#592: Only Half of You Will Read This

And that's okay.

NB: This is not ordinary fare for this newsletter. But I have seen some commentary among writers about paywalls, so I thought I would explain my policy.

As the Substack ecosystem has expanded, the number of newsletters has precipitously increased—as has the number of potential readers.

For a writer, this seems like an unqualified good: for all the noble and lofty sentiments about loving the truth for its own sake that should support the intellectual life, writers write because we want those words to be read. And as a peculiarly vain group of people, writers naturally want our words to be read by as many people as possible. 

As I learned long ago, though, as the size of an audience grows, the hazards increase: readers who are unsympathetic or uninterested in being charitable emerge quickly (never on Substack, of course) and the probability of the writer spending hours responding to half-informed critiques increases. This is even more true when readers are consuming more of the same genre: someone who scrolls blog posts in an RSS reader might not attend to the substance of many of them, increasingly the likelihood of misinterpretation and miscommunication.

The third worry about larger audiences is like unto these: when one writes for a small, consistent readership, they become invested in the words and the ideas in a particular way—because they come to follow the writer, rather than the newsletter. That engenders charity when writers stake out a delicate position or dare publish thoughts that are less well-formed than they otherwise ought be. 

While the putative downsides of writing for a large audience might not be bad for every writer, they seem especially acute to someone who takes up the kinds of themes I do here—which range the gamut from quotidian concerns with reputation and ambition to mildly controversial matters like in vitro fertilization, sexual ethics, and killing. If someone makes a misstep in writing about their life or books or the economy, it happens. Say the wrong thing about the place of desire in the Christian life, though, and people will be (justly) scandalized. Candidly, the stakes for this newsletter seem relatively high—so high, in fact, that I wonder about whether my approach to writing about such matters in this context is a responsible one. 

I say all this to explain why I have adopted a ‘paywall’ for most of this newsletter’s content, but also have a policy of adding anyone as a full member who requests it for free, no questions asked. (Respond to this email with a request if you’re interested.) I have not looked far, but I would hazard that my willingness to let people behind the paywall so easily is unique among the Substack ecosystem. Substack faces the standard problem that such endeavors create: in the end, it is more efficient for people to ‘bundle’ content together and pay one fee than it is for people to pay smaller amounts to hundreds of different writers. Though I am not going to solve that, I have sought to give discounts profligately (50% off annually even gets you a copy of a book!) while welcoming anyone to join as a member for free, for any reason. 

For a while, I was surprised by the relative lack of uptake on those offers—but on reflection, it is reasonable. As the Substack referral network has grown, the type of affiliation that draws readers to subscribe is much weaker. My audience here began with some family and a number of people who had read my work for fifteen years. Now, most people who sign up to the newsletter come by way of a referral from another writer or by discovering me on the internet somehow. In the former case, the level of investment any new subscriber has is exceptionally low—and as the number of newsletters they subscribe to increases, its real value for a writer goes even lower. 

Moreover, new subscribers rarely have thick context for who the writer is: the topic of the newsletter might seem interesting at a glance, but the writer will remain a relatively blank screen until they begin reading more consistently (a chicken/egg problem, clearly). I could overcome this by creating a reader’s guide for new subscribers, outlining who I am and taking them on a guided tour of a few essays and issues that could give a better flavor for the whole thing. As the newsletter genre is about the author as much as it is the content, though, this is an important barrier to overcome. And how could it not be? For most readers, the newsletter goes into their email inboxes—which are often still their most exclusive digital home, the place where we correspond with friends and families. 

The net effect of all this is that: only half of the people who receive this issue will read it (if that). And that’s okay. Writing and reading are an investment, which are fundamentally spiritual: when newsletter subscribers send an email asking to become members, it is enormously rewarding because I know they are making an investment in reading my words—which is as much as a writer could hope for. Yes, it is nice when that spiritual investment becomes tangible and they agree to chip in $20 for a year of reading. But the money is not and never can be the point of the relationship: writers want readers who care, who are committed to the questions, who want to embrace the struggle of learning. Or at least this writer does, anyway. 

Don’t get me wrong: I am glad that the rest of you are along for the ride. I do not read every issue of every writer I subscribe to, either: who possibly can these days!? And I am always thrilled to see someone stumble over my work. I plan to continue to send out occasional issues to all of you, to spur your thoughts and remind you of my existence. All are welcome at the paltry feast that is The Path Before Us.

But most of the action here will remain behind the paywall. And I thought I should explain why.

Around the Web

I do not normally post political content here, but like the rest of the country I have been learning about Tim Walz. If McLaughlin is right about the abortion laws he signed in Minnesota, they are astonishing.

I mentioned in a previous issue that I’ve been reading some about Israel/Hamas in my spare time. This examination of why Israel chose to escalate its conflict captured many of my intuitions about it.

I did not have op-eds in the NYT on why progressives should be pro-natalists on my 2024 bingo card.

I have moved on from my book on images of Mary in medieval art to reading about Turner. Here’s Turner’s first oil painting to be displayed at the Royal Academy: Fisherman at Sea (1796).

The Penultimate Word

“The preaching of Peter and Paul and all the witnesses of the Risen Jesus says that two basic things are demanded of us. First: we must acknowledge our own share in what the cross is and represents; we must learn to see ourselves as caught up in a world where the innocent are scapegoated and killed and where we are all unwilling, to a greater or lesser degree, to face unwelcome truths about ourselves. We must learn to see that we cannot by our own wisdom and strength cut ourselves loose from the tangle of injustice, resentment, fear and prejudice that traps the human family in conflict and misery.

And second: we must learn to trust that love and justice are not defeated by our failure; that God has provided from his own strength and resourcefulness a way to freedom, once we have become able to recognise in the face of the suffering Jesus his own divine promise of mercy and life. The resurrection is the manifesting to the world of the triumph of a love that uses no coercion or manipulation but is simply itself – an indestructible love. The challenge of Easter is to believe that God is not defeated by the most extreme rejection imaginable.” — Rowan Williams