Five years of membership
February 20, 2024 9:23 PM Subscribe
Walking man, Craig Mod, writes a yearly breakdown of his membership program.
2023 was amazing, bewildering, inspiring, gnomic, exhausting, bacterial, and mostly, fun. I mean — by the end of the year I was but a swollen forearm fighting for my life (OK, maybe not quite that bad), but wow … WOW. 2023: Easily the most monumental and generative year of my life. I owe that fullness to SPECIAL PROJECTS, my membership program. Now, a somewhat unbelievable five years old. Here is everything I learned last year.
But what if I'm completely content to be a piece of shit?
Shit is awesome. Shit happens.
posted by flabdablet at 10:24 PM on February 20
Shit is awesome. Shit happens.
posted by flabdablet at 10:24 PM on February 20
Now I want to go to Morioko!
posted by dorothyisunderwood at 10:46 PM on February 20
posted by dorothyisunderwood at 10:46 PM on February 20
Is this a thing you need to be a member to understand?
posted by drewbage1847 at 10:49 PM on February 20 [5 favorites]
posted by drewbage1847 at 10:49 PM on February 20 [5 favorites]
I don't think so. This guy is a breathless huckster for himself and his peregrinations, and has enough financial sponsors of his thesauric exultative lexicon to allow a modest living. It's not my cup, but seems harmless?
posted by seanmpuckett at 4:57 AM on February 21 [6 favorites]
posted by seanmpuckett at 4:57 AM on February 21 [6 favorites]
After clicking a bunch of the other links on his webpage to figure out what the hell is going on, it seem like he runs his own subscription blog website instead of using someone else's platform? Is making a living that way unusual? My friend the author Monica Byrne does it too, and after many years of using it to support an inexpensive life in the US, just completed her first year of traveling abroad while living off of her Patreon. Also the singer-songwriter David LaMotte transitioned to it while not being able to tour in 2020 and now makes so much off of it that he's donating 10% to a charity that helps kids in Guatemala.
posted by hydropsyche at 5:18 AM on February 21 [1 favorite]
posted by hydropsyche at 5:18 AM on February 21 [1 favorite]
> Is this a thing you need to be a member to understand?
I am not a member, but I enjoyed his book Kissa By Kissa very much. What I found interesting was the transparency in his costs, process, etc. By sharing that he spends about $300 / mo on Campaign Monitor I figure he has about 20K to 25K subscribers. I think it's interesting to understand what kind of scale of audience is needed to support an independent artist and their family.
> This guy is a breathless huckster for himself and his peregrinations
I don't know if that's entirely fair. As a one-man shop what should he do? Run a Super Bowl ad? If he doesn't self-promote, he'd have to buy ads and that might break his budget.
> Is making a living that way unusual?
Of course it is. Most people have jobs. I have a job. Most people here probably have jobs. It's fascinating (to me) to understand how creative folks have carved out an independent niche for themselves.
posted by device55 at 5:53 AM on February 21 [9 favorites]
I am not a member, but I enjoyed his book Kissa By Kissa very much. What I found interesting was the transparency in his costs, process, etc. By sharing that he spends about $300 / mo on Campaign Monitor I figure he has about 20K to 25K subscribers. I think it's interesting to understand what kind of scale of audience is needed to support an independent artist and their family.
> This guy is a breathless huckster for himself and his peregrinations
I don't know if that's entirely fair. As a one-man shop what should he do? Run a Super Bowl ad? If he doesn't self-promote, he'd have to buy ads and that might break his budget.
> Is making a living that way unusual?
Of course it is. Most people have jobs. I have a job. Most people here probably have jobs. It's fascinating (to me) to understand how creative folks have carved out an independent niche for themselves.
posted by device55 at 5:53 AM on February 21 [9 favorites]
Oh wow. I thought I just wasn't in on the joke. I mean, something posted to MeFi with sentences like this:
I owe that fullness to SPECIAL PROJECTS, my membership program.
just had to be some kind of joke, right? Especially with the weird time-traveler news clipping.
But good for him, glad to know this sort if thing is still possible for someone.
posted by Not A Thing at 6:02 AM on February 21
I owe that fullness to SPECIAL PROJECTS, my membership program.
just had to be some kind of joke, right? Especially with the weird time-traveler news clipping.
But good for him, glad to know this sort if thing is still possible for someone.
posted by Not A Thing at 6:02 AM on February 21
Also the singer-songwriter David LaMotte transitioned to it while not being able to tour in 2020 and now makes so much off of it that he's donating 10% to a charity that helps kids in Guatemala.
I've also been a member of the quasi-yearly They Might Be Giants Instant Fan Club the last couple of times they ran it. It helped support their touring band and road crew during the 2020 COVID hiatus, and fans got early access to their newest studio album plus a ton of rarities and Dial-A-Song singles, plus a bunch of other free swag. They're able to pull it off by having pretty much invented internet outreach, they've known the size of their online following from the beginning and can extrapolate that into a certain amount of ongoing passive income for themselves and their crew.
posted by Strange Interlude at 6:40 AM on February 21 [4 favorites]
I've also been a member of the quasi-yearly They Might Be Giants Instant Fan Club the last couple of times they ran it. It helped support their touring band and road crew during the 2020 COVID hiatus, and fans got early access to their newest studio album plus a ton of rarities and Dial-A-Song singles, plus a bunch of other free swag. They're able to pull it off by having pretty much invented internet outreach, they've known the size of their online following from the beginning and can extrapolate that into a certain amount of ongoing passive income for themselves and their crew.
posted by Strange Interlude at 6:40 AM on February 21 [4 favorites]
He's not my cup of tea but I am intensely jealous of his lifestyle so am eager to hear how he did it.
One time, I was at a real life event and someone asked me if I had heard of him. I had, and the moment felt so bizarre, like until that moment I had felt like all of these substackers were pretend people that only existed in the slim box on my desk.
posted by tofu_crouton at 6:58 AM on February 21 [2 favorites]
One time, I was at a real life event and someone asked me if I had heard of him. I had, and the moment felt so bizarre, like until that moment I had felt like all of these substackers were pretend people that only existed in the slim box on my desk.
posted by tofu_crouton at 6:58 AM on February 21 [2 favorites]
Yeah I have been following craigmod for a while and I appreciate him spelling it all out like this. Good on him. And this... American credit extortionist racket payments. Ha!
posted by jessamyn at 8:42 AM on February 21
posted by jessamyn at 8:42 AM on February 21
Love his site and am a paid member, but the shipping on the books is brutal so I have to do without. :(
I wish he would do more of his On Margins podcasts.
posted by dobbs at 9:30 AM on February 21
I wish he would do more of his On Margins podcasts.
posted by dobbs at 9:30 AM on February 21
This guy is a breathless huckster for himself and his peregrinations, and has enough financial sponsors of his thesauric exultative lexicon to allow a modest living. It's not my cup, but seems harmless? [source]
I guess you could argue that his self-promotion is not that subtle, but he does interesting work so I give him a pass. I'd love to see a list of living artists or writers who weren't engaged in self-promotion and are able to survive on merit alone. Maybe he's not your favorite writer or photographer, but he's found his 1,000 true fans, and for that alone I applaud him. Walking alone around Japan is not the life for me, but it's a life I occasionally enjoy reading about.
posted by mecran01 at 12:07 PM on February 21
I guess you could argue that his self-promotion is not that subtle, but he does interesting work so I give him a pass. I'd love to see a list of living artists or writers who weren't engaged in self-promotion and are able to survive on merit alone. Maybe he's not your favorite writer or photographer, but he's found his 1,000 true fans, and for that alone I applaud him. Walking alone around Japan is not the life for me, but it's a life I occasionally enjoy reading about.
posted by mecran01 at 12:07 PM on February 21
The FPP on his Kumano Kodo walk was the first time I ever heard of the guy and I would have loved to have gotten a copy of his book, but I ended up hiking a portion of it in 2022 with my brother-in-law so maybe it would be better if I printed up some of the photos we took and made a book of my own.
posted by any portmanteau in a storm at 12:40 PM on February 21 [1 favorite]
posted by any portmanteau in a storm at 12:40 PM on February 21 [1 favorite]
Yeah, if someone is doing work you don't care for, the best response is to create something better.
posted by mecran01 at 1:25 PM on February 21 [1 favorite]
posted by mecran01 at 1:25 PM on February 21 [1 favorite]
I'm definitely not saying I don't care for his work. If hiking the Kumano Kodo was something I still dreamed about doing then I'd love to flip through his book, but now that I've done a part of it and took quite a lot of photos I feel like I should make my own book to flip through even if it is just for me.
posted by any portmanteau in a storm at 4:03 PM on February 21
posted by any portmanteau in a storm at 4:03 PM on February 21
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