Thots on being a "bestseller"

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I got an email from Substack Tuesday alerting me that I’m a “Substack bestseller.” I didn’t even know that was a thing until Tuesday.

Between this and having read How to Find Clarity When You’re at a Career Crossroads: Five research-backed steps to figure out your next move, which is quite good, I’m thinking about career advice.

(As a professional Substack writer and pornographer who hasn’t yet actually broken even, take my career advice with all the requisite grains of salt.)

Two things I’ve learned about success:

1. You’ll beat 90% of your competitors if you simply keep showing up long enough.

2. Long enough is shorter than you think.

Apparently the threshold to be a Substack bestseller is 100 paid subscribers. I’m also top 12% on OnlyFans, with 103 fans as of this writing. These absolute numbers seem really low to me. ~100 is top-tier?

But then I think about the fact that I’m comparing myself to the top dawgs of Substack and OnlyFans, who have thousands of paying subscribers/fans. I’m not taking into account the vast majority of platform creators who create an account, post a few times, then quit or update sporadically.

Which is what we all do. We compare ourselves to the best because that’s what we see.

Look, I’m not going to say I’m not talented. I certainly am. But what’s truly rare about me is that I’ve been blogging more or less consistently for the past twenty years. I’m 37. I started my first online diary in high school. This is what I love doing. It’s what I’ve always loved. Over Waffle House recently my friend was saying his friend had his lower jaw removed, and if that happened to my friend he might just rather die. “Not me,” I said quickly. “I can still write without a lower jaw.”

When you keep showing up and doing more or less the same thing more or less consistently while taking feedback and making adjustments as you go you will really quickly rise to the top of the heap because the vast, vast majority of people cannot or will not do that. You will consistently be surprised at how quickly you rise to the top. Maybe not the tippy top. Maybe you never get there. But the top 10%.

And if you want to get higher than the top 10%, just specialize. I’ll never be a top 1% writer. But I am a top 1% sex-positive feminist writer who’s focused on masculinity and loneliness. There are more people alive who are interested in masculinity and loneliness from a sex-positive feminist perspective than I have time to connect with. And I truly believe there are enough of you with a few bucks extra to spare each month to get me and keep me in the black.

And I believe that’s true of whatever you’re into as well.

Keep doing whatever gives you energy. Keep doing the work you think is meaningful. Maybe it’s just because I’m anxious and pessimistic, but in my experience you’ll be top-tier sooner than you think.