Welcome to My Substack

There's been a slow trickle of new subscribers. That's cool.

Over the last few months, there have been a number of new subscribers. Some have stayed, some have left. I think I’ve picked up a few listeners from my radio show, but overall, the growth has been pretty organic. For someone who is really just sharing his thoughts and columns for free here, it’s nice to see some interest in it.

I have said/threatened that I would do more exclusive stuff here, and I will. It’s about finding a work/life/Substack balance. I’ll get there eventually. But this has been more of a landing pad for all the stuff I do - whether it’s my writing at RedState or hosting the podcast version of my show or the occasional recipe to share (I have a backlog of those) - than an exclusive site. For now.

A few things have happened over the past few months that are of note.

The first is that there has been a slow but fairly steady trickle of new subscribers. Based on the stats, it looks like a lot of you are coming in via the Substack Network, which is awesome. I’m glad to see the stuff I’m writing is hitting more and more eyeballs.

The second thing that’s happened is the nonsense over at X (the artist formerly known as Twitter). Elon Musk has all but ruined that social media platform as a means of getting new subscribers. So my means of promoting this newsletter there have pretty much ended.

My friend Jay Caruso has a Substack Chat on the difficulties of Twitter over at his Substack, The Monday Notice. A big part of the problem, he and I agree, is how Elon Musk has gotten Twitter to bury and hide any and all links to Substack. It’s pretty clear, given the paid subscriber model and how it’s being utilized, that Musk wants Twitter to be the next big influencer platform, and he is favoring people who are paid subscribers with big followings.

So, at the end of the day, Musk will punish other platforms by not allowing them to properly populate Twitter. This seems odd, as the best way to get accounts to grow is to allow them to grow everywhere they can and let those followings populate across multiple platforms. Tell your Facebook audience where to find you on Twitter, and they’ll go there. Tell your Twitter audience where they can read your long-form thoughts on Substack and they’ll follow. Tell your Substack followers where to find you on Twitter, and they’ll hop on over.

But Musk is interested in two things, neither of which are actually beneficial to content creators:

1. Money: He has set up a model that favors paid subscribers so that he can encourage more people to become paid subscribers.

2. User Data: He now has access to one of the largest collections of personal data on the web. The kind of thing that makes tailored advertising useful, and not just for Twitter.

He feels incentivized to keep people as exclusive to Twitter as possible, but I feel it actually works against his interest in the long run. Influencers who don’t have the ability to stretch their wings as much as possible don’t feel as compelled to generate the content they were creating.

But, that’s why I have enjoyed Substack. Even without doing much more than posting here regularly, I’m growing. Not quickly, but steadily. And that’s enough for right now. I don’t know if I’ll turn this into a revenue stream in the future, but I am sure that as long as y’all are interested in reading what I’m writing, I’ll keep sharing it.

I have managed to convince myself that there is a market for the kind of analysis I do. Center-right, conservative news and opinion without all the die-hard rhetoric or the cults of personality. I used to think that’s how you get ahead, but I realized a few years back I’d rather just be honest about what I think, not whitewash over the bad parts of my own side and actually hold them just as accountable (if not more accountable) than the other side.

I’ve gotten enough feedback on my radio show that I think I’m right about what people are looking for right now. My audience here has been growing. Even my audience on Twitter, which is deeply impacted by my lack of a blue checkmark, has grown a little bit. I think the time for bombast is slipping away, and people are looking for more news and analysis than they are people who make them feel good about their beliefs.

And I think most of you reading this are in this camp, based on the comments and the emails I get. I appreciate the feedback, even if I don’t always reply (to be honest, I rarely get to, but that’s not because I’m ignoring your criticisms/critiques). Regardless, thank you all for stopping by. I am glad you’re here.

If you don’t mind, could you do me a favor and share this newsletter?