A Newsletter Update

How it's going so far

A few people have asked me how this newsletter has been going since I brought it out of hibernation just 6 months ago. I am NOT going to waste a real post on self-promotion, given everything happening out there, and wanted to slip this note in between crises, as it were.

But I can say that some of my friends worried that (a) people would stop reading me once I no longer had the Times as a platform (b) I would run out of things to say. However, so far, so good. Here’s subscriber growth so far:

I still run into people who say they miss my writing and don’t know that this newsletter exists, so I hope there’s room for further growth.

Substack does its own ranking based on paid subscribers, and only by subject — I’ve been assigned to US politics, although I try to go beyond that. Also, this was never intended as a money-making venture. After some experimenting, I’ve been making everything free except the Sunday primers, whose revenue helps justify the huge amount of work put in by the team here (Robin does a lot of work helping shape topics and editing, while Jack finds ways to get involved):

Even so, many people have taken out paid subscriptions. Thank you! Here’s where I currently stand on Substack’s rankings:

Honestly, I never expected this to become as much of a full-time job as it has. But I’ve been having fun, and hope that I’m making some positive difference.

Now back to your regularly scheduled nightmares.