From my end, moving Bet On It to Substack has gone even better than expected. I’ve got over four times the traffic in just a few weeks. It is all as Richard Hanania foretold:
We started talking about this a few months ago when I noticed that, despite being a major fan of his work, I had almost completely stopped reading his blog. More and more, I was reading things on Substack that I probably wouldn’t have given a chance to before, while missing things from even my favorite writers when they were being published somewhere else…
The secret to the success of Substack is that, like Netflix, it has perfected the frictionless experience… Some months ago, I was talking to an academic with a blog, and I told her she should get on Substack because I liked the fact that it was so easy to sign up for e-mails. She told me that I could just go to her WordPress site, scroll or direct my eyes to the right place, and subscribe to her blog too. What’s the big deal? Sounds like the same thing. I tried to get through to her that I’m a very busy guy who already finds it difficult to keep up with everything I want to read, and I’m sure other potential readers are in the same position, so five seconds versus one second to sign up for a blog is a big difference.
Question: How has the move been for readers? Anything I should be doing differently? I can’t please everyone, but I will listen, and the buck does stop here.
Yup, every time you post, I get a notification on my phone, and if I can I usually start reading. Before I’d have to remind myself once a week or so to go to your blog.
I used to read what you blogged only when Tyler linked to it. Now I read it every time you post something new.