Nice post, Jonathan. Regarding: "Why have I been trying to sound all authoritative, telling people how things are?" I wonder if you were feeling pressure to sound like the writer whose Substack you were posting on? I noticed I feel the pull to conform to whatever style and culture the writer sets with his words, aka more or less guarded or unguarded premises, more or less personal or theoretical, etc.
Hey Jonathan! So first off - your Substack is amazing. It's one of those where I see the homepage and I want to click on absolutely everything. Super glad I found it (I saw you subscribed to me so decided to check your stuff out).
On promotion - it's a very interesting game. I disdain having to be inauthentic - subscribing to people who's content I don't like, leaving faux-comments etc.
I try to resist it whenever I can, and while I think I've been able to resist doing it with people's content that I genuinely don't remotely resonate with, I definitely notice a a gentle shifting of the threshold for people who might be beneficial promotion-wise. I'm in two minds about whether applying reduced standards in the promotion case is a bad thing - I certainly try to limit it, but sometimes I think:
"Well, I like this person's content, but I probably don't Like-Like it. On balance, it would be a wise move to like, comment, subscribe etc. So I'll do it." I've resisted the clear cases, but I'm up and down on these more ambiguous cases.
To avoid uncertainty, your publication is in the omg-why-didn't-I-find-this-sooner category.
Also on promotional tactics:
I've been experimenting with lots of promotional strategies (I started my Substack only a few weeks ago), and one thing I've been thinking about is the effectiveness of a promotional strategy versus the type of people it brings in. My blog has quite a large self-improvement focus, but I also plan on writing about things that are generally interesting to me - my ideal crowd is basically the audience of SSC (but hopefully a subsection that is also interested in practical, as well as theoretical/interesting essays). I do worry occasionally that promoting it to other audiences will leave those audiences a little alienated once I start posting stuff that's a little more analytical, and that's more in line with the type of stuff you'd typical see someone like Scott Alexander posting.
I don't know if that will be actually a problem, or it's just mindless worrying - let me know if you have any thoughts on it or have experienced anything in that realm.
Sorry for the super long comment, I got a little carried away haha. Excited to read your other posts!
Read a few of your posts and I liked the way you collapsed big questions into concrete action steps. I have some posts like that. I like anchoring analysis to real, down to earth stuff, so that it doesn't sail away.
Regarding your reflections on promotion: to me it's all about the sense of aliveness. I'm exploring ways of promoting that leave me in integrity. Being honest is part of it.
I'm definitely with you when it comes to being picky with audience - many creators find themselves being shaped by the opinion of their audience. Writing to people you want to become more like seems like a reasonable approach.
Thanks for reaching out. I like what you're doing and would love to collaborate. I'll send you a message.
This feels aligned with your north star (?) of Honest Living.
Nice post, Jonathan. Regarding: "Why have I been trying to sound all authoritative, telling people how things are?" I wonder if you were feeling pressure to sound like the writer whose Substack you were posting on? I noticed I feel the pull to conform to whatever style and culture the writer sets with his words, aka more or less guarded or unguarded premises, more or less personal or theoretical, etc.
I think it might have been a LW influence. If anything, the writers I read had a more casual style :)
Hey Jonathan! So first off - your Substack is amazing. It's one of those where I see the homepage and I want to click on absolutely everything. Super glad I found it (I saw you subscribed to me so decided to check your stuff out).
On promotion - it's a very interesting game. I disdain having to be inauthentic - subscribing to people who's content I don't like, leaving faux-comments etc.
I try to resist it whenever I can, and while I think I've been able to resist doing it with people's content that I genuinely don't remotely resonate with, I definitely notice a a gentle shifting of the threshold for people who might be beneficial promotion-wise. I'm in two minds about whether applying reduced standards in the promotion case is a bad thing - I certainly try to limit it, but sometimes I think:
"Well, I like this person's content, but I probably don't Like-Like it. On balance, it would be a wise move to like, comment, subscribe etc. So I'll do it." I've resisted the clear cases, but I'm up and down on these more ambiguous cases.
To avoid uncertainty, your publication is in the omg-why-didn't-I-find-this-sooner category.
Also on promotional tactics:
I've been experimenting with lots of promotional strategies (I started my Substack only a few weeks ago), and one thing I've been thinking about is the effectiveness of a promotional strategy versus the type of people it brings in. My blog has quite a large self-improvement focus, but I also plan on writing about things that are generally interesting to me - my ideal crowd is basically the audience of SSC (but hopefully a subsection that is also interested in practical, as well as theoretical/interesting essays). I do worry occasionally that promoting it to other audiences will leave those audiences a little alienated once I start posting stuff that's a little more analytical, and that's more in line with the type of stuff you'd typical see someone like Scott Alexander posting.
I don't know if that will be actually a problem, or it's just mindless worrying - let me know if you have any thoughts on it or have experienced anything in that realm.
Sorry for the super long comment, I got a little carried away haha. Excited to read your other posts!
Hey Keanu!
Read a few of your posts and I liked the way you collapsed big questions into concrete action steps. I have some posts like that. I like anchoring analysis to real, down to earth stuff, so that it doesn't sail away.
Regarding your reflections on promotion: to me it's all about the sense of aliveness. I'm exploring ways of promoting that leave me in integrity. Being honest is part of it.
I'm definitely with you when it comes to being picky with audience - many creators find themselves being shaped by the opinion of their audience. Writing to people you want to become more like seems like a reasonable approach.
Thanks for reaching out. I like what you're doing and would love to collaborate. I'll send you a message.