More Disturbing Substack Trends
Ironically, my most popular Substack article included a prediction that turned out to be spectacularly wrong.
Part 2. See Part 1 here.
On December 12, 2022, I wrote an article that generated the most subscribers in my 17-month Substack history - 522! The article’s headline was “What I’ve learned in 80 days on Substack.”
While the article’s enthusiasm and optimism still resonate with me, the predictions contained in the text make me cringe today. Several of my key assumptions were spectacularly and obviously wrong. I’m either awful at predictions or … something changed with Substack.
Here’s what I wrote 15 months ago:
“1,364 - Total subscribers of “Bill Rice, Jr’s. Newsletter” as of December 12, 2022.
“…. I’m averaging 17 new subscribers every day (510 news subscribers per month). I love extrapolations so this might mean that in 365 more days I’ll have 6,223 new subscribers … which will bring my total subscribers to 7,587.
“Except I think I’ll have even more subscribers … because more subscribers begets faster subscription growth. This time next year I wouldn’t be surprised if my site has grown to at least 10,000 subscribers (maybe many more if I do my job and some of my unwritten articles prove to be as popular as I hope they’ll be.)”
***
For the record, one year after I wrote this piece, I didn’t have 10,000 subscribers. I had 4,867.
If I was optimistic when I wrote this article, I was downright cocky when this piece produced 522 subscribers (including 34 paid subscriptions.)
For context, that one article produced 6.5 times more subscribers than 10 articles I published a year later in December 2023 when my newsletter produced only 80 subscriptions the entire month.
Something has to explain how an article with scant gravitas could produce 522 new subscribers (and gross me $1500) and 15 months later I’m surprised when one of my articles generates five free new subscriptions.
The analysis that follows might be on the bleak side, but I want to present this data because I think the reversal in fortune that’s occurred at my Substack might be common and, if it is, somebody needs to come up with a solution to reverse these trends.
What I think might be happening is some kind of nefarious project (or just altered business trends involving Substack) have conspired to throttle the enthusiasm and optimism of the class that’s doing the most work to change our disturbing Status Quo.
Let the Bad News Begin …
Using my new “reads-to-1-subscriber” metric, I analyzed my last five stories. These five stories have produced 20,810 cumulative reads (an average of 4,162 readers per article) and seven new (free) subscribers. This means my reads-to-1-subscriber ratio is 2,973 (20,810 reads/7 new subscribers).
Basically, in the past two weeks, for every 3,000 readers my articles generate, I can expect to gain one new subscriber.
This recent figure is even bleaker than November to February, where the ratio was 675. (With this metric, the smaller the number, the better … the bigger the number, the worse.)
Quick aside: My best article with this metric was my second article, where I introduced myself to the Substack world. That September 2022 article was read by only 2,210 readers but produced 166 new subscribers. One in 13.3 people who read that article subscribed to my newsletter.
In 17 months, I’ve published 243 articles on Substack. Eight of these articles had “a reads-to-1-subscriber” ratio of under 97. Revealingly, all but one of these subscriber-generating all-stars were published in the first seven months of my Substack.
This metric’s also not hope-inspiring …
Total new subscribers added in last 30 days: 62
For the first seven months of my Substack, I averaged more than 550 subscribers/month.
Comparison of the same four months a year apart …
What follows is an analysis of my articles from the last four months - November 2023 through February 2024.
Note: I did not include data from articles that were picked up by Citizen Free Press since the much-higher “reads” and subscriptions produced by those articles might be considered outliers or anomalies. For purposes of this analysis, I’m primarily interested in the metrics for my normal Substack articles. I also didn’t include the huge spike in my previously-discussed January 5th numbers.
February 2024 to November 2023 key metrics …
Average reads/article (new subs; subs-per-article; reads required to generate 1 new sub).
Feb - 4,292 (45 new subscriptions; 3.75 subs per article; 1,149 reads to get 1 new sub.)
Jan - 4,770 (92 new subs; 9.2 subs per article; 393 reads to get 1 new subscription).
Dec - 4,169 (80 new subs; 8 subs per article; 521 reads to get 1 new subscription).
Nov. 4,155 (85 new subs; 6.5 subs per article; 636 reads to get 1 new subscription).
Summary/Observations:
A typical article (not counting my CFP articles or the Jan. 5 article), averaged 4,347 “reads” in the last four months.
On average, I needed 675 readers to produce one new subscriber (range: 393 reads to 1,149 reads).
Each article I published in these recent four months produced an average of 6.9 new subscribers.
In these four months, I averaged only 75.5 subscribers/month. (Again, this does not count subscribers that resulted after certain articles were picked up by CFP or my January “And So It Begins” article).
YoY Comparison: Nov. 2022 through February 2023 …
Here’s the same data for the same four months from 12 months earlier. Again, I didn’t include any articles published by CFP.
Feb - 2,581 (35 new subscriptions; 4.4 subs per article; 590 reads to get 1 new subscription).
Jan - 2,577 (127 new subs; 9.8 subs per article; 263 reads to get one new subscription).
Dec - 1,847 (53 new subs; 7.6 subs per article; 244 reads to get one new subscription).
Nov. - 1,659 (207 new subs; 14.8 subs per article; 112 reads to get one new subscription).
Summary/observations:
A typical article averaged 2,166 “reads” 12 to 14 months ago.
Note: My readership figures have increased by 2,181 readers in the past 12 to 14 months, an increase of a smidgen over 100 percent.
My newsletter averaged 105.5 new subscribers/month - 30 more than the last four months. My earlier articles produced 40 percent more subscribers each month than my recent articles although my readership numbers were half the number as today.
Simple take-away: More “reads” does NOT = “more subscribers.” In fact, more reads = significantly fewer subscribers.
The Key Correlation is …. Weak and Disturbing ….
From my 17-month experience as a Substack author, I can conclude that Substack readership and subscription increases do not correlate positively to subscription growth. That is, there is an increasingly weak or negative correlation between more “reads” and total subscribers.
As shown elsewhere, for the first six or seven months of my Substack, a very strong correlation did exist between my growing readership numbers and my rapidly-growing subscription numbers. In recent months, this previously-strong correlation has vanished.
As shown above, it now takes me 675 readers to produce one new subscriber, where 12 to 14 months ago it took me only 302 readers to produce 1 new subscriber.
If this same metric applies to many veteran “Covid” or “freedom” writers, this represents a troubling and significant trend affecting Substack and its most-important writers.
Just as odd, 12 to 14 months ago, each article I published produced an average of 9.15 new subscribers while my articles have produced only 6.9 new subscribers the last four months.
Key-take-away: While my articles are now being read by twice as many readers, they are producing, on average, 2.25 fewer subscribers per article, a reduction in this metric of 24.6 percent. Expressed differently, more total readers has resulted in significantly fewer subscribers!
FWIW, this is NOT what I thought would happen when I started my Substack.
Again, I’m not sure what caused these changes, but I am confident a significant and obvious change has occurred.
More on the ‘zero subscriber’ metric …
As mentioned in Part 1, 10 of my last 51 articles produced no new subscribers, which is also a new trend.
By way of comparison, in the first 5 1/2 months of my Substack (approximately 75 articles), only four articles failed to produce a new subscriber.
In recent months, approximately 1 in 5 of my articles produced no new subscribers. For the first six months of my newsletter, approximately 1 in 19 of my articles generated no new subscribers.
Analysis of June 2023 numbers compared to Feb. 2024 …
I performed a more-detailed analysis of the metrics from the month June 2023, eight months ago, compared to my numbers from last month, February 2024.
Total subscribers:
Feb. 15, 2024: 5,619
June 15, 2023: 3,909
Average ‘reads’ of my articles:
February 2024: 4,292
June 2023: 4,284
Comment: While I had 1,710 fewer subscribers in June 2023, my articles that month were read by virtually the same number of readers as last month.
Total New Subscribers*
February 2024: 45
June 2023: 146
*Note: Figures do not include subscribers generated by CFP articles.
Subscribers generated per article:
February 2024: 3.75
June 2023: 11.91
Open Rate for articles:
February 2024: 36.8 percent
June 2023: 42.8 percent
‘Reads’ Required to Produce 1 new Subscriber:
February 2024: 1,141
June 2023: 355
Articles that produced 3 or fewer subscribers:
February 2024: 7 (five articles produced no new subscribers).
June 2023: 0
Did someone get into my pocket?
I have a monetary interest in the question of whether it’s possible for someone like myself to make a living on Substack.
Whether nefarious “hidden censorship” tactics explain the dramatic decline in my subscription growth or whether Covid burnout or Sustack subscription saturation (or perhaps a combination of both) explain this decline, the end result is that it’s becoming harder for a Substack author to make a living publishing articles on this platform.
As a thought exercise, I analyzed how many subscribers I would have had by now if my subscription growth had not plummeted.
As noted in Part 1, my subscription growth averaged more than 33 percent in the first seven months of my newsletter. In April 2023, my newsletter subscriptions increased by 12.6 percent from the prior month. The next month this rate plummeted to 3.6 percent and kept going down from there.
I wondered what would have happened if my Subscription growth rate had stayed at 12.6 percent.
If this rate of growth had been maintained, I would have reached 10,056 total subscribers by the end of February 2024 and would be at 11,323 subscribers by the end of this month. (I currently have 5,655 total subscribers).
Since 4.8 percent of my total subscribers are paid, this would translate to approximately 544 paid subscribers this month. (I currently have 272).
This means current Substack trends - and activities that possibly harm one’s ability to make an income - might have cost me $15,000. Since I already gross $15,000 from my current paid subscribers, I would be grossing approximately $30,000/year today.
Conclusion:
Several of my readers counseled me that I should not worry about subscription metrics. I should simply do the work I enjoy and think’s important and let what happens happen. This is good and appreciated advice.
My readership and subscription levels might not be where I’d hoped they’d be by now, but I am still much-better known as a writer and my work has meaning to me.
Even given the dour numbers and trends presented above, my Spider Sense tells me something good is going to come out of my Substack experience. Indeed, my life has already been enriched in ways that have nothing to do with personal finances. That is, I’m still glad to be doing what I’m doing
… But if shadowy groups are somehow manipulating the reach and influence of certain targeted Substack authors, these individuals and organizations should be stopped, exposed and held accountable for what would be a crime that should offend all Americans who still value our essential rights and freedoms.
Cutting Room Floor Text ....
What’s Causing this? Readers opine ….
I enjoyed perusing the many Reader Comments my first article generated. The consensus view seems to be that Substack readers might have reached a “saturation” point on Substack articles. Many readers report they already subscribe to far more Substacks than they could ever read. In recent months, “Covid fatigue” might be starting to kick in at greater levels.
In a nutshell, Substack might be a victim of its own success. People were very interested in reading alternative points of view at one point, but have now apparently become over-subscribed and have curbed their enthusiasm.
Regarding this POV, I can only say this all rings true to me. However, the purpose of today and yesterday’s article is to provide possible data that something else is also at work here. Basically, it’s hard for me to believe that the core universe of Substack readers all reached a kind of tipping point pretty much at the same time …. And, pretty much, all in the last few months.
Even with many people becoming burned out on Covid topics and perhaps reducing the time they spend reading articles every day, it seems to me my new subscriber numbers wouldn’t have reversed as dramatically as they have in recent months.
After all, Substack should be adding X millions of new readers every year or month, right? We know the mainstream media is Dead Man Walking, which should be a great trend for Substack and its non-captured writers.
Some commenters noted that I might be approaching the peak of people who are interested in the topics I write about. Another point was that many articles are redundant and seem to cover the same material. This is probably true as well, but, from my perspective, I know I've barely tapped into the market for “contrarian” articles.
For example, Alex Berenson just wrote an article where he mentions his newsletter has 250,000 subscribers. I have 5,555. This means approximately 244,500 Alex Berenson readers (theoretically) could become Bill Rice, Jr. readers. If I could persuade just 10 percent of Alex’s readers to sign up for my Substack, you’d see me dancing a Little Two-Step. And a dozen famous Substack Covid writers probably have subscriber numbers of more than 100,000.
Several posters opined that they’d like more variety in their Substack content, which is music to my ears as I can easily segue into non-Covid taboo topics (and, in fact, already have with numerous articles).
This said, there’s still 50 or so Covid threads I’d like to do my part to help tie together if, for no other reason than someone needs to do this.
It also occurs to me that the Big Stories of the World probably haven’t even struck yet. Ever the contrarian, I think the people who have already discovered Substack will, largely, stick with Substack when, say, our leaders pull the trigger on digital currency or try to rig/steal another presidential election.
I don't think I'm ever going to run out of captivating and important topics to write about. What concerns me is the prospect that I might produce quality content on these subjects, articles that don’t translate into sustainable subscriber growth. Thus this series of articles.
If Substack authors don’t critically cover these topics, who will? The New York Times? And if Substack authors only get 1 subscriber for every 2,000 reads they generate, will they/we continue to produce this copy?
I don't know, but probably not.
In addition to what I posted earlier (a lot of your "reads" are from people who CANNOT subscribe because they are subscribers already), I was going to mention the obvious other possibilities, but unsurprisingly, you already wrote about:
"Covid burnout or Sustack subscription saturation "
Exactly.
You wrote an article months ago wondering whether the COVID topic had the legs to keep Substack as dynamic as it's been. And, if other topics would resonate as well. My opinion is Sort Of, and No. The trouble with the COVID topic isn't burnout (which to me means being sick of it) - those who see through it are as interested as ever. But so much has already been said. New developments are happening, but not at "warp speed", so I find myself skimming, or only partly reading articles I'd have devoured a few years ago. I'm sure others do similar. I hope you keep going though, we all do.
I'm NOT discounting the possibility of something nefarious contributing, or even as the main cause.