"Let’s face it, a literary space with a rivalry structure is going to produce a scarcity mentality among it’s writers." I quibble a bit with this. All writers who have ever aspired to publish in the public sphere have faced competition. Substack is a profit-making enterprise, like almost all literary outlets — and even the ones that are not-for-profit can't accept every submission they get, at least not once they're more than a month or two old. I suspect you are as weary as I am of all the Substack writers who tout their amazing stats and wish to tell us how we, too, can acquire Ten Zillion Paying Subscribers in Two Months (using their system). But refusing to adopt a scarcity mentality is our job.
On or off Substack, a scarcity mentality is a scarily easy mentality to fall into, at least for me. It seems we're bombarded with advertisements and other media constantly telling us we're going to miss out or 'all will be gone' if we don't act fast or whatever we have isn't good enough. I'd like to turn all of it off.
"Let’s face it, a literary space with a rivalry structure is going to produce a scarcity mentality among it’s writers." I quibble a bit with this. All writers who have ever aspired to publish in the public sphere have faced competition. Substack is a profit-making enterprise, like almost all literary outlets — and even the ones that are not-for-profit can't accept every submission they get, at least not once they're more than a month or two old. I suspect you are as weary as I am of all the Substack writers who tout their amazing stats and wish to tell us how we, too, can acquire Ten Zillion Paying Subscribers in Two Months (using their system). But refusing to adopt a scarcity mentality is our job.
Thanks for this Jan, I guess I am weary 😩
Understandable!
I like the iceberg diagram tool
On or off Substack, a scarcity mentality is a scarily easy mentality to fall into, at least for me. It seems we're bombarded with advertisements and other media constantly telling us we're going to miss out or 'all will be gone' if we don't act fast or whatever we have isn't good enough. I'd like to turn all of it off.
Thanks Randall, I agree—I appreciate your comments