June marks my third month on Substack as an active writer. Three months ago, I was thinking, well, I’ll start this newsletter and see what happens. I had the following goals for my first 90 days:
Get words in front of people
Get feedback on my stories
Incorporate lessons I’ve learned into my writing and related projects
Goal 1 was to get words in front of people. I’ll call this one complete. I have two stories running, two reviews, and several other posts out, and more in the pipeline. My audience is tiny but they are very much appreciated.
Goal 2 was feedback. I’ve gotten few “likes” which are always appreciated. No engagement with polls and no comments, however. I suspect that this may be due to two factors: First, most people just don’t engage with social media in any direct way. Second, Substack is still very new, and is still a very new platform for social media. I’ve learned that people really don’t know how to engage with it. Almost all the subscribers to My Favorite Suspects are new to the platform as well, so I don’t think that you know how to work on the platform. I’m also new to the platform and learning how to encourage engagement though the use of polls and prompts. Hopefully engagement will get better.
Goal 3 was to incorporate lessons learned. My biggest lesson so far is about the length and structure of each post. Based on what I’ve seen with other Substacks, 1200 words is a good length. That’s about 5 minutes of reading, according to Substack.
When I started, I didn’t think much about the structure of each post, but now I’ve been modifying my stories so that each post is self-contained and has a cliffhanger at the end.
You see, I started MFS with four stories ready to go. Even though I’m releasing them in the serial format, they’ ve already been written. I’ve encountered a few other writers here that are actually writing each chapter just before they send it out. I’m not set up to handle that kind of pressure—I have too many other demands for my time.
Since I’ve decided to modify my stories to fit with this new scheme, that means I’ve been revising my existing stories so that there’s some kind of cliffhanger every 1200 words, or about every 5 pages.
And if there’s only one thing to come out of MFS, that’s a good piece of information. I’ve incorporated it into my writing style so that all stories going forward will follow this convention. I think, with contemporary readers, we need that 5 page mini-cliffhanger to keep our interest. It’s a good stopping point and also an enticement to read just 5 more pages.
And I don’t think a mini-cliffhanger doesn’t have to be incredibly dramatic. It could take the form of a new question or small revelation.
At this point, I probably won’t go back and rewrite my existing novel to conform to this new idea, but my next novel certainly will follow this scheme.
Other changes I’ve done, based on feedback, including making MFS public and changing the subscription model.
My original plan was to keep My Favorite Suspects private. A month ago, I made it public, and changed the pricing model so that all content is available to free subscribers. The paywall now kicks in after eight weeks. I think this is reasonable and allows people to read an entire 6 episode series and other content without a monetary commitment. If someone wants to get into the paywall, I now offer a 7 day trial subscription that should cover it. I doubt anyone will actually bother to go back. It’s simply a reality of life on the Internet. There is too much other information competing for our attention.
Surprises
I got less shy about using Substack through my other Substack, Security Explained. I started that to help build an audience around my book, which I self-published on Amazon. Two days after I put it up on Amazon, I was interviewed in a podcast and made several sales. I also was at a major conference and got to talk with people about the book. Suddenly, being a “published author” wasn’t a goal anymore… it was a thing! It had happened! After only 30 years! The anxiety I’d felt related to having a book out there, and being interviewed, didn’t exist anymore. So I decided to open up MFS and promote it more frequently on social media.
I’ve made some progress on those goals and I’ve learned quite a bit. The hardest lesson by far is simply how difficult it is to market myself as a writer and to raise awareness of my work.
What this means for you
Based on this, I’ve made goals for the next 90 days to be:
Build an audience
Wrap up 2 stories
Launch a new story series
Have fun
To accomplish these goals, I’ll be learning more about marketing, advertising, and looking for ways to make my work available. I’ll be engaging more with other writers on Substack, for example.
I also hope to get some feedback from my readers and incorporate that feedback into my stories.
Mostly, however, I’m going to try to have fun with this. I work quite a lot at my day job and I really want this to be the fun thing that I support with my job. I don’t want it to get to the point where I have the same stress level that I have at work, because what’s the point in that?
I hope that you will have fun reading my stories, too, and that you’ll find something you connect with, and share it with your friends.