Hey everyone and thanks Claire for the post! I very rarely talk about growth, paywalls etc because I don't feel like I know anything about it. I've been on Substack less than six months and I feel like I am just winging it most of the time.
However, at the same time, I realise Footnotes and Tangents has been a bit of a Substack success story. And what I have done may be useful to others. I don't know, but it might be!
In the first six months, I've gained almost 6,000 free subscribers, with 900 paid (two thirds of them as annuals) and a conversion from free to paid of about 15%. And I've done this with very little behind a pay wall. Paid subscribers get a little bonus post each week, which is just icing on the cake.
So on my Substack, I run two book groups, slow reads over the course of a year. And I decided early on to go paid but keep most things free: a weekly post for both book groups, a daily chat thread and additional resources via static pages.
By keeping most things free, I devote most of my time to making the free content **really high value** with the hope that people recognise its value and decide to pay for it. I believe this is sometimes called The Guardian model, after the UK newspaper's rather successful subscription strategy. It felt risky, but it appears to have paid off!
This strategy means I don't have to worry about creating too much exclusive content and I can really focus on making the free content. And I think that partly explains the high conversion rate: readers keep telling me: this stuff is worth paying for so I want to pay you. Which is so rewarding as a writer!
Also, because I am engaging with readers every day through the free chat threads, I think that also leads to a lot of goodwill and more people taking out a paid subscription.
Now I have no idea how transferable any of this is to anyone else! Or how is will pan out in the long term. Like I say, I'm just making it up as I go along. But I thought I would share my experience with you guys. I hope you find it useful, and just shoot if you've got any questions.
Thanks Claire, and I hope everyone has a lovely day.
Thank you Simon and for being here. It just actually blows my mind - like it's SO new to us all and it's a total test of faith in what we offer and our reader's buy in... I love that you've found a way to make it work for you and you're enjoying it too. Your ideas are so creative. I like to be really transparent about what I'm doing across both my publications because there's not really a one size fits all is there. Curious about where your subs are coming from - I know you're active on socials - are some of them coming straight over or is it a mix of there and the Substack network...
I don't really know where they are all coming from. I know Substack provides some data on that, but I'm not sure how to read it. At first most came from Instagram but I think that has fizzled out, a lot through the App and quite a few through word of mouth and IRL recommendations.
Congratulations Simon! You must be delighted with your growth, I’m new to Substack and am planning on using the paywall soon. I wondered how explicit you are with your subscribers how much extra they get when they go paid? I expect they feel great value being in your community as well as the little extra for them, even if to you it’s not much more than the free folk. It’s lovely that the guardian model is working! Thanks for sharing your experience. 🙏🏻
Thanks! I'm trying to be as explicit as I can that the paid subscription is primarily to support and pay for the free content, with a little bonus. I want to poll paid subscribers later in the year to find out why they went paid. Good luck with your Substack and setting up your paywall!
Thank you for this really considered post Claire. Like you I have my unsubscribe notifications switched off but at some point I know I need to go through and investigate my stats and my retention rates. One thing I feel I should know the answer to, but don't. If I put up my monthly prices (at the minute my annual rate is the same as 12 x monthly rate, does that apply to existing subscribers too, or just new ones?
So I’ve had a good root about on this and my understanding is folks automatically stay at the rate they joined at BUT I’m going to get a definitive answer from SS and come back to you in our next call. I’ve seen so many people promise life time costs but there’s no button so I can’t work out how this would work other than what you join at is what you pay...
I guess it leads into a question on whether if I do put my prices up a little, whether I feel I need to add in more paid content to 'justify it' - it brings up a lot of feelings around how I feel about going paid here, and to some extent highlights the fact that as with everyone else I'm just feeling my way here and exploring what feels OK and what feels 'icky'
I'd feel bad about raising rates on existing subscribers, it feels a bit 'icky', but I will probably raise my rates at some point as I went for the lowest option when I started up.
I picked the lowest option too but at some point I feel as though I'll be in a place to raise my prices a little. Or rather to raise my monthly rate but keep a bit of a discount if folks sign up for the year.
I love playing round with the maths to see what’s possible. For me, I’d like to get to 200 paid subs. Everything I make on Substack minus fees and tax goes into savings we have for our son when he goes to uni or travels the world or whatever. So I have that in mind! But the numbers then effect my plans for offerings. At the moment, my most valuable offering is a monthly journalling session which could not possibly accommodate such a large number of subscribers. Having said that a lot of my current subscribers don’t actually come to the session so that’s interesting in itself. My current activity and plans for the short to medium term future is to continue creating evergreen downloadable content, such as workbooks, and minicourses and the like so that there is a ongoing value, an ongoing reason to join and overtime a really good back catalogue of resources that any subscriber can have. I know some memberships in more traditional models would not allow a new member access to everything that’s going on before, but I really can’t be bothered to think along those lines so essentially at the moment if somebody subscribes this month they pay £7 and they can get everything I’ve ever given in that space and I’m feeling totally fine about that.
I’m going to the reply to the first part of this first in that I LOVE that you have a purpose for the money subs bring in - motivating and beautiful! ✨🤩✨
Yes! At the moment, it just feels like fun, play money that I’m not taking too seriously, but I thought if I just put it away somewhere then it feels good to do it. Hopefully at some point it will become a significant amount of money, and then I can choose to put some towards income or different savings and investment.
Hmmmm I’m really in this space just now Claire of figuring out what I want to create for paid subs. I do have a small handful already, and I’d love to create a real community with workshops and group coaching but I wonder if that’s separate to my paid writing somehow… that’s my gut feel but I’m not sure exactly how.
I want it small enough that people feel involved when they join in live (and not everyone will!) but paying enough to keep my attention - gut feel is that an average if £500pm would be nice.
And I’m still figuring out if the name is changing… there’s a waiting going on, and I’m trusting that something will come along for this little generator to respond to!
Thanks Claire, I appreciate you sharing your figures, though as a newbie they are in the distant future for me! I was interested in the graph, I saw you offered free trials, is it showing that they generally became paid subscribers? It’s not worth me doing that as I’m new with little archive but it’s interesting to find out for the future. Xx 🙏🏻🩷
I turn them off and on because managing free trial energy is quite alot for me... so they are off at the moment on CC and on til the end of the month on Sparkle. Ooo let me know if you have more questions after you’ve watched?! 👀✨❤️💌✨🤩
Hey everyone and thanks Claire for the post! I very rarely talk about growth, paywalls etc because I don't feel like I know anything about it. I've been on Substack less than six months and I feel like I am just winging it most of the time.
However, at the same time, I realise Footnotes and Tangents has been a bit of a Substack success story. And what I have done may be useful to others. I don't know, but it might be!
In the first six months, I've gained almost 6,000 free subscribers, with 900 paid (two thirds of them as annuals) and a conversion from free to paid of about 15%. And I've done this with very little behind a pay wall. Paid subscribers get a little bonus post each week, which is just icing on the cake.
So on my Substack, I run two book groups, slow reads over the course of a year. And I decided early on to go paid but keep most things free: a weekly post for both book groups, a daily chat thread and additional resources via static pages.
By keeping most things free, I devote most of my time to making the free content **really high value** with the hope that people recognise its value and decide to pay for it. I believe this is sometimes called The Guardian model, after the UK newspaper's rather successful subscription strategy. It felt risky, but it appears to have paid off!
This strategy means I don't have to worry about creating too much exclusive content and I can really focus on making the free content. And I think that partly explains the high conversion rate: readers keep telling me: this stuff is worth paying for so I want to pay you. Which is so rewarding as a writer!
Also, because I am engaging with readers every day through the free chat threads, I think that also leads to a lot of goodwill and more people taking out a paid subscription.
Now I have no idea how transferable any of this is to anyone else! Or how is will pan out in the long term. Like I say, I'm just making it up as I go along. But I thought I would share my experience with you guys. I hope you find it useful, and just shoot if you've got any questions.
Thanks Claire, and I hope everyone has a lovely day.
Simon
Thank you Simon and for being here. It just actually blows my mind - like it's SO new to us all and it's a total test of faith in what we offer and our reader's buy in... I love that you've found a way to make it work for you and you're enjoying it too. Your ideas are so creative. I like to be really transparent about what I'm doing across both my publications because there's not really a one size fits all is there. Curious about where your subs are coming from - I know you're active on socials - are some of them coming straight over or is it a mix of there and the Substack network...
I don't really know where they are all coming from. I know Substack provides some data on that, but I'm not sure how to read it. At first most came from Instagram but I think that has fizzled out, a lot through the App and quite a few through word of mouth and IRL recommendations.
Congratulations Simon! You must be delighted with your growth, I’m new to Substack and am planning on using the paywall soon. I wondered how explicit you are with your subscribers how much extra they get when they go paid? I expect they feel great value being in your community as well as the little extra for them, even if to you it’s not much more than the free folk. It’s lovely that the guardian model is working! Thanks for sharing your experience. 🙏🏻
Thanks! I'm trying to be as explicit as I can that the paid subscription is primarily to support and pay for the free content, with a little bonus. I want to poll paid subscribers later in the year to find out why they went paid. Good luck with your Substack and setting up your paywall!
That’s a good idea to poll, it’s great to see that model can work too. Thanks!
Thank you for this really considered post Claire. Like you I have my unsubscribe notifications switched off but at some point I know I need to go through and investigate my stats and my retention rates. One thing I feel I should know the answer to, but don't. If I put up my monthly prices (at the minute my annual rate is the same as 12 x monthly rate, does that apply to existing subscribers too, or just new ones?
So I’ve had a good root about on this and my understanding is folks automatically stay at the rate they joined at BUT I’m going to get a definitive answer from SS and come back to you in our next call. I’ve seen so many people promise life time costs but there’s no button so I can’t work out how this would work other than what you join at is what you pay...
Leave it with me...
Oh thanks, I've been scouring through the settings and I couldn't find anything. Thanks so much for taking the time to investigate further.
That's something I'd be interested to know about too!
I guess it leads into a question on whether if I do put my prices up a little, whether I feel I need to add in more paid content to 'justify it' - it brings up a lot of feelings around how I feel about going paid here, and to some extent highlights the fact that as with everyone else I'm just feeling my way here and exploring what feels OK and what feels 'icky'
I'd feel bad about raising rates on existing subscribers, it feels a bit 'icky', but I will probably raise my rates at some point as I went for the lowest option when I started up.
I picked the lowest option too but at some point I feel as though I'll be in a place to raise my prices a little. Or rather to raise my monthly rate but keep a bit of a discount if folks sign up for the year.
I love playing round with the maths to see what’s possible. For me, I’d like to get to 200 paid subs. Everything I make on Substack minus fees and tax goes into savings we have for our son when he goes to uni or travels the world or whatever. So I have that in mind! But the numbers then effect my plans for offerings. At the moment, my most valuable offering is a monthly journalling session which could not possibly accommodate such a large number of subscribers. Having said that a lot of my current subscribers don’t actually come to the session so that’s interesting in itself. My current activity and plans for the short to medium term future is to continue creating evergreen downloadable content, such as workbooks, and minicourses and the like so that there is a ongoing value, an ongoing reason to join and overtime a really good back catalogue of resources that any subscriber can have. I know some memberships in more traditional models would not allow a new member access to everything that’s going on before, but I really can’t be bothered to think along those lines so essentially at the moment if somebody subscribes this month they pay £7 and they can get everything I’ve ever given in that space and I’m feeling totally fine about that.
I’m going to the reply to the first part of this first in that I LOVE that you have a purpose for the money subs bring in - motivating and beautiful! ✨🤩✨
Yes! At the moment, it just feels like fun, play money that I’m not taking too seriously, but I thought if I just put it away somewhere then it feels good to do it. Hopefully at some point it will become a significant amount of money, and then I can choose to put some towards income or different savings and investment.
It’s lush. There’s a google form piece of research on notes I’ll tag ya.
Hmmmm I’m really in this space just now Claire of figuring out what I want to create for paid subs. I do have a small handful already, and I’d love to create a real community with workshops and group coaching but I wonder if that’s separate to my paid writing somehow… that’s my gut feel but I’m not sure exactly how.
I want it small enough that people feel involved when they join in live (and not everyone will!) but paying enough to keep my attention - gut feel is that an average if £500pm would be nice.
And I’m still figuring out if the name is changing… there’s a waiting going on, and I’m trusting that something will come along for this little generator to respond to!
Thanks Claire, I appreciate you sharing your figures, though as a newbie they are in the distant future for me! I was interested in the graph, I saw you offered free trials, is it showing that they generally became paid subscribers? It’s not worth me doing that as I’m new with little archive but it’s interesting to find out for the future. Xx 🙏🏻🩷
I turn them off and on because managing free trial energy is quite alot for me... so they are off at the moment on CC and on til the end of the month on Sparkle. Ooo let me know if you have more questions after you’ve watched?! 👀✨❤️💌✨🤩
Oh I just found your video on this so I’ll watch that! 🤓