Why I came to Substack
And how I'm defining success, here.
I was just notified by Substack that I’m trending #26 in music. It’s the third time this has happened (I think I was #43 and #63 or something before), and although I was flattered for three seconds, I quickly soured on the gamification of the platform. I didn’t even know there was a leader board or that they were working out metrics for people, but then, of course they are. Of course inserting competition will get people to run faster on the treadmill. And of course there’s nothing at the finish line. Of course.
I know that Substack will fail. They all fail. I was there when MySpace failed, and wrote "Beware the Ides of MySpace" as a warning to all artists.
…iLike, MOG, imeem, Makeoutclub, Orkut, Ping, SpiralFrog, Friendster, Shelfari, turntable.fm, Zune, or late epoch organisms like Vine, Google+, StumbleUpon, Klout, Twitter #music, or Yik Yak? Do you even know what I’m talking about?
These are digital corpses, now splattered like bugs on the windshield of the Wayback Machine.
So, why am I here, throwing my hat into another ring of fire? And how do I plan to get out if/when it collapses under the weight of new funding rounds and strangulation for shareholder value?
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If you’re a music creator, I’d read
’s thoughtful post:
It’s a great question, and the answer will depend on how individuals use it. For me:
The #1 reason I came is because, like Bandcamp, I can talk with you and also get subscriber emails. This means that I can stay in touch with you if Substack fails. If my whole life could be Substack and Bandcamp, I'd be straight.
I'm engaged in an active campaign to pull fans of my work away from the dying Facebook platform and anyplace else that doesn’t give me direct email access to them. I have thousands of—friends? bots?—over there, but I don't know how to reach them outside the platform, and between the ads and the slop, I probably don't reach them even when I do post there.
Oh yeah, the art: Stories and banter are a big part of my live show, which made my book a natural move, and now I get to continue with that art (prose) that you seem to enjoy. Win/win.
I've started posting song demos which is INSANE to me but I'm trying it out. It really feels like walking out of the house in a g-string. And not even mine.
Substack could be a real treadmill/burnout machine, but I've decided on a schedule I can handle and am getting better feedback than I'd expected. If you’re reading this, the result is you. So, thank you.
ANXIETY PROBLEM: I hope I'm not making a dope out of myself by potentially oversharing things like demos or thoughts that haven't had the time to gestate the way I like. But maybe it's better that way? It’s raw in the good way, and raw in the bad way. That's the catch-22 of the internet. I’m going to roll with it.
Finally, someone explained Substack in the face of the failures of the music and publishing industries like this: Picture an airport that’s snowed in. Flights can’t get in or out. The cars are just little white mounds dotted around the long-term parking lots. But look! There’s somebody in a tiny snowmobile who lifts up his goggles and says, “Hey, I can maybe get you where you’re going. It’ll take longer, and be harder. We might only make it halfway. But we should go now, before it gets worse.” And you can either stay where you are, or jump on the snowmobile. So you jump.
That’s Substack, to me.
Hope that makes sense.
Music, Lyrics, and Life, available in print and audiobook.
Signed copies are available at 25% off on Bandcamp with the promo code: substack2025
Or you could just buy me a coffee.
Thanks for sharing my post, Mike!
....Well written....thanks for the post, Mike.