Welcome! I'm Simon Owens and this is my media industry newsletter. If you've received it, then you either subscribed or someone forwarded it to you.

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Quick hits

Most major brands don't spend much on newsletter ads because it's difficult to buy them at scale — ie, there's no great way to serve programmatic ads in newsletters. Given that programmatic ads make for a terrible user experience and often aren’t effective at selling products, I don't necessarily think that's a bad thing. [YMH]

Apparently women read novels at much greater rates than men. [Dazed] I have to admit I quit reading novels over a decade ago and stick solely to nonfiction books. It just felt like a waste of time, especially when I got partway into a book and didn't finish it. At least with a nonfiction book, you still learn something even if you ultimately abandon it.

What compels someone to write over 1,000 Yelp reviews a year? [Eater]

I do think traditional media outlets should be leveraging Substack, not only as a way to drive attention to their content, but also to help in building out their email lists. [Disjointed]

Joe Rogan has quickly become a kingmaker in the comedy genre — not only attracting up-and-coming comedians on his show, but also convincing them to set up roots in Austin, where he's opened his own comedy club. [Bloomberg]

"Anyone who relies completely on performance media, their margins will eventually go to zero because someone else will pop up that has more margin to spend on advertising. The only way to reduce customer acquisition costs over time is brand. And you can't measure brand on a short feedback loop." [The Rebooting]

Hodinkee used to be the poster child for melding editorial content with commerce, but it turns out its audience got annoyed by all of its attempts to sell them watches. [Adweek]

How The Author Stack grew to over 31,000 subscribers

Russell Nohelty wears lots of different creative hats. He’s a bestselling fiction author. He organizes live conferences. He sells online courses. And over the last few years he’s put much of his energy into building The Author Stack, a newsletter focused on helping writers and other creatives in their careers. He’s grown it to over 31,000 subscribers, and it’s increasingly become the central hub for all his creative businesses.

In a recent interview, Russell walked through every aspect of his growth strategy, including how he generated his first 16,000 subscribers by running sweepstakes with other writers, how he leverages paid marketing, why he utilizes multiple email platforms to send his newsletters, and why he thinks social media marketing is a waste of time:

I don't use social media at all. I'm on Substack. Substack drives subscribers And then I do a lot of paid growth. My business partner is on more social than me. I think it's a waste of time for almost everyone because they do not convert. It's all good feelings and good vibes. Sometimes Facebook will convert if you're in the right groups, but I've never seen anything I've done on Instagram, TikTok, any of those things actually convert to subscribers or paid money. We do have a Circle community for ourselves and my business partner does have a Facebook group for our businesses that I sometimes go into, but I do not post for myself and I haven't for about a year.

More quick hits

Publishers keep experimenting with topic-specific chatbots, but I just don't see a scenario where these tools attract mass adoption. My prediction is that most consumers will congregate around a handful of mainstream chatbots — similar to how the vast majority of internet users utilize either Google or Bing for search. [Nieman Lab]

A great obituary of Lewis Lapham, who edited Harper's for decades. One of the magazine's defining attributes in the 21st century was its steadfast refusal to make its content easily accessible online. Some would say its influence waned as a result. [WashPo]

There's been a big documentary boom in recent years as big streamers like Netflix have invested in the genre; Time Magazine has shifted some of its focus to meeting that demand. [Hollywood Reporter]

It can be easy to mock "meme armies," but individual social media users have more collective reach than the entire mainstream media — and they can also reach users who have mostly tuned out traditional politics channels. [WashPo]

Black Ballad started as a blog founded by a woman living with her mom, and it bootstrapped its way to "1,500 paying members, regular lucrative partnerships with global brands, ... and approximately 15 events a year up and down the [UK]." [Journalism]

Canadian media companies claimed that Facebook was deriving more value from them than it provided, and Facebook called their bluff. [Economist]

None of the major tech platforms outright ban links, but they're increasingly doing everything possible to expose links to as few of their users as possible — to the point that creators have to develop elaborate hacks to make sure their links don't get buried. [Tedium]

I’m looking for more media entrepreneurs to feature on my newsletter and podcast

One of the things I really pride myself on is that I don’t just focus this newsletter on covering the handful of mainstream media companies that every other industry outlet features. Instead, I go the extra mile to find and interview media entrepreneurs who have been quietly killing it behind the scenes. In most cases, the operators I feature have completely bootstrapped their outlets.

In that vein, I’m looking for even more entrepreneurs to feature. Specifically, I’m looking for people succeeding in these areas:

• Niche news sites

• Video channels like YouTube, TikTok, and Instagram Reels

• Podcasts

• Newsletters

• Affiliate/ecommerce

Interested in speaking to me? You can find my contact info over here. (please don’t simply hit reply to this newsletter because that’ll go to a different email address. )

Want a daily dose of media industry news?

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