A conversation I had recently with a friend:

If Axl Rose said “I get up around 7, get out of bed around nine,” in the song Mr. Brownstone in the year 1987, what the heck was he doing in bed that whole time before smart phones?!?

Probably cocaine.

It is the subject matter of the song after all.

Goes to show how addictive our smart phones are!

Sarah Faith Gottesdiener and I talked about building a sustainable business with an email list, rather than relying heavily on social media.

Sustainable can mean a lot of things, but we found in our conversation that it means ease, calm, peace. Like sharing resources, and solving problems together.

This can mean having fun in putting together a newsletter each week, as it’s not just for “marketing purposes,” but it’s to bring joy and fun to your readers, as Sarah mentions here:

“There is this genre of newsletter that is really fun where you’re not quite sure what you’re going to get. You know, will it be a playlist one day? Will it be my top 10 favorite places to eat when I’m touring in Cincinnati? It’s like you don’t know, and I think that’s also kind of fun, too. It’s like, ‘what are they going to send me this time?’ Like maybe it’s a fun treasure trove or surprise box. That’s another way to approach it”

And when we share these adventures with readers, we bring in the right readers, those who appreciate our weirdness, our unique views of the world, or our excellent choices for our weekly playlist. Says Sarah:

“It’s much better to have a thousand people on your newsletter who really get you and really understand and are interested in what you have to share and say, than 10,000 who don’t know who you are, who are going to unsubscribe every time they get a newsletter from you.”

The rush for some subscriber milestone, or sales goal, or daily traffic – the constant seeking of more, instead of better. Seeking the right people to invite in, as Sarah and I discussed in this clip:

We’re not for everyone. Decide who enters our creative space.

This is why we don’t start bands that sound like everyone else, or we don’t make paintings or take photos or make podcasts that follow popular trends – we’re doing things our own way.

We’re making art and running our businesses the way we want to run them, so our newsletter – this means by which we reach our biggest fans – should be run in a way that reflects how we operate. Says Sarah:

“How can your newsletter be a playground? How can it be another fun creative outlet? Like, do you have a creative outlet that fits the container of the newsletter?”

A newsletter can be peaceful. You could send a newsletter once a week, instead of posting three times daily on Instagram.

Now, maybe you’ll lose some likes, and fall out of favor of the algorithm, but who are we serving here?

Are we spending our time in 2025 increasing shareholder value for Meta?

What if we saved the bits we would post on social media (yes, even Substack Notes) and published it in our newsletter instead?

Flip “Instagram eats first” to “my subscribers eat first.”

Save your witty rants, magical photos, and delicate thoughts for a weekly newsletter, feeding those who signed up to hear from you, rather than hoping a social media post “goes viral” and brings in 25 more subscribers.

Because what is enough?

That question came up in last week’s Escape Pod Zoom call.

The whole, “doing a thing, and then having to increase the visibility of that thing on social media” To what end? What is enough?

Could we trust our own audience, the network of creative people in our orbit, to share and talk about our work? It may take patience, as it might not lead to some “viral” moment, but is building our work on “going viral” a good strategy in the first place?

What if our work resonated just a bit more deeply with the people who already love our work? Could they love it more? What’s that look like, and how can we get there?

Who could have seen this coming?

It was July of 2023 when Instagram boss Adam Mosseri said this:

“Politics and hard news are inevitably going to show up on Threads – they have on Instagram as well to some extent – but we’re not going to do anything to encourage those verticals.”

But now?

“Our intention is to introduce political recommendations in a responsible and personalized way, which means more for people who want this content and less for those who do not.”

Several friends have said they’re glad Threads wasn’t super political, and a nice change of pace from Twitter.

But when your town hall is run by a bunch of money hungry clowns who are desperate to appease the new regime, this is what you get. The “food court” that you thought was still an okay place to hang out was always destined for this outcome.

Today’s newsletter is sponsored by Shradical, makers of high-performance helmets with built-in front and rear LED lights. Look good, be seen, and stay safe – check ‘em out here.

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I believe that finding work and interesting opportunities can come from your existing contact list and network. The creative people in your orbit.

Since I started playing music in the late 90s, and made a music blog back in 2001, I’ve met a lot of people so, sure, it’s easy for me to offer this advice.

Q: What if you don’t have decades of contacts to pull from?

A: Start being around the people you need to be around. Today. Right now.

Social media has led us to believe we can find success as “lonely content machines, but the adventure becomes easier with other people by your side.

THE MUSIC BLOG

In 2005 I was four years into the “I’m a music blogger” thing, and that’s when I met someone that I didn’t know would change my life (and it would take half my life to realize it).

Sean Cannon started helping with my music blog, and we worked together up until 2008, when I handed him the site because I started another music blog for AOL Music called Noisecreep.

(more…)

Saw this question on Substack Notes from Aishwarya Vardhana, and figured I’d make a full post about it because I see it a lot.

Go to the profile of the people you already subscribe to and find out what they’re reading! You’re probably subscribed to some quality folks, and I bet they subscribe to good folks, too.

Relying on the Substack Notes algorithm (or any algorithm, like Spotify) to show you exactly what you’re looking for is a waste of time. As you can see, I Subscribe to a lot of people – maybe you’ll find something from my list!

Do your own homework, and seek out the sort of materials you want to consume via your own network.

And don’t be afraid to ask your friends (and even your subscribers) what they’re reading, too. You just never know who you’ll discover along the way.