Just a thought on the "paid/not paid" question. Obviously, I don't know your situation, and I haven't read much on the topic from other writers - this is just my own, uninformed, opinion.
For Psyvacy, I have a kind-of loose policy in place for this. If I have less than 100 subscribers, then no paid option - less than that and it's just not worth the effort to set up. I don't know what kind of rate of paid/free subscribers is "normal", but it seems plausible to me that the privacy "community" is going to, on average, be less willing to pay, due to the inevitable issues with identity etc involved. Crypto *can* mitigate these, but that's another step involved, and we know that even minor obstacles can have big differences on people's actual engagement in behaviour. So I'm completely arbitrarily estimating that I would expect about 1% of readers to be willing to pay (if this was within 1 order of magnitude of correct I'd be shocked).
In addition, if there's paid subscribers there's a greater expectation to publish something at least somewhat regularly. My schedule is starting to free up, so maybe I could manage that, but for at least the last few months I've struggled to put something out on anything even remotely on a regular basis. This would go from being essentially a hobby to something closer to a job. Which even if you can mange a pace, would necessitate a change in your relationship with the writing. Not a bad change, necessarily, but different - payment implies obligation.
Anyway, that's just my thoughts. Be interested in yours.
Even though I am personally facing numerous obstacles concerning the money flow in the paid subscription model (mostly complications about where to obtain the funds and how to receive them), I view setting up paid subscriptions as more of a set it up once, then keep improvements rolling type of thing, because when we prioritize growth over conversion rate, we concurrently enhance the likelihood of attracting paid subscribers.
Your 100 subscriber policy seems logical as a baseline idea however I would say that the conversion rate for paid subscribers is way less than 1% (based on what I've seen from other similarly limited small publications).
You're right, the privacy community tends to be less interactive in terms of engagement and, particularly, payment. This is why I plan to offer alternative ways to support this publication, such as Liberapay.
I don't yet find the obligation of paid subscriptions to be a personal issue. I have good control over my time (for now), I have already established dedicated writing hours as well as a personal non-negotiable to post one article per week, which ensures that I consistently find time for writing, even if it means sacrificing other activities..
Maybe take a page from my book to help with your scheduling?
Very possibly! I am notoriously bad at scheduling and keeping to a schedule, which definitely contributes.
In my case I think it's more to do with just having an extremely full plate and few low-effort ways to blow off steam. Doing postgraduate studies is kind of notorious for eating every minute of your day XD
That said, I'm looking at a relatively clear few weeks coming up, so I'll try to use the time to sit down and see what I can do about working out a slightly more rigorous schedule.
And yeah, the 1% figure is probably generous. As I said, if that number is within 1 order of magnitude of accurate I'd be pretty surprised.
Just a thought on the "paid/not paid" question. Obviously, I don't know your situation, and I haven't read much on the topic from other writers - this is just my own, uninformed, opinion.
For Psyvacy, I have a kind-of loose policy in place for this. If I have less than 100 subscribers, then no paid option - less than that and it's just not worth the effort to set up. I don't know what kind of rate of paid/free subscribers is "normal", but it seems plausible to me that the privacy "community" is going to, on average, be less willing to pay, due to the inevitable issues with identity etc involved. Crypto *can* mitigate these, but that's another step involved, and we know that even minor obstacles can have big differences on people's actual engagement in behaviour. So I'm completely arbitrarily estimating that I would expect about 1% of readers to be willing to pay (if this was within 1 order of magnitude of correct I'd be shocked).
In addition, if there's paid subscribers there's a greater expectation to publish something at least somewhat regularly. My schedule is starting to free up, so maybe I could manage that, but for at least the last few months I've struggled to put something out on anything even remotely on a regular basis. This would go from being essentially a hobby to something closer to a job. Which even if you can mange a pace, would necessitate a change in your relationship with the writing. Not a bad change, necessarily, but different - payment implies obligation.
Anyway, that's just my thoughts. Be interested in yours.
Even though I am personally facing numerous obstacles concerning the money flow in the paid subscription model (mostly complications about where to obtain the funds and how to receive them), I view setting up paid subscriptions as more of a set it up once, then keep improvements rolling type of thing, because when we prioritize growth over conversion rate, we concurrently enhance the likelihood of attracting paid subscribers.
Your 100 subscriber policy seems logical as a baseline idea however I would say that the conversion rate for paid subscribers is way less than 1% (based on what I've seen from other similarly limited small publications).
You're right, the privacy community tends to be less interactive in terms of engagement and, particularly, payment. This is why I plan to offer alternative ways to support this publication, such as Liberapay.
I don't yet find the obligation of paid subscriptions to be a personal issue. I have good control over my time (for now), I have already established dedicated writing hours as well as a personal non-negotiable to post one article per week, which ensures that I consistently find time for writing, even if it means sacrificing other activities..
Maybe take a page from my book to help with your scheduling?
Very possibly! I am notoriously bad at scheduling and keeping to a schedule, which definitely contributes.
In my case I think it's more to do with just having an extremely full plate and few low-effort ways to blow off steam. Doing postgraduate studies is kind of notorious for eating every minute of your day XD
That said, I'm looking at a relatively clear few weeks coming up, so I'll try to use the time to sit down and see what I can do about working out a slightly more rigorous schedule.
And yeah, the 1% figure is probably generous. As I said, if that number is within 1 order of magnitude of accurate I'd be pretty surprised.