A Note on the 4th Anniversary of The Wayward Rabbler

A look back and forward, plus a poll

Dear Readers,

It is the fourth anniversary of The Wayward Rabbler!

I primarily started this to get some ideas out from all the reading I did to recover from covid insanity, hoping to make some side income in the process. Writing quickly absorbed my life, and I am extremely proud of the work that I have produced. However, the reality of the situation is that my growth on Substack and Twitter, particularly of paid subscribers, is not moving fast enough for there to be any chance that I can have the “lines cross” before going bankrupt if my priority is Substack growth. As you can see from the following chart, it simply isn’t realistic for a man with a wife and two kids to make this his primary focus:

Part of the problem is that I have been hesitant to paywall anything besides the podcast after a couple of days, both because I believe total subscriber growth is the best way to get paid subscriber growth, and also because I think my work is valuable and want people to read it. This problem doesn’t appear to be unique to me. My understanding is that Substack is struggling from an issue akin to streaming services, where a lot of people were happy to cancel cable and buy streaming services to save money, but soon there were so many it didn’t feel like saving money and you don’t want to pay $5 for one more…I myself have embraced tradition and started torrenting again, though primarily because I’ve been watching so many obscure Italian films. I believe across this website growth has become really hard.

The other issue is that my freelancing career has really taken off. It has only been under 2 years since I started freelancing regularly, which I did not particularly plan on, not imagining anyone would want me and also thinking I could rely on Substack growth for an income. In that time I have been published in the New York Post, The American Conservative, the Washington Examiner, and Commonplace Magazine, as well as having a mostly free hand to write editorials for The Libertarian Institute when I am so inclined. This is, in my view, quite impressive for a short period of time and with some focus is actually bill-paying. Overall, I do not feel creatively stifled working with editors. On the other hand, the article type and format that has become my trademark here is not something anyone else would publish, and I am quite determined to keep doing it. But, of course, there is an opportunity cost, and I have to focus on paying publications for the time being. My dream is to not have to write for them at all, but it’s a dream towards which I have made no progress whatsoever in over a year.

There are several types of successful writers, and of those I am an artist. I do not say that to sound self-important or special, what I mean is that I can only work when I feel inspired. I may not write for a week or more or spend all day agonizing over 1000 words if I don’t feel like doing it, but I also may work 30+ hours in a 48 hour period with enormous productivity when I feel inspired and am going. One nice thing about doing book reviews is it gives me a productive way to spend my time when I do not feel like I can write. The point is that I cannot just “write more” and keep up with both things, and creative work is not a thing generally measured hourly.

How I envision the near future here is that I will continue to write my Substack articles but prioritize paying work and guilt myself less about getting articles out. The subscriptions here do greatly take the edge off of such an unstable as career as freelancing, and I would note that many successful journalists have a large Substack subscriber bases supporting their work generally while only sporadically making Substack posts. It also bears mentioning that though my treatise is the only thing I have published here in almost two months, it is the length of a short book and perhaps 3 months worth of writing for many other substackers (and was done in a week + some light earlier pre-writing, to demonstrate the above point.) Though it has never been the case, as I hoped and imagined, that getting published elsewhere drives growth here, I am nevertheless compelled to choose that method of growth for now and hope that some kind of fame or recognition will bring people here.

This brings me to the question I would like to ask my readers: would you like a monthly digest of all of my non-Substack work? This would include published articles, interviews, longer twitter threads, and anything else relevant. My primary concern is is to not clog up your mailbox, but I imagine some substantial portion of readers do not consistently follow me on any social media (including Substack Notes.) I would add here that you can set Substack to only send articles to your Substack inbox, not your email, which is what I myself do because I use Substack every day.

My thought is that this would be a great convenience and give better access to my work since the case would be that you are supporting me generally and less specifically for my Substack articles, which are free anyhow.

Dispatches from Clown World will remain on its new bi-weekly schedule, though if my paid subscribers go up substantially we could absolutely go back to weekly. It was started as a way to drive paid subscriber growth, which it has not done at all, but I am quite attached to making the podcast, and the real fans do like it quite a lot.

I imagine this is quite disappointing to some paid subscribers, which I have been losing recently anyway, but I greatly appreciate everyone who has supported me thus far. Again though, the numbers are just not going up in such a way that I can sensibly prioritize publishing original work here over paid writing for other publications. You all have helped me start a career as a writer that I have full faith will be successful, and I am forever grateful.

Regardless, here is to four years!

Sincerely,

Brad

PS: I realize this is the worst of all times to ask for paid subscriptions, but I have a 20% off 4th anniversary sale going on currently, and it does still greatly help me justify putting time towards Substack.

Also, I have a Ko-Fi tip jar, or tips set up on Twitter.