Using Substack's Notes For Growth and The Benefits of Political Content

You don't need an audience made up of people who disagree with you

Hello Everybody!

I’ve had an enormous week of growth and it means that I’ll be enabling paid subscriptions tomorrow (Tuesday, April 23rd). Please don’t panic. For the time being, I intend to keep a free tier for the foreseeable future. But in the interest of establishing a little more financial stability in my life, I want to give my supporters a paying option.

For those of you who have already signed up for pledges, thank you! I’m excited to see where this will go. I have a few different ideas for ways to offer some more value, but I constantly have to remind myself to take things one step at a time.

For this week, launching paid subscriptions is enough.

Using Substack’s notes for growth

Lately I’ve been experimenting to see what kind of content gets a response on this platform. I’ve been pleasantly surprised by the result. Mainly, my tactic has been to post politically related content on Notes.

Here are the results:

I’ll get more into the specifics of that process later, but first, let me share my thoughts on political writing. There’s this idiotic belief that you shouldn’t share your views on important subjects in polite company.

Why? Whom does that serve?

Honestly, if I’m in the presence of somebody who doesn’t agree with me politically, I want to know so I don’t acidentally tell them something they can use to further their agenda at the expense of mine.

It’s a matter of self-preservation you see.

We live in bizarro world that depends on self-censorship

For some reason if I complain about a politician who says my children poison the blood of the nation, I’m seen as being “in the wrong” for denouncing that kind of hate speech.

Huh?

Frankly, I prefer to look people in the face and ask them if they denounce the kind of hate filled political rhetoric that leads to my kids getting harassed. Real slow, explain to me how that puts me in the “wrong.”

Maybe this whole “don’t talk about politics” BS is why politics has gotten so horrifically toxic. Therefore, I propose we change the trend.

Maybe talking about social injustices is a means of… STOPPING THEM? But instead, it’s considered impolite to sit with people you know and politely ask them to support your best interests.

That ain’t right.

My “viral” post on notes

Do we say that posts on Substacks notes can “go viral.” Well, I didn’t know that they could. But for the last few days, this one has been getting likes, shares, and comments, every single day:

It keeps turning up in my notifications, so I guess if there is such a thing as “notes viral” it’s this. Good.

I was just posting my political views to draw out and block Republicans. I didn’t expect it to end up with 200 new subscribers. I’m relieved to find out how many good people there are on this platform. There are 2,063 of them at least, and I expect there will be evidence of a lot more when this post goes live.

The note brought out the trolls too

I also had my first weird interaction on Substack this week. I’ve been in the writing business long enough to know that you have to block psychos rather than argue with them.

A few days ago, I received several comments from an account that misquoted me.

I’ve become more or less a “one strike and you’re done” kind of guy, particularly when I encounter blatant instances of intellectual dishonesty. Arguments that begin, “Then why did you say…” and then go on to mention something that I clearly DIDN’T say are something that I don’t have time for.

So, I blocked the account, only to log in later and see another notification from the same username. Out of curiosity, I clicked it and got a fire and brimstone line about ‘cutting out tongues’ followed by, “HOW DARE YOU BLOCK MY OTHER ACCOUNT!”

“Now here’s a guy who has been blocked before,” I thought to myself as I clicked on the block button once again.

Somebody fill me in on the psychology there. Does he think that he’s going to scare me into not blocking him or something? I fully expect I’ll be getting an angry message from him on another platform later today. People like that are the inspiration for comments like this:

I mean, we live in an era where the Republican candidate for President has promised that he’s going to round up all immigrants and throw them into detention centers. That’s hate speech that’s directly targeted at my family. So, if people think they can intimidate me with some frail nonsense on social media, they’re kidding themselves.

Remember, paid subscriptions start tomorrow!

Anyway, enough with all the downers, let’s leave this post on a high note. Tomorrow I’ll be launching paid subscriptions. I’ve sent emails to the people who have already signed up for pledges because I don’t want them to be surprised by some new charge to their account.

I’ve been thinking of offering more recordings. If this newsletter grows big enough to make it seem worthwhile, I might also publish the fairy book series I wrote for my daughters. I kind of like the idea of keeping complete control of that. I’m not really interested in allowing the corporate media to edit all the life out of it. But we’ll see. Nobody’s offered me a contract for a million bucks yet, and I expect that’s the kind of thing that would change my outlook on a lot of things.

I also want to do more questions and answers in my newsletter. That will give me an opportunity to include links to the Substack accounts of all you wonderful readers. I’ve always worked based on the philosophy that we’ll all rise together. It seems to be working so far!

I appreciate all of you, and I’m looking forward to the next chapter of this undertaking. As always, leave your comments below!