The blessing and curse of the paywall
On anti-capitalist business practices
Today I bring you some behind the scenes of running an anti capitalist business as a writer, teacher, and artist. I am finding that while I have been at this practice for over a decade, as platforms and systems shift I have to shift with them. I have to be mindful of where manipulative practices sneak into my marketing techniques. And so I thought I would talk about the blessing and the curse of the paywall in a newsletter format.
From 2012-2021 my newsletter was a form of marketing and creative play, a place not to make money as a project itself but to tell you the other ways that I might offer you something that you might buy. A book, a class, a 1:1 session, a workshop, apply for a residency, etc
In 2021 I moved my newsletter from Mailchimp to Substack. I talk more about this here and you are welcome to give it a listen
Last week I came out of retirement writing about love and wrote about the feeling of having a new crush. The mirroring, the duet, the effort it takes to stay out of limerence in service to self and growing relationship to another. I originally put it behind a paywall, with a preview to free subscribers. I decided to take the paywall down and saw it float to the top of the Art and Illustration charts of Substack, reach so many people, and have a beautiful impact on readers.
It is my belief that healing codependency in front of an audience is one of the greatest gifts I can give myself and my readers.
Composition of a crush
When I am deciding what to put behind the paywall or if I should include a preview to free subscribers of this newsletter I am usually thinking about three things :
🎾 How private is this information and do I want to practice writing about it to a smaller group? Example : Writing about attending my ex husband’s wedding
🎾 Is this information really valuable and would feel correct to exchange these findings with people who are investing in this space? Example : Writing about my most recent launch and sharing exact income numbers
🎾 Is there some sort of hook here that will get new subscribers excited enough to want to upgrade their subscription? Example : Half a year alone got 40 new subs from the paywall preview which was $2280 a year of annual income
It is this last one that has given me great pause in the last week, inviting in a curiosity if this mode actually fits into anti capitalist business practices1 or if the cliff hanger of inserting the paywall is a practice of marketing manipulation.
Here is the thing : it works. And when we are rewarded for manipulation it makes it hard to stop. When I first wrote about polyamory and sent it out with a paywall preview over 200 readers became paid subscribers. It was my first time using the paywall preview and I was rewarded greatly.
I imagine though for many readers it is frustrating to read a preview and then not be able to read the rest. I do my best to counter this in two ways. One : I never say no to anyone who wants a comped paid subscription. I usually remind readers of this a few times a year. Here is my reminder, just respond to this email. No questions asked.
The next part may be controversial, or it is what I am trying to tease out in real time. Which is that : If it makes you annoyed you can unsubscribe. And many do when a free preview is sent out. It begs the question : What is the goal of this newsletter? Is it to make money from my writing? Or is it to be a marketing channel for my other offerings? Since the answer for me is both I have to ask myself : How do I nurture my free readers while also attempting to grow my paid subscribers?
I don’t want the answer to be : Manipulate them into becoming paid subscribers. And to be very clear I value my non paying readers so so very much. Many of them are in Landscapes, my classes, and members of my real life community. Not valuing or wanting to be a paid subscriber does not devalue the role of the reader.
In the churn of it all I experienced great growth in my first two years using Substack, however my income has not grown in the last year which one might consider a failure of growth. I see it as consistent, but the work it takes just to maintain the number feels a bit exhausting sometimes, like it takes away from my natural impulses of what to write.
When I am asking myself : What will hook in the people, I am not at the root of my own writing practice, where I want to be asking : What do I want to explore in my writing today? And usually this is what lands with the people.
The next question would be : To send a preview or not send the preview. This is the real question of aligning my values with my actions around business. Without the preview how do I tell free subscribers there is something they might like? Well I could tell them on Mondays and say hey - click through here to read my newest essay for paid subscribers. This rarely gets many clicking through. Again, the thing that “works” the best is to send the letter with the preview.
So we go back to : How does this affect the readership that has no intention of ever upgrading, that values the free resource and doesn’t even want to upgrade with the offer to do it for free? I want these readers to join in my other offerings, to be changed by my writing, to be set free from their own creative blocks. Is it worth it to give them a flashy strategic moment that may just annoy them? Or worse - hook them in a consumerist way to spend $5 compulsively just to read the rest of the essay?
I also believe in trusting the reader to make their own sovereign choices around spending, but in the way the preview works it can really activate something that makes you want to spend.
This meandering through the cosmos of the paywall brings me to the conclusion that I am going to take a break from sending previews on my writing about my personal life. I find it to be out of alignment with my anti capitalist business practices. I really don’t mind if 30k of you know for free that I love the way my crush puts her long fingers on her face when she’s thinking. I really don’t mind if 30k of you know for free that I am healing my debt, my codependency, or my relationship to work and trust.
My friend
asks : What is our enough number? And is always challenging the idea that growth is inherently better. What if staying at the same income was a win? What if not growing here means I have been busy growing in my heart and the off screen areas of my life?I do feel that I will still put specific financial reports and numbers behind the paywall and may still use a preview as a way to say : Look this is a way for you to know more about my business. And perhaps a personal essay or two will land behind the paywall. But instead of waiting til you have read 1/3 and are prompted to upgrade, in the very beginning I will be clear why there is a paywall and what you will get when upgrading.
I will stay true to my Monday writing for free, and a few times a month something else will emerge and I will practice mindfulness around how the paywall presents itself. While many writers describe a sense of trusting that readers will pay when they feel called I have not found this to be entirely true. I find they upgrade when there is either a sale or a preview prompt. This feels neutral to me, not good or bad, just reporting the truth of my own experience.
To my free readers : Thank you. Thank you to those of you who have been reading since 2012. Who have never bought a book or bought every book or never taken a class or taken every class and most of all luxuriate in this free offering. Your words of encouragement and readership means so much to me.
To my paid subscribers : Thank you. You have given me a job as a writer which is beyond my wildest dreams. You engage in the comments in a way that is nourishing and palpable. You cheer each other on and make space for the nuance.
I love to write, I love to think about how to be in alignment with my values in my business, and I love to share it with all of you.
info@codycookparrott.com
PO Box 252 Cedar, MI 49621
Landscapes : A writing group for all genres
Thank you to Bear Hebert for always inspiring me in their own business practices and helping me work out some of these thoughts
Thank you so much for sharing a window into your exploration around this, Cody. The issue of paywalling has been on my mind a lot this past while.
Recently, I created a monthly feature centring personal updates and more intimate shares about my new life in Southeast Asia. Paywalling this has felt so good, right, and safe in my heart - all the more so given the even more personal questions and shares happening in the comments on those posts.
I also laid out a regular monthly schedule of free and paid offerings, and that feels really good and clarifying (although I recognize that approach isn’t for everyone, by any stretch).
Writing on Substack is part of how I pay bills; I’m not using it to promote other work or offerings, so the writing and interaction on my newsletter IS my work and what I’m selling. In part for this reason - and I realize this is controversial - I no longer offer comp’ed subscriptions. I put out free content each month, and put many hours into creating that content. But for paid (often more personal) content, the price is $30 a year. That is the price. And most of us can’t afford everything we’d like to buy - I sure know I can’t!
Not in any way suggesting what feels right for me at this time is right for anyone else. But thank you again for sharing and opening a discussion on all this.
I appreciate your transparency on this topic so much. Honestly. I struggle with the mental gymnastics we have to go through to a)be an artist in the sense that I am making things that feel authethentic to my own values and eschew market demands and b)make enough money to at least offset the costs that go along with the making of the art.
Everything that I write on my Substack is geared towards helping folks feel empowered to pursue their creativity purely for the joy of it, outside of pursuing a creative practice as a business endeavor. It often feels against my personal values and contradicts of the work I'm trying to do with my writing to paywall anything. But on the other hand, it is starting to take up ALOT of my personal time to put this work together every week. I'm grateful to a few subscribers who have switched to "paid" just because.
Whenever you do a class on marketing at some point, I'd love to participate! Thanks for what you do!