Two hundred days. Two hundred posts. Too thousand typos, grammatical mistakes, and unforced errors. And, at best, two ideas worth a damn. 198 are worthless. Check. A total wreck. A flop. Folks, if I’m the bottom. You’re the top. Just for being here most mornings.
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I’m a bottom-end Substacker. No, no. It’s true. I’m no Casey Newton. Of course, Casey’s no Casey these days. At least not here.
A while back, I looked over his greatest hits. At least based on how Substack ranks them for his blog, Platformer. Outside of his swan song trilogy and one big-ticket AI exposé, only one of his “top” 25 stories, happened in the last six months. Which means (to be far more clear), 20 of Casey’s top 25 stories date back months. In some cases, years.
Look, I’d expect old stuff to top a best-of list if the old stuff is, say, best guitar players of all time. Until a Robert Johnson-esque prodigy shows up, you know the top five will include, in no particular order: Jimi Hendrix, Jimmy Page, and Eric Clapton.
News stories for a reporter with a growing audience should get proportionately more likes and more views as the number of readers grow. So, here, something went wrong. Engagement is down. Or quality is down. Or both.
But, this isn’t Casey’s day. It’s mine. I’m thrilled that my best-of list boasts more recent fare. In fact, all of my top 200 stories happened in the last six-and-a-half-ish months. 😊
My top story is “Platformers.” A story about Casey Newton leaving Substack. Ironic, right? It was from January.
Also from January, there was “King.” It warped Martin Luther King’s incredible quote as, “It’s not about the format of your media. It’s about the character of your content.”
From just a few days ago, there’s “dna,” which uses the collapse of 23andMe to highlight how buddy-buddy boards are failing investors and founders.
unCharles isn’t a business. I don’t optimize for search. I don’t make an effort to promote these things. I use this space to develop ideas by forcing myself to nominally arrange nominal logic into failing arguments and subject it to mostly friendly public scrutiny.
I’ve learned that with a little effort, this can be a business. Casey Newton has/had 155,000 subscribers. 95% pay nothing. Five percent, or about 7500 people pay ten bucks per month. That’s $750,000 per year. Other Substackers who get to that size double their revenue with an annual event or two.
Now, I know what you’re thinking, “Sure,… but that’s Casey Newton. I’m not going to make $1,500,000.” No. No, you’re not. But, then, most jobs for journalists, reporters, copywriters, and copyeditors don’t pay half that much. So, you don’t need 7500 paying subs. With 750, you can make $75,000 per year. You won’t have a boss and you won’t deal with the musical chairs of a failing industry.
Dan Ackerman explained how CNET’s money comes from evergreen content. He’s right. My leaderboard is evergreen. Platform, King, and DNA wrap evergreen ideas in the headlines of the day. Weep is a story about getting ready to retire. My friend, Matthew, called it a “Masterpiece.” Don’t try to deny it. I kept the text. DTC and 6-Minute VC are stories investor types might come back.
Pick a topic you like or know. Say, how to furnish your home and not have it look like you rummaged eBay for recycled Ikea items. Write a story a few times a week. I’m an untrained hack and fill these pages every day. Even with a job. Certainly, you can do this every other day. Even while you do your day job or while you look for your next one.
