A Personal Note to You Wonderful Readers

Because Nate Silver

You are likely familiar with Nate Silver. He started doing projection models related to sports, and then added political models related to running simulations of probable election outcomes predicated on polling data. He started as “Poblano” at DailyKos, went to the NYTimes, then to 538 and now he’s on Substack as Silver Bullet.

Back in 2008, when Nate started his political work, I was a co-owner of Democratic Convention Watch (DCW), and we were working on the delegate counts for Obama and Clinton. Heady times. At DCW we did projections NOT based on polling, nor modeling, and in both 2008 and 2010, we called more races correctly than Nate did, but I digress.

Anyway — a couple days ago, Nate wrote a Substack post called Always.Be.Blogging wherein he listed the steps to be “successful” on Substack. I read it. Twice. And I have some thoughts.

I understand that he’s correct in that there are a lot of people who wish to leverage Substack to be an income source upon which they can depend, and “success” relates to reach, ranking, and earned income.

Back in the 2000-aughts, blogging was “da bomb”. It allowed for long-form posts, comment sections encouraged interaction with readers, and it was ad-supported. We bloggers paid for our own platforms, and made money based on the ads. Independent of the money, I LOVED blogging. In the interest of full disclosure, DCW made money.

Long-form blogging went away with the rise of Twitter which trained FAR TOO MANY people to prefer a few words, or a sentence, over paragraphs and things thought through.

You know the rest - the fracturing of legacy media, especially newspapers. Not to mention the rise of people listening in lieu of reading.

Which brings us to 2024 and reader-supported media.

I’m thrilled that Substack exists because it’s the only place I know of where people can BLOG¹. And again, I LOVE blogging. I hope Substack encourages people to read. And read long form journalism at that.

The simple idea that people READ matters to me. And that’s without the political overtone of READING WHAT THEY WANT².

Back to Nate. Being Nate, everything he proposed feeds into the idea of the statistics that will earn a Substack author money, and increase the blog’s ranking on Substack.

I know that there are statistics on this blog, and I don’t generally peruse them. I get an email whenever someone subscribes, and I am toe-curling thrilled when someone wants to read my stuff on a regular basis. I also receive a daily email of total reader engagement, and I know from that data tidbit that a multitudinous number of people read my Substack beyond those who subscribe. THANK YOU to all of you who read my stuff, whether you subscribe or not! It makes me happy!

The only reason I blog is because I believe that I have something of worth to say (most days) and I want people to know about it: the Public Service Announcements, the Action Items, and above all an understanding of what is happening in the country that can impact their lives, and the lives of their loved ones.

Substack only ranks blogs that monetize. I have no plans to monetize. There are three reasons for this.

1. I want people to read, and too many people nowadays don’t have the spare $6 or $8 dollars a month it would cost them.

2. This is not my job. I don’t need to make money from it. This is what I do for fun³.

3. I work for corporate America. If I decided to monetize, I would have to tell my corporate masters because it would count as “outside income”, and they would say no. And then I’d have to stop blogging⁴.

So if YOU are interested in a career as a monetized blogger, read Nate’s article. His advice is solid. My definition of “success” has nothing to do with money, nor any Substack ranking. Every time someone leaves a comment, that’s success to me (and I answer every comment). Every time someone comes up to me at a meeting (I follow my own advice and I GET OUT WITH MY PEEPS!) and say that they have taken action, or ask a question about something about which I’ve written, or just say “thank you”, THAT is success to me.

And so, I’m going to keep doing what I’ve been doing. And yes, thank you to all those who have emailed pointing out that I don’t always spell perfectly, I’ve got my limitations.

I am very concerned that so many people are burned out, disappointed, worried, oh hell - apoplectic, and I have endeavored to find ways to dissipate the negative emotions. I will continue to do so.

Going forward, we are going to have to shore up, because things are going to be bad for most of us, and terrible for everyone else. Until the regime shuts down Substack, I’ll keep writing and I hope that YOU will undertake the Action Items I present to you. And I respectfully request that you share my work: there is strength in numbers! Unlike Nate, who wants eyeballs to earn money, I want to get the word out on things we have to do, to build community, to find ways to help us all get through the coming darkness.

This week is Thanksgiving. I will have regular posts on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, and a special Thanksgiving post on Thursday (complete with Action Items). I am taking off Friday, Saturday and Sunday because I want a few days off.

1. I love that posts are delivered automatically via email to subscribers. Prior to joining DCW, I spent several years emailing a daily “post” and it was a pain to send out, because gmail only let you send 50 at a time, or they designated you as a scammer. (WOW TIMES HAVE CHANGED) - and so it took a lot of time and effort due to the number of readers I had.

2. My mother was, amoung other things, a librarian. If she were alive to watch the book banning, it would kill her.

3. Everybody needs a hobby.

4. I’m lucky that I have a job I really enjoy.