Subscriber update: Honourable work

Notes on the fourth anniversary of this newsletter

Our man in Montreal, April 9. New haircut. Unpersuaded.

1. Putting in the reps

Saturday will mark the fourth anniversary of the Paul Wells newsletter. This is the 491st post. I’ve sent out 131 posts in the past year, compared to 132 in the previous year. On average I send you a little more than two posts a week, a rate I don’t enforce against myself but one that’s hardly changed since I launched.

After three years of exhilarating growth, subscriptions have levelled out. I now have 40,446 total subscribers, up about 4% from a year ago. Paid subscribers, always a subset of the bigger number, are actually down 10% year-on-year. But if I take a longer view, I see paid subscriptions are still 15% higher than two years ago, so I’m happy. Last year we were in the home stretch of a federal election campaign that goosed demand for this political newsletter, but not all of that demand lasted. There are a few other drags on discoverability that are just part of life these days: general Substack saturation, the collapse of Twitter and Facebook as referral tools, and the way AI search produces answers without links. Given all that, I’m hearing that a number of long-time Substacks have seen growth level out.

I also took my podcast out of regular production. That’s probably had some effect on audience growth. I still wonder whether that was the correct decision. A lot would be involved in reversing it, so I still have some thinking to do.

The biggest new development was my decision to take my year-end Holiday Shows on the road with the first Road Show in Vancouver. We’re actively planning for Road Shows in two other cities this year, before the next Holiday Show in Ottawa. Stay tuned. I will always give paying subscribers a chance to buy tickets before the general public. These events have generated real interest from excellent sponsors — have I mentioned Cameco and Netflix and the Canadian Bankers Association lately? — and some potential new sponsors. That allows me to stage events of consistently high quality, and to pay properly for good work. Above all, audiences get these events when they’re lucky enough to get tickets. The celebratory tone, the serious and festive and weird all tossed together. The reminder that there can be third places, away from work and home, where a community can become more of a community. I won’t let these Road Shows become so frequent that they detract from my other work, but I’ve come to believe they’re an important part of what we’re all building here.

This year the work felt a little more like work. There’s less novelty in the form itself, and I’ve been noticing some of the limitations. My own imperfections as a journalist, sometimes. The constant ceiling of simple awareness: When I meet somebody who says, “I loved your work at [the National Post] or [the Toronto Star] or [a magazine]. What are you up to these days?” That’s a potential reader who doesn’t know they can still read me. There are always too many of those. That’s why I always mean it when I say the best thing you can do to help me is to tell friends, or if you work in traditional or new media, your audiences.

So it’s work. But I am comfortable with honourable work and grateful for the chance to do it. I feel like I’m still figuring a lot of this stuff out. I intend to stay at it for the foreseeable future, and then, since these days the foreseeable future rarely extends past lunch, well into the unforeseeable future.

When I launched this newsletter some people assumed I was rebelling against journalism as it’s long been practiced. I’ve never felt that way. My model is the humility, care and clarion voice that I’ve always seen and heard in the work of the best journalists. I spent part of the year reading old Norman Webster columns and marveling at how well it was possible to write for the Globe and Mail in 1976. I get schooled every day by Ashley Burke, Stephanie Levitz, Mark Ramzy, Matt Gurney, Jen Gerson, Hélène Buzzetti and so many others. I miss John Griffin. I’m proud to do some version of what they do. I try to live up to the best ideals of the craft. I’m grateful for your help and interest.

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2. Calls to action

Tell your friends. Here’s the Share button, but even better than Sharing my work electronically is using my name in a conversation with somebody you care about.

If you read this newsletter, consider paying for it. At $8 a month or $80 a year, it’s the cost of buying me a fancy coffee every month.

In particular, if a bunch of people in your office routinely share my work, come on. This is my job. I do this for a living.

A few subscribers choose to become “next-level subscribers” and pay more than the basic subscription rate. That’s tremendously encouragaing. You can do that on this page, which is also the page you can use to send gift subscriptions.

If you can’t afford a subscription, send me a note saying so, by hitting “reply” to any post you receive from me by email. There is no need to provide details. I’ll give you a free subscription to tide you over.

And if you simply prefer to remain a free subscriber, thank you for that. Some of my work will always be free, because I’m always grateful for anyone’s attention in a busy world.

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3. Cue the theme music

Here are some of the posts I’m proudest of, published since the New Year. Send these to friends who might be curious.

A profile of Transport Minister Steven MacKinnon. Interviews with Pierre Poilievre, Danielle Smith and Stéphane Dion. Thoughts on Stephen Harper’s legacy, and on his piano. An essay about the overdue and tentative return of talking to our politics. Fresh tea from the Senate. Mark Lepage on Khn and Klek de Poitrine.

I used to think my career was slowing down. It’s sped up. I used to think the range of the possible was contracting. It’s expanded. I owe all of that to you and I will never forget it. Thank you all. Onward.