This was the first article I read on Tech and Tea and what made me a subscriber! It was so good. I felt like I understood myself, others, and life better as a result of reading it. That top spot was well deserved. Congrats!
Thanks for sharing the experience and some of the numbers and lessons learned. These sudden “success” events can be confusing in ways most people don’t talk about because they are hard to talk about openly. I appreciate you, Jean.
Super interesting. Not only did I reach out for the cross post which led to the boost and staff pick, but I also shared it to the whole company. I'd run into this concept when my partner (a new yorker) went to work for a company that was founded and run by southerners and ran into a lot of culture clash. So I was excited just to read a deep dive about it.
As a former active writer who spent a lot of time promoting my own pieces, I find these metrics so interesting. Did the Medium reads generate any Substack subscribers? I suppose there isn't much of a direct line there. Also, 3 paid subscribers from all that HN traffic isn't that much. I suppose though that 600 new unpaid subscribers are all potential future paid subscribers. Do you have a sense of how many of them will end up converting?
Last, hurrah for Medium responses. I'm so happy to hear that that was a healthy experience.
Hi Tony! I didn’t leave a link to substack in the medium post - thought that might be frowned upon 😬. Yeah HN traffic tends to be a bit of a flash in the pan without a lot of conversion, so I was pleased to see the free subscribers captured at least.
I haven’t really dug into free —> paid conversion much. My writing and newsletter time is limited so I opt to just make everything available to everyone. As I carve out more space for writing, I’d like to have higher volume and a regular cadence of free/paid posts, that will hopefully drive more paid subscribers!
When I got to Medium there seemed to be some lingering concern that Substack was a head to head competitor. I think that's not true. They seem very clear about building something for professional creators and we are optimized for people that wouldn't consider themselves part of the creator economy at all. There's overlap, but nobody at Medium is going to mind seeing a Substack link. So cross post again if you want!
Great piece. However, by cross-posting on Medium (with or without a paywall), you're assisting that corporation in gaining more paid subscribers from your content in exchange for less than 10% of the income as they keep everything. On Substack, you retain 90% of the income since it's your subscribers rather than Medium's.
oh interesting! thanks for sharing
This was the first article I read on Tech and Tea and what made me a subscriber! It was so good. I felt like I understood myself, others, and life better as a result of reading it. That top spot was well deserved. Congrats!
Thank you! And welcome, glad you’re here!
Thanks for sharing the experience and some of the numbers and lessons learned. These sudden “success” events can be confusing in ways most people don’t talk about because they are hard to talk about openly. I appreciate you, Jean.
Yes it definitely had a lot of complex side-effects! Both positive and negative.
Super interesting. Not only did I reach out for the cross post which led to the boost and staff pick, but I also shared it to the whole company. I'd run into this concept when my partner (a new yorker) went to work for a company that was founded and run by southerners and ran into a lot of culture clash. So I was excited just to read a deep dive about it.
As a former active writer who spent a lot of time promoting my own pieces, I find these metrics so interesting. Did the Medium reads generate any Substack subscribers? I suppose there isn't much of a direct line there. Also, 3 paid subscribers from all that HN traffic isn't that much. I suppose though that 600 new unpaid subscribers are all potential future paid subscribers. Do you have a sense of how many of them will end up converting?
Last, hurrah for Medium responses. I'm so happy to hear that that was a healthy experience.
Hi Tony! I didn’t leave a link to substack in the medium post - thought that might be frowned upon 😬. Yeah HN traffic tends to be a bit of a flash in the pan without a lot of conversion, so I was pleased to see the free subscribers captured at least.
I haven’t really dug into free —> paid conversion much. My writing and newsletter time is limited so I opt to just make everything available to everyone. As I carve out more space for writing, I’d like to have higher volume and a regular cadence of free/paid posts, that will hopefully drive more paid subscribers!
When I got to Medium there seemed to be some lingering concern that Substack was a head to head competitor. I think that's not true. They seem very clear about building something for professional creators and we are optimized for people that wouldn't consider themselves part of the creator economy at all. There's overlap, but nobody at Medium is going to mind seeing a Substack link. So cross post again if you want!
Ah great to know! Thank you for clarifying
For what it’s worth, this seems to me a fantastic follow up post. Thank you for your transparency and reflections.
Thank you! I appreciate it 🙏
It deserved to go viral! It was wonderfully written and a really unique take. It's how I found out about this newsletter.
I totally agree that you can’t plan for a piece to go viral, so all you can do is just keep producing the best work that you can. :)
Some of the pieces that have taken me the least effort to write are surprisingly ones that have gone viral the most. The world works in weird ways.
Thank you! And welcome!
Great piece. However, by cross-posting on Medium (with or without a paywall), you're assisting that corporation in gaining more paid subscribers from your content in exchange for less than 10% of the income as they keep everything. On Substack, you retain 90% of the income since it's your subscribers rather than Medium's.