45 — Many eggs, One basket
The ROI of creativity: balancing artistic integrity with financial sustainability
Right in the morning as I have breakfast, in my attempt to replace the horrible habit of scrolling through various social media feeds, I have been taking on activities that stimulate my brain cells, rather than just kill them like reading a chapter of a book, doing a crossword or playing Wordle. This morning, though, I found myself opening Substack and scrolling through some of the Notes (brief text or image-based public messages) even if I’m usually not that interested in the section as I find it disturbingly close to how Twitter used to be and I can’t help but hear my brain scream ‘social media’.
The first one I read is of someone who shared the relatability of an author’s essay titled “A Year of Cluelessness on Substack”. In short (although I encourage you to read the whole thing) Poorna Bell, writes about the struggles (and rewards, sure) of being on the platform. Despite being a seasoned journalist and published author, she feels frustrated by the lack of consistent growth and success and while her free readership grows, the paid subscriptions have plateaued hence bringing up the friction between writing what she wants to write and growing without compromising her mental well-being and authenticity.
She makes a ton of valid points, some of which I will summarize here:
So many are publishing on Substack
It isn’t just about good writing: so many other factors are at play for anyone’s success on the platform
Substack pivoting to video
Beyond the writer’s control, economic factors, visibility, and readers’ personal time constraints affect engagement
I then went on to read the comments and, well, they had me ponder.
Someone writes:
“Like you, I can’t afford to maintain a Substack as a hobby. I sent that [essay] on Friday. Since then I’ve gained 10 free subscribers and actually lost five paid ones - no one cared enough to upgrade their subscription. In terms of helping me continue to keep moving this machine forward, it was technically a waste of effort and I could have written two articles in the same amount of time that a publication would have paid me for. I’m pulling my hair out with it. I have 67k Instagram followers but it makes no difference - sharing my posts on stories there doesn’t convert into subscribers. I also believe that now 'everyone' has a Substack, it’s making it seemingly impossible to grow paid subs unless you already had a substantial subscriber base here.”
Instagram doesn’t guarantee engagement - anymore.
TikTok doesn’t guarantee reach - anymore.
Substack doesn’t guarantee paid subscribers - anymore.
In equal measure people and brands have spent years putting all their eggs in one basket, the same basket as everyone else: Instagram.
A decade in, the only ones who are still able to make a solid living with it (buying properties, launching businesses, and investing in agents) are the ones who silently diversified years ago by creating online courses, launching YouTube channels, and/or making merchandise or products to market and sell.
The rest, well, the rest hopped on and off onto other platforms in search of the best ROI (return on investment).
How can we make sure that the time we spend on making a video or writing an essay gives us a return on the time we have already invested to continue creating on these platforms and possibly making a living?
Is that our general expectation now?
That we can’t continue writing, making videos, and creating (in general) unless there’s a clear ROI associated with it because the very little time we have is better spent earning?
With the success stories we’ve been hearing about and the alluring promises of making six figures from writing on this platform from established writers, we’ve all come to believe that any of these relatively new platforms would help us find the golden egg: the one of monetary fulfillment doing the things we love, just as Instagram or YouTube did decades ago with these established writers, creators, and influencers we still hold our high standards to.
The word that comes to mind is Value - which used to be free at first.
Let’s take an example from a successful content creator: Lizzy Hadfield. First, through publishing on a blog, for years, she provided fashion inspiration (free) with posts about styling tips and outfit ideas - gathering a following. Then in exchange for sharing more bits and pieces in the form of videos and then vlogs, she provided the audience with entertainment (free) and grew a following on YouTube. Repeat the same with Instagram and so on.
For years, this creator provided the audience with free content. I repeat, years.
We collectively went from some sort of pay-er-view model of traditional media to endless hours of available content to keep ourselves entertained and engaged with free content - for years. In doing so, the expectations we grew accustomed to are the ones of getting said content for free because, again, for years, we, the audience have consumed content - for free (turning into the product that was being sold in the end: that being our attention).
The jump from free content to sponsored content, where brands and advertisers pay the creator to make (videos, posts, stories, etc) featuring their product or service, didn’t take that long. All of a sudden creators didn’t accept gifts in exchange for content anymore but needed, well, revenue, so all sorts of metrics became very important, especially the ones related to engagement.
The sponsored content produced increased, and so did the number of creators.
The market is saturated. Yada yada.
So here’s another shift: the creators, tired of not having a steady income (as it was all dependent on advertisers and brands paying for sponsored content) decided to monetize in other ways going back to the concept of subscriptions, merch, courses, brands, etc.
The ones who are still able to make a living and survive the switch are the ones who, for years, provided a variety of free content that allowed us, the audience, to stay entertained (for free) converting ultimately into fans, and paying customers.
I don’t think there’s a magic formula to making it (financially) on any of these platforms if not the one of providing value.
Back to Substack since it’s where this whole reflection spiral started.
The successful authors are the ones who provide value, whether in the form of recipes, book recommendations, styling inspiration, shopping links, and the list goes on alternating between free essays and paid ones although there needs to be a good solid amount of public content for anyone to commit to a paid subscription. It’s always harder to start with opinion pieces and that’s the same for other platforms as well (like YouTube for instance). The newly acquired audience doesn’t necessarily know you, nor has (yet) a level of engagement that grants money to be spent.
Growth is not something that we can always ‘hack’.
It takes time,
It takes effort (a huge amount),
And it doesn’t always give an immediate ROI.
Talking about value, I thought of asking for your preferences.
What kind of value can I provide you in this space: