Big Changes coming to Nathan Rabin's Bad Ideas!
Over the past six months or so, something unexpected and wonderful happened. One of my businesses became more successful and lucrative rather than less successful and lucrative.
Specifically, my Substack newsletter, Nathan Rabin’s Bad Ideas, grew in popularity. It’s been wonderful, not to mention validating.
I seem to have hit a wall about two weeks ago, however. I’ve held steady at 324 paid subscribers for so long that part of me wonders if it’s a glitch because I’m getting more subscribers than ever lately, but none are paid.
Unfortunately, Nathan Rabin’s Bad Ideas remains a game of inches for me. The same is true of Nathan Rabin’s Happy Place and Declan-Haven books. I have to work hard for every new paid subscriber, patron, and book sale. When I wake up in the morning, I feel a surge of frustration that my paid subscriber tally has not increased, followed by a sense of relief that at least it didn’t decrease. It’s almost embarrassing how much five dollars means to me twenty-eight years into what some consider an impressive career.
This website had about 700 subscribers and 3500 a month in income at its peak. Nowadays, it’s more like 430 patrons and 2100 dollars a month in income.
Why? I don’t know. I just know that nothing I do changes that in any real way, which is beyond frustrating.
I do not want that to happen to Nathan Rabin’s Bad Ideas, so I am adding two new features to encourage readers, particularly free subscribers, to level up and become paid subscribers.
I’ve been seeing two new movies a week instead of just the one my paid subscribers vote for in a poll. I will keep doing that, but the second new movie review will be for subscribers only. This week, I will write about Drop for everyone and The Amateur for paid subscribers.
I’m also introducing the Monthly Box of Awesomeness. This was an idea I had for the Happy Place in its infancy that I stopped doing for reasons I don’t quite remember.
The idea is that every month, on the 15th, I randomly choose a paid subscriber and send them a box full of stuff from my personal collection, like books, DVDs, figures, and whatnot. Here’s what I’m putting in the first box of awesomeness:
That’s right: I’m willing to part with my personal copy of 80 For Brady and other more appealing options, like a surprisingly sturdy stein commemorating the epic Dwayne Johnson-Krampus summit from the universally beloved Red One.
It’s not a coincidence that the last thing I did to increase this site’s income was to offer an autographed “Weird Al” Yankovic mini-single and a signed copy of My Year of Flops to the newsletter’s 300th paid subscriber. I will hopefully be spending a lot of time at the post office, sending out copies of The Fractured Mirror, very soon, and when you’re as perpetually overwhelmed as I am, it sure helps when you can do two things simultaneously.
Paid subscribers consequently get Joy of Positivity picks on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday; the power to vote in polls to determine what theatrical release I review each week; an exclusive new movie review every week; and, when The Fractured Mirror comes out, excerpts from it every Tuesday and Thursday. Also, a chance to win a box of awesomeness. And, of course, an exceedingly modest sum of money can help a perpetually struggling autistic freelancer survive the Trump years in an extraordinarily difficult field.
Is that worth five quarters a week? I would like to think so. Hopefully, the market will agree!
I’d like to think this newsletter and my writing sell themselves, but a little push never hurts.
If this fails, I’m afraid I will have to impose stiff tariffs on readers. I’m not sure how that even works, but apparently, it’s some kind of magical money machine nobody knew about until recently.
You can become a subscriber to Nathan Rabin’s Bad Ideas here: Nathanrabinsbadideas
You can pre-order The Fractured Mirror here: https://the-fractured-mirror.backerkit.com/hosted_preorders
Nathan needed expensive, life-saving dental implants, and his dental plan didn’t cover them, so he started a GoFundMe at https://www.gofundme.com/f/support-nathans-journey-to-dental-implants. Give if you can!
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