now.
This way, everybody will have access to everything I publish, and I will be free of the obligation to deliver any kind of premium contents that should bring added value over a free subscription.
Failing fast to avoid pouring tons of work, hopes, and other resources into something that doesn’t seem viable at the moment.
Later, perhaps, the publication can again offer a paid subscription. For now, I will switch the pledge option on, and if anyone uses it, I’ll then know that there could be a potential for monetization at a later time.
This way, we can all be free and completely honest to each other, not having to play the game of value. Each word will have the value of the context it is in – the phrase, the article, the time, and the space in where you are reading it.
Words will be the winners, and we, their humble followers, will be the water bearers, making certain that the words will be, and that they will be enjoyed in their own right, most of all.
And this is what matters the most to me.
I do have a clear feeling that some additional things have a huge effect, such as, looking good on photos, being famous already, caring a bit less about things, so that anything that will lead to success can be done, omitting the purely kind and friendly stuff, and a lot more. There are people who more easily can be successful in public settings than others. Just a gut feeling, but this is my experience through life, so I trust it.