3 years of SoundHole.
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[IMAGE: Me writing one of my first guitar lesson articles on Substack. May 26, 2022]
I heard about Substack when I was watching Rick Beato interview Ted Gioia, sometime in May of 2022. Ted was asked about which writing platform he uses to reach his readers. Ted answered, "Substack". Prior to this interview, I had never even heard of Substack before. I immediately started my guitar lessons account and published my first article on May 21, 2022.
The idea of writing has been a great therapy for me - really since about the first time I got online in 1999. The internet opened up a whole new world for me and millions of other computer novices. I never thought of myself as a writer. I was never really a "word" guy. I had always expressed myself through music and teaching. Writing was something I had to learn - and I am still learning.
For me, writing about guitar, guitar lessons, guitar stories, music, etc., was the first thing that came to mind when I started this account. What I found quite intriguing was the idea that people who wrote on Substack could get paid handsomely by their loyal patrons and paid subscribers. I needed no further motivation. I began to imagine hundreds, thousands of my readers from all across the globe, reading my epic editorials on music and guitar. Everyone would pay me each month, and I could retire and just become a writer. It was a real dream that could actually happen.
I needed a name for my Substack. I needed the “perfect” name. I was pacing through my apartment one afternoon, and I almost knocked over my guitar. I looked at it and the name "Sound Hole" just hit me square in the face. That's perfect! The guitar makes sound through the sound hole on the face of the guitar. I must have written a half-dozen articles that first week. I immediately got two paid subscribers. I was so excited to write and get paid for my words.
I read and I watched videos on how to get more subscribers to pay me. Just about everything I read or watched mentioned the word "consistency". This made sense to me. I wrote all of my guitar lesson articles as if I were teaching it to one of my students. I had to be creative with graphics, examples, exercises, etc. This was stuff that I already knew how to do. I enjoyed the challenge to be creative.
As time went by, I'd receive the occasional "new subscriber" notice. People were slowly finding me. I was getting a lot of subscribers, but nobody was opting to become paid subscribers. I eventually figured out that - the overall niche of my articles has a very narrow margin of interest. The information I write about can be found anywhere online. There really wasn't much that was unique to my writing other than my personality.
Here it is, three years later and I have 207 subscribers and 442 followers. Out of all of these readers, only 7 paid subscribers are actually supporting my efforts. It has been quite disappointing. I thought that by now, I'd have a couple hundred paid subscribers. This is unfortunately not the case. I plan to continue writing as I have been doing these past three years. I don't know how to get my readers to support me by becoming paid subscribers. Maybe I should write about something else.
If you are reading this article and you are not a paid subscriber, thank-you for your loyalty anyway. I appreciate you taking the time to read my words.
However, supporting my efforts here on SoundHole is pretty cheap. $5.00/month or $55.00/year. There are currently 440 articles available for you to peruse. As a free subscriber, you have limited access to everything that is available to you. More than half of these articles are guitar lessons. For the price of a cup of coffee, you could have access to all of it. I appreciate your continued support as my reader. If you would like to become a paid subscriber and support my work, please click the subscribe button below.
Thank-you for reading. Dave