Stiff Upper Quip Season 3

Back and cheaper

And we’re back.

First of all, thank you for your patience; six weeks is an eternity in the attention economy. I know some of you missed it; well, one of you did. Thanks Jim.

The reason for the long break was twofold.

One, I’ve been extremely busy with a new novel (old novel is here), and wanted to dedicate some mental space to that. Secondly, and more importantly, I’m in the process of moving country. After my holiday – Scotland, which was epic and fattening - I had the business of finding myself accommodation in Brussels where I will be moving on October 1^st to take up a position as a staff interpreter.

I also think it’s important to take some time to read and think about things in order to write about them later though, in the interests of full disclosure, a lot of what I read was about Liverpool Football Club’s transfer dealings.

Overall, I’m excited for the new opportunity and, after a decade grinding in London, it seems time for a change.

THE FUTURE OF STIFF UPPER QUIP 🖊️

What does this mean for the newsletter going forward?

Nothing fundamental will change. There will be the same amount of five monthly posts, one every Thursday and then a long read on the last Sunday of the month. I managed to keep that going in the last six months of working remotely, so I reckon I can continue this. I like that this schedule commits me to a certain amount of writing each month. Plus my spouse isn’t joining me in Brussels straight away, so I’ll be even more need of the distractions of a moderately successful writing career.

I’d like to say I’ll write more, or add a podcast element, but a full-time job and five posts a month is already close to maxxing out the professional credit card.

However, I do need to level with you: This newsletter starts to need bringing in some more money. The money is to compensate me for my time writing it; I’m a writer who sweats his work. I sweat to try and give you a rewarding reading experience, and that takes it out of me. Easy reading, in the old adage, makes damn hard writing, and being paid properly makes that process easier.

At the moment, only 0.28% of all subscribers pay, which is lower than the expected 1-2% of any audience which will put its money where its mouth is.

So as we start a new season, to incentivize you to convert to paid – and thank you so much to the 30 of you who already have – I’m offering both carrot and stick.

I’m dropping the prices for paid subscriptions.

Indeed, significantly dropping – I’m setting the monthly price at £3.75, which is a reduction of 12%.

Even more significantly, annual subs are adropping by £10 to £35. Repeating that, £35, as it’s a steal.

With 55 free and paid columns planned for the year, that works out at 63p per post, plus the commenting privileges, archive access and occasional audio posts. I’m inspired here by a dirt cheap Italian restaurant I used to eat in back in Berlin that was always full; I want my writing to be like that place, cheap and popular.

I’ll see if these prices lead to any increased uptake. But for now: Sign up!

It’s only fair to offer paying subscribers something extra though. And writing five columns a month is pretty much the most I can offer right now in terms of content.

So. going forward, I’m pay-walling one extra post a month. The schedule will be that the first, third and final posts of the month are free, and the second and the longread are paywalled. For this month, just the last column will be paywalled.

Of course the more of you sign up to pay the more encouragement it also gives me to keep going and keep writing.

So please, and a 🧻on the drums, subscribe below.

OTHER WAYS TO SUPPORT

Suffice to say, my ultimate aim for this newsletter is to leverage it into a higher-profile writing career. I would like to be highly successful!

To that end, any commissions via the newsletter (or desire to reproduce posts of it elsewhere) are very welcome. You can read a portfolio of my others pieces here.

One of the key strands of my writing is fiction – and if you take out a paid subscription, you’re obviously helping facilitate that too.

However, I do already have a novel you can buy to support; it’s got 16 reviews on Amazon at a 4.8 average and four on Goodreads. Feel free to add to that number if you’ve read it.

So far it’s sold 170 copies. Utter peanuts in the writing world but I’m still very proud as I self-published. That means every one of those sales has been the result of a personal sales pitch. If of a few more of you buy it I’ll meet my target of 200 sales via self-publishing.

I’ll continue to send books with paid subscriptions but, with the lower prices, am limiting this to e-books (for outside the UK I’ll send you a PDF).

Buy ‘Midlands’ here.

Finally, it really really helps when people share my writing, on whatever medium, or invite me onto your podcasts to promote it. I'm a confident talker and can adapt to most podcasting scenarios.

I spent a lot of the summer working on a new novel. I’ll be sharing extracts of that work with paid subscribers this season.

More pressingly, I am seeking representation for this book. That means an agent and/or a publisher.

Know anybody?

At the moment I’m still working with beta readers on it, aiming to have the manuscript in a truly exemplary condition before it meets industry eyes, but feel free to be in touch if you can help with ensuring its sale.

I don’t believe in blowing my own trumpet about my writing. If I didn’t think it was valuable, I wouldn’t devote so much time to it. Still, this one – well, it feels to me like I’m onto something. It’s a literary mystery novel about a girl who goes missing in the Thames estuary; think Evelyn Waugh meets ‘Twin Peaks’.

I also have five plays and a screenplay that I’m trying to get produced but in my experience newsletters are not much use for promoting performing arts stuff.

Still, they’re there if anyone wants to make or indeed just read them.

As ever with the modern hustle, the ‘art’ of the newsletter after the promotion.

The content of ‘SUQ’ going forward is likely to be the same mix of personal pieces, politics and reviews. Masculinity and men’s issues will remain a theme. I’ll continue to write about comedy seriously as befits someone who did it for twenty years.

By now I have a fairly good idea of what hits, which is, if I can define it, writing a critique of something two months before anyone is allowed to say it’s bad. Sounding the claxon on the culture officially turning on someone.

What goes less well tends to be cultural criticism, so that’ll be more for the long-reads; I spend a lot of time consuming and thinking about art, and want to exploit that more in my non-fiction work.

I’m also considering adding a new strand to the newsletter of my experiences in Brussels, but I don’t want to commit to that before I’ve had some experiences in Brussels.

As ever, be in touch if there’s anything you’d like me to write about, particularly if you’re a paying subscriber.

TARGETS 🎯

I’m an ambitious man, and don’t believe in the British fumbling nonsense of hiding it, in part because I also don’t believe in the related British nonsense of being envious of others’ success. We may not all be going to make it, but newsletters and indiepreneurship at least offer us a few more of a chance.

Across last year, I doubled the ‘Stiff Upper Quip’ readership from 561 at the start of last season to over 1000. As this newsletter goes out there are 1030. I’d like to double that again to 2000+; all being well, this can be the ‘critical mass’ year when the audience starts to grow exponentially. Elon Musk (in my view a wanker) throttling Substack links doesn’t help, which is why I’m asking you to do what you can to share work.

I’d also like to get those book sales up, and be commissioned to write in a few other places as a result of the newsletter.

And first and foremost, as my big overarching goal, I want to sell my new book.

The author on holiday in Scotland, 09.08.2023. Photo by Ke Zuo

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So here’s my closing pitch to you.

There are big legacy writers on Substack, who’ve had years of help and positions at media outlets. Some of them are still producing good work; some, less so.

What I’m offering you though is the chance to is to make a writers’ reputation. I’m aiming high; I want to create a body of 21^st century fiction and critical writing of the highest standards and those of the writers I love like Henry James and Saul Bellow.

Personally, I think that’s a more exciting opportunity than topping up an an already successful person’s pension pot. Your money and support makes more difference to me than them!

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Oh, one last thing.

Before I declare ‘SUQ’ Season Three officially underway, I would like to thank you, as in ‘you the reader’. And by that I mean all readers, paying, free, new arrivals and long-standing.

I write to be read. For a long time, I have felt very lonely as a writer, but this newsletter and engaging with its community of readers – and 1030 people could certainly fill a decent-sized pub car park – has made me feel less so.

More than anything, it’s my interactions with you that keep me writing, little pulses of response that convince me that I’m not entirely alone and not entirely misunderstood.

Here’s to many more.