This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.
Today's episode gets personal. As I share an update on my first three weeks with Substack, I have been working on a new project. Some of you are actually reading and following along, maybe even joining in on the comments sometimes. That's awesome. Thank you for being out there.
And of course, I'll always give it to you straight. Somebody here wants to know, one of our listeners is like, how's it going? Like how's the business side of it going? What have you learned and such? So that's great. Let's talk about it. Tune in to hear what
I've learned so far. Of course, this is Side Hustle School, the daily podcast, Michael from Seattle. He's one of our regular listeners. He's got the question of the day and I'm excited to talk it out. So without further ado, here's a little message from our sponsor. I appreciate
our sponsors and I really, really appreciate you, our listeners. So stay tuned. Michael's question, my detailed answer, how's it going so far with Substack and my experiment? Hey, Chris, it's Michael from Seattle. I've been following your work for years and I'm enjoying your new Substack. How's that experience been so far? I'm considering starting one myself,
but would love to hear your insights on the platform's effectiveness, audience engagement, and potential for monetization. Thanks in advance for any tips and keep writing. All right. I've been looking forward to sharing this answer with you because it's actually been so fun. I actually love it so much. Diving into Substack has been quite an experience for me. I
have worked on it a ton. I started working on it at the end of November, maybe mid November, pretty much have spent 30 hours a week ever since like all through the holidays, working on it, getting it ready, lots of setup, you know, to do it right. And then working on the automation of importing subscribers from the art of nonconformity, my blog, a lot of side hustle school listeners are reading as well. And so there was a lot to be done, but I'm continuing that pace just because I sense that it could be an important touchstone for people. And again, I was personally really excited about it. Like I wanted to write more about mental health. I really liked this new
platform. I found a format that seemed to work well. And so mostly, I'm just very happy that there's a real community element to it, both on the Substack side, the app makes it really helpful and easy. People are commenting and such and like it reminds me of old school blogging, which I really, really liked. And, you know, in a lot of ways, I've been sad that old school blogging kind of transition, but that's just how things work. Like you have to keep up with the times. I
understand that. But there was something really special and organic about that time. And I feel that something similar is happening with this. So I love it. Let's see what else monetization wise, that really isn't my priority at this point. I want to make most of the content free. But that
said with Substack, you can have a paid option for people very easily. And a lot of people want to support your work. They want to support good writing, which I think is so cool. So the general guidance that Substack gives is that five to 9% somewhere in that range of your subscribers will pay. I actually think that's pretty high, unless you are actively pushing the paid subscription a lot or paywalling all of your content so that people can't read it. So my percentage isn't
anywhere close to that. It's a lot lower. But at the same time, I have a lot of readers, you know, like that I brought over from my blog, from the podcast, from other book events and such. So if I do add more paid content, and if I gently push it more, you know, while still making lots of things free, which I will do, I think it could be really substantial by the end of the year. So we'll see. Like I said, that's a second priority for me. The first priority is impact, engagement,
community. And that's going really well. One specific tip. Recommendations are super important in this world. And recommendations is a specific thing in Substack. It's like when somebody
subscribes, they have a chance to write a recommendation. And they can then share that with their friends. And other sub stackers can write recommendations for other newsletters. And that actually helps a lot with generating new subscribers. So if you're starting, I would focus on that. You definitely want to encourage that as much as possible. Get to know other writers as
well. So that's pretty much it. I mean, like, I'm just very happy I did it. I could say a lot more about it, but that's the quick version at least. Let me know if you are on Substack, I would love to check out some of your posts. And if you're doing something else, of course, I always love
to know whatever you're up to. And I promise to share candidly and openly about my projects as well. I really appreciate you, Michael and our listeners. You're amazing. Thanks for being out there. Much
more is to come, both on the project, which is, by the way, you're of mental health.com. I should have said that if you're not reading it already, you're of mental health.com. Go check it out. It's all about purposeful productivity. And of course, new episodes here every day as well.
Tomorrow, we're going to talk about Gen Z. We've got a story about a vintage camera seller. We've got recipe blogging, all kinds of good stuff coming up in the days to come. That's it for now. My name is Chris Guillebeau. This is Side Hustle School.
From the Onward Project.
