Its interesting you should mention dropping subscribers. Its clear to me, having shifted from platform to platform, that there is also a follow for follow culture even in newsletters. People who 'read' over 200 newsletters with no stars against mine. But what happens when they're dropped? Read ratio is up but is your reach down? FOMO on the one individual who spots your avatar in their long tail and subscribes. Does read ratio matter when the newsletter is free? Certainly subscription counts. The bigger the number the more likely people subscribe to find out what all the fuss is about. So yeah, on my mind but not causing issues right now.
Thanks also for the mention Zac. I would love to collaborate with someone, just waiting for an invite!
I agree, in part I had mixed feelings about it but something about having zombie subscribers that I imported but who never received a single email didn't sit well with me. Like a messy kitchen, makes me twitch.
I'll collab with you, just give me a reader-first angle and you could do a guest post to my massive list 😆
Removing readers never even occurred to me as a concept! Intriguing read, this!
I should probably clarify that they were all imported readers from Medium and they never appeared to receive nor open a single email in nearly a year.
So did they really even exist? 🤔
Agreed. Seems just like dead weight.
Exactly 💀
Its interesting you should mention dropping subscribers. Its clear to me, having shifted from platform to platform, that there is also a follow for follow culture even in newsletters. People who 'read' over 200 newsletters with no stars against mine. But what happens when they're dropped? Read ratio is up but is your reach down? FOMO on the one individual who spots your avatar in their long tail and subscribes. Does read ratio matter when the newsletter is free? Certainly subscription counts. The bigger the number the more likely people subscribe to find out what all the fuss is about. So yeah, on my mind but not causing issues right now.
Thanks also for the mention Zac. I would love to collaborate with someone, just waiting for an invite!
I agree, in part I had mixed feelings about it but something about having zombie subscribers that I imported but who never received a single email didn't sit well with me. Like a messy kitchen, makes me twitch.
I'll collab with you, just give me a reader-first angle and you could do a guest post to my massive list 😆
Or something more creative 🤔
What's a reader first angle?
Let's pretend I said, "Does that make sense?"
It seems two beers down I'm still in corporate mode.
So my newsletter is all about building a sustainable subscription empire by thinking of the reader first.
Sujan is working on a post now about how he managed to develop such a consistent art style for his serial fiction.
Which is essentially packaging his work so that it's unique and recognisable to his audience.
Does that clarify?
Makes sense. May have to come back to you when I have 1000 subs!
Won't take you long 🚀
Would you like to collaborate with me, dear Reuben?
Sure. Hit me up. Smillew has my email. Be interested to hear what you have in mind.
Sorry, autocorrect to Zac from Zane!
Hot take: read rates is a useless indicator, only the number of paid subscribers matters.
On this topic, congrats, dear Zane. 6 subscribers sounds good to me, here's wishing you many more.
Thanks Grandma! Substack had some growth articles the mentioned a certain read rate as being a mark for going paid.
So probably a vanity metric but it does make me feel like my list is more responsive and the ghosts are cleared out 😁
Thanks so much for the shout-out, Zane! Really fascinating analysis! 🌿
Anytime, I'll be reaching out when I launch my serial, I'll take it as a milestone in itself making it into Talestack News 😁