I was once, perhaps, considered a rising star on Substack, but I think “someone” noticed my work and pegged me as a threat to the Establishment, which I think explains my plummeting Substack metrics.
Heck, I think this article should "go viral" - at least in the sub-universe of "Covid Contrarians" which must still include more than a million readers and hundreds of excellent Substack authors.
At Charles Henderson High School, I was taught in composition classes to provide evidence to support my thesis. Well, here you go ... these subscriber statistics show what was once possible and, I think, show the abrupt changes that have occurred for authors who specialize in "debunking bogus narratives."
Previous major boosts in paid subscribers:
* Dec. 11, 2022 to Dec. 14, 2022 (4 days): 32 paid subscribers to 65 - plus 33 paid subscribers
Note: My December 12, 2022 article - “What I’ve learned in 80 days as a Substack author” - produced 524 (!) total subscribers
***
* January 2nd, 2024 to January 9, 2024 (8 days): 203 paid subscribers to 249 - plus 46 paid subscribers .
Note: On Jan. 5th, 2024, I published a piece with the headline “And So it Begins,” an article, ironically enough, that was on Substack metric trends. Significantly, this particular article was cross-posted by Robert Malone.
According to Substack metrics, this article produced 220 total subscribers, including 35 paid subscribers, which, I think, is the most paid subscribers one of my articles has ever generated. I added another 11 net paid subscribers in the same 8-day time period.
Also, this article produced more than 1,150 "likes" and 640 reader comments. It was cross-posted 140 times.
Bill, I’m responding as someone who genuinely values your work and the time you put into it. I read you because I appreciate independent thinking, long-form analysis, and the willingness to question dominant narratives. That hasn’t changed for me.
I don’t dismiss the idea that platforms shape visibility. We’ve all watched algorithms quietly steer attention, reward certain viewpoints, and bury others. That reality alone makes people understandably suspicious when metrics shift in ways that feel unexplained or unfair.
Where I gently part company with you is the jump from troubling metrics to the conclusion that you personally are being targeted as a uniquely dangerous voice. I can understand why it feels that way when you’ve invested years of effort and watched engagement fall off so sharply. Still, I’m not convinced the available evidence supports that specific conclusion yet.
There are a lot of possible explanations that don’t involve coordinated suppression. Reader behavior has changed dramatically over the last few years. Attention is fractured. People skim more, comment less, and often stay subscribed even when they engage quietly or irregularly. The internet is also crowded now with contrarian voices in a way it wasn’t during peak Covid, which naturally spreads attention thinner.
Audience culture matters too. Some newsletters develop highly interactive comment communities, while others attract quieter readers who absorb content without clicking like or joining the discussion. That difference alone can skew comparisons even when subscriber counts look similar.
I also think it’s healthy for all of us, especially independent thinkers, to keep applying skepticism inward as well as outward. Metrics can tell part of a story, but they can also mislead when we attach meaning too quickly.
Where I strongly agree with you is that freedom of reach matters, and that opaque platforms create distrust because no one really knows how decisions are being made behind the scenes. Transparency would go a long way toward restoring confidence.
I’m still here because I find value in what you write. I don’t see someone who has lost their voice, their clarity, or their relevance. I see someone navigating a media environment that is noisy, fragmented, and constantly shifting in ways that can feel personal even when they may not be.
Sometimes the explanation really is structural change and human behavior rather than intentional targeting. That may be less dramatic, but it’s often closer to the truth.
I appreciate the work you continue to put out, and I hope you keep writing.
Kim that is a great comment. Things are usually more nuanced than we immediately see.
Bill is heroic in his continued work and is also one of the most generous people around, helping to spread awareness of other writers, for example.
When I compare my "reach" to his, it is miniscule. Things are relative.
Your point about the space being filled with more voices on the shared topic is well put. It could be that more and more effort is required to maintain a certain level of proof.
This was really bothering me recently, but I have tried to keep it in check somehow. The best I have is believing that I am helping to build an archive, a library if you will, and our posts will be there if someone comes looking. Could be naive, but it makes me feel better.
I think the same thing, cso. Maybe somebody in the future will see an important story I wrote. Hopefully, the “right person.” This much we know - nobody will see it if we don’t write it. At least Substack makes me want to write … and when I write I have to put on my thinking cap (which is my Master’s hat).
Thank you, that’s very kind of you to say. I agree with you about nuance. It’s usually where the real truth lives, even when it’s less satisfying than a clean explanation.
I also agree that Bill is generous and consistent in lifting up other writers. That matters more than most people realize, especially in a space that can easily become competitive or siloed.
Your point about relative reach is important too. Perspective can get lost when we’re staring at our own numbers instead of the wider landscape. Someone always looks bigger or smaller depending on where you’re standing.
I really like what you said about building an archive or a library. I don’t think that’s naive at all. In many ways it may be the most realistic way to look at independent writing now. Not everything is about immediate traction or applause. Sometimes the value shows up later, when the right person goes looking for something that was quietly preserved.
It sounds like you’re approaching this in a healthy way by keeping the worry in check and staying focused on the work itself. That mindset probably keeps the writing honest and sustainable.
I appreciate you sharing that perspective. It genuinely helps.
Thank you Kim. It is difficult at times to remember what is most important in our work. The structures we find ourselves performing in lead us into certain perspectives. The art, is in bringing the essential into any environment. But that requires vigilance, mainly of self. And these places are distracting.
I suspect you are being shadow-banned by Substack due to your subversive yet well reported content. Or as you say, “powerful and psychopathic villains have identified the writers and public figures with the potential to ruin their lives and defeat their plans.”
Hence I now subscribe to protest your being unjustly sidelined.
I appreciate being included in the analysis! I've shared my theories/thoughts on this with you before; I honestly don't think it's a big plot to censor writers like us. The space just got INUNDATED. Quickly and completely. People had to pick/choose who they could support--because few of us can bankroll every writer we read/enjoy, as much as we'd love to.
(I literally had to ask people to stop recommending FREE stacks to me. I just can't keep up!!!)
My numbers have continued to grow steadily. I saw the biggest change when I committed to posting daily (it helped losing my day job LOL) and when I added a one-day-a-week post for paid subs only. You can get 80% of me for free, or pony up and get it ALL. That drives some conversions for sure (although it's bittersweet because obviously those posts get a fraction of the traffic/comments).
The other thing is, I stay in my lane--which is current events from a snarky/conservative perspective. You cross-post a lot (thank you!) and do some humor here and some contrarian there with a whole lot of substack-metrics-analysis sprinkled in. Each one of those may earn you a new sub (ooh! I love substack metrics!) that you then lose when you publish the OTHER sorts of content.
Just a(nother) theory.
Maybe you start another stack (I know!) where you ONLY talk about SS growth/numbers... I'm sure tons of SSers would be interested in your diligent work... then get back to this page being all-contrarian-all-the-time?
Thanks, Jenna. From my analysis of Substack metrics of "Covid Contrarians" I've gleaned that your newsletter is doing far better than most of our colleagues in the last year (based on total subscribers and "likes" and Reader Comments).
I'm like you in that I post a new story almost every day. It may seem like it, but only a small percentage of my articles are on "Curious Substack metrics."
For example, in today's article, I cite my metrics for my last three articles, which were on:
- "What-About-Ism" (I think I might be the first Substacker who has ever penned an essay on that subject).
- A feature story on the back story of Kait Justice, a citizen journalist who is breaking lots of Epstein scoops.
- A feature story on the lady who convinced RFK, Jr. to start researching the safety of vaccines.
Recently, I've done stories on mixed-race couples in TV commercials, Early Spread as it relates to events in Wuhan, the Clintons blowing off their Congressional subpoena, and a story on the "Soundtrack" that describes my life.
I think my stories on "curious Substack metrics" are an example of my originality. Substack has more than 20,000 newsletter authors and I bet only about 5 to 10 have focussed on these trend changes, which (IMO) are very important because the only citizen journalism that might make a difference is happening on Substack.
Also, I do have a second Substack - The Troy Citizen - which has a heavy focus on local feature stories, local history and local sports (no controversial embalmers' clots stories at that newsletter). My Troy Citizen Substack is a work-around I came up with because I kept losing paid subscribers at my national site.
It might go. Most of my recent Substack metric stories are now ratings flops, but at one time they produced huge numbers. It is a topic I was trying to make a niche … like early spread.
Jenna also consistently makes me laugh HARD, usually out loud, sometimes even at 3 a.m. here among all the housemates needed to afford living in Hawaii. After getting up to pee for my oldmanitis, of course. So there's that. 👍
I think your thermo-nuclear topic was the clots. Have you checked for any correlation of timing between broaching that subject and your apparent censorship? A lot of the other Covid era taboos are now receiving wider coverage. Not the clots. Haviland has said even the embalmers are going quiet. IMO it is THE topic they don’t want going mainstream.
Just so you know, your frank and informative writings on the clots were what made me subscribe. I don’t really pay attention to your other Stacks. My bad.
I think my trend reversals do roughly align with when I started pounding out clot stories. Also … strange trends on Substack. Early spread - proven - is far more thermo nuclear than many people might realize. There are other characteristics of my writing that might alarm the people I want to expose and purge or ruin. Part 2 might be just as long.
Nancy, I agree 100% with your assessment on Bill's "thermo-nuclear topic was the clots'! This is the most revealing and incriminating topic that Bill has posted about on his substacks. Bill has been fearless and tenacious in exposing the clots as the "smoking gun" that no one else (except for Haviland and Laura) has the courage to persistently focus attention on through his substack posts. The Powers That Be are definitely censoring as much as they are able to prevent any main stream media outlets to even mention this topic and it appears that no member of Congress (except for Senator Ron Johnson) or any Federal official in any of the Trump administration agencies (i.e. HHS, FDA, CDC) are acknowledging the indisputable evidence of the clots revealed by the some of the courageous embalmers that have come forward with the truth and evidence as Bill has reported on repeatedly in his substacks! I believe that the potential manipulation of substack subscribers via the behind-the -scenes monitors of substack posts have Bill at the top of their "Watch List" once he started posting about the calamari clots.
Thanks for commenting Karen. Allow me to cite a prime example that the clots are numero-uno on the taboo list. “X” is likely the worlds leading media outlet at this point. Though it’s not entirely without censorship, one will routinely find discussions on myocarditis, increased all cause mortality, turbo cancer, kidney failure, 9-11 being an inside job, Zionist’s planning October 7th, etc. All pretty thermonuclear right? I can’t remember ever seeing a thread on the clots. So even Elon won’t acknowledge them. I do see coverage of the clots on Telegram for what that’s worth.
You are not alone, Bill. I have been battling a multifrontal censorship assault that includes the erasure of *all* my Substack articles across *all* searches on nearly every hide engine since summer 2024. This correlates with plummeting paid subscriptions (24.2% loss of gross annualized revenue as of today, which is comparable to the loss the previous year), free subscribers, and engagement (comments, likes, shares, etc.).
Debbie Lerman documented some of my censorship in this article (I have a more detailed one in the works myself):
Presearch is the only search engine that has made a concerted effort to add my Substack articles back to their search results after Google purged them as we discussed in a recent interview:
I speculated about some of the causes of nosediving Substack subscriptions and engagement in a comment on one of your previous articles about dissident writers losing subscribers, and I think many of these reasons still apply to the Substack metrics (if not the external censorship targeting):
Do you comment at other's? Substack sends metrics and I'm much smaller than you (and free) but if I comment I sometimes see a new subscriber. My open rate is about 25%.
We all probably have much smaller Open Rates than 2 or three years ago for the simple reason there's so many more Substack newsletters and so many readers subsribe to so many newsletters. My Open Rate used to range from 40 to 50 percent and now ranges from 25 to 36 percent. This is kind of strange to me as there are certain authors I really enjoy and I read their content 70 percent of the time.
I guess a key is to be in the "must-read" group of authors.
I think a good or provocative headline helps the Open Rate. Still, my "likes" expressed as a ratio of my readers has gone down significantly. It would seem like that metric would be fairly constant. Expressed differently, the same number of "reads" used to produce much higher numbers of "likes" and many more Reader Comments.
I'm going to bet it's because of the stories about the clots. You should do an analysis and see if there's temporal alignment of some kind with the stories about the clots.
Bill, I referred you to the extraordinarily important work of David A. Hughes, perhaps a year or more ago. He recently decided to ditch his Substack newsletter, for the reasons, and others as well, that you are describing in your post today. He refuses to go along with the shadowbanning and other totalitarian machinations in which he is absolutely certain Substack participates. He now publishes his work from a website of his own. I humbly advise you to seriously consider doing the same. In case you don't know where to find his work, now that he has discontinued his Substack newsletter, it is at davidhughes.net, and you can contact him at dahughes@mail.mymidnight.blog.
Thanks, Truthbird. I do need to start my own website. However, I'm not tech-savy so I would have to pay someone to do it for me. Alas, I don't have any spare disposable income so I can't do this. (Right now I have $254 in my checking account with 16 days left in the month - thus my current "subscription drive"). It's kind of a Catch-22.
I will say the real truth-seekers need a Plan B or a work-around for Substack.
I just messed up and checked my paid subscriber metrics. When I ran my "subscription drive" article a couple of days ago, I had 256 paid subscribers. I've added three new paid subscribers (thank you). However, my new numbers show I now have 254 paid subscribers. So I added three new subscribers, but, through attrition, lost five paid subscribers - so I'm down two (net) paid subscribers.
I've lost 32 total subscribers in about a week. I might be done with subscription drives. They used to "work," but now they seem to backfire.
This is proof positive that you are being attacked (or "shadow-banned," if you prefer that terminology,) Bill!
I have been a paid subscriber to your Substack for quite a while (ever since I became aware of your work) and I will continue to be one, as long as you continue to create it, but I would be happier to subscribe, on either a monthly or a yearly basis, to a website which was owned by you, yourself. I absolutely do NOT trust Substack!
Bill, perhaps you should consider setting up a give-send-go fund, to raise money so that you really can have your own website. I would absolutely contribute to it, generously. And I imagine many others who truly value your work would likewise do so. Please, consider this!
Setting up a Wordpress.org instance on your own domain hosted on a mom-and-pop website provider is not expensive. Here in Finland it can run to about EUR15 for a domain name per year and EUR127 for a decent web hosting per year that can be paid monthly with a small premium. Setting up a wordpress site is easy enough and rewarding. Just click on all the settings tabs and menu options and fill in all the blanks. Installing wordpress in typically a single click and a few settings on cPanel (I have used this on many sites) and WHM web tools. I AM prepared to do the initial setup with you for your site using generic themes and common plug-ins for no money, not on a rush timeline but methodically together with no stress to either of us. Stay away from big web providers like GoDaddy, perhaps even look for a local provider in your area, while most of them are reselling Amazon or similar server resources they provide a level of abstraction and personal service that can be comforting and more rational. When it is set up you could change passwords and manage it yourself without much pain. Posting a blog is about as much work as doing so on Wordpress and you can link to cross posts easily.
I also recommend you look around for a suitable Mastodon instance to create an account on and post announcements of your wordpress and substack posts so people on other platforms can find you, I had a account on a small niche server that went dark but have so few followers there or here that it does not matter. Some instances are woke and propaganda attached but there may be a reliable larger instance that you can create an account, they are typically free. The new entrant to censorship free platforms is PickAx dot com and while it may end up fading away it is an expanding market that I also think it worth setting up a presence just to announce your posts. They plan to have paid blogging system soon.
Simulation Commander has a lively, engaged board and speaks to the MAGA base. it's shocking to learn that SC has only 6,500 subscribers
Mark Oshinskie is arguably the best writer on substack. just as shocking to learn that he has only 5,800 subscribers, especially after almost 6 years on the platform
Jenna McCarthy is so funny that she could probably make a killing doing standup. to think that she has only 9,300 is just as mystifying.
Bill, as long as I have known you on Substack, I have found your writing to always be on point, which is to say, you have researched topics that the powers that be wanted to keep Americans in the dark about.
Yes sir, I am absolutely sure that you've ruffled many feathers, especially your articles on Covid origins and even more likely on the Clots.
With some estimates quoted as saying 72% of Americans took those damn Clot Shots, consider for a moment if you were one of them if you would want to seek out a Substack Author who has made the correlation between those Covid Shots and the Clots being pulled out of cadavers.
I understand your wanting to reach as many folks as possible, and educate them before they continue to degrade their health with the poison injections, however, that large segment of the population that were so scared they were going to die and bought the psyop and that narrative, they now mostly want to forget the stupidity they saw in themselves when they rushed to put that untested, unknown ingredients mixture into their blood veins.
Many, like me had only 3 or 4 vaccines in the 1950's and 1960's, and when Fauci was on the television telling everyone to stay up with your shots and boosters, many my age kept taking shot after shot after shot.
Insanity.
All I can say Bill is obsess less about the likes and comments and keep doing what you are doing as long as you feel like you want to.
You've been effective. Continue to be effective. Listen to your fellow writers.
It's a dirty job and you have been so good at it that you have likely reached more folks than you'll ever realize.
Screw those who would somehow shut you up or down.
Be proud of your accomplishments.
Put your best work in a book and put it out there for all time, like Mark Oshinskie.
I'm quite sure your "spidey sense" is correct, Bill. I must add that it seems to me that I rarely receive posts from you any longer, and I think this has been true for quite a while (many months.) I also need to tell you that I have found your work to be of consistently high quality, and never have I thought your posts were too lengthy.
I am acknowledged by Substack to be your subscriber, but recently I have had to re-subscribe to four other Substacks that I was already subscribed to. I doubt you are alone.
Also, in order to post this comment (and one to another person's substack today), Substack made me re-submit my profile information both times and re-subscribe to your newsletter.
Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they aren't out to get you. How far do you think Malcolm X would have gotten on Substack? I'm getting more and more subscribers with fewer reads but more comments and likes? Now how does that work? https://timothywiney.substack.com/p/disorder-in-the-court
I cannot comment on the idea of nefarious actors, but you are hardly the only writer ploughing this furrow. Why would you be singled out? There may be something in the ‘tome/style’ argument, perhaps, and that certainly comes over by comparison with Jenna, for example. As a subscriber all I can do is wish you luck, I’m afraid
Heck, I think this article should "go viral" - at least in the sub-universe of "Covid Contrarians" which must still include more than a million readers and hundreds of excellent Substack authors.
At Charles Henderson High School, I was taught in composition classes to provide evidence to support my thesis. Well, here you go ... these subscriber statistics show what was once possible and, I think, show the abrupt changes that have occurred for authors who specialize in "debunking bogus narratives."
Previous major boosts in paid subscribers:
* Dec. 11, 2022 to Dec. 14, 2022 (4 days): 32 paid subscribers to 65 - plus 33 paid subscribers
Note: My December 12, 2022 article - “What I’ve learned in 80 days as a Substack author” - produced 524 (!) total subscribers
***
* January 2nd, 2024 to January 9, 2024 (8 days): 203 paid subscribers to 249 - plus 46 paid subscribers .
Note: On Jan. 5th, 2024, I published a piece with the headline “And So it Begins,” an article, ironically enough, that was on Substack metric trends. Significantly, this particular article was cross-posted by Robert Malone.
According to Substack metrics, this article produced 220 total subscribers, including 35 paid subscribers, which, I think, is the most paid subscribers one of my articles has ever generated. I added another 11 net paid subscribers in the same 8-day time period.
Also, this article produced more than 1,150 "likes" and 640 reader comments. It was cross-posted 140 times.
Bill, I’m responding as someone who genuinely values your work and the time you put into it. I read you because I appreciate independent thinking, long-form analysis, and the willingness to question dominant narratives. That hasn’t changed for me.
I don’t dismiss the idea that platforms shape visibility. We’ve all watched algorithms quietly steer attention, reward certain viewpoints, and bury others. That reality alone makes people understandably suspicious when metrics shift in ways that feel unexplained or unfair.
Where I gently part company with you is the jump from troubling metrics to the conclusion that you personally are being targeted as a uniquely dangerous voice. I can understand why it feels that way when you’ve invested years of effort and watched engagement fall off so sharply. Still, I’m not convinced the available evidence supports that specific conclusion yet.
There are a lot of possible explanations that don’t involve coordinated suppression. Reader behavior has changed dramatically over the last few years. Attention is fractured. People skim more, comment less, and often stay subscribed even when they engage quietly or irregularly. The internet is also crowded now with contrarian voices in a way it wasn’t during peak Covid, which naturally spreads attention thinner.
Audience culture matters too. Some newsletters develop highly interactive comment communities, while others attract quieter readers who absorb content without clicking like or joining the discussion. That difference alone can skew comparisons even when subscriber counts look similar.
I also think it’s healthy for all of us, especially independent thinkers, to keep applying skepticism inward as well as outward. Metrics can tell part of a story, but they can also mislead when we attach meaning too quickly.
Where I strongly agree with you is that freedom of reach matters, and that opaque platforms create distrust because no one really knows how decisions are being made behind the scenes. Transparency would go a long way toward restoring confidence.
I’m still here because I find value in what you write. I don’t see someone who has lost their voice, their clarity, or their relevance. I see someone navigating a media environment that is noisy, fragmented, and constantly shifting in ways that can feel personal even when they may not be.
Sometimes the explanation really is structural change and human behavior rather than intentional targeting. That may be less dramatic, but it’s often closer to the truth.
I appreciate the work you continue to put out, and I hope you keep writing.
Kim that is a great comment. Things are usually more nuanced than we immediately see.
Bill is heroic in his continued work and is also one of the most generous people around, helping to spread awareness of other writers, for example.
When I compare my "reach" to his, it is miniscule. Things are relative.
Your point about the space being filled with more voices on the shared topic is well put. It could be that more and more effort is required to maintain a certain level of proof.
This was really bothering me recently, but I have tried to keep it in check somehow. The best I have is believing that I am helping to build an archive, a library if you will, and our posts will be there if someone comes looking. Could be naive, but it makes me feel better.
I think the same thing, cso. Maybe somebody in the future will see an important story I wrote. Hopefully, the “right person.” This much we know - nobody will see it if we don’t write it. At least Substack makes me want to write … and when I write I have to put on my thinking cap (which is my Master’s hat).
Good point Bill. It's like the old basketball saying - "you miss 100% of the shots you don't take".
However, I like to flip that saying around and make it a good thing ... if one applies not taking a shot to covid ... don't miss it at all.
csofand— not naive at all. Spot on. This is a war of narratives fought over time.
Thank you REofA!
Thank you, that’s very kind of you to say. I agree with you about nuance. It’s usually where the real truth lives, even when it’s less satisfying than a clean explanation.
I also agree that Bill is generous and consistent in lifting up other writers. That matters more than most people realize, especially in a space that can easily become competitive or siloed.
Your point about relative reach is important too. Perspective can get lost when we’re staring at our own numbers instead of the wider landscape. Someone always looks bigger or smaller depending on where you’re standing.
I really like what you said about building an archive or a library. I don’t think that’s naive at all. In many ways it may be the most realistic way to look at independent writing now. Not everything is about immediate traction or applause. Sometimes the value shows up later, when the right person goes looking for something that was quietly preserved.
It sounds like you’re approaching this in a healthy way by keeping the worry in check and staying focused on the work itself. That mindset probably keeps the writing honest and sustainable.
I appreciate you sharing that perspective. It genuinely helps.
Thank you Kim. It is difficult at times to remember what is most important in our work. The structures we find ourselves performing in lead us into certain perspectives. The art, is in bringing the essential into any environment. But that requires vigilance, mainly of self. And these places are distracting.
Thank you for that great response Kim.
I suspect you are being shadow-banned by Substack due to your subversive yet well reported content. Or as you say, “powerful and psychopathic villains have identified the writers and public figures with the potential to ruin their lives and defeat their plans.”
Hence I now subscribe to protest your being unjustly sidelined.
Thank you, David!
I appreciate being included in the analysis! I've shared my theories/thoughts on this with you before; I honestly don't think it's a big plot to censor writers like us. The space just got INUNDATED. Quickly and completely. People had to pick/choose who they could support--because few of us can bankroll every writer we read/enjoy, as much as we'd love to.
(I literally had to ask people to stop recommending FREE stacks to me. I just can't keep up!!!)
My numbers have continued to grow steadily. I saw the biggest change when I committed to posting daily (it helped losing my day job LOL) and when I added a one-day-a-week post for paid subs only. You can get 80% of me for free, or pony up and get it ALL. That drives some conversions for sure (although it's bittersweet because obviously those posts get a fraction of the traffic/comments).
The other thing is, I stay in my lane--which is current events from a snarky/conservative perspective. You cross-post a lot (thank you!) and do some humor here and some contrarian there with a whole lot of substack-metrics-analysis sprinkled in. Each one of those may earn you a new sub (ooh! I love substack metrics!) that you then lose when you publish the OTHER sorts of content.
Just a(nother) theory.
Maybe you start another stack (I know!) where you ONLY talk about SS growth/numbers... I'm sure tons of SSers would be interested in your diligent work... then get back to this page being all-contrarian-all-the-time?
That's all I got. ;)
Thanks, Jenna. From my analysis of Substack metrics of "Covid Contrarians" I've gleaned that your newsletter is doing far better than most of our colleagues in the last year (based on total subscribers and "likes" and Reader Comments).
I'm like you in that I post a new story almost every day. It may seem like it, but only a small percentage of my articles are on "Curious Substack metrics."
For example, in today's article, I cite my metrics for my last three articles, which were on:
- "What-About-Ism" (I think I might be the first Substacker who has ever penned an essay on that subject).
- A feature story on the back story of Kait Justice, a citizen journalist who is breaking lots of Epstein scoops.
- A feature story on the lady who convinced RFK, Jr. to start researching the safety of vaccines.
Recently, I've done stories on mixed-race couples in TV commercials, Early Spread as it relates to events in Wuhan, the Clintons blowing off their Congressional subpoena, and a story on the "Soundtrack" that describes my life.
I think my stories on "curious Substack metrics" are an example of my originality. Substack has more than 20,000 newsletter authors and I bet only about 5 to 10 have focussed on these trend changes, which (IMO) are very important because the only citizen journalism that might make a difference is happening on Substack.
Also, I do have a second Substack - The Troy Citizen - which has a heavy focus on local feature stories, local history and local sports (no controversial embalmers' clots stories at that newsletter). My Troy Citizen Substack is a work-around I came up with because I kept losing paid subscribers at my national site.
I'm a data guy and I'd love to see a "SS growth/numbers" substack. I think other substack authors would find it useful and interesting.
It might go. Most of my recent Substack metric stories are now ratings flops, but at one time they produced huge numbers. It is a topic I was trying to make a niche … like early spread.
Once again Jenna, I think you nailed it!
🤗🩷
Jenna also consistently makes me laugh HARD, usually out loud, sometimes even at 3 a.m. here among all the housemates needed to afford living in Hawaii. After getting up to pee for my oldmanitis, of course. So there's that. 👍
Like and comment just to let you know someone's reading your newsletter.
Thank you. Proof of readership!
I have no doubt you are being censored. I just wish you and others like you knew how to do something about it.
I think your thermo-nuclear topic was the clots. Have you checked for any correlation of timing between broaching that subject and your apparent censorship? A lot of the other Covid era taboos are now receiving wider coverage. Not the clots. Haviland has said even the embalmers are going quiet. IMO it is THE topic they don’t want going mainstream.
Just so you know, your frank and informative writings on the clots were what made me subscribe. I don’t really pay attention to your other Stacks. My bad.
I think my trend reversals do roughly align with when I started pounding out clot stories. Also … strange trends on Substack. Early spread - proven - is far more thermo nuclear than many people might realize. There are other characteristics of my writing that might alarm the people I want to expose and purge or ruin. Part 2 might be just as long.
Could be the clots are too freaky a subject for many. Not for me, though.
Nancy, I agree 100% with your assessment on Bill's "thermo-nuclear topic was the clots'! This is the most revealing and incriminating topic that Bill has posted about on his substacks. Bill has been fearless and tenacious in exposing the clots as the "smoking gun" that no one else (except for Haviland and Laura) has the courage to persistently focus attention on through his substack posts. The Powers That Be are definitely censoring as much as they are able to prevent any main stream media outlets to even mention this topic and it appears that no member of Congress (except for Senator Ron Johnson) or any Federal official in any of the Trump administration agencies (i.e. HHS, FDA, CDC) are acknowledging the indisputable evidence of the clots revealed by the some of the courageous embalmers that have come forward with the truth and evidence as Bill has reported on repeatedly in his substacks! I believe that the potential manipulation of substack subscribers via the behind-the -scenes monitors of substack posts have Bill at the top of their "Watch List" once he started posting about the calamari clots.
Thanks for commenting Karen. Allow me to cite a prime example that the clots are numero-uno on the taboo list. “X” is likely the worlds leading media outlet at this point. Though it’s not entirely without censorship, one will routinely find discussions on myocarditis, increased all cause mortality, turbo cancer, kidney failure, 9-11 being an inside job, Zionist’s planning October 7th, etc. All pretty thermonuclear right? I can’t remember ever seeing a thread on the clots. So even Elon won’t acknowledge them. I do see coverage of the clots on Telegram for what that’s worth.
You are not alone, Bill. I have been battling a multifrontal censorship assault that includes the erasure of *all* my Substack articles across *all* searches on nearly every hide engine since summer 2024. This correlates with plummeting paid subscriptions (24.2% loss of gross annualized revenue as of today, which is comparable to the loss the previous year), free subscribers, and engagement (comments, likes, shares, etc.).
Debbie Lerman documented some of my censorship in this article (I have a more detailed one in the works myself):
• https://debbielerman.substack.com/p/is-substack-a-censored-platform
Presearch is the only search engine that has made a concerted effort to add my Substack articles back to their search results after Google purged them as we discussed in a recent interview:
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LGiztzAMeUE
I speculated about some of the causes of nosediving Substack subscriptions and engagement in a comment on one of your previous articles about dissident writers losing subscribers, and I think many of these reasons still apply to the Substack metrics (if not the external censorship targeting):
• https://billricejr.substack.com/p/why-did-something-change-on-substack/comment/104179649
Do you comment at other's? Substack sends metrics and I'm much smaller than you (and free) but if I comment I sometimes see a new subscriber. My open rate is about 25%.
We all probably have much smaller Open Rates than 2 or three years ago for the simple reason there's so many more Substack newsletters and so many readers subsribe to so many newsletters. My Open Rate used to range from 40 to 50 percent and now ranges from 25 to 36 percent. This is kind of strange to me as there are certain authors I really enjoy and I read their content 70 percent of the time.
I guess a key is to be in the "must-read" group of authors.
I think a good or provocative headline helps the Open Rate. Still, my "likes" expressed as a ratio of my readers has gone down significantly. It would seem like that metric would be fairly constant. Expressed differently, the same number of "reads" used to produce much higher numbers of "likes" and many more Reader Comments.
I'm going to bet it's because of the stories about the clots. You should do an analysis and see if there's temporal alignment of some kind with the stories about the clots.
I will go into that in detail in part 2 - that is one story I come back to all the time that might make me a threat.
Bill, I referred you to the extraordinarily important work of David A. Hughes, perhaps a year or more ago. He recently decided to ditch his Substack newsletter, for the reasons, and others as well, that you are describing in your post today. He refuses to go along with the shadowbanning and other totalitarian machinations in which he is absolutely certain Substack participates. He now publishes his work from a website of his own. I humbly advise you to seriously consider doing the same. In case you don't know where to find his work, now that he has discontinued his Substack newsletter, it is at davidhughes.net, and you can contact him at dahughes@mail.mymidnight.blog.
Thanks, Truthbird. I do need to start my own website. However, I'm not tech-savy so I would have to pay someone to do it for me. Alas, I don't have any spare disposable income so I can't do this. (Right now I have $254 in my checking account with 16 days left in the month - thus my current "subscription drive"). It's kind of a Catch-22.
I will say the real truth-seekers need a Plan B or a work-around for Substack.
I just messed up and checked my paid subscriber metrics. When I ran my "subscription drive" article a couple of days ago, I had 256 paid subscribers. I've added three new paid subscribers (thank you). However, my new numbers show I now have 254 paid subscribers. So I added three new subscribers, but, through attrition, lost five paid subscribers - so I'm down two (net) paid subscribers.
I've lost 32 total subscribers in about a week. I might be done with subscription drives. They used to "work," but now they seem to backfire.
This is proof positive that you are being attacked (or "shadow-banned," if you prefer that terminology,) Bill!
I have been a paid subscriber to your Substack for quite a while (ever since I became aware of your work) and I will continue to be one, as long as you continue to create it, but I would be happier to subscribe, on either a monthly or a yearly basis, to a website which was owned by you, yourself. I absolutely do NOT trust Substack!
Bill, perhaps you should consider setting up a give-send-go fund, to raise money so that you really can have your own website. I would absolutely contribute to it, generously. And I imagine many others who truly value your work would likewise do so. Please, consider this!
Setting up a Wordpress.org instance on your own domain hosted on a mom-and-pop website provider is not expensive. Here in Finland it can run to about EUR15 for a domain name per year and EUR127 for a decent web hosting per year that can be paid monthly with a small premium. Setting up a wordpress site is easy enough and rewarding. Just click on all the settings tabs and menu options and fill in all the blanks. Installing wordpress in typically a single click and a few settings on cPanel (I have used this on many sites) and WHM web tools. I AM prepared to do the initial setup with you for your site using generic themes and common plug-ins for no money, not on a rush timeline but methodically together with no stress to either of us. Stay away from big web providers like GoDaddy, perhaps even look for a local provider in your area, while most of them are reselling Amazon or similar server resources they provide a level of abstraction and personal service that can be comforting and more rational. When it is set up you could change passwords and manage it yourself without much pain. Posting a blog is about as much work as doing so on Wordpress and you can link to cross posts easily.
I also recommend you look around for a suitable Mastodon instance to create an account on and post announcements of your wordpress and substack posts so people on other platforms can find you, I had a account on a small niche server that went dark but have so few followers there or here that it does not matter. Some instances are woke and propaganda attached but there may be a reliable larger instance that you can create an account, they are typically free. The new entrant to censorship free platforms is PickAx dot com and while it may end up fading away it is an expanding market that I also think it worth setting up a presence just to announce your posts. They plan to have paid blogging system soon.
Simulation Commander has a lively, engaged board and speaks to the MAGA base. it's shocking to learn that SC has only 6,500 subscribers
Mark Oshinskie is arguably the best writer on substack. just as shocking to learn that he has only 5,800 subscribers, especially after almost 6 years on the platform
Jenna McCarthy is so funny that she could probably make a killing doing standup. to think that she has only 9,300 is just as mystifying.
something weird is going on
We live in some very weird times.
Bill, as long as I have known you on Substack, I have found your writing to always be on point, which is to say, you have researched topics that the powers that be wanted to keep Americans in the dark about.
Yes sir, I am absolutely sure that you've ruffled many feathers, especially your articles on Covid origins and even more likely on the Clots.
With some estimates quoted as saying 72% of Americans took those damn Clot Shots, consider for a moment if you were one of them if you would want to seek out a Substack Author who has made the correlation between those Covid Shots and the Clots being pulled out of cadavers.
I understand your wanting to reach as many folks as possible, and educate them before they continue to degrade their health with the poison injections, however, that large segment of the population that were so scared they were going to die and bought the psyop and that narrative, they now mostly want to forget the stupidity they saw in themselves when they rushed to put that untested, unknown ingredients mixture into their blood veins.
Many, like me had only 3 or 4 vaccines in the 1950's and 1960's, and when Fauci was on the television telling everyone to stay up with your shots and boosters, many my age kept taking shot after shot after shot.
Insanity.
All I can say Bill is obsess less about the likes and comments and keep doing what you are doing as long as you feel like you want to.
You've been effective. Continue to be effective. Listen to your fellow writers.
It's a dirty job and you have been so good at it that you have likely reached more folks than you'll ever realize.
Screw those who would somehow shut you up or down.
Be proud of your accomplishments.
Put your best work in a book and put it out there for all time, like Mark Oshinskie.
But whatever you do, keep on trucking.
It's an increasingly Bigger Club and it appears we are actually in it. Shouldn't we feel so blessed Bill? /sarc
I'm quite sure your "spidey sense" is correct, Bill. I must add that it seems to me that I rarely receive posts from you any longer, and I think this has been true for quite a while (many months.) I also need to tell you that I have found your work to be of consistently high quality, and never have I thought your posts were too lengthy.
I am acknowledged by Substack to be your subscriber, but recently I have had to re-subscribe to four other Substacks that I was already subscribed to. I doubt you are alone.
Also, in order to post this comment (and one to another person's substack today), Substack made me re-submit my profile information both times and re-subscribe to your newsletter.
I have found Substack to use this same trick many times. It is absolutely maddening. It is just one of their innumerable forms of shadow-banning.
Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they aren't out to get you. How far do you think Malcolm X would have gotten on Substack? I'm getting more and more subscribers with fewer reads but more comments and likes? Now how does that work? https://timothywiney.substack.com/p/disorder-in-the-court
I cannot comment on the idea of nefarious actors, but you are hardly the only writer ploughing this furrow. Why would you be singled out? There may be something in the ‘tome/style’ argument, perhaps, and that certainly comes over by comparison with Jenna, for example. As a subscriber all I can do is wish you luck, I’m afraid