Your Friday Email - Stay Creative on Substack

Self worth - being paid for your art/ opinion/ writing/ time and the one thing we all crave - deep authentic connection.

Alnmouth, Summer 2022

Hellllloooo,

How’s your week on Substack been? I’ve tried scheduling this for 3am my time so it meets your morning in the UK and your evening in other spaces. How does that work for you?

This post is really a continuation of what I started in last week’s podcast piece about being paid to write here because the conversation is bigger and more nuanced than I first thought…there are a couple of tips at the end but this is definitely more of an article than a set of quick tips.

There’s lots to think on here but I do get to some tips if you’re thinking about going paid at the end.

If you’re looking for Substack creator tips perhaps head here to one of my previous Stay Creative on Substack posts.

I will say before I start that NOTES has been BRILLIANT for both conversation and new subscribers this week, I’m learning more about running a second publication here and I moved a commissioned client here too - I’ll talk about it in another post.

I have a question…

Do you think using platforms to share out art/ our creative voice/ our writing can sometimes see us loose sight of the ‘deeper’ why behind the very first why? We join with one intention and then somewhere along the line things shift and change for us? We’re influenced by others of by energy the platforms brings or something else?

I was chatting to a friend about this very topic over the weekend because we both came here (originally) to write long form again - to find a new blog space if we’re honest.

So I would have ticked the second option in the poll above -

‘To write/ create’.

The reading and the connection came second to me here as I didn’t know it existed when I joined. Then after that? Well it’s been a wild ride and now Substack is an integral part of my business and a beautiful tool for deep connection.

I can’t express how much I get from being subscribed as a paid member to Sarah Shotts and Cait Flanders and connecting with their offers behind the paywall.

Step back in time

Here’s my very first post (the older posts are imported from an old blog).

After the first post

What came afterwards for me was a very gentle year of experimentation. Seven Months of showing up, writing, considering, writing some more, reading, being blown away by the talent of writing of many kinds… then I moved my mailing list and then despite my best intentions everything changed and I was more than OK with it.

In the here and now I’m working with a plan for Substack that I came up with in January ‘23. You can read that post here…

In the post I talk about the 1000 true fans model.¹ Have you heard of it? Now I know people with 1000s of followers, email subscribers - does it mean they have 1000 true fans? Nope!

I actually have a combined online ‘following’ of over 6000 ‘people’ now and I’m not turning over 6 figures or inundated with messages to reply to - nowhere near actually. I think you’ve figured out that I’m not here selling that message. ²

The internet is busy, our time is precious and it’s so easy to be signed up to stuff you’re not really interested in or worst still stuff that triggers you. True connection is hard to find (both online and IRL) but my beloved Substack has it in DROVES!

But who is actually listening?

Me and my husband were having a chat about instagram the other day. He was asking me how many people on instagram do you think would be able to get to the end of a 10 min long video if we both said;

“You have to watch this, it’s the best thing ever, no but honestly you have to watch it!”

We bet none!

We then took the analogy further and said how many other ‘influencers’ of the people whose opinion you really care about would have to say - you REALLY have to watch this video - it’s 10 minutes but it’s amazing - 10 people, 20 people, 50 people?

What about if when you watched all the way to the end you were entered into a prize draw with 100 other people to win a car! Could you do it? Remember you’re watching it ON social media and you have to watch to the end…

Could you sit on a social media platform and watch a 10 minute long video that we both said was amazing if you won a car at the end?

So TOUGH!

I think you get my point - it’s incredibly hard to engage in anything for any amount of time whilst on social media. There has been lots written on the topic of being distracted by our phones and we know deep down don’t we - we see it everywhere.³

So, moving on from all that and circling back to WHY I wanted to write this piece and why I write right here on Substack.

I didn’t sign up to Substack thinking people would pay to read my writing. ⁴

Being a writer for a photoshoot with Laura Hardy Rotchester

A complex love affair

I’ve had a beautiful career in the cultural sector - 20 plus years of project work, creative producing, directing theatre, working with communities. I make enough money in this career, it’s unstable and unpredictable but I adore it and I’m good at it. I’ve not had an annual “pay rise” in over 10 years which is why I don’t do it full time.

I see full time employed cultural sector jobs advertised that I could do but we couldn’t afford for me to do those. I bring in the majority of earnt income in our house so it just doesn’t make sense to even look at those jobs.

It’s why I sought out other ways to diversify my income because there is value in what I do and there’s value in what I have to say and teach others. With the rise of being able to teach online and in other creative ways to show up there’s opportunity and lots of it.

But here’s the thing - society (as a whole) does not value my creative work. There’s no way to increase your wealth unless you become a CEO, a best selling author, a celebrity or a famous/ sought after artist. ⁵

Game Changer by Bristol born artist Banksy

So although I could have aspired or still could aspire to be those things I don’t need or want to. My success is cultivated by intrinsic rewards - feeling content, connected, happy, in flow, in abundance…

It’s a balance for sure but in 2023, there is surely opportunity EVERYWHERE?

Being Paid to Create

I have a pal who is a successful part time instagram influencer. They get paid upwards of £3000 for up to four instagram stories. If you want to read that again you can.

I have paid artists/ creatives anywhere from £200 a day to £850 a day (plus VAT) to work on projects with me. I don’t question their daily rate - their daily rate is their daily rate.

I have worked on project budgets of millions of pounds brought in from multiple sources to support the arts, cultural and heritage sector. I’ve worked for the second biggest charity in Europe, I’ve worked for individual artists who earn less than £18k a year (every year) and are very happy. Yesterday I was part of the press launch for the world’s biggest play structure. It’s right here in Alnwick and it’s cost £18million to build.

I have received 1000s of emails over the course of my work in response to call outs and applications. Wildly different proposals from artists massively under charging and the odd one or two massively over charging too. ⁶

The big thing to remember is it’s all made up!

There are no rules when it comes to setting and receiving money for your skill, art, writing, creativity or teaching. Honestly… none!!

Two people were in absolutely disbelief when I told them I’d raised funding⁷ for our vision board project ‘The Soil Web’ - I had to explain how I’d done it and how it worked - (well I didn’t have to but I wanted to…because it’s all made up).

There are millions upon millions of ways to make money as a creative and millions of people who will pay for your art, ideas, writing and creativity. People who want to feel. People who crave connection. People who want to explore what it actually means to push outside of what we’re ‘here for’.

So how do we relate ANY of this to being paid on Substack?

Glad you asked, I was getting to that… 🙃

Here are my top 3 take aways after offering ‘pay walled content’ here for over a year…

• For me my membership (paid for space here) is a completely DIFFERENT space to my main Substack. It’s quiet, it’s thoughtful, it has time… if I had to liken it to a space it would be round the corner from a noisy but beautiful slow waterfall in a sunny open grassy field with multiple canvas tipis set up, stations to write, make art, grab cake and tea and sit round a fire and chat. It’s the complete opposite to the feeling of ‘being on social media’ I made above. It’s a space to look after your wellbeing through creativity and put down the success metrics of society to build your own.

• It’s hard when people come and go but it’s part of it. No final words? No goodbye? *Deep breath*. Just me!? I think it’s because people on the whole (me included) are still trying to figure out what we want to pay to be part of, what we have bandwidth for and what really serves us in our journey. Everyone has a totally different bandwidth on what they want to connect to in the current season of their life. Pay walled content is STILL relatively new to us ⁸

• The money has to work for you. Like the metrics I’ve given above every single person here will be being paid different amounts for writing/ sharing here. Some of the purple, orange and white tick gang will receive 10s of thousands of pounds each year for writing behind a paywall. Perhaps they charge less than you want to. Perhaps it’s even a full time income for them or perhaps they blew it all on a holiday last year. It’s really not my concern, other than to know if I keep coming back to centre, to my goals around creating and being of service I’m happy.

• We learnt the hard way - lots of us here have come over from other platforms where we’ve felt increasing disappointment at the lack of ‘reward’ for our creativity. If we track back that reward, that connection was there and gone in a flash. What if it had never been there - would we miss it?

  Could we create just for us, could we share knowing it might reach that one person who needs it and feels connected and inspired?

Ok this is really long now but I’ll get it all out… bear with me… (should have been a podcast)!

My Top ‘Substack tips’ to better understand the ‘paid metrics’ model

1. Performance (best seller) Related Check Marks/ Ticks. It’s not you it’s me. This is my least favourite part of Substack simply because I’m burnt out with ‘success’ metrics like this existing in the world but if you want to know more about purple ticks here you go. Don’t worry about what anyone else is doing - set up a paywall that works for you.

2. Substack crests and what they mean - have you spotted a little crest symbol next to your name or someone else’s name here - it’s most visible on chat? If you’re new to crests - here’s what it means.

3. Substack Boost - I leave boost switched on because I trust Substack. You can get to this feature in your settings. Here’s a screen shot… Before you decide what to do here, think about the person receiving the emails and how it fits with your offer here, your ethics, your goals - is it comfortable to you?

   

4. Substack has a youtube channel - there are some great resources and interviews there about being paid for your art/ writing.

5. Bounce ideas off other people. I offer paid strategy sessions but you don’t have to pay me or anyone else - ask a real life pal, join a small biz networking group or do a shout out in Notes and see who’s about to chat with you.

Ok so I’ll wrap up there for this week but if you have ANY questions on what I’ve written here or want me to unpack any of it - feel free to ask in the comments!

I’ll be back with a podcast episode in two weeks so if you’d like me to answer one of your questions on Substack do let me know.

As always I look forward to chatting in the comments and if you’re new here you’ll find all my articles on Substack Tips for slow intentional growth right here.

Claire x

PS

• NEW TOOLKIT - “I want to host a membership on Substack?”- Resources suite incoming!! - wait list here. FREE sign up. I’m going to work with you on this one so sign up for updates and I’ll be in touch when it’s ready.

• If you want to join my ‘Creatively Conscious’ membership here on Substack you’d be so welcome. All of my member benefits are listed here so you can be sure it’s the right fit for you before you jump in and hang out with me and my others members.

• I have a LIVE NEW SUBSTACK MASTERCLASS coming up - Mailing List Magic is next month - replay available. In it I’ll cover exactly what I’ve done to double my mailing list and deepen my focus and connection here. Not a hack in sight.

1. The concept is by Kevin Kelly - more here - https://www.newyorker.com/culture/culture-desk/the-rise-of-the-internets-creative-middle-class

2. Some of these will be duplicates of people / bots/ expired/ go to junk mail - but 3200 on instagram, 800 on linked in, 400 on facebook, 825 on substack, 1000 on twitter. What does it all mean if my 8 year old wants me to ‘be to be a youtuber’?!

3. When I was working for a children’s charity in 2019, I attended a conference and half of the conference investigated the impact mobile phones had on children’s development. The research had found children in low income families (where it was focussed) were showing extreme signs of neglect due to the amount of times parents spent on mobile phones. The babies and toddlers were missing vital facial cues in their development pathways due to the faceless expressions we have whilst on our phones. This book is also an excellent read on the topic - https://www.nirandfar.com/indistractable

4. I did switch the paid for option on at the start because it serves me to be open to money and opportunity as a slow lived entrepreneur. I thought I would find it harder to switch it on further down the line so I just switched it on and showed up wholeheartedly here.

5. Banky’s ‘Game Changer’ raised £16758,000 for the NHS a year after lockdown.

6. The AN produce a table of incremental rates of pay based on years of experience.

7. I wrote about it here

8. I’ve not paid to read ANY media off Substack because I don’t follow any news. Business investments are tax deductible when you’re self employed and lots of paywalled stuff here would count as business investments - mine included. I joined two memberships (off Substack) in 2022 - one I paid monthly for and I left after a couple of months, the other I paid annually for and I adored a year’s worth of dipping in and out of the offers there. The first was £33 a month, the second was £200 for the year. Both were business investments.