A few weeks back I floated the idea of reserving the archives of the newsletter for supporters, on a rolling two-week basis. The feedback came in, and I decided not to do that. Many of you told me you bookmark articles for later reading, and that to come back to them and find they had been archived would be unpleasing. This is fair. I have been toiling with ideas to enable this newsletter to be self-sustaining. I have explored advertisements, with some success. But they tend not to be recurring. I even went so far as to write a memo last year which had a title something along the lines of “Investment Talk will never have a paywall”. I realise I now have egg on my face, but you live and learn. I suppose my thinking at the time was “I’d much rather everything stay free” and assumed the support function would allow me to sustain the newsletter for the foreseeable future.
After opening up the support function last year, I had hoped this method would work because I preferred it over hard paywalls. However, at present only 21 of the 18,700+ readers opt-in to support the newsletter. The support is well appreciated, but again it boils down to a matter of sustainability. I do put in a great deal of work maintaining this newsletter, and so going forward you might see some posts either fully or partially tucked behind a paywall. In a given month, I typically write between 4-8 memos. I imagine this may only affect 2-3 of these memos each month, so shouldn’t take away from the regular reading experience. My intention is to keep most of the work accessible, and just share a few memos each month for the supporters.
It’s not a decision I take lightly, as you may know. Back in late 2021, after a few years of writing this way, I put an end to it and focussed on refining my writing and growing the newsletter. Back then the newsletter had ~7,000 readers. Today it’s approaching 19,000. Thus, I think the decision was the right one for that moment in time. But now it’s a new moment in time, and I feel this is the right decision.
It’s a bit of a leap of faith because what I share isn’t exactly a service of any kind. It’s primarily researching, reflecting, and commenting. In this way, I still prefer to view the paywalled readers as supporters as opposed to “subscribers”. The former implies.. well.. support. The latter implies expectations. This is entirely fine, but I warn those who are expecting a great deal not to become a supporter in that case. If you’d like to support the newsletter, in a way that now brings a few modest perks for doing so, you can below.
"I even went so far as to write a memo last year which had a title something along the lines of “Investment Talk will never have a paywall”. I realise I now have egg on my face, but you live and learn"
- hahaha, you made my day, brother, respect for acknowledging your mistakes 👊🏼
I support several Substacks and subscribe to several more. Im ambivalent about making a lot of (albeit modest) yearly commitments. Authors change and then you have to go and unsubscribe.
I’ve long thought the solution is voluntary pay-per-read, post-read. Like an article? Tip the author. Really like it? Really tip. No commitment. Giving real time feedback to author on value.
The amounts can be modest. If your 18000 readers paid a penny for each read at 5 articles a week that’s $50K. A nickel is $250k.
I think the reticence with commitment control and inconvenience. Will it autorenew? What if i can’t access Substack to cancel? Etc. not necessarily rational but humans aren’t. Tipping a penny, nickel, dime or buck means control. Feedback.
I understand authors want predictability. Stickiness. But suspect my idea would bring in more revenue. Especially if readership expands.
"I even went so far as to write a memo last year which had a title something along the lines of “Investment Talk will never have a paywall”. I realise I now have egg on my face, but you live and learn"
- hahaha, you made my day, brother, respect for acknowledging your mistakes 👊🏼
✍️🚀🙏
Done. Loved the Greggs article - more like that would be beautiful.
Love your work mate, happy to try and help and support!
Happy to be a paid subscriber. Great work Conor, keep it up.
I support several Substacks and subscribe to several more. Im ambivalent about making a lot of (albeit modest) yearly commitments. Authors change and then you have to go and unsubscribe.
I’ve long thought the solution is voluntary pay-per-read, post-read. Like an article? Tip the author. Really like it? Really tip. No commitment. Giving real time feedback to author on value.
The amounts can be modest. If your 18000 readers paid a penny for each read at 5 articles a week that’s $50K. A nickel is $250k.
I think the reticence with commitment control and inconvenience. Will it autorenew? What if i can’t access Substack to cancel? Etc. not necessarily rational but humans aren’t. Tipping a penny, nickel, dime or buck means control. Feedback.
I understand authors want predictability. Stickiness. But suspect my idea would bring in more revenue. Especially if readership expands.
Just a thought.
Hard work and value created deserved to be paid for -- it's fine to experiment with models and different balances and such 👍