SEASONAL RANT! SUBSTACK SURFERS, FREE NET RIDERS AND THOSE WHO THINK WRITERS ARE THERE FOR THE TAKING.
Two weeks ago in the Saturday edition of The Globe and Mail there was an eloquent display of authorly angst by a fellow substacker. Finally someone had the courage to do a legitimate rant. My paid subscriber rate did not go up. Did yours? Its a bit like the death rate in Gaza. Social Media saturated by two sided horror but the death rate creeps up daily. Have we really become nasty people? Or are we just greedy. devoted to the free lunch.
I know close to a 100 people who read my posts but I have just12 paid subscribers. The rest are reading avidly and even forwarding to pals. I know this because Substack is a clever platform with high standards. It gives me names of my readers who have opened my links. Hello? Its a modest $80 annually or $8 a month which is the price of two coffees but YOU don’t care. Meanwhile with pride and responsibility I write my posts on relevant matters. Often research is required and naturally spelling mistakes avoided like the plague. I have not put up a paywall as most of other substackers have. Well I thought it would be bad manners. Guess what, my zero income scenario at years end is also bad manners.
The analogy made in the Globe article was to pick up tomatoes from the community garden and never volunteer any time to work at the same garden. I thought i had a bunch of people i knew and some I don’t who would have realized that apart from my books and journalistic forays here and there I take any act of writing seriously. So when i read the number of readers creep up I am thrilled to bits. We become a family or sorts. I put in the work to grab your interest and you become a paid subscriber.
Every author is not a best seller writer and the pennies fall in a trickle and not a waterfall. Still the desire to write and write well indeed keeps us going. It may take a year or longer to finish a book another year to get a publishers contract and its production. Small advances place us below the poverty line. No we will not flip burgers instead as this would kill our souls. One by one we will disappear and that magic we create from releasing our thoughts which enter your mind to entertain, amuse or simply educate you will END! Happy? I mean who is happy if this were to really happen.
When my little group of loyal suscribers paid the annual fee and substack forwarded their record and date when the deposit would be made directly to my bank account it was a thrill bigger than the publisher’s advance of any book. It was a confidence booster and a tiny miracle. How to make money doing what you love and their are authors who are paying household bills with their paid subscriptions. Margaret Atwood also solicits paid subscriptions for her writing post. Put that in your pipe and smoke it.
I don’t like rants. I prefer tantrums. One big sizzler of a tantrum and the rafters shake. I can assure you i can deliver. So here is a little anecdote to illustate the notoriety some of my tantrums have gained.
Dr J is a workaholic cardiologist. He is also my very dear friend. Once or twice a month he flops at the Four Seasons for the week-end. Hits the spa and gets a manicure then he wines and dines me in expensive joints. He encourages me to over-eat and I oblige. One New Years eve I invite him to a tony party I was invited to. All in the hood so the meeting point is the lobby of the Four Seasons. I am in a dishy long dress, hair done and wearing my mother’s pearls. I wait he is 15 minutes late. I can accept a five or ten minute delay as I am cursed with punctuality. I am never late. So when he strides wearing a good tux and a long white silk scarf flapping. He is 6/ 2 and quite a good sight to behold.
“Dammit J” i hiss, “ I was debating whether i should have a heart attack or throw a tantrum”
Without missing a beat he replies.
“ Have the heart attack my dear. I can handle that but your tantrum” and he shudders.
The entire reception staff giggles shamelessly.
So, the million dollar question is that Do my lovely readers want to witness a tantrum of epic proportions, or will they do the needful ?
THIS is a reader supported site so please live up to your stunning reputations of being Patron of the Arts. I on the other hand never make idle threats I just simply do.