Who Reads Me - And - Does It Matter?
Reflections on 18 months of SubStack...RalphStack...and where I go from here.
J.D. Salinger of Catcher in the Rye fame, said once, late in life, that if he had it to do all over again, he’d write but wouldn’t publish. I don’t really believe that, given Salinger’s persona and his situational enjoyment of being J.D. Salinger, but I do understand it. Salinger also had extreme reclusive tendencies, famously working in his writer’s shack on his property and ignoring family, friends, and anyone else who dared call on him. So there’s that to lend credence to his claim.
The point here is - I think a lot about the purpose of my writing. Why am I doing it? What’s the goal? Where do I want to take it? I don’t think anyone wants to be the falling tree in the proverbial empty forest, with no one there to see or appreciate the grand act. But, given my past life and career in the limelight, I do understand the challenges of even a tiny bit of fame and notoriety.
Which brings me back to the why of all this. This is and has been a continual and evolving process for me, this whole SubStack and writing business. I’ve always loved to write. The two greatest events in my evolution as a burgeoning writer over the years was - first - I took typing in high school in 1977. Nobody knew then how ubiquitous a qwerty keyboard would become, and how important mastering it would be. I’m fast as a typist, always have been.
The second was taking a college journalism course from Dr. Loren Robinson at the University of Wisconsin at River Falls in 1981, where he insisted I stop composing on a yellow legal pad with pen and ink, and do all my composing on the typewriter. I’m sure we had IBM Selectrics. I think I want to get one again.
Being able to write and to compose at the typewriter or keyboard was absolutely crucial to everything I did in my career as a sports broadcaster. One of the challenges for me here and now is that I’m not typing exclusively for myself anymore, (in my own shorthand and with shortcuts and misspells and all) and without an editor as I had for four years when writing op-eds for the Dallas Morning News.
So this SubStack business is a solitary business. Yes, I have my own magazine/newspaper/blog/column - whatever you want to call it - but it’s a one-man operation.
I also don’t have a sales force, I’m not on social media anymore, and I’m not actively in, or interested in, the business of growing an audience anymore. 18 months ago, when I launched here - I did have loftier aims - I just - didn’t have the juice to stay with it on social media, and invest the time and energy it would take to maybe… maybe… grow it big.
I know I don’t want to write exclusively about hockey and the Dallas Stars, and that means adios to a lot of my old audience, while limiting my ability to grow an audience around hockey. I did hockey. Hard. For three decades. I’ll visit and dabble, but I’m not interested in the day to day.
So I have a small audience of paid subscribers, curious about what I’m writing, and a bigger swath of people who don’t pay but subscribe or follow here - I don’t know the difference. Haha. I’m not into all the vernacular, and I’m not so entwined in what’s going on with all this here.
I also try and control what my feed gives me - and that’s been a whole thing too. The world doesn’t want to believe I don’t want to be in it - not the social media and the crazy bullshit we all get stuck mindlessly scrolling through.
So - why am I here now? What are my aims? Why should you read - or keep reading - subscribe - or drop?
I’ve been thinking a lot about it lately - so - if you’re one of my paid - c’mon along for more - if not - pony up or move on. Ha!
