“A Good Newsletter Exit Strategy Is Hard to Find”

(via Vanity Fair):

Layer in the ongoing Great Resignation energy (and like, a worldwide pandemic), and it’s no wonder that newsletter-writer fatigue has set in as writers begin navigating the logistical implications of signing themselves up as a one-person subscription product: How do you keep up with your publishing cadence? How do you make sure your readers are continuously getting their money’s “worth”? Does it feel fair to take a few weeks off for the holidays when people pay a monthly subscription?

And, if for whatever reason you need to quit, how do you get off this ride?

A good look at why I never joined the Substackian throng and have come to loathe a membership model (after considering one for MacroParentheticals and this space, I’ve settled on a tip-based busker approach) but a word WRT “newsletter-writer fatigue”: boo fucking hoo. I’ve been hurling my own unpaid efforts on a consistent – weekly, monthly, or bi-weekly – basis for the last ten years to a small if faithful readership because I like writing the newsletter and enjoy using the form as a means of communication: that said, had I added the pressure of making it my primary income stream, one in which I was in the obligation/debt of paying readership, I probably would’ve burnt the whole operation down years ago and gone off to pump gas or something.