Update on My Substack
And what is a Substack, anyway?
I started writing this Substack in August of last year. It was kind of a lark. I enjoy writing. Writing helps me sort through challenges, which is nice. I also treat this Substack like a journal—cataloging my development and journey. Several writers that I enjoy reading have substacks, and I thought, “Why not give it a shot?”
After all, running a ministry, taking classes to be a chaplain, and teaching a class at a university isn’t enough to keep me busy. :-)
People have been curious about the substack and asked me questions about it. So, here are a few updates and some answers to frequently asked questions
What is a substack? Substack is a publishing platform. I write on the Substack website. Informally, I refer to the place where my writing is found as, “my substack”. And my substack’s name is Jason Jonker’s Substack. The platform allows me to send my writing to you via email. You can also browse the Substack website to find me. [NOTE: you can find out how to unsubscribe here].
How did I get subscribed to your Substack? I just ported over my contacts from my Mailchimp account. However, a few people have signed up from social media or from browsing the substack website.
What are your stats like?
Are those stats any good? I don’t know. Substack doesn’t share data in a way that would allow me to compare how I am doing with others. I do know that writing, like a lot of creative endeavors follows the Pareto distribution. In the Pareto distribution, the top 20 percent of individuals outperform the bottom 80. In other words, the top 20 percent of writers produce more books, profits, and critical reviews than the bottom 80 percent combined. Of the top 20 percent, the top 20 percent of those people produce more than the lower 80 percent. The fact that I have more than my mom subscribed and that I have generated more than one sympathy subscription means I doing OK. But, like most musicians, actors, and comedians, I don’t think I’ll be quitting my day job any time soon. A nice summary of the Pareto distribution can be found here.
Then again, my goal isn’t to quit my day job. In part, that’s because I love my day job. And in part, that’s because having AN audience of any size that likes and interacts with my writing is the real point. I like reading. I like listening to podcasts. It’s fun to have a little bit of an audience and give my readers something to think about, as well.
NOTE: btw, a lot of people email me a comment about a Substack. Consider writing it in the comment section. Seeing comments in the comment section helps convince the algorithm to share my work with others. It also convinces other readers to comment—which convinces me to write more of that kind of content.
I also think of this substack—like I do my recovery workbook—as a love letter to my children. I hope that after I am gone, they’ll read some of this and adopt some of my deeply held beliefs about how the world works and why I am so Jesus-y all the time.
Are you still writing your Substack? Yes. But two entries a week was getting to be too much. For now, I will be releasing one post each Thursday morning. This allows me to write when I have time, and cue up the articles weeks in advance. I don’t have to scramble to get content out. The downside is that some timely articles won’t be timely by the time they are released—I wonder if that made sense?
I will only be offering a Tuesday post once in a while. They will short posts like this one. Or they will be controversial posts that only paid subscribers can see.
Are you doing other writing? Yes. I send a quarterly email to financial supporters of my ministry. That goes out through MailChimp. I am also co-editing a book of devotions for people in recovery. It will be released later this year through Northwest Publishing.