Milestone Achieved: The Joyful Book Blogger received its first paid subscriber!
It’s my sister but hey, we should celebrate all the wins right?!
At no cost to you I may receive a commission for items purchased through links.
My sister gave me a pleasant surprise this week by becoming a paid subscriber founding supporter of my Substack blog TheJoyfulBookBlogger.com and I’m so incredibly thrilled! Sending a huge a thank you for believing in me and supporting my writing. ☺️
Blogging has always been a passion project for me and I’ve dabbled in it over the past few years in my spare time just for fun. I initially started off with a lifestyle blog as Living Life With Joy, but over time I realized the majority of my posts were related to books and reading, so it eventually became a bookish blog.
When I first moved my blog LivingLifeWithJoy.com to Substack and rebranded myself as The Joyful Book Blogger, it hadn’t occurred to me to lean into offering or suggesting paid subscriptions to the blog. I honestly just liked that the format was more streamlined than my previous blog on wordpress(.org), that it saved an easy email distribution list, and that it had an easy format to send posts by email.
I’m not a ‘writer’ per se but I enjoy journaling, reviewing, and writing all kinds of miscellaneous thoughts down for preservation. I’m hesitant to admit that I’m a bit of a procrastinator in that I’m often inconsistent at posting but I’m always writing and typing up thoughts in various notes apps on my phone to share later.
Done is better than perfect
I read somewhere that done is better than perfect and though I love the sentiment, I haven’t quite figured out a good balance for that when it comes to posting photos on social media and sharing thoughts on my blog. I take bookish photos consistently when I get book mail — and often when I’m reading them — but I’m not great at sharing them quickly and my photo roll is all kinds of chaotic and messy.
I suppose the sage advice of done is better than perfect would certainly apply here, but I do enjoy writing the captions that go with the photos that I post. Another factor is that it takes time to format and ensure I’m tagging the right authors and publishers, especially when books are gifted. I’m a big fan of utilizing templates to avoid recreating the wheel but even those take time to update and prep for posting.
Getting back on track here…
Circling back to the initial thought process here… what kinds of content do readers find worth a financial investment? What entices someone to be a paid subscriber on a Substack blog or a social media channel — shy of Only Fans or sexy content.
Some writers in substack I’ve seen have a few hundred subscribers and some have a few thousand or more. I imagine the majority are free subscribers but I assume some are paid as well.
What content would you like to see?
My question for you dear reader is this — what kinds of content (bookish or non-bookish) would you be interested in seeing from me that would encourage you to be a paid subscriber? How often would you like to see that type of content — weekly, monthly, or quarterly? Any additional member only perks that you’d want to see included? Just to get the creative juices flowing, thoughts on perks like exclusive… giveaways, discounts in my Pango shop, and extra entries on my Instagram giveaways? Perhaps even access to some exclusive collabs…
My paid subscription option is set to $5 a month or $50 annually - please consider becoming a paid subscriber and supporting my content and writing.
I’d truly love any constructive feedback and ideas to help me brainstorm ways to make this corner of the internet into more of what my readers are looking for.
TL - DR: Asking for ideas on content that speaks to you!
