Substack: Micro Goals update at 8 months

Full progress report for ‘Off on a Tangent’ in micro detail…

Above are the Micro Goals, scroll down to see the latest numbers.

Just to bring the newbies up to date, when I started this Substack project I decided to set some Micro Goals to chart my progress.

Here’s the full detail of how they began and why.

We are now 8 months in and I’m very pleased with how things are going.

Thank you all for following along, which not only removes my ‘crazed loner’ status, but also some of you have been generous enough to mention that due to some of my Reviews, you have not only watched, but also enjoyed some of my TV & Film recommendations… which makes me an influencer, which I find hilarious!

This is something I love telling the family, purely to extract an eye-roll/head shake combo whilst they mutter ‘oh dear God’ under their breath.

Tee bloody hee! While all the proper Influencers are now trying to rebrand as Content Creators, I’ve had enough of dull old content and am going the other way!

I’m nothing, if not savagely behind the times! 😂

I wanna persuade people to watch brilliant stuff on telly, play MAFS Bingo, pop some swimwear in their hand luggage and do 20 squats a day!

Let’s get to those numbers…

Position in ‘Humor’ Category: 203

Category position?

Bet you didn’t see that coming, especially the American spelling. 😉

When you start a Substack you have to decide which two Categories your Substack belongs to, to help people discover your publication.

I’ve opted for ‘Humor’ and ‘Culture’.

Yes, I do realise ‘Culture’ is a bit of a stretch, but think of it as ‘Pop Culture’ and it kinda fits. There isn’t a Lifestyle category, and until I start consistently rambling on about the erratic movements of Crypto this is the best fit.

However, ‘Culture’ is the first category listed and so I’m guessing it’s the most popular one chosen, given it’s ‘Catch-all-ability’, so the competition is fierce.

Riding high in the No.1 spot is Jessica Reed Kraus who has about 330,000 subscribers… and if you read the small print below ‘tens of thousands of paid subs’!

Let’s do the math/s on that:

(at least) 20,000 x $7/month = $140k/month = $1,680,000/year

Which, let’s face it, it a fuck ton of money in any currency! No need to convert to £££!

She is top of the 525 listed… after which the system errored… maybe no one has ever scrolled down that far!?

Humor category

Anyway, my other category ‘Humor’, is penultimate in the list, just after ‘Crypto’ and ‘History’ and before ‘Education’.

Top of the charts here is

Garrison Keillor

, the 81-year-old stand-up comedian who isn’t running for president this year.

This Substack looks to have over 300,000 subscribers, and it says ‘thousands of paid subs’, so he is merely squeaking by on:

(at least) 2,000 x $6/month = $12k/month = $144,000/year

Which is still a very healthy income, but not as stratospheric as the ‘Culture’ Kings & Queens.

Btw, in case you are wondering who the top of the lot is, I think it’s widely accepted to be

Heathercoxrichardson

, in ‘U.S. Politics’ category… look at that small print!

(at least) 200,000 x $5/month = $1 million/month = $12 million/year

Did your head just explode?

Yup. Mine too.

Back down to earth

So ‘we’ are currently sitting at 203 in ‘Humor’ and Christ-knows-what in Culture, so let’s focus on the former.

Tantalisingly close to sub 200, which is one of my Micro Goals!

These charts are based on:

‘… several performance indicators… including the total number of paid subscribers a publication has, as well as the overall engagement and frequency of publishing’.

So if you’d like to take part in a fun experiment and sign-up to the 7-day-free trial I promise to let you know whether it caused a bump in the chart position, and also you’ll get to feast your eyes, on all the juicy numbers below!

And I promise not to take offence if you leave after the freebie, it’s all in the name of science! 🤓