The Big Announcement
Last week, I mentioned I had a plan for resurrecting the Fiction v Nonfiction project.
Next week, I’m going to launch it.
But first…
Let’s go ahead and start with some context
Dispatches from Inner Space is personal, esoteric, and topically diverse. If you’ve been a reader for more than a couple of weeks, you’ve seen short stories, essays that have nothing to do with storytelling, and a couple of chapters from a serialized novel in the genre of philosophical sci-fi.
This publication is not designed for high growth.
Things that grow
I’ve got enough experience with marketing to know what kinds of things have a good shot of growing an audience.
Here are some of the necessary attributes:
Specificity - In other words, it needs to fit into a niche. The narrower the better. Example: Cross-stitching for people who love CrossFit.
Relevance - The thing should be in some way aligned with what people are already thinking about for some reason.
Frequency - How many opportunities do people have to discover your thing?
Consistency - Does your thing reliably appear at the same time every day or every week? This helps build an expectation and payoff that strengthens an audience’s relationship with you.
Shareability - This is sort of a combination of everything above:
Specificity: How easy is it to pitch this to someone else?
Relevance: Is this valuable enough to motivate sharing?
Frequency & Consistency: How many opportunities to people have to share?
I’m sure you’re clever enough to see how Dispatches doesn’t quite fit the bill.
And I have no intention of changing that. The purpose of the Dispatches from Inner Space is to be a repository for all the things I’m most passionate about. Having a public place to put my best written material was the entire motivation behind starting, and continues to be the entire motivation for—well, for continuing.
But!
I would like it to grow. I would like more people to read what I write. Of course I would. This is part of what it means to be an artist — you want people to see your art.
So, a conflict: I want to grow the audience for the Dispatches, but I’m not willing to compromise the reason for its existence, which sort of seems at odds with that goal.
Alright what then?
The only hope for quickly growing a publication like this one is if a different publication with a much, much bigger audience makes a convincing recommendation.
This could happen! But it’s not really something you can count on. You might think you could throw money at it, but paid promotion often isn’t convincing, which is why, it turns out, marketing is hard. No, the recommendations that really work are the ones that are totally sincere and unremunerated.
Does that mean I need to start schmoozing with famous people?
OK sure, but then I’m going to run into a similar problem, which is that my work is not easily pitchable. Unless someone is a HUGE fan, it’s unlikely they’ll go to the trouble of trying to make that pitch.
Let’s summarize:
In order to really grow, I’ll need to get connected to people with big audiences, and then hope they love my work SO MUCH that they’re willing to recommend it.
To be clear, I’m not ruling this out.
But to be equally clear, it is not a great strategy. Partly because it’s obvious, and everyone is already doing it, which is one of the main things that makes life suck for people who have big audiences.
A better way
If I could, hypothetically, create a publication that did a way better job of checking the boxes for growth potential, I might be able to become my own best recommender.
Here’s the fool-proof two-step plan:
Grow a new publication
Recommend Dispatches from Inner Space to the much larger audience of that new publication
Obviously the hard part is coming up with an idea for a high-growth Substack that doesn’t also end up becoming another Stooge.
Well guess what, I’ve got it.
Introducing…
Here’s the pitch:
By the Books is a twice-weekly publication that delivers practical philosophy for personal development from works of classic literature.
Every post takes less than 3 minutes to read, and features one work of great literature, including:
A brief plot summary
A distillation of its core themes
At least one actionable insight that can improve your life
The concept emerged from my nagging desire to delve further into the ideas I introduced in Fiction v Nonfiction, so there’s no shortage of passion.
But what about the Stooge problem? Can I reasonably produce two of these posts every week, on top of all my other commitments?
Yes.
I’ve generated about 6 posts so far. Coming up with the right template took a while, but now I think I can reliably create a new post in about 30 minutes. That translates to an average of just one hour per week for content, and then whatever time I can afford for engagement and promotion.
Basically: it’s worth a shot!
What now?
On Tuesday, April 11th, I’ll publish the first post for “By the Books.”
Thereafter, posts will come out twice every week, on Tuesdays and Thursdays. This will help keep the schedule distinct from Dispatches, which has settled comfortably into a Monday-Wednesday-Friday publishing cadence.
Since “By the Books” is an outgrowth of Fiction v Nonfiction, which was a project I started here, I took the liberty of subscribing you, so you don’t have to do anything to make sure you get the first email.
That said, if you don’t love it, please don’t hesitate to unsubscribe.
But if you do love it…
Well, here’s to growth.
Jordan, how will this be different than The Collection, written by my favorite writer, Hannah Williams? I really love Dispatches BECAUSE it's all the things you said: personal, eclectic, etc. This new one sounds like a formula. This is just my very personal reaction, and sounds like a game I wouldn't want to play. Can I root for your success and feel really dubious at the same time?
If I understand this announcement correctly, the current material is NOT going away, yeah? Personally, I’m still salivating for more of the random, disconnected short stories promised...😉 And continuing to be wrapped up in each chapter of the novel as it unfolds. SO, with faith that what’s coming is additional, not in anyway slated to supplant or replace the content your loyal followers count on?