To my 10* subscribers
*9 if I don't include myself
Welcome to my little corner of the internet! I’m so glad you’re here. Below you’ll find a short thank you note to my subscribers.
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No stories today, children. Let’s get down to business.
There are 4 things I’d like to say.
1. Thank you for being here.
I started my Substack earlier this year as a way to get my stories out in the wild. Short fiction can be a… difficult category if audience growth is the main goal. So I’m shocked that I have any subscribers, let alone (nearly) double digits.
I appreciate your support and I’ll do my best to continue to earn it.
2. Who are you?
In my real life I sometimes need to work with numbers and spreadsheets. So I made this fancy chart to visualize my subscribers:
Y’all already constitute a fairly large portion of my readership. This is awesome; thank you again.
On the other hand, I gave your pie slice the prettiest color. So in a way maybe you should be thanking me?
This is where I would normally put the Subscribe button, but you’re already subscribed, so that seems a bit superfluous. Unless…?
Anyway, here’s what the chart will look like once we reach 100 subscribers (I am manifesting good things for my our future):
My brother’s label has disappeared in the future. You monsters.
Ok, last chart for today (this is a lie). Here’s where people are located:
Let’s compare this to the population size of each country:
I’m not angry at the United States. I’m just disappointed. You represent 50% of my subscribers but have like a billion more people than the other countries.
I’m hard on you because I know you can do better.
But New Zealand? I see you, and I appreciate you.
Did you know that Temuera Morrison (he plays Boba Fett) is also from New Zealand? Here’s a clip of him being awesome:
3. What’s next?
This Friday I’ll release part 4 of my current short story Going Home. There are 10 chapters total, and all 10 have been written already. Once that’s done I’m considering moving to a biweekly cadence for story releases. There are several reasons for this:
There are so many awesome writers on Substack, and some of them publish multiple times a week. I don’t want to become just another notification that gets left in your inbox/app until “someday”. I am already starting to feel overloaded by the amount of people I subscribe to here so I know it must be true for others.
It gives me some breathing room to write something new. Everything I’ve published so far (besides “Three Dots”) was written several years back. Spreading out those releases over a longer period of time allows me to take the time I need to find my writing voice again while still publishing consistently.
It gives me an opening to write posts like this one. What’s the point of having subscribers if you don’t make them read your innermost thoughts every once in a while?
4. I don’t remember
No, seriously, I’m not sure what the fourth thing is. When I started drafting this post, there were 4 things I wanted to share. But it’s gone, poof, vanished like the morning dew. Just read quietly for the last few minutes of class please.
"I am already starting to feel overloaded by the amount of people I subscribe to here so I know it must be true for others."
I hear you. It's the hidden curse of having a platform with so much good material to read.