Why a Paid Newsletter Won’t Be Enough Money for Most Writers | Hacker News Reader

Why a Paid Newsletter Won’t Be Enough Money for Most Writers

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21 pointstosh11 comments

This blog post and the associated startup/investment are, I think, identifying a real issue but not acknowledging the underlying structural issues: most independent creators probably do need to sell a range of complementary products and services to make ends meet. At the same time, this is still no guarantee that all their offerings will add up to a sufficient living. Just because some independent newsletter writers are able to do so does not necessarily mean that this model will work for the majority.

I think it's fascinating to read about how this model has worked and has not worked for artists, starting with musicians and now extending across many different artist mediums.

William Deresciewicz's "Death of the Artist" book interviews 100+ "successful" artists on their experiences selling through digital platforms. It's particularly interesting to read about how the digital sales channels affect the type of art and the topics they chose to pursue. It isn't necessarily "dumbing down" art, but it does change the art itself.

The book started with this article: https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2015/01/the-dea...

>This blog post and the associated startup/investment are, I think, identifying a real issue but not acknowledging the underlying structural issues: most independent creators probably do need to sell a range of complementary products and services to make ends meet.

I'm having trouble parsing what you wrote. To me, the author is acknowledging that structural reality with the paragraph about "multi-SKU" and investing in Stir as a platform for creators to offer multiple products instead of just relying a newsletter as the sole source of sustainable income.

As I mention later in that paragraph, I think the real structural issue is that most creators still do not make a full living even when they do the multi-offering approach.

This failure by individuals is masked, in part, by the churn of yet more folks trying their hand at being independent creatives.

Thus my read that this startup is related to the challenges of being an independent creator--but sidesteps the structural challenges. That's too much to ask of a VC firm and their investments--but I do think it's wise to take a critical eye to the story around the investment, the startup, and their proposed concepts of success.

The other problem is that for a newsletter to succeed you must be:

* A good enough writer, for people to want to read what you write

* Have identified a niche to write about

* Be sufficiently skilled in that niche that you can write as an expert, and provide a genuine expert opinion which is worth the money.

Most writers will succeed at the first, will try to get the second, and then fall down on the third. You can't just be a writer - you need to be a writer with something special to offer.

What is this junk and why is it making its way through the HN filtes?

This post feels like GPT-3 written it. What is SKU?

A SKU is a Stock Keeping Unit it is used as an identifier about different types of products. Say I have gizmos and boobabs, the gizmo will have skue like G-123 and the Boobabs will have SKU B-384

That was my main guess, but it just didn't make sense. Revisiting the post, it still doesn't :/

A SKU is another way of saying a product. Each thing you sell is a SKU. Very jargony, and not how I would've written it ;)

This headline makes no sense. A paid newsletter won't be enough money for most writers for the same reason that paid concert tickets aren't enough money for most musicians, paid labor isn't enough money for most plumbers, and paid physical goods aren't enough money for most merchants. You have to have something people want enough that they'll pay you the money you need. Anyone can put his hat out, but putting your hat out doesn't mean people are going to throw money in it.

Annddd Medium paywall, so I guess I'll never know.

Anyway, I hope the WebMonetization.org standard catches on to help more writers earn money from less committed readers. I am seeing the Coil icon in Firefox light up on more sites every week.

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