Where Do You Go From Here?

Are you seeing someone else?

It is an uncomfortable truth, but one that all Substack writers eventually face, that their readers are looking at other stuff, too.

I would have thought that a new 5 a.m. Story every Sunday morning, plus frequent chatty midweek notes such as this one, and carefully selected Throwback Thursday reruns, would be enough, but apparently not.

The Substack folks rub my nose in this, constantly supplying information about other writers my readers are seeing behind my back.

I can’t really resent it, because I read other people, too.

According to my daily stats, the number one Substack my readers overlap with is The Gene Pool, a witty, sometimes crude effort by a guy named Gene Weingarten.

Substack says an incredible 34 percent of my subscribers also subscribe to the Gene Pool.

Gene and I worked together on the same newspaper half a century ago, and we were friends. I went on to have a rewarding international career with Reuters, and Gene went to the Washington Post, where he thrived and won TWO of those whatchamacallit things, Pulitzer Prizes.

I recommend Gene Pool. I read it myself, faithfully. and you should check it out.

My second biggest reader overlap is with Letters From An American, by Heather Cox Richardson. She’s the first thing I read every morning, just to guarantee I will be depressed all day long.

Substack says 26 percent of my subscribers also go to Letters from an American.

Heather is probably the smartest person in the world. She knows everything. Nice trick, if you can pull it off. She has something like a million subscribers, which is, um, a lot more than I have.

If you read my 5 a.m. Stories regularly, you can easily understand why readers would want to find someone smart, as quickly as possible.

Rounding out my top three competitors is Robert Reich, who was Bill Clinton’s Secretary of Labor. Now, everything pisses him off, and 22 percent my regulars are looking for grumpy.

Well, I’ll sign off now, so you can flock to Gene or Heather or Robert.

Btw, if it’s anger you want, come back here this Sunday. You haven’t seen anger like this before, and if you’re not already a paid subscriber, it’s worth becoming one just to read Saturday, in the Park, I think it was the Fourth of July….

This one is going to make Robert Reich seem like Pollyanna.