What I’ve learned in 6 months on Substack
The numbers and trends are very good. Thank you, readers!
Today is the six-month anniversary since I published my first article on Substack. I thought readers might be interested in the observations and Substack metrics that jump out to me after 180 days.
My first thought: The creation and rapid growth of Substack has to qualify as the biggest media story of recent years. Substack has allowed millions of Americans to get around the barricades erected by the “gatekeepers of the news,” the mainstream (or corporate) media.
By the Numbers …
Note: Substack provides numerous reader metrics that allow me to report the following data.
152 - Number of people who visited my Substack in the 24 hours after I published my first article on September 24.
2,502 - Number of people who visited my site when I published my last article on Tuesday
Comment: Appropriately enough, the headline of my first article was “Moving the Needle!”
1 - Number of subscribers I had on Day 1 (thank you to my beautiful wife, Carrie!)
3,155 - Number of subscribers I have as of this morning.
Comment: Thank you, subscribers!
0 - Number of people who had visited my site on September 23.
452,000 - Approximate number of people who have visited my site as of today.
Comment: Amazing.
I got one big (very early) break; Thank you Citizen Free Press!
I’ve already noted I had 152 visitors on my first official Substack Day. That number jumped to 17,183 visits (!) on my fourth day. This is because Citizen Free Press picked up my third story (a book review of The Real Anthony Fauci). CFP has now picked up 15 of my articles, which provides the main reason my page visits are approaching half a million people (in all 50 states and 65 countries!).
Lesson: Hard work and caring about a project matters, but we all need big breaks and benefactors to get us closer to where we want to be.
BTW, I did an analysis of CFP headlines from two days ago. By my count, the site published 123 headlines in 24 hours. Significantly, almost none of these important or interesting stories/links were covered by the mainstream press.
I also noted CFP published about five times as many articles as The Drudge Report, which (imo) was captured several years ago by the Dark Side of the Force.
The growth of CFP is another story of tremendous significance to those of us who don’t trust the mainstream media for our “news.” (Anyone with a few dollars to spare should consider supporting this important website, which has also helped increase the profile of many excellent Substack “citizen journalists.”)
Comment: I call this “teamwork” or “the resistance” or “the underground army.”
Where do my readers come from (and not come from) …
Surprisingly (or perhaps not surprisingly) the largest number of my readers come from “blue” states. California is first in my state readership tally (11 percent); New York is third (8 percent) and Illinois is fifth. Washington is No. 4 in my “paid subscriber” tally (11 percent).
This data surprised me until I thought: 1) These are big states; 2) Everyone in “blue” states isn’t crazy and 3) These readers must be fed up with the woke journalism they get in their own states.
Note: I should note that the “free state of Florida” is the No. 1 source of my “paid subscribers” (15 percent).
What surprised me is that my own state (Alabama) doesn’t show up among the sources of my top readership states. I would have thought subscribers in my hometown (population: 19,000) would have by themselves made Alabama No. 1.
As it turns out, I don’t think many of my friends and neighbors even know I am publishing an “international” Substack site. My one outlet to my Troy and Alabama friends was Facebook, and I’ve been effectively banned from that “free speech” social media forum.
As far as I’m concerned, Mark Zuckerberg and his army of 15,000 “content moderators” have conspired to harm my Substack business. (I’m not going to, but I wonder if I could sue).
Of my 452,000 site visits, only about 2,400 have come from Facebook and Twitter, which is NOT the norm for most Substack publishers.
While about 65 percent of my readers found me from The Citizen Free Press, tens of thousands found me from other Substack sites.
Pro-tip to novice or future Substackers: Don’t be shy about plugging your own articles at others’ sites. The good news is nobody seems to be offended by this growth-strategy. Again, Substack writers seem to understand that we’re all in this fight together.
Most of my fellow Substack subscribers come from Substackers many readers here would recognize.
I do want to publicly thank Dr. Paul Alexander who has steered more readers (unpaid and paid) to my site than any other. On two occasions, Paul ran “cross posts” of my stories and added a very-nice comment encouraging his readers to support my site. Both times my subscription numbers soared.
Trends are … very good
I also did a similar re-cap story on my 80th day as a Substacker. Data I published in that story allows me to show how my site has grown in the past 100 days.
1,364 - Total number of subscribers on December 12, 2022.
32 - Total number of paid subscribers (2.35 percent of all subscribers).
3,155 - total number of subscribers today (100 days later).
94 - Total number of paid subscribers today (2.98 percent paid).
17 - Number of new subscribers I averaged per day over my first 80 days.
17.65 - Number of new subscribers I’m averaging per day over 180 days.
Key Numbers …
When I started this site, Substack tutorials stated that the most successful Substackers convert “4 to 10 percent” of their total subscribers to paid.
I didn’t start this site to become rich. I simply enjoy writing and wanted to “contribute to the conversation.” Still, for someone who hopes to one day make a living from his freelance writing, the “paid subscriber” metric does help identify the proverbial bottomline.
Important point: I’m happy and humbled when anyone chooses to become a subscriber, paid or not. I understand most people simply cannot afford to buy paid subscriptions from the hundreds of excellent writers on this platform. I wish I could support more of my favorite writers with paid subscriptions, but I can’t.
Also, unpaid subscribers can and do generate paid subscribers by hitting the all-important share button!
My first goal was to reach 3,000 subscribers, which - again, thank you, subscribers - I recently accomplished (in 5 1/2 months).
“3,000” was a goal because, as coincidence would have it, this was the approximate number of subscribers of the three “real” newspapers where I previously worked. This means I am now reaching more subscribers than I did when I worked at a “real” newspaper.
The ultimate goal - “You have definitely arrived, Bill Rice, Jr.” - is to reach at least 1,000 paid subscribers.
I’m thinking about 2026 …
In one sense, this might seem like a farfetched goal, but in another sense it seems quite do-able.
The magic number for Substackers like me is 5 percent paid subscribers.
If I could get to 20,000 total subscribers (and five percent are paid), I’m there.
A paid subscription is $5 month ($60/year), but 90 percent of my subscribers are opting for the annual subscription which is only $40/year. This discounted rate averages out to $3.33/month.
If I can get about 1,000 people to spend somewhere between $3.33 to $5/month to receive my stories, I can make more than enough money for our family to live comfortably. (This assumes my wife keeps her teaching salary, which she will as she is a very popular teacher!)
I’m a “numbers guy” so I’ve done the math. In 2.6 years (assuming my current subscribers renew and I keep averaging 17.65 new subscribers/day), I will reach 20,000 total subscribers somewhere around the fall of 2026.
If I can boost my paid ratio from 3 to 5 percent, that’s 1,000 paid subscribers.
Of course I might reach this goal in one day … if, say, I break the story of how Covid really started and who was responsible. (Don’t laugh; I’m working on it.)
And then there’s the scourge of inflation, which I’m afraid is going to become even more frightening … so at some point I might have to raise my subscription prices.
I also worry about whether Americans can keep supporting Substack writers as an easy “workaround” to rising prices is … cancelling subscriptions.
But all of this is longer-term thinking, hopes (and worries). As Coach Nick Saban preaches, I’m going to try to embrace “The Process” and let the results take care of themself. Coach Saban says, “think about the next play.” I’m already thinking about the next story.
A final number ….
80 - Stories I’ve written in six months.
But I still haven’t gotten around to some of my best ones. I can say this: I’m having fun. I’ve made new friends. I’ve learned a great deal from the Reader Comments. I hope I am helping “move that needle” that will get us closer a better and more sane world.
***
BONUS BABBLING: In today’s Reader Comments, I’ll provide additional numbers on the stories I wrote that got the largest number of reads, “likes” and comments. For example, my article “In Praise of Reader Comments” … actually generated 122 reader comments. My first story generated only 17 - seven of which I penned. (Yes, there are ways to inflate your Reader Comment numbers!)
It's so awesome to see the numbers of people like you growing while the MSM bleeds support. Here's to another awesome six months, followed by another awesome six years!
My feature story on the sad and maddening vaccine-caused death of Derek McIntosh brought the most readers to my site - about 73,000 readers over two days.
The story was picked up by Citizen Free Press. The “back story” of the story is also illuminating to me. I wrote this story because Derek’s father, Jeff, sent me an email, suggesting I write such a story.
Mr. McIntosh - like Derek’s son and sister - are determined to do everything they can to publicize the fact their healthy and much-loved family member died from a vaccine injury. Mr. McIntosh told me he often spends hours every day emailing reporters and media figures, trying to reach one person who will do a story. He said he’ll send 100 messages and might get one response.
So I was the 1-in-100 who responded and wrote a simple feature story. And it’s a story that mattered because it got picked up by a well-known site. It also generated donations for Jeff’s teenage son so he could continue to live in his father’s house while he finished high school. The story led to other interviews for the family.
For this story to make an impact, I had to start my Substack. I had to respond to a compelling story suggestion and CFP had to think the story deserved a wider audience. But all those things happened … and because of this one piece of “journalism” made a little difference - which is what journalism is supposed to do.
All this makes me think of the hundreds of thousands (millions) of stories about vaccine victims (fatalities or serious, life-altering injuries) that have NOT been told.
It also tells me I need to do more simple feature stories just like this. All of us in Substack need to do this.
https://billricejr.substack.com/p/this-family-is-fighting-back