The good people at Substack who run the tech side of this platform have a host of resources to help writers succeed. These resources include a helpful primer on differentiating one’s publication.
I’ve been around marketing for most of my professional life, so for me this primer was old hat… But I thought I would use their differentiation questions to create a self-assessment for you, dear reader, to consider if you should subscribe to the free and even paid versions of this creation.
(If you are already one of us, read on and you’ll feel great for being here. Thank you for being one of us.)
Who does your writing bring together?
Free thinkers. People who either have or don’t have tattoos. People who are outwardly plain or outwardly expressive but inwardly open to stimulus beyond the standard.
People who want to be entertained by an eclectic spectrum of everything from poignant introspective, to non-political reflections on everyday life and life’s memories, to outrageous fiction inclusive of thoughts of weird inventions and new uses for everything from blenders to sex toys.
People who sometimes just want to go on a mental adventure with me.
Why will people rally around your writing?
Because their sense of humor is welcoming and even desiring of the above. Because they’ll hopefully be entertained a few times a week here, even if once in a while a particular piece doesn’t float their boat. Because they want to go along for the ride that I’ll take them on.
Hopefully, some of them will subscribe to the paid content to further expand those horizons and experiences, supporting the arts by helping this effort survive and thrive. While Substack itself is free to me (they only take a small slice of paid subscriptions), my behind-the-scenes infrastructure costs more than $500 per year- and that’s not counting my time and labor.
What does this group of readers need more of?
The knowledge that there are others who think like they do, who share their bizarre senses of humor. The feeling that their sense of humor is something to be celebrated, not to be judged by, because it has zero reflection on their value or standing as a valued, important, loved human being. (Whether they are a scumbag or not is the only thing that defines that, not their propensity for dildo jokes.)
They need adventure, normal adventure, bizarre adventure. And dildo jokes.
What’s the problem they could solve together?
Together, we could change the world.