I have been thinking a lot this week about the sustainability of this newsletter and my creative projects in general. I wrote a little while ago about the secret to consistency which for this newsletter has allowed me to get to this, the 81st issue of The Curious Engineer.
A big part of this is being able to write about what interests me, without worrying about needing to draw in search engine traffic for ad revenue or get a certain amount of expected views for sponsorships.
When your motivations are purely financial it can start to taint what you create. You aim towards topics that are going to get the most views or achieve a higher CPC on ads. This eventually leads to burnout as you are no longer passionate about what you are putting out in the world.
At the moment I have 2,166 subscribers to this newsletter which I am quite proud of. I hope you all get some benefit and enjoyment from reading my ramblings each week. Which brings me on to the other topic of sustainability which is financial sustainability.
Making money has never been my main motivation for this newsletter but unfortunately sending bulk emails is not free. I am using Buttondown for sending this newsletter and at the moment it costs me $29 a month. However, this goes up quite steeply as the number of subscribers increase:
- 5,000 subscribers = $79 / month
- 10,000 subscribers = $139 / month
- 20,000 subscribers = $239 / month
- 40,000 subscribers = $319 / month
Many creators have moved to a paid newsletter model for this reason. For example, newsletters like The Pragmatic Engineer and Refactoring charge $15 a month and creators such as Nick Chapsas have a £10 a month Patreon subscription.
I plan to keep this newsletter always free to all subscribers, as well as being free from adverts and sponsorships. To offset the financial cost of sending this newsletter, I am setting up an optional "one a month" membership for those that want to support my writing.
I got this idea from reading Manuel Moreale post on his membership. "One a month" is an optional membership of $1+ a month. $1 is low enough that it won't make too much of a difference for the majority of people, and doesn't make me feel guilty for not offering as much value as Netflix ($15.49 / month). The + allows people to donate more if they wish to do so.
Proceeds will go towards the hosting costs for my newsletter, website and other creator projects.
I am not explicitly offering any benefits with this membership other than your name on my website and a link to your personal website if you have one (see my post on EU VAT if you wonder why). I will however offer some surprise benefits as an added extra when I have something to offer, I believe in giving back to those that support me where I can.
If you enjoy my content and are feeling generous you can join my "One a Month" club by joining my membership plan on Ko-Fi ❤️.
❤️ Picks of the Week #
📚 Book - American Gods by Neil Gaiman - This week I have started reading American Gods by Neil Gaiman. I won't spoil it for you, but I am enjoying it so far.
🎧 Podcast - Say goodbye to "junior" engineering roles - I still find AI assistants and bit hit or miss when it comes to coding, but they can only get better from here.
📝 Article - The Trough of Despair - It always has to get worse before it gets better. When your system design is a mess there is always this period where nothing seems to be progressing, and you just have to work through it until it gets better.
📝 Article - When convenience becomes a liability - I didn't realise that you could share your entire photo library with your family. Since moving to iCloud my wife and I have had to make sure to share photos, so we could see them. Turns out that there is a Shared Library feature. I am still going to be backing up all photos to Unraid though.
🛠 Tool - Cyber Scarecrow - for those on Windows this looks interesting. That is one where to prevent malware. I would wait until they share the source code before installing though!
📝 Article - spf-dkim-dmarc-simplified - If you have ever set up your own domain for email you will probably have heard of these but not known what they are for. This guide is brilliant.
📝 Article - Chat Control Must Be Stopped – Now! - the UK tried to pull this stunt recently, and now it is the EU's turn. If you are in the EU and aren't a fan of mass surveillance then you might want to vote against this.
📝 Article - Serving Video - An interesting look at how YouTube serve video.
💬 Quote of the Week #
Desire comes from not getting what you want. In fact, I heard this quote that I love from Naval Ravikant: “Desire is a contract you make with yourself to be unhappy until you get what you want.”
From $100M Offers by Alex Hormozi.
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