New work flows, and Substack

A daily commentator on this weblog, who posts utilizing the identify Ex-Trainer, however whose identify is understood to me, stated this just lately, in my response to my suggestion that I’d add Substack to the vary of platforms I submit on:

Richard, assist me perceive a bit higher.

– just lately, upon retirement, you’d stated you welcomed the time to suppose …
– you’ve got extra just lately stated you’re v busy (there’s quite a bit happening!)

What are the important variations between Substack and your present weblog?

Would the fabric basically be related/identical?

Would the readership basically be related?

Are you able to merely redirect?

What’s the driver to utilise extra platforms? Wider attain, income? May this be achieved aside from by extra platforms?

Guarantee you might have time to cease, pause, suppose.

I feel that these are all good questions, and I’m glad to share my considering as a result of I worth suggestions from readers right here.

Let me cope with the final situation first, which is round giving myself time to suppose. I recall, just a few months in the past, craving this luxurious. The stress of college and different grant-funded work was very excessive at the moment, and as a consequence, I discovered it difficult to create blogs and movies to the usual that I needed. There was inadequate time to suppose, or at the least, to handle the ideas and concepts that I had.

That was considered one of my main motivations for my so-called retirement, and it has succeeded. I now have only a few commitments past this weblog and its associated YouTube channel and nearly all my different actions (with Sheffield College, Copenhagen Enterprise College, the Inexperienced New Deal Group, as a director of the Company Accountability Community, and as a companion in Finance for the Future) have all been closed now, totally at my alternative. I loved all this stuff, and remorse none of them, or what was achieved, but it surely was time to maneuver on, and to create house for myself.

What I’m now, nevertheless, discovering consequently is that I’ve obtained huge numbers of concepts, and new ones are frequently crashing into my mind, demanding consideration. I’m not complaining about that, however what I’m additionally having to do is create new routines with the intention to handle them. It is an attention-grabbing criticism, and one which I’m glad to cope with. I’m not needing extra time to suppose now; what I now want is a piece routine to handle all of the concepts I’ve.

Let me present an instance. It was solely final week that I requested for extra concepts on movies right here, and possibly 80 have been steered. In apply, I very a lot doubt that any of them might be produced precisely within the kind that was requested for, or with the slim focus that many had. That’s as a result of movies have, as I now know, to have a sufficiently broad attraction to draw a large sufficient viewers to supply us with a return that ensures that we are able to hold making them.

Nonetheless, having absorbed a few of these concepts, and having reviewed the 80 to 100 concepts that I already had famous down, I mirrored on the way to create new movies in a method that may, I hope, attraction to viewers whereas satisfying my very own curiosity, while maintaining the staff right here glad, in addition to offering us with enough income.

The final level is especially necessary. I’ve determined to develop our staff this autumn, by including a researcher on what’s prone to be a full-time foundation, and could also be a graphic designer, though they might be a contractor for use as and when required.

On the identical time that every one this was being considered, I seen the Substack phenomenon of latest followers subscribing although I had posted nothing there in any respect, to this point.

I did, as a consequence, mirror on the way to create a brand new workflow, having additionally spent a while watching (but extra) movies on the way to create a profitable YouTube channel the place revenues from views alone aren’t the one supply of earnings. As a consequence, I made a decision that at the least a few of our movies must have a brand new theme.

It’s clear from studying the feedback on this weblog that there’s a sturdy want for what are, in impact, focused academic supplies. As a consequence, I sat down and wrote out a listing of greater than 100 video titles, each considered one of which was a query. These are grouped round themes resembling questions on political economic system, points round cash, the way to create truthful taxation, mechanisms to deal with inequality, how fashionable financial concept works, and quite a few different matters. Since writing that preliminary checklist, round 50 extra have been added, and I’ve not even begun to deal with points round financial savings, funding and associated matters.

A piece plan was then developed, fairly quickly. This revolves round looking my present writing on these themes. With greater than 23,000 weblog posts to attract upon, there may be ample materials for me to make use of.

I anticipate to make use of AI to supply an preliminary video plan based mostly on that present work. That video plan will create a PowerPoint, which I’ll then edit, as required. As a matter of truth, I’m now utilizing PowerPoint as a prompting software, by way of a teleprompter, after we are making movies, so this makes full sense, and accelerates a time-consuming course of we’re already utilizing. It additionally implies that I don’t overlook materials I’d in any other case overlook.

I stress, AI won’t write the video, which, as regular, I’ll ship unscripted, however based mostly upon the construction that I’ll have created, to which AI can have contributed by summarising my present work.

The end result might be that we are going to then have a YouTube video to reply a selected query.

That can then generate a transcript to be used on this weblog.

What’s new is that it’s now my intention that the transcript ought to then be edited to turn out to be a story chapter on the identical theme. It’ll, in different phrases, be edited from spoken English into written English with out in search of to vary the which means. That new model will then turn out to be a Substack submit.

Then, sooner or later, and presuming this works, these Substack posts, which is able to embody studying lists referencing each my blogs and different work, will turn out to be chapters in a e-book, and even books. Whether or not these can be e-books, like Cash for Nothing and My Tweets for Free, which I produced a number of years in the past, or books {that a} extra mainstream writer may want to put out is a matter to be determined upon.

The purpose is that working on this method implies that one thought will produce 4 outputs:

• A YouTube video
• A weblog transcript
• A Substack submit
• A e-book sooner or later

You may, after all, argue that it is a course of involving lots of repetition. That, nevertheless, is how most individuals study, and so I make no apology for that.

On this framework, posting on Substack is sensible. I might not want to submit two variations of fabric on the identical theme right here. Providing completely different variations on completely different platforms is a method to meet completely different wants and expectations.

I might additionally anticipate that the Substack posts can be free, however like Robert Reich and Paul Krugman, in addition to Stephanie Kelton, I might hold open the potential for including some paid-for content material.

Feedback are welcome.