Monday Memory: a year of Substack

It's been an interesting ride...so far.

First of all, I’m about two weeks late on this because…life.

But back on June 25 I celebrated a year of doing this Substack site, and - just like I did on monoblogue - wanted to take some time and thank my readers with a commemorative post sort of like what I did each December 1 for monoblogue. But only sort of.

Something I like about Substack is that its writer base is good at giving advice, and one recent piece I saw was on this very subject of writing a milestone post. As it turns out, I’m already ahead of the game by thanking my readers (who aren’t all necessarily subscribers since I link many of my posts to social media, making them lurkers) but have to give the biggest thanks to those who believe in me enough to subscribe. (And a special shout out to

Carol Frazier

as she believed in me enough to become paying subscriber number one when that started a couple weeks back.)

When I first became aware of Substack and became intrigued enough by the concept that I decided to finally forgo my own domain and place myself under its wing, I had no idea what to expect. I knew that my numbers at monoblogue had dwindled since I stopped writing there every day about seven years ago, and to be quite honest I believed there was a segment of the previous audience who left because I wasn’t useful anymore to them since I had severed my direct political connection to the Maryland Republican Party. Then I compounded it by moving to Delaware. That small world was once a significant part of my readership, but I had developed other interests - such as writing about the TEA Party. (Ending the daily grind on monoblogue neatly coincided with the start of my book The Rise and Fall of the TEA Party.)

So I knew I would have a relatively small audience at first, and I wasn’t surprised to see my initial number of subscribers in the single digits. In fits and starts I have grown to 55 subscribers over the first year-plus of this enterprise.

As you can see, growth has actually been pretty steady, maybe with a bit of a plateau around the first of this year. The two big jumps in 2023 came from two articles: the article I did in February called “Is it sunset in America?” that I paid a few dollars to promote on social media (which was the little March jump) and the bigger jump in May from “An unfriendly gathering” that got shared to the point where it had over 1,000 views. (Hence my aside about lurkers.) There’s also been steady growth since I began utilizing Substack’s “Notes” feature a couple months back.

I also found out that, while Maryland is still 46% of my subscriber base, which is a legacy from monoblogue and the fact I still live on the Delmarva, I also have 10% respectively from Delaware and Ohio and now represent 13 states from coast to coast. Hopefully by this time next year my Substack “empire” will be two or three times larger. (I suspect places like Vermont and Hawaii might be tough for me to get, though.)

Now this seems modest when compared to other Substack writers, but oftentimes they began from a larger base than I did. But I can’t say I’d do anything differently or change my stripes for readership.

So, now that you know I want to expand this “empire” how do I plan to get there?

Well, my vision for this enterprise is to stay on a regular Wednesday-Saturday schedule with one of those for paying subscribers and one free. I’ll also chip in an occasional (let’s call it monthly) Monday Memory and the irregular Sunday post when I delve into more faith-related concepts and those would be free as well. Guest posts, if I do any, and - if I go that route or am invited to do one - podcasts will more than likely be on the paid side. I also have an idea for semi-fictional writing that I’ve dabbled in outside the public realm, and if I ever decide it’s ready for prime time that would be a paid feature, too. Ideally about 1/3 of my content would be paid and 2/3 free - I look at paid subscriptions as a “value added” idea whereas some other Substacks I deal with are the writer’s main source of support. I’m blessed to not need the money, but it would be nice for down the road. (And did I tell you I own a tiny little piece of Substack as an investor?)

I wanted to end this update with a poll. I am on several social media outlets, but I’m not really sure why. So this poll is going to ask a question: besides Facebook and Twitter, which outlet should I keep and invest my time in?

Thanks for helping me get through the first year. I’m looking forward to writing stuff you’ll love, making you think about life, and preparing that ground for the missionary in year number two.