What I’ve Learned After Two Years on Substack (April 2024)

State of the newsletter

One of my favorite things about writing on Substack is that every time I share something useful, interesting, or entertaining, I get a raise.

I launched the first iteration of this newsletter in January of 2020 on MailChimp. A little over two years later, in April of 2022, I moved over to Substack. I shared my thoughts after year one here.  

When I wrote my 1 year reflections a year ago, this newsletter had 33 thousand total subscribers and about 1,500 paid subscribers. We now have more than 55 thousand total subscribers, with more than 2,300 paid subscribers. Seventeen have chosen to become “Founding Members” and pay $500 a year. According to the image below, I have more Substack followers than subscribers, I guess because some people just want to read my notes. There’s a number floating around out there suggesting you can expect 10% of your free subscribers to go paid. In my experience (and from what I’ve heard from other Substack writers), though, the number is typically something closer to 4 or 5 percent. I’m happy to say that this Substack is a growing and sustainable day job.

As I mentioned last year, I haven’t concentrated much effort on growth for growth’s sake:

Throughout building my newsletter, I haven’t implemented much readership growth advice from other people. Growth is not number one on my agenda. This might be why I haven’t received spectacular bursts of attention and subscribers. I’ve seen other writers who share charts indicating rapid and punctuated instances of major subscription increases. My Substack is not that way. Similar to Twitter, my experience with newsletters (both the first Mailchimp version and now Substack) has been one of gradual, reliable growth, brick by brick, fueled primarily by word of mouth. I think growth is important, it’s nice to see, and I’m not shy about sharing my work online and on Twitter. Still, growth has never been my primary goal. I’ve noticed that when I write about topics directly or indirectly related to politics and culture war stuff, it sometimes gets a lot of attention. Still, this hasn’t spurred me to lean in that direction. I’ve never felt susceptible to audience capture. My personal political views aren’t exactly a secret. But I’ve never been particularly interested in politics and have never been a news junkie. I grew up without cable, so no Stewart/Colbert or CNN or Fox News, and in my early adolescence I was raised by working-class Democrats who read the local paper. Politics just wasn’t part of my life and it didn’t really seep into my consciousness until I arrived on campus in 2015. As I’ve written before, I try to avoid (sometimes unsuccessfully) the news. I prefer reading books, academic articles, and longform essays. I’m far more interested in human nature, class, status signaling, relationships, history, philosophy, social science, ideology, and so on.

Two years on, and we’re still the number 4 science newsletter on this platform.

This underscores the need for independent writing. Weekly essays delivered to your inbox on a reliable day at a reliable time (Sunday morning), along with bonus posts and recommendations, without any ads, affiliate links, pop-ups, SEO bait, or any other increasingly familiar features of our online landscape.

Mechanical consistency is an underrated approach to building a readership. Everyone wants the secret sauce or the smash hit viral article. But the real secret is to develop a reliable and dependable writing schedule.

The psychologist Dean Keith Simonton has found that one notable attribute that distinguishes high performers is volume:

“A small percentage of workers is responsible for the bulk of the work...the top 10% of the most prolific elite can be credited with 50% of all contributions, whereas the bottom 50% of least productive workers can claim only 15%...the most productive contributor is about 100 times more prolific than the least.”

This goes for anyone in a competitive domain that requires some creativity. It definitely applies to podcasters (the vast majority of podcasters never produce more than 20 episodes) and newsletter writers (so often I see people write a few good posts and then go dark). Regular output is key. Do the work, accept that most of your work will be fair-to-middling, and be grateful for the occasional home run.

On social media, each tweet and post competes with every other post. But this newsletter competes mostly with the other emails in your inbox.

I recently read a study indicating that—unsurprisingly—negative words in headlines increase click-through rates (words like “wrong,” “bad,” “awful,” “hate,” “sick,” etc.). Such headlines are optimized to perform well on social media, and play on fear and outrage. One reason newsletters have become successful is that they have different incentives. I notice that the open rate for this newsletter remains the same (around 40%), regardless of headlines. It’s gratifying to know that readers will open whatever I happen to publish that day.

Here are some notable posts throughout the past year:

• How I read My (non)secrets on how to read more.

• Why Dumb Ideas Capture Smart and Successful People Intelligence is a general purpose tool. It can help you find the truth, yes, but it can also help you know which opinions to express to navigate social hierarchies.  

• What is Social Status? I cover the major empirical findings and theoretical frameworks on dominance, prestige, and power.

• Being Poor Doesn't Have the Same Effect as Living in Chaos For childhood outcomes, we focus too much on poverty, and not enough on instability and disorder.  

• Victim Signaling and Dark Triad Personality Traits People who are high on narcissism, psychopathy, and Machiavellianism are adept at exploiting people’s sympathy to extract rewards.

• You’re Probably Not the Person I’m Judging Clarifying just who it is that I’m criticizing when I write about luxury beliefs, and explaining my views on elites.

• Swiping and Dating Preferences Exploring gender divides in sex and relationships

• Without Belief in a God, But Never Without Belief in a Devil Discussing what might be the most important non-fiction book I’ve ever read.

• The Grand Canyon-Sized Chasm Between Elites and Ordinary Americans Ivy Leaguers versus everyone else.

• How To Choose A Romantic Partner A literature review of the relevant research in mating psychology, and how it can inform your romantic decisions.

• America’s Lost Boys and Me A glimpse into my early life, which you can read more about in my book.

The archives also contain gated posts for premium subscribers on envy, the sexual dimension of social status, reflections on intimacy in long-term relationships, tips for how to improve your social skills, the term “liberal elites,” unfiltered thoughts on the recent Andrew Huberman saga, and much more.

A few people have asked how much time I spend running this newsletter. In terms of actual, physical, writing, re-writing, and editing, maybe 8 hours a week. But I spend the majority of my waking hours—maybe 50-60 hours a week—reading, thinking, note-taking, brainstorming, speaking with other writers, academics, journalists, and so on. All of that goes into my writing. When I'm in the shower mulling over a recent psychology paper or having a coffee chat with a professor or reading my Kindle app on the train or jotting notes on my phone when I'm out for a walk, does that count as “working on my Substack?” I also occasionally write about my life more generally. Unclear whether “living life” also counts as being on the clock. In a given week, we’re awake for around 115 hours. So in a typical week, I either put in about 8 hours into my Substack or 115. Depends on how you look at it. A lot of jobs that require creativity or innovation or unique skill sets are like this. In a way, you’re always on the clock.

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Many of you are recent subscribers, coming here after having read my debut book Troubled.

One thing I learned recently is that yes, you can use social media and your newsletter to promote a book. But you can also use your book to promote your newsletter and your other platforms.  

Ordinarily, this newsletter attracts around 1-2 thousand (free + paid) new subscribers per month. During the month of my book launch (Feb 20 – March 20) it gained more than 4 thousand new subscribers. Perhaps triple the usual growth rate.

When you have a book out and it gets some buzz and attention, you get invited on podcasts. Maybe you get a segment or two on TV. Most people who see you on a 3 minute TV segment or listen to you on a podcast aren’t going to buy your book. That’s just the reality. A small number of listeners and viewers, though, will look you up online.

Maybe they find you on X or Instagram. Or come across your newsletter. Maybe they follow you for a while. If, after a few weeks or a few months, they like what they see, they consider getting your book. Maybe they sign up for a paid newsletter subscription. The funnel goes something like podcast appearance —> follow the person on X —> enjoy their tweets —> sign up for their newsletter —> take pleasure in or find useful information in their writing —> get their book and/or subscribe for premium membership.

Many people have noted how difficult it is to sell books. Even celebrities with millions of followers are having difficulty moving as many copies as their sizeable social media platforms would supposedly predict.

In a post titled “No one will read your book,” Elle Griffin writes:

“In reality, books compete for our reading time alongside newspapers, magazines, and other online publications...To make it onto a reader’s nightstand, an author will have to compete with the roughly 3 million books currently in print.”

As with anything, there’s an element of luck that goes into a book’s success. Still, things aren’t entirely up to fortune. Authors have some degree of control.

Platform matters. The medium through which people become accustomed to your work matters. Generally speaking, people will enjoy a creator’s work in the mode they’re used to. For example, if readers enjoy reading a writer’s material online, then they’ll most likely enjoy reading it in book-form, too. But if you’re used to watching a Tik Tok influencer on your phone or a movie star on the big screen, it’s less clear if that will translate into book sales.

If you want people to read your book, it helps if they’re accustomed to reading your writing. I’ve heard that popular podcasters who become authors often sell far more audiobooks than hardcovers or ebooks. Which makes sense. People are used to hearing their voice. They’re comfortable with that person in their ear. So they buy the person’s book in the format they’re accustomed to. All this implies that if you want people to read your book, start a newsletter. If you want people to listen to your book, maybe podcasting or Tik Toking is the right call.

Candidly, there were moments when I worried whether my book Troubled would retain relevance by the time it launched. Particularly the final few chapters where I write about the culture of elite colleges. Last year, after the resignations of two Ivy League presidents, my concerns were put to rest. Whatever has infected the culture of higher ed remains as salient as ever. It was already apparent by the time I arrived at Yale in 2015. I’m glad those chapters of Troubled exist as firsthand documentation of the moment when this new wave of political correctness began spilling out of colleges.

Arthur Koestler:

“A writer’s ambition should be to trade a hundred contemporary readers for ten readers in ten years, and for one reader in a hundred years. But the general atmosphere in this country directs the writer’s ambition into different channels . . . on immediate success here and now. Religion and art are the two completely non-competitive spheres of human striving and they both derive from the same source. But the social climate in this country has made the creation of art into an essentially competitive business. On the best-seller charts—this curse of American literary life—authors are rated like shares on the Stock Exchange.”

I don’t mind the competitive nature of the market and I am a fan of capitalism (or a strong skeptic of its alternatives). But the part about being read by even one reader in a hundred years’ time is something most authors desire. Between the early chapters covering life in late twentieth century American squalor and the later chapters documenting elite campus culture I think Troubled will stand the test of time. Thinking about the book, I still feel nostalgia for the early 2000s in the same way that most people feel for the period when they came of age in their adolescence. In some ways Troubled is an ode to that era. If you look at the trends Jean Twenge identifies in Generations and Jonathan Haidt shares in The Anxious Generation, my generation—millennials who came of age in the flip phone era—was the last normal generation among those born in the twentieth century. The last generation before the steep decline in getting driver’s licenses, going on dates, obtaining paid employment as a teenager, taking risks, getting into fights, and so on. The last generation before the sharp rise in safetyism. The only people who have noticed my lack of a bicycle helmet on my book cover are Zoomers and parents of Zoomers.

Generally, it seems like working-class kids trail behind in terms of the characteristics that define each generation. Technological and cultural changes reach upper and upper-middle-class kids first, and those are the people who define the archetypal attributes of each generation. The experiences my friends and I had growing up are more consistent with xennials (“analog childhood and digital adulthood”) than millennials. Anyway, my guess is this book will still be interesting to readers in 10 years. And perhaps even 1 reader in 100 years.

Another thing I’ve recently learned about writing is that books can strengthen people’s real-life relationships. Sometimes people say they feel they “know me” after reading my Substack or reading my book. It’s not really true. You know the small part of my life that I share. As Kevin Kelly writes in his compendium Excellent Advice for Living, “You see only 2% of another person and they see only 2% of you.” With writers, you can bump it up to maybe 4 percent. With memoirists, 20 percent or 30 percent. But 70 percent remains inaccessible (sometimes even to ourselves). Still, it’s unsurprising for readers to develop parasocial bonds with authors. More meaningful, though, are the messages I receive from people who listen to my book with their kids, or friends, or loved ones and they tell me it created a space for them to be more open with one another about their own experiences and memories. The other day a father wrote to me explaining he and his kids listened to my audiobook during a road trip and it created an avenue for them to express their reflections about events in their own family. Writing can bring readers closer to people in their own lives and strengthen their existing relationships. Social relationships are more important than parasocial ones.

I’m pleased with the success of Troubled. It has garnered many positive reviews in multiple different outlets, most recently in the Wall Street Journal and The Economist, along with Amazon and Goodreads (many thanks to those of you who have posted your reviews). True that bookstores didn’t want to host any book events. True that the NYT didn’t list me on their bestseller list. The success of this book, though, has demonstrated that there is an audience who will read this type of memoir. I hope it encourages other aspiring authors from similarly unpromising origins to write their book, and perhaps that will be the one that makes a difference. My book might not be the one to get elites to truly pay attention to what has happened to kids and families in this country. But my hope is that it will help to pave the way for the more worthy and talented author who writes the book that will.

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The moral arc of content is long, and it bends toward having to pay for good writing.

For more than 4 years, I’ve made the (sometimes difficult) decision to keep the vast majority of my writing free. But as I transition into the next phase of life, financial considerations loom larger. Starting next month, an increasingly larger share of my posts will be available for premium subscribers only.

For the past two years—since hosting this newsletter on Substack—my posting routine has been something like 2 free posts per week + 1 bonus gated post for premium subscribers only. Soon, this pattern will flip to something like 2 gated + 1 free. However I decide to do it, most of my upcoming posts will be available for premium subscribers only.  

Many essays in the works. A few I have in my scattered notes:

• Dieting, weightlifting, exercise, and experiences with weight fluctuations (bouncing between 164 and 206 lbs) and how I found a comfortable routine that keeps me at about 175 lbs. After Troubled, I wanted to avoid writing about myself for a while. But a lot of readers have asked me about my diet/health/fitness routine (it’s not complicated, but so many Substack writers are out of shape that it surprises people when they see one who is reasonably fit) so I’ll write it up

• Who are the modern shamans and gurus? What does it mean to “develop your insides?” This essay will be an unconventional review of a classic 1972 sociology text The Hidden Injuries of Social Class

• The question of whether luxury beliefs are held intentionally or unconsciously

• Over-interpreting findings from behavioral genetics is a right-wing luxury belief

• A Marxian analysis of children as a class-in-themselves but not a class-for-themselves

• Relational models theory (what Steven Pinker once characterized as the only overarching theory of social psychology)

• The surprising link between Dark Triad personality traits and anti-natalism (the belief that it’s wrong to have children)

• The link between political orientation and inclination toward criminal offending

• Workshopping chapters for a future book specifically about luxury beliefs. I’ll ask readers for their feedback and notes

• The “neurotic paradox”

• What does it mean to be an “outsider?”

• A review of Codes of the Underworld: How Criminals Communicate

Some people have asked why this newsletter has a higher price than other Substacks. The answer is a) I pay for a lot of books, publications, and newsletters to stay up to date on the latest psychology research, b) This is my primary means of income, and c) my large collection of archived essays are evergreen and timeless; I’m not chasing trends or reacting to the latest headlines. I truly enjoy running this newsletter and might wish to do it in some form until I keel over at my desk and collapse into a pile of books. I also refuse to do ads or affiliate marketing.

In addition to Substack, I have plenty of other commitments occupying my time. I recently accepted a regular columnist position at a prominent newspaper. Most of my writing will remain on this newsletter. It’ll be similar to what Tyler Cowen does with his Marginal Revolution blog and his Bloomberg column. I’ll make a formal announcement about it soon. I recently spoke about my book at the Oxford Literary Festival. I’ll be at Yale this Thursday delivering a talk about my book (free and open to the public). I’m scheduled to speak at the U.S. Marines Memorial in San Francisco in July. Other public events coming up.

I’m taking some much needed time off for the next few weeks. But your inbox won’t be completely free of me. I’ll continue to send out a weekly links roundup + recommendations on Sundays, along with essays from the archives. You’ll soon receive instructions if you want to plug your writing on this newsletter. Similar to what we did last year.  

I continue to be thankful for your support. Thanks for reading.