One Year on Substack! Insights, updates and thank yous.
Dear curious friends,
Today is a very special day because it is officially one year since I graduated from my PhD and published my very first article on Dr King’s Curiosities. I wanted to set aside a post today to celebrate, to give some insights into the journey so far, to tell you about the exciting things on the horizon and (most importantly of all) to thank you from the bottom of my heart for your support.
Contents
The Big Picture
Over the last year, I have written just over 100 posts for Dr King’s Curiosities. Every Monday I’ve shared either an article, a quiz, or an audio reading of a short story. Every Thursday, I’ve posted a ‘horror moment.’ These come in series of ten articles (or mini series of five articles) and I’ve so far completed sets on horror in Wallace & Gromit, Shakespeare, Kate Bush songs, Don’t Hug Me I’m Scared, and opera. I’m currently halfway through my horror moments series on The Sopranos (catch up here).
The TLDR is that I’ve achieved the following goals to:
Find and grow an audience of people who share my curiosities and enjoy my style (and sense of humour!)
Begin to make a name for myself in my niche field.
Build relationships with readers and writers across the platform.
Begin to earn some money from my writing.
Have loads of fun.
I’ve also finally got round to making a proper contents page for the whole Substack which is here.
Juicy Juicy Numbers
Alright let’s get into it! Hopefully the following is of interest/use.
Subscribers
I’m currently sitting at just under 1800 subscribers which may not make me the biggest Substacker out there but is pretty impressive for someone who writes weird articles about the obscure, the magical and the macabre. I think the biggest theatre I’ve ever had a play performed in was around 1000 seats, and that was only for a couple of nights. Having that many people signed up to receive my writing each week is absolutely bonkers — now I’m getting greedy about reaching 2000!
I gained subscribers rapidly in the first six months, at over 150 a month so I’d reached 1000 by December. Then *ominous music* something happened, and that something was…
CHRISTMAS!
If you’ve ever wondered why people harp on about consistent publishing, just look at what happened to my subscribers when I took a two week break from posting in December:
It’s still climbing, but has definitely slowed and this has been particularly pronounced in the last couple of months. Part of this is email clean-up; apparently accounts where the email keeps going into junk or bouncing will eventually be automatically removed.
There will also now be churn of people who signed up but no longer want to subscribe for any number of reasons. It feels natural and, since I’m still growing, not something to worry about — but I can’t help wondering what would have happened algorithmically if I hadn’t taken that break at Christmas! I guess Krampus was punishing me…
I came to Substack cold with no subscribers from elsewhere. I’ve never really made the most of social media so have grown this list from scratch here using Notes. I share my articles on Bluesky but don’t bother with Twitter/Instagram/Tiktok etc. I probably should…
Followers
I currently have around 4,100 followers over half of whom followed me before, guess when? Christmas. To be fair, my follower growth started slowing down around November but the two week break in December meant it almost plateaued for a while. Still climbing slowly but surely!
Paid subscribers
I wasn’t expecting to have any paid subscribers in my first year so the fact that I am now in the low double figures and have earned just under $1000 dollars is one of the most encouraging metrics of all. I’ve put nothing behind a paywall so this has been entirely speculative: people have been paying to keep me writing. It’s not just about being able to cover the odd bill or finally replace my dying laptop, it’s the knowledge that strangers value my work enough to invest in my future as a researcher/writer.
I figured out the other day that I am about 3% of my way to earning a basic living from my Substack. To put that in easily understandable terms, if Dr Frankenstein needs 5 litres of blood to fill his monster’s body, then he has so far collected 0.2 litres, or the tip of the toes on one foot, as you can see from this scientific diagram:
Maybe I’ll fill a foot by Christmas…
Notes
I love Notes. I know there’s a lot of bad ‘Notetiquette’ around at the moment, but the good still outweighs the bad for me. Compared with other social media platforms, I feel more confident posting all the weird and wonderful stuff that comes into my head without worrying that someone is going to call me a whore or send me pictures of his little Adolf.
Perhaps it’s because my Notes follow the format of: ‘look at this fun weird thing I found!’ that they tend to do pretty well. I regularly get Notes that pass the 100 likes mark and fairly frequently the 500 likes mark. I’ve definitely noticed a link between posting regular notes and gaining new subscribers. I’d say my growth is more closely tied to that than anything else at the momen.
New Paid Subscriber Benefits
Okey dokey now for the exciting bit! I’ve always wanted to provide benefits for people who are kind enough to pay to subscribe without setting myself impossible standards for my output so, with that balance in mind, here are the updated perks of becoming a paying member of my curious community:
One paywalled article or podcast episode every single month. I’ve got some amazing interviews and articles lined up that will be for paid subscribers only. These will sometimes take the place of the quiz on the first Monday of the month (the quiz itself will remain free) or might be one of the other Monday articles. The first of these is a fascinating discussion about magic and the ancient automaton with my good friend
which will be uploaded on 4th August.Full access to my archive. I’ve decided to let all free articles go behind a paywall after 1 year which means that from tomorrow paying subscribers will be the only people who can read my full back catalogue of articles. This feels like a nice balance between giving free articles time to reach as wide an audience as possible but then putting them to work providing an incentive for people to pay to subscribe. I will try to flag which articles are going into the archive in advance.
Special messages, updates, and chats. I will share a bit more of my personal/professional development with paying subscribers, for example, letting you in on rehearsals for my latest play or discussing how I’m getting on with a book proposal. This is because I’m assuming that people who are willing to pay to support me are more invested in me as a creative/scholar as well as the fun things I write about!
What will remain free?
All my quizzes.
All my ‘Tea and a Tale’ episodes.
All ‘horror moments.’
At least one Monday article per month (usually two).
Goals for the Future/Things to Look Forward To
For both free and paid subscribers, I’ve got an absolute smorgasbord of delights planned for the next few months. At a glance, here are some things you can expect to hear more about: printers’ devils, atomic theory in the seventeenth century, supernatural architecture, medieval aliens, sinister Father Chrismasses, iron maidens, Disney nightmares, Edward Gorey horrors, Georges Méliès and the Babadook, Walter de la Mare in a haunted garden…and I’ll be sharing more about my short opera which is about a forced confession of witchcraft and will be performed in London this September.
Things I’d like to do if I have the time:
Add voiceovers again.
Share stuff more widely on other social media platforms.
Record more interviews with interesting people on magic, folklore, horror etc.
Decorate my page a bit more i.e. put time into making some Addams/Gorey-style page dividers and buttons.
(Potentially) do something relating to the history of education i.e. rhetoric and writing.
(Potentially) organise some sort of online conference or event bringing different researchers together to share odd and fascinating nuggets of history/culture/storytelling.
Please do let me know if you have any thoughts on the future of Dr King’s Curiosities. What would you like to see more of?
Special Thanks
Thank you to each and every person who has liked, commented, reposted, recommended, subscribed, and paid to subscribe in the past year. Every single boost, no matter how small, helps make this mad adventure feel fulfilling and worthwhile.
Special thank yous to those who have paid to support me or have been my most regular readers and commenters:
, , , , , @lc12574128, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , . , , , , , , , , , — there were far too many ‘five star’ readers according to the Substack algorithm so I sadly can’t list everyone, but you’re all five star readers in my eyes!Thank you to everyone who has recommended me:
, , , House of Long Shadows, , , , , , , and more. This is such a useful way to reach new readers, I really appreciate the vote of confidence!Particularly special thank yous go to Alex, AKA
who was my first paid subscriber, to who so often features my articles in his Weekly Geekly rundown, to the best plant poet in town, to my collaborator extraordinaire, and to for interviewing me and supporting me very early on in my Substack journey.And to YOU, dear reader, whoever you are. I’m so excited to share with you all the great stuff I’ve got planned, fangs for your support so far x
Congrats on a huge milestone! I knew we shared similar interests, but wow, it's more like a perfect circle on a Venn diagram. 😅
Thanks for being a great example of why the horror community is just the loveliest place. Do we all relax by getting excited about terrifying things? Yes. But do we also love to celebrate each other and lift up every person? Hell yes! 💜 Congrats on this milestone and best wishes for the next one!