Going (and staying) paid on Substack

🪑 How many chairs do you want to set out, for how long and what does it all mean for our creative careers long term? ✨

“I want to be in the arena. I want to be brave with my life. And when we make the choice to dare greatly, we sign up to get our asses kicked. We can choose courage or we can choose comfort, but we can't have both”.

Brene Brown

Last night I dreamt I was swimming in a bright turquoise sea. The mid day sun was hitting the water and glistening in new ways. I felt safe.

I fell asleep treading water and ended up far away from the shore by myself. There were hundreds of people in the sea at a distance. Weirdly no one on the shore. They were around me having fun in their groups but none of them could see me or how far away I was.

There were a multitude of swim aids; rubber rings and orange arm bands, lillos and brightly coloured swim caps. It was almost like the start of a beautiful theatrical event - a flash mob at sea. ¹

I think it’s because I was anxious about my children starting back at their schools after the holidays.

I think it was also because sometimes I feel like the unknown parts of running my own (mostly online) business like to pop up and remind me to take stock and ground in action.

So what was once a dream scape is now my reality.

From a place of unknowns the only option we have is to lean in and get to know more about the knowns. Nope not Dr Seuss at all - all me! 😁. We are all doing this work for the first time ever together - it’s new; it takes some figuring out… of that much I know.

Hi, if you’re new here I’m Claire. I’m an Engagement Consultant and Mentor for the Arts and Cultural Sector. I live under dark skies on the Northumberland Coast with my husband, two children and 5 pet chickens.

I started my membership

Sparkle on Substack

to help you navigate what is possible for you here because it’s my belief that all the rules are (actually) made up and we get to lean into what’s expansive and exciting to us.

We have a community of almost 500 members - we meet twice a month on zoom and every week on chat to support each other in this wonderful space called Substack.✨

Our very own community to shape and get to know…

I posted this note on Substack Notes last week;

…I am genuinely curious on how people think it might work or if anyone actually knows how it is working…

Thank you

Simon Haisell

,

Sarah Raad

,

Satya Robyn

,

Russell Nohelty

Louise Tilbrook

Alyssa Polizzi

,

Ian Sharp

,

Carmen Luisa

,

Samantha M Burns

,

Annette Corbett

,

Sarah Lynas

,

Claire Amritavani Brown

,

Aleksandra Petkovska

,

Rebecca Ericson-Hua

for your responses and thoughts!

✨

My ask was prompted by this Note from

Leyla Kazim

Which is really about expectation of human behaviour and the important point of setting out our stall here so that we can be as clear as possible to those visiting.

Clear on what’s on offer, clear on what we expect, clear on what they are invited to do behind our paywalls.

Also clear on what our earning potential is otherwise we are really just feeding the jukebox endlessly with our hope tokens and walking away half listening for the right song.

Thanks to

Russell Nohelty

for highlighting his journey financially here in 2023. If you don’t know Russell’s work he works tirelessly to write and expand all possibility here over on

The Author Stack

;

So… on zooming out to zoom in…

Before we make our grand paywalled plans here we need to first ask a tonne of questions of ourselves;

1. What is a more intimate space calling of us?

When we start, we will start with a small number of people to serve… at least that’s true for most of us. What could that space look and feel like? How can we welcome new people in…

2. Might they stay or might they go…?

I don’t have unsubscribe notifications turned on so I literally never know when someone unsubscribes (free or paid). This is a conscious decision and personal to me.

It’s important you measure how the unsubscribe energy effects you and set your space up accordingly. I often check what my subs are reading to give me a sense of what they open. The wonderful Sarah Fay says; “un subscribes are maths not drama.” which I love but if you are new to holding space or having a list un subscribes might sting!

I guess what I’m saying is I feel you have to find your own way through handling subscriber energy?

One thing I know is to stay in my MOST creative bubble I simply can’t concern myself with what anyone else is doing.

🫧

Unless I feel a publication nurtures, educates and mentor me through their posts or presence I don’t subscribe.

Sometimes some one says something in SUCH an authoritative way you believe it to be true instantly.

Reminder; what’s true for them doesn’t have to be true for you. People WILL come and go, that’s what people do.

✨

3. How much energy do I have to deliver paywalled or special content?

The first models I saw here delivered 2 (ish) paywalled written posts a month and often 1 or 2 others as free reads. That’s a paid newsletter model.

That all changed when creators and mentors/ those with coaching experience came over because they started putting zoom links behind the paywall and that made Substack a place for community interaction and special ‘events.’ This is a membership/ club model.

The monthly and annual prices didn’t go up. It’s a TOTAL free for all now.

There are hundreds of pieces of content behind paywalls, audios, video tutorials, whole courses, personal shares, confessional shares - an all access pass designed by us.

It’s overwhelmingly beautiful.

✨

4. What contact do I want with my subscribers?

The exclusive club energy

• Some people ‘just’ write.

• Some people turn off comments except on paid posts.

• Some people sit in circle over zoom

• Some people offer first refusal tickets/ access

• Some people offer 1-2-1 mentoring

What do you want to do?

5. Can we determine how long our paid Subscribers will stick around?

We can actually with a simple sum…

You can subscribe to membership here to read the rest of this post. I deeply appreciate your support and in return you access 10+ videos, trainings/ workshops and as a January gift you get my hour long Substack masterclass and 4 week drip fed course for beginners too.

If you want to restack part of this post and carry on the conversation on Notes you’re welcome to.

💕

The numbers…

I’ve had 17 people let their paid memberships expire since I launched Sparkle in July 2023.

I have 197 paid members (including comps). So that’s less than 10% of folks leaving in 6 months.

If you look in your stats you can see your ‘retention rate’ at 6 months and after 30 days. Say by June I have 400 paid members, I will have probably seen around 36 leave…

To reassure you…

In my opinion people are going to leave for all sorts of reasons, it’s normal, here are just a handful of reasons I could think of…

• They fell out with Substack or don’t want to be here.

• Your content doesn’t resonate or there is a values clash.

• They’ve learnt all they need to learn (possible in my case).

• They feel overwhelmed or bored - two opposing ends of the spectrum?

• Time

• Money/ cost…

• Expectation

• They are clearing out as they don’t have time to read everything they subscribed to.

• They are saving money.

• Gift referrals

Over on my other publication

Creatively Conscious

it looks like this;

This is an ‘all time’ graph - so you can see over time it goes up but very slowly… I’ve built it that way as it’s my intention folks stay for a year, maybe longer… it’s ‘££ expensive’ compared to other Substacks (£10 a month) but I haven’t set myself up in competition with other Substacks, other creators or writers I’ve started the membership I wanted to start for 6 years here.

This is all about personal intention setting… my doors to Sparkle are open to as many people who want to come in and learn.

They say; come on in, you’re welcome here for as long as serves you, find what you need, ask questions, join the fun!

🚪

My doors to Creatively Conscious say; if this is the right time for you to slow down and do some of your soul work, come on in, pour yourself a drink, sit a while, do you have coloured pens? We have time. I have time to listen.

✨

6. What you CAN control behind the paywall?

Knowing what you can control will give you a sense of what you can consistently offer here and how you need it to work. You also need to do maths… some simple maths… maths so easy we can all and should all do it…

For example;

• 100 paid subs at £8 per month over 12 months is £9600. If you take off Substack and Stripe fees it’s nearer £7800.

• 100 paid subs at £80 a year is £8000. If you take off fees it’s nearer £6500.

Most people have their annual fee cheaper than their monthly so I wanted to show you this so you can compare. In my workshop about going paid I talk about HOW important the maths is because it’s personal to you right?

Say you know you can work with a higher volume of people and they’ll come over time;

• 1000 paid subs at £4 a per month over 12 months is £48,000.

• 1000 paid subs at £35 per year is £35,000

Let’s try another way…

• 500 paid subs at £5 a month x 12 = £60,000

As you were reading those options; which one felt possible if any? Which one felt possible within a few years? 5 years perhaps?

How many chairs do you really want to set out?

I’d love to hear your ambitions and frustration in the comments.

This second half of this post is for members (paid subs) so it’s just us… you can be as honest as you feel. I have been and I’m here for it - you’re safe to share what you want for yourself, your worries and your sticking points…

Claire

✨

PS - More like this in the member’s vault;

WORKSHOP REPLAY - Let's talk about going paid on Substack!

If you’re not a member over on CC and want access to this post email me?

Earning money (on Substack) without burning out...

1. If that’s not happened yet - please someone organise it and invite me or at least tag me? K cool! 🌊 🌅🛟