The newsletter bubble grows

Where it stops, no one knows...

The newsletter bubble continues to grow. 

This week alone: 

Twitter bought Revue, a “service that makes it free and easy for anyone to start and publish editorial newsletters.”

Facebook, the New York Times reports, is building a newsletter platform. 

The product, which is still in its earliest stages, could be similar to those of other newsletter companies, according to the people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to do so publicly. That could include features to help writers build their followers on Facebook and curate their email lists, the people said, as well as paid subscription tools to help journalists make money from their newsletters.

Forbes introduced its “Journalist Entrepreneurs” program, which is basically the outlet hiring business folks to write newsletters.

As Forbes staff, “Journalists Entrepreneurs” receive a salary and benefits, as well as a split of the revenue they generate, helped by Forbes’ editorial, marketing and customer service/support functions, as well as the extensive reach of the site. They can self-publish their work through Forbes’ industry-leading CMS, Bertie; establish their own profile page on Forbes.com, and easily create and distribute their own customized paid newsletters, which are then distributed, marketed and managed by Forbes.

(Image via Ian Kington/AFP/Getty Images)

The last year has seen an explosion in journalistic-style newsletters. Like this one! And this boom, from journalists with huge social followings leaving their cushy editorial gigs for the toil of flying solo to individuals who lost their gigs looking for some structure in their lives, has now led to platforms and publishers looking to cash-in on the newsletter craze. 

As I wrote many months ago, newsletters are great, but they’re not magically going to let writers live the Graydon Carter existence, writing a newsletter from the south of France. Some, yes, will be able to make megabucks writing to an audience willing to pay. But those are few and far between. My analogy has been that of a rock band.

Me, from September, writing about newsletters, naturally:

At best, most of us newsletter writers are in a garage band. We practice like we want to be rock stars; we play clubs and bars hoping to build that audience and catch a few lucky breaks along the way. Some inevitably will matriculate from playing local pubs to opening up for bigger acts to maybe even hitting rock star status. But the odds are not in our favor. The end result for most of us: a good side hustle to bring in a few extra bucks, but not something we’ll be able to call a job.

Reading Drew Austin’s Kneeling Bus newsletter, I’m reminded of the strangeness of “creating.”

What’s the point of posting or creating something that isn’t meant to be liked or even seen at all, especially when doing so isn’t part of some dumb game? Concepts like Warhol’s 15 minutes of fame (1968) and Chris Anderson’s Long Tail (2004) raised the possibility that notoriety and audience sizes would become more evenly distributed as creative output itself became more heterogenous—until eventually we’d each be broadcasting our own perfectly unique material to only ourselves and maybe our close friends and family (in fact, Anderson praised this exact condition in his Long Tail essay: “As fast as Rhapsody adds tracks to its library, those songs find an audience, even if it's just a few people a month”). Of course that arrangement was never sustainable: The Long Tail is a paradise for consumers, not producers, and we’re all increasingly both, so a new compromise became necessary. Today, the Long Tail manifests itself as Twitch streamers who spend years broadcasting to no one, anxiously awaiting the moment when the view counter finally ticks from zero to one. The minimum tolerable amount of recognition is clearly higher than what the Long Tail promises.

Writing is, generally, a solitary exercise. Sure, we talk to folks to get viewpoints and an expertise we don’t have on a particular subject. But we typically write alone, an activity that goes like this:

Brain > fingers > screen > brain > fingers > screen, and so on, until we are content with what we see on the page. If we’re lucky, we get someone smarter (or at least a fresh perspective) to read what we’ve written before we send it out to the world. 

And once we hit publish, the writing is gone; it is not ours, it becomes how the reader interprets the words; what the reader wants it to be. As a writer, you hope your message is conveyed. Sometimes it is. Sometimes it’s not. 

And, like a bar band, sometimes you write and no one reads. In Austin’s newsletter, he notes Dean Wareham’s book, “Black Postcards,” and how Wareham “recounts Galaxie 500 playing a show to an audience of six indifferent bar regulars during a snowstorm in Boston, earning $12 to split among three people.”

As a failed musician, I can relate. I once played a bar in Ithaca with my band in the midst of a blizzard to about five people. It wasn’t bad! (Though clearly not as fun as playing to a sold out Wetlands or Stone Pony.) Sure, the muted applause after each song was slightly deflating, but we took it as a paid practice. In other words, we were getting paid to work on songs, work on stage presence, work on ourselves. 

Newsletter-writing, much like any other writing, is like this: constantly practicing your craft in public. One never knows if anyone actually is interested, or enjoys it (though writers ALWAYS know when someone doesn’t like what you wrote). 

The platforms and media outlets, however, seem to be betting that people want more newsletters, and will pay. Though it’s interesting that the platforms are playing catch-up here instead of leading, and that publishers, after years of giving away its product for free, will convince people to pay up for a reporter’s notebook.  

For platforms, maybe they think that in order to get more users and to keep them on their platform for as long as possible, give ‘em the newsletter option. 

LinkedIn started one a few months back, after years of pushing itself as a modified media company for thinkfluencers who wanted to spew their aphorisms and broetry to their audiences. It’s easier to bring your followers on a journey if you already have them, right?

But do you really want a newsletter from a Facebook friend or a Twitter connection automatically appearing in your inbox or DM? What one looks for in newsletters is different, I imagine, than what one looks for in a platform or a news outlet. 

I started this newsletter because I was laid off, but also wanted to get back into writing. Nine months, 177 editions and 3,710 subscribers later, the only thing I’m certain about newsletters: I know nothing. 

Thank you for allowing me in your inbox, today and every day. If you have tips or thoughts on the newsletter, drop me a line. Or you can follow me on Twitter. If you arrived here serendipitously, please consider signing up. And if you appreciated this edition, please consider sharing. Thanks for reading! Have a safe and relaxing weekend, and I’ll see you on Monday. 

Boston, “More Than A Feeling”

Some interesting links:

For things that make you go hmmmm:

• Google Deletes 100,000 Negative Reviews of Robinhood App From Angry Users (Gizmodo)

For deplatforming works:

• How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Twitter’s Trump Ban (NYT)

For media moves:

• Conde Nast Eyes Shift to New Jersey, Cutting NYC Offices (Bloomberg)

For media criticism:

• What the GameStop rally has revealed about financial media (New Republic)

For this smells fishy:

• Subway’s tuna is not tuna (WaPo)