I Have a Unique Problem With Substack

I'm not pointing fingers; not at all, but I don't write to market, whether it's my books or just an article. If I have to pick a trending topic or water down my opinions, I quit. (Man, what a sore loser!)

I don't mean I literally quit. At least I don't think I do. But now that I've got...hang on...seven whole subscribers, I don't want to publish anything anymore. Because one or two of those people might read it. And I'm obviously not anyone's cup of tea. 

It's fine being an anonymous author. No judgement. Or if there is judgement, who cares? A judgy reader isn't going to talk to me directly about it. My books don't have a comment section. Substack articles do. See why I'm such a terrible marketer? 

I don't know what I was envisioning when I resumed my Substack account that had lay dormant for months, years even. I had this fuzzy idea of publishing an eight part series about a specific time in my life that had both dizzying highs and soul-crushing lows. It's a good story. I detailed it in another blog years ago; another blog that no one reads, so the story would seem brand new! My barely thought-out plan was to snag subscribers, then start telling the story, then (oh, this gets even better) start making subsequent installments only available to paid patrons. The old carrot and stick. "If you want to find out what happens, pay me $5.00 a month."

You know, when I was a kid, I came up with plans like this, too. My cousin and I once decided to fashion Barbie clothes out of Kleenex and bric-a-brac from my mom's sewing kit. And sell them! We also tried to sell "pretty rocks" we found along the railroad tracks. (They were pretty.) I'm beginning to suspect I have unrealistic ideas.

I will post that story eventually---here. As for Substack, the general advice is to post on a schedule; twice a week, once a week; whatever. I'm not going to do that. If I dig up an old blog post I like, okay. I won't get any engagement, but I don't want to give up, not yet. 

It's possible that I'm too opinionated, which brings me back to writing to market. Writing to market bores me. The place for my opinions is here. I've seen what trying to hard is like. The one lady author I subscribed to a long time ago still sends out her twice-weekly posts, and they scream "trying too hard". Either that or they scream "clueless". She goes back to the same well every week, but I'm, admittedly, fascinated by her mundane content as a hate-read, so I haven't unsubscribed. Maybe that's her secret!  But it's not for me.

I'm okay with being anonymous.