to buy or not to buy
that is the question
Amusing anecdote as to why I used the above trite title: a friend on Bluesky mentioned how a kid in their Shakespeare asked why the Bard used so many cliches. Heh heh. I had a year of Shakespeare in college and I don’t recall the topic of cliches coming up, though I’m sure it did. I do remember it was a Senior level class and hard AF.
I'm looking at Substack subscriptions and many are about 6 bucks a month. I get it. I really do. Writers need to make some damn money and generally the words/$ ratio seems fair. But, and I’m putting on my media consumer hat here, by comparison I can get monthly streaming platforms for a little more than that with thousands of shows. I just got a magazine subscription for $12/4 issues a year. And a bunch of $6 subscriptions (I was just recommended two in one post, and I'm sure she'd like us to subscribe to hers also!) really add up. Now that may be a minimum set by substack to make their cut, I’ve no idea.
Right now I have about four I’d like to do. I can afford them. But you know there will be more. So how many is enough? Too many? How many will I read in a week or a month.
I'm not sure what the answer is. Right now my substack is currently free for a couple of reasons.
I don't currently need the money to live though I do believe it’s fair that I’m paid for quality content (I don’t consider this post “quality content” btw though I think I have written some useful things).
I'm really trying hard to concentrate on fiction, and I know firsthand how blogging can usurp that. (Like today! Right now!)
I'm having trouble figuring out what to write each week so I don’t seem to do it even weekly. When I do write it’s often newsy personal writer stuff. That hardly seems fair. If I were to charge I might like to charge 50c a post or something. I might put a voluntary subscription fee on there but post for free all the time.
Also there's the usual noise about substack allowing haters to post here. I haven’t done my own research though I don’t doubt it. Free speech, blah blah. I’m pretty rabidly free speech but hate speech isn’t protected. I don’t know what kind of AI or controls Substack has in place. My guess is little to none. I’m not sure what the answer is to that when the largest American audience for tv news is on Faux. (Which also is somewhat skewed. My kids don’t watch the news. I pick up Anderson Cooper maybe once a week (more if something international is happening). I read my news and always have.
Anyway still thinking it all over. I’ve got a damn cold (really not thinking it’s COVID—I’ve got some experience with the disease including the long sort) but I’ll test in a day or so. Company this weekend and more football, which is most of what I do socially between now and Thanksgiving!.
Amid some other businessy things I did today, I signed this letter and it’s worth a read and maybe the old John Hancock if you’re a writer. All the super smart people I know see the danger in AI, including my hubcap who runs a security and privacy firm. No one I know thinks or wishes it will go away, just that laws catch up and protections of copyright work are solid. Incidentally as soon as you write something, you own it outright, so there’s that. Which is a good reason to go check Substacks policies on such things. Another check for the list!