The Torch of Chaos and Doubt

In honor of the newsletter's third anniversary, here's some data to chew on and couple of amazing vegetarian Sichuan recipes.

Chile-Oil Noodles with Cilantro, by Judy Kim

The Torch of Chaos and Doubt

Today marks the third anniversary of the creation of The Cleaver and the Butterfly. As has become my annual tradition, I will take this opportunity to share the relevant metrics.

To date: 734 total subscribers, 67 paid subscribers, annual revenue $4,370. (For comparison, last year’s numbers were 414 total, 50 paid, revenue $3,500.)

Data point #1: 250 new subscribers have signed up since the beginning of May. This represents a dramatic acceleration. To borrow some Silicon Valley jargon, the slope of the curve representing the acquisition of new subscribers has significantly steepened.  

This looks – dare I say it? – almost like a hockey stick. Now, if we were graphing global temperatures, this would be, and is, terribly bad news. But whenever a tech startup sees this kind of phase transition in user growth, it’s time to go hunting for additional venture capital and make immediate plans for world domination.

Just kidding -- I have no plans to seek outside investment. I will allow nothing to dilute my total control over this enterprise.

Data point #2: The growth in new free subscribers is outpacing the growth in paid subscribers.

According to Substack guidance, if you can convert ten percent of your total free subscribers into paid subscribers you are doing alright. And for the first two years after I enabled a payment option, the newsletter easily exceeded that ratio, with paid subscribers generally hovering at around 20 percent of the total. But in the last month the ratio dropped below ten percent.

The reasons are obvious. Up to this point, I have made everything available for free, so there is no material incentive to pay. And the vast majority of paid subscribers are people I know in real life: friends, family, and readers who have followed my work for years. There is no reason to expect that complete strangers will be eager to pay for something they get for free. I understand this!

Perhaps counter-intuitively, I have actually been energized by the shift in reader demographics. It is extremely rewarding to see the growth in the demographic of subscribers who have no preexisting connection to me. Presumably you are here because you are interested in what I’m writing about. I could not be happier about that fact. In the last 36 hours I gained eleven new subscriptions, and every incoming email delivered its own sweet, sweet serotonin boost. I could get used to that.

But I do hope, in the months to come, that I will convince some percentage of you new arrivals to convert to paid subscriptions. Because make no mistake, I do want to eventually be able to devote myself to this full time. I can imagine nothing more fulfilling. And now that new readers are signing up every single day, I’m beginning to dream that it might even be possible.

Whether that means that I will eventually make some of what my youngest child so aptly described as “irregularly serialized web content” only available to paying subscribers is hard to say at this point. I don’t know what I’m doing; I change my mind often. I am torn between the desire to maximize my readership by giving everything away for free and the intuition that I should treat this newsletter more like a business if I want to make more money. But part of the joy here is that I am not guided by market forces. I do whatever the hell I want. My fear is that if I started deciding what to post purely in order to increase revenue I might start to lose hold of what makes it so fun to do in the first place.

All is confusion and that’s just fine. According to Zhuangzi, “the sage steers by the torch of chaos and doubt.” I can’t think of a phrase that better captures the essence of what life as a freelance writer is all about. So, for now, I am going to continue to frolic as I please in the flickering shadows. I will make no rational economic decisions.

Long story short: I feel like I’ve done some of my best work this past year and my readership has almost doubled. Let’s see if we can work that trick again over the next year.

And if you’ve read this far, here’s a little reward: two vegetarian Sichuan-style recipes I tried out this past month that are going to make my ongoing transition into a less pork-filled existence a lot easier.

The first, Chile-Oil Noodles with Cilantro, is by Judy Kim, whose website I just discovered and looks well worth revisiting. The second, Spicy Sichuan Boiled Tofu, came to me via the amazing daily recipe newsletter, The Woks of Life.  Both of these dishes pack a classic Sichuan wallop. I fell in love at first bite.