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I grew my Substack from 439 to 451 free subscribers in just 11 months

shadesofgreaves.substack.com

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Re: I grew my Substack from 439 to 451 free subscribers in just 11 months

#71

Post by ghaff »

bluejellybean wrote: post #60
ghaff wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The monetization is worth pretty much zero for most people. But it's low friction and at least Medium used to have an aura of carrying more reputational weight than a personal blog did. (Which was BS but was the case at least once upon a time.)

> Medium used to have an aura of carrying more reputational weight than a personal blog did. At least within the realm of technical discussion, I'll be continuing to view it as a mostly negative signal. The institution is very rarely the individual, and there isn't value in assigning positive weight when said institution doesn't carry any itself. Increased friction is counter-intuitively a positive here, it shows tha…

I've been going back and forth for a blog/website relaunch. My current thinking is I'll just go with a new template on Google Blogger. I've actually been happy enough with that over the years.

I don't cross-post to Medium any longer.

Re: I grew my Substack from 439 to 451 free subscribers in just 11 months

#72

Post by rustybolt »

chiefalchemist wrote: post #38
mattbrewsbytes wrote: post #9

> So, considering that you’re likely going to fail, at least pick something you’re going to enjoy failing at! This is the golden nugget that got me subscribed. I love satire (and am pumped Jon Stewart is back on TDS) and this is a good perspective to trying out side projects.

It's not limited to side projects. "Failure" is the norm. It's what happens nearly every time, all the time. Once you embrace this then you're spitting distance from, "What do I have to lose?" If you don't try, you end up in the same place. If you do try, you also likely end up in the same place. But oh the joy of pulling that slot machine handle and watching the wheels spin. There's simply no joy at all in not tryin…

> "Failure" is the norm. It's what happens nearly every time, all the time.

That feels like a very unhealthy perspective on life to me (that seems to be quite common in the US).

For example, if you write a book, that can be a major success in itself. The quality of the book has nothing to do with how well it sells.

Re: I grew my Substack from 439 to 451 free subscribers in just 11 months

#73

Post by benreesman »

Loughla wrote: post #13
benreesman wrote: post #6

Adult humor at one’s own expense or the expense of “public figures” was celebrated, not cancelled, in the halcyon days of yore like 5 years ago. This used to fly: https://jesuschristsiliconvalley-blog.tumblr.com/ and the world was better for it. Bravo, Swiftian sarcastic satirical Sir or Madame.

God, I love that site.

You and me both: the magistrates and noblemen and aldermen serve a purpose, but the current crop apparently read Sapiens or The Selfish Gene or some other airport book instead of their Marcus Aurelius: you’re only mortal, you’re not even Achilles let alone a god.

And so they need to be shrunk down to size by someone wittier than they are, from time to time. Which given the demonstrable identical distributions of capability between the kleptocrats and the whole population? There’s someone smarter than the God Emperor of tagging or cloud or CUDA at a UCSD keg party.

As for the tightass posers who are sitting on the downvote button of a comment with “I love this” pinned under it: if you think you know more about what’s in and out of bounds concerning humor on HN than a daily user for sixteen years? Well in that case, been a minute pg, hope Jessica is well.

Otherwise? Take a long walk off a short bridge.

Re: I grew my Substack from 439 to 451 free subscribers in just 11 months

#74

Post by rchaud »

rustybolt wrote: post #72
chiefalchemist wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not limited to side projects. "Failure" is the norm. It's what happens nearly every time, all the time. Once you embrace this then you're spitting distance from, "What do I have to lose?" If you don't try, you end up in the same place. If you do try, you also likely end up in the same place. But oh the joy of pulling that slot machine handle and watching the wheels spin. There's simply no joy at all in not tryin…

> "Failure" is the norm. It's what happens nearly every time, all the time. That feels like a very unhealthy perspective on life to me (that seems to be quite common in the US). For example, if you write a book, that can be a major success in itself. The quality of the book has nothing to do with how well it sells.

It's VC-driven thinking. For regular people a success could be completing a book, but maybe also having it be successful enough that it opens the door for another book.

If your boss is a VC, success is when you exit with an IPO, full stop. The venture doesn't have to be anywhere near profitability if there's enough hype to sell blocks of shares to pension funds.

Re: I grew my Substack from 439 to 451 free subscribers in just 11 months

#75

Post by borroka »

mattbrewsbytes wrote: post #56
klabb3 wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This isn’t satire to me, that’s genuinely great life advice. I use it all the time. For instance, a difficult stressful tech interview was passed with flying colors using that psychological method. In general parlance (American in particular), a conditional negative (eg “if I got cancer”) is usually verboten, like you cause a side effect (=killing the vibe) even though the condition isn’t materialized. You have to lo…

The satire comment was in general about that author and post, not the specific line. Failing is learning. Failing in something you don't enjoy isn't fun.

Sometimes one can learn from failures. Other times, most of the time I'd say, failure is failure and one ends up, depending on the failure, with less money, less energy, fewer successes.

I don't like "failing", I don't want to fail so I can learn, certainly for the ambitious person there are failures, losses, things that did not work out on the way, hopefully to success, but selection bias is strong when saying that failing is learning.

Re: I grew my Substack from 439 to 451 free subscribers in just 11 months

#76

Post by chiefalchemist »

rustybolt wrote: post #72
chiefalchemist wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not limited to side projects. "Failure" is the norm. It's what happens nearly every time, all the time. Once you embrace this then you're spitting distance from, "What do I have to lose?" If you don't try, you end up in the same place. If you do try, you also likely end up in the same place. But oh the joy of pulling that slot machine handle and watching the wheels spin. There's simply no joy at all in not tryin…

> "Failure" is the norm. It's what happens nearly every time, all the time. That feels like a very unhealthy perspective on life to me (that seems to be quite common in the US). For example, if you write a book, that can be a major success in itself. The quality of the book has nothing to do with how well it sells.

You've successfully completed a task. Sure, that's important. Obviously. But if the goal of writing the book is for others to read, perhaps even to sell X (e.g., 500) copies then there's a very good change you will not reach that goal.

That's ok. That's the point. That's the norm. So if you come up short, so what.

Re: I grew my Substack from 439 to 451 free subscribers in just 11 months

#77

Post by chiefalchemist »

rchaud wrote: post #74
rustybolt wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "Failure" is the norm. It's what happens nearly every time, all the time. That feels like a very unhealthy perspective on life to me (that seems to be quite common in the US). For example, if you write a book, that can be a major success in itself. The quality of the book has nothing to do with how well it sells.

It's VC-driven thinking. For regular people a success could be completing a book, but maybe also having it be successful enough that it opens the door for another book. If your boss is a VC, success is when you exit with an IPO, full stop. The venture doesn't have to be anywhere near profitability if there's enough hype to sell blocks of shares to pension funds.

> , but maybe also having it be successful enough that it opens the door for another book.

Unlikely. And that's the point. That's okay. To not get to that level is the norm. There's no sense fearing the obvious, the typical, the usual. Again, worst case you end up where you started (had you done nothing).

It's like traveling isn't it? Eventually you end up back at home (i.e., where you started) and yet you're damn happy you left. So yeah, pull the handle on the slot machine and let the chips fall where they may. No reason to be afraid.

Re: I grew my Substack from 439 to 451 free subscribers in just 11 months

#79

Post by rustybolt »

chiefalchemist wrote: post #76
rustybolt wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "Failure" is the norm. It's what happens nearly every time, all the time. That feels like a very unhealthy perspective on life to me (that seems to be quite common in the US). For example, if you write a book, that can be a major success in itself. The quality of the book has nothing to do with how well it sells.

You've successfully completed a task. Sure, that's important. Obviously. But if the goal of writing the book is for others to read, perhaps even to sell X (e.g., 500) copies then there's a very good change you will not reach that goal. That's ok. That's the point. That's the norm. So if you come up short, so what.

My point is, maybe labelling everything you do a failure is not that good for you, mentally. I think this is somewhat ingrained in US culture, and I wouldn't be surprised if this is at least one of the causes for the mental health crisis in the US.
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