Upgrade to paid
I’ve noticed that more and more of the newsletters I subscribe to here have a paid subscriber tier. You get the odd free email a couple of times a month, but the good stuff (one assumes) is hidden behind the paywall.
And then you get an interesting looking email, get invested then hit the “to see the rest, y’all gotta pay up, bro”
Now, I love the idea of supporting writers. And yes, it is ‘only’ $5 a month, or ‘the price of a nice coffee’. And you can get it cheaper (relatively) by going for an annual plan.
But then I look at how many newsletters (is that the right term? Substacks feels... wrong) that I subscribe to, and at $5 each per month, it'd end up being more than (does sums in head) a *lot* a month.
Plus if I give you my price of a nice coffee, then I don’t get to have the nice coffee. And I really really like nice coffee.
On top of all that, new and fabulously interesting people appear all the time.
Yes, I know that you don't *have* to have a paid sub for everyone, but how do you choose? Especially when that money could be spent on books or coffee.
That said, I realise that my $5/month might go towards *their* books or coffee, and that'd be a good thing. For them, anyway.
And it'd encourage the writers I like to keep doing all of this *waves hands* and that'd be a good thing for the rest of us.
I’m not sure what the answer is, or if there is one. Patreon seems to offer various options for subscriptions, and I pay a couple of quid to people over there for similar things. Would $2/month work better here? I’d probably subscribe to more, for sure.
I’m not sure how it works at the back end of Substack. Are the prices set? Do you, the writer, get all of the $5?
Do you have a paid subscription to any other substacks? Open to more recommendations for great ones!