I can’t foot the bill for everyone’s dinner, but I promise the first round of beers is on me.

You are all invited if you are in town! The restaurant isn’t secret, but I’m keeping the exact location off the public post so I can manage the reservation headcount. Please reach out directly for the restaurant name if you plan to come.

• Email: chrisbrunet@protonmail.com

• Text: 239-201-7405

Also, feel free to send me a message if you just want to chat, especially if you have top secret documents to leak to me or if you have any cool, explosive, or underreported stories you think deserve scrutiny. Historically, I haven't been the best at responding to all my subscriber emails, sorry, but I’m making a concerted effort to change that.

Looking forward to catching up in person.

Feel free to bring a friend, colleague, or your spouse.

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I try to avoid paywalls whenever possible. If I write something valuable, I want as many people as possible to read it. As a result, only about 2% of my readership is paid. If I went paywalled I could easily raise that number to the 5%-10% range, but that is something I am really trying to avoid.

So, please indulge me in one sponsored post, to keep this newsletter free.

On March 19th, 2026, I’ll be attending the Catholic Prayer for America Gala in Washington, D.C. Tickets are pricey, but the organizers gave me a $100 discount code for readers. If you use code BRUNET at checkout, you’ll get the discount.

Tickets here:

• https://cforc.com/event/catholicprayerforamerica2026/

And please follow Catholics for Catholics, host of the event, on X:

• https://x.com/CforCatholics

I am not speaking at the event, I am just going to be wandering around in a snazzy tuxedo. The event is being held at the Waldorf Astoria, the swankiest hotel in D.C.

The speakers are Candace Owens, Matt Walsh, Gen. Michael Flynn, Fr. Chris Alar, John Yep, and Sister Dede Byrne.

The program will also include an award presented to Carrie Prejean Boller following her dismissal from the White House’s Religious Liberty Commission.

Since I will be in D.C. for the 18th, 19th, or 20th, if you want to grab a beer, please email me and I will try my best to make it happen. If enough people are interested maybe we can have a meetup dinner on the 18th.

• chrisbrunet@protonmail.com

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Marriage has been grounding in the best way. It’s sharpened my perspective, steadied my priorities, and I expect it to show up in more mature, focused writing going forward. This feels like a transition into the next phase.

That shift is reflected in a branding move you may have noticed, away from Karlstack to www.ChrisBrunet.com. This is a move away from a persona- or pseudonym-based project and toward work that’s more durable, accountable, and aligned with where I’m headed long-term.

I’m grateful for each of my 13,000 subscribers and for the steady, organic growth this community has shown over time. This chart reflects years of consistent interest, engagement, and trust, as well as years of disciplined work refining my writing, starting from scratch in 2022, and raising my standards and credibility as a journalist. We’ve come a long way together. The best is yet to come.

Wishing everyone a Merry Christmas and a peaceful New Year. Thank you for sticking around — more to come soon. God bless.

— Chris

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What topics do you want to see in 2026? Drop a comment below.

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• https://www.gofundme.com/f/dbsdz-help-bring-colin-home

The first was last year for a heroic detective in Ottawa, Helen Grus, who was unfairly charged for investigating the link between infant mortality and mRNA vaccines.

The Dossier

Trudeau regime puts Canadian detective on trial for investigating link between infant deaths and mRNA vaccines

This is a The Dossier guest post by Christopher Brunet, a great up and coming journalist who also serves as an editor for The American Conservative. Please follow him on X (https://X.com/realChrisBrunet) and subscribe to his Substack…

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3 years ago · 426 likes · 168 comments · Christopher Brunet

Amazingly, we raised over $16,000 for Helen!

Karlstack

Update: Helen Grus Legal Defense Fund raises over $16,000 in 24 hours

When I published this story 21 hours ago…

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3 years ago · 31 likes · 4 comments · Christopher Brunet

Today, I am hoping that we can raise even a fraction of that amount for my cousin Colin Martell, a brave 34-year-old living with early onset Huntington's Disease, a progressive, neurodegenerative illness with physical, cognitive and emotional symptoms. As his symptoms advanced, Colin’s ability to live independently diminished. A year ago, he moved into a long-term care (LTC) facility. However, Colin has been struggling emotionally and longing to be closer to his family.

• https://www.gofundme.com/f/dbsdz-help-bring-colin-home

As his disease reached the advanced stages, Colin shared with his family and loved ones that he did not feel that the long term care home was the appropriate placement to deal with his remaining time. Colin’s wish is to be back at his parents home under palliative care. His family feels that the comfort of home, surrounded by love and care, would provide him with dignity and peace. However, this decision is met with legal and financial hurdles.

Colin’s fight for dignity and autonomy is not one he faces alone. His parents, brothers, many of Colin’s lifelong friends and his large extended family have come together to organize a fundraiser titled :”Let’s Bring Colin Home”.

Donations will be used to cover:

• Legal Expenses: To advocate for Colin’s right to transition from the long-term care facility to his family home.

• Home Care Support: To provide Colin with medical care, therapies, equipment and personal support services required to improve his quality of life.

• Living Space Modifications: To make his home accessible and comfortable for his safety and care needs.

Colin is surrounded by people who care deeply for him and believe in his strength and determination. The ‘Let’s Bring Colin Home” fundraiser will allow Colin to live at home where palliative care will be provided from his perspective. Together, we can ensure that Colin's wishes are supported and that he receives the care and peace he deserves in the place he loves most—home.

Karlstack now has 12,000 subscribers.

0.1% of 12,000 = 12 people.

If just 0.1% of my readers—12 people—choose to click the link and donate, it will make a world of difference for my family as we support my cousin during this incredibly difficult time. Every contribution, no matter how small, helps. I just need 12 people to click on this link, I will be forever grateful.

Growing up together, Colin was just a few years older, and I thought he was the coolest kid in the world. I idolized him—he was better at sports than me, stronger and faster, better at riding bikes, better at art and drawing, funnier and nicer than me, girls liked him more. So, it’s really brutal to watch him enter hospice care in his early 30’s. I won’t dwell too much here on the sorrow of mortality, but I’ll say this: it’s tough, and it hurts.

• https://www.gofundme.com/f/dbsdz-help-bring-colin-home

  

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Chris Arnade Walks the World

Dispatches and photos from walks around the world

Chris Arnade Walks the World

Walking Hanoi (part 1)

The airport bus swung three lanes over, beeping the entire time, slammed on the brakes, shoosh-ed me off onto a median with shouts of “here here here!”, then swerved back, rejoining the five lanes of beeping mopeds, bikes, cars, and other buses. The bus shelter, a concrete slab in a strip of mud, had no walk light, no crossing strip, no anything to he…

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4 years ago · 165 likes · 60 comments · Chris Arnade

Chris Arnade Walks the World

Walking Buenos Aires

Last week’s post was critical of Argentina, but had little to say about Buenos Aires itself, which is a magnificent city, if you can pull off the whole ‘making a steady income in dollars’ thing, which most residents can’t. Buenos Aires’ problems are not about its architecture, cuisine, pollution, parks, public transport, or any other quality of life issue, it excels in all of these, but about political, economic, and social forces facing every Argentinian…

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2 years ago · 51 likes · 3 comments · Chris Arnade

Chris Arnade Walks the World

Walking Belgium: From Antwerp to Brussels

(Prior to this, I walked from Amsterdam to Rotterdam, before taking a train to Antwerp. From Antwerp I walked to Lier, then to Mechelen, then to Brussels, where I stayed for three days. I have more pieces to write about the whole trip, once I get home…

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2 years ago · 47 likes · 14 comments · Chris Arnade

This is something I regret not doing more.

Despite holding what many consider a dream job—travelling the world and writing about it—I’ve often neglected to write about my adventures. During a recent trip to El Salvador, for instance, I planned to write several articles about Bukele but produced only one. Felt like a missed opportunity.

I’m being as productive as I can be, sorry, thanks.

Since starting in 2021, I’ve published 250 articles on Substack, alongside contributions to The American Conservative, The Daily Caller, The Blaze, City Journal, The Post Millennial, and other Substacks.

My journey to 10,000 subscribers can be divided into distinct travel eras, each reflecting my growth and transformation since I wrote my first article.

Karlstack covers five sections: Economics, Academia, Politics, Crypto, and Personal. If you’re not interested in my personal blog, you can manage your subscription settings to opt out of Personal.

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To be blunt, it’s been a long, painful, gruelling process. At times, I slept on couches, in basements, hostels, condos, hotels, housesitting gigs, and AirBnBs. I became discouraged and considered quitting several times. I made more mistakes than I care to admit.

The good news is that it is working.

Here’s a rough comparison with peer writers:

• has ~5,000

• has ~6,000

• has ~8,000

• has ~11,000

• has ~13,000

• has ~15,000

• has ~16,000

• has ~16,000

• has ~22,000

Not to compare myself to others, of course, but sometimes I can’t help it.

Starting from scratch was the toughest part. While my peer writers began their Substack journeys with established platforms, I had no Twitter following or online presence. I went from 0 to 36k on Twitter.

Here’s how much I’m earning from Twitter ads.

Since I would be tweeting for free anyway, it’s a nice little bonus.

Every writer on Substack is chasing , , and , who each earn millions of dollars annually. As with most professions, Substack follows the power law, where 99% of the benefits go to the top 1% of content creators.

Phronesis Fund

Power Laws Rule the World

This is the first entry in our Power Laws in Public Markets series. This essay argues that the world is ruled by power laws, not averages. Part 2 argues that economy of time is the primary force behind power laws. Part 3 (forthcoming) defines cognitive leverage and how to spot power law potential…

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3 years ago · 8 likes · John Candeto

Here are my audience metrics:

Montreal

I began writing on an angry, bitter note — I was aggrieved over being blackballed by PhD programs.

I was doubly aggrieved because I was stuck living in Quebec during Covid.

Montreal is a great city, but life was incredibly frustrating with the nightly 9:30 p.m. curfew, mask mandates, and lockdowns.

Here is the view from hiking to the top of Mount Royal, Montreal’s namesake, at night:

As a result of my frustrations, this period’s writing was characterized by frequent swearing. In my first few articles, I dropped f-bombs, c-bombs, p-bombs, and more, which I now regret.

It's easy to toss around slurs when you think no one is paying attention, but once you gain an audience of serious readers (and realize your mom is reading your articles, hi mom), you see the importance of maintaining a more respectful tone.

It was a strategic mistake to ‘‘go paid’’ so early, with just ~300 free subscribers. If I could go back in time, I would wait until I had at least a few thousand free subscribers first. When to go paid is a contentious debate in the Substack community. These were my first 9 paid subscribers:

Follow your gut

When to go paid on Substack?

Heads up: this essay is too long to fit into an email. To read the full story click “view entire message” or head to the article directly on Substack here. Let’s talk about the elephant in every artist room: Money. On Substack that generally means: When to turn on the paid option and what is the motivation for doing so…

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2 years ago · 47 likes · 56 comments · Elin Petronella

On Substack

When should I turn on paid subscriptions?

At Substack, we believe that writing is inherently valuable. We make it easy to earn money for your work, supported directly by your readers. If you want to earn money today on Substack, we recommend enabling payments by connecting to Stripe, our payment processor. This takes less than five minutes to set up…

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3 years ago · 578 likes

Another mistake I made early was my tendency to write long, rambling screeds. I quickly learned that audiences prefer concise, clean text; stripped of fluff, focusing on valuable information. If you want to become a better writer, focus on delivering value. This is the best video to watch:

Halifax Era

I met a girl in Montreal, and when she got a job offer in Nova Scotia, I followed her. This was my most valuable lesson: never sign a lease with your girlfriend unless you're married, idiot.

On the bright side, she had a cat, so for 12 months, I had a cat. Most of my pictures during this time were of the cat.

This was the view from our condo:

For nearly a year, all flags in the country were flown at half-mast to honor ‘‘remains buried at Canada’s Indigenous residential schools.’’

Every flag at half-mast... For nearly a year... For a hoax!

I walked around a lot.

I valued living next to the water.

This is the view from the bridge I walked across every morning:

As if every Canadian flag being at half-mast wasn’t demoralizing enough, at some point, the government adorned my favorite bridge with Ukraine flags. Canada wasn’t even proud enough to fly its own flag, but they deign to fly a foreign flag over my favorite bridge. Felt like a slap in the face.

When the truckers went on strike, the grocery stores in Halifax were mostly empty. I attended a freedom rally.

At this point, I got hired at The Daily Caller and I promptly quit that job to chase Claudine Gay/Harvard on Substack, which ended up being the best decision of my career.

My last day employed at The Daily Caller was March 12, 2022.

I published this story on my Substack on March 13, 2022:

Two years ago, not many people outside the world of academia knew who Claudine Gay was. Chris Brunet did, and he was on her case from the start.

In a phone interview with The American Conservative, Brunet recalled the genesis of his journey to take down the ex-president of Harvard University: “About two years ago, I got an email with an anonymous tip from someone at Harvard about research misconduct by a professor in the political science department…. Once I started tugging at that string, it led me directly to Claudine Gay because it turned out she was covering up for him.”

At the time, Brunet had leveraged his experience on Substack writing about corruption in academia into a job at the Daily Caller. After presenting the anonymous tip and subsequent pitch for an article to expose Claudine Gay’s academic history (or lack thereof), Brunet recounts being told he could not publish the story for legal reasons. 

“They wouldn’t run it because it was too much legal risk, which is true, because Harvard, they sic lawyers on the New York Post, right, they’re quick to sue,” Brunet said. “So it was a lot of legal risk and not very much upside.” Brunet ended up leaving the Daily Caller that day, having a gut feeling that the Gay story was worth pursuing. 

Some have claimed that Brunet was actually fired from the Daily Caller in an attempt to persuade his readers that he is not a trustworthy source of information. Yet Geoffrey Ingersoll, the editor-in-chief of the outlet, corroborated Brunet’s story in an email with TAC.

“It made me happy to see his work vindicated, and to see a fraud who was bad for the university and bad for America go down in the process,” Ingersoll said.

— Chris Brunet: Who Is the Man Behind Gay’s Ouster at Harvard

I went back to Substack, reaching 74 paid subscribers.

After breaking up with my girlfriend, I skipped town.

Mexico Era

I wanted to travel but didn’t know where.

I picked the Yucatan Peninsula in Mexico because it was cheap, close, and safe, but still kinda foreign; a good place to dip your toe into travel. It was a mistake to go to Cancun, though. Cancun is divided into 2 parts, a hotel zone (a long strip of beach), and the inland town.

I booked an AirBnB inland, living with the locals.

To be clear: the hotel zone sucks too.

The beach, when I trekked there, was patrolled by heavily armed army guys.

I ate street tacos pretty much every night.

The pharmacies openly sold anabolic steroids.

In many ways, Mexico is freer than America.

Next, I went to Playa del Carmen for a couple of months, which is super basic.

The Airbnb there was nicer, they had a pool on the roof:

Playa del Carmen was teeming with Russians escaping the war (who can blame them?), to the extent that Russian real estate agents were actively advertising to them.

I worked at this coffee shop most days:

I left Mexico with 175 paid subscribers, plus the title of contributing editor at The American Conservative.

• https://www.theamericanconservative.com/the-taco-truck-delusion/

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Ottawa —> Montreal —> Calgary

I spent one month in each of these three cities.

Calgary felt soulless, with an unremarkable downtown surrounded by sprawling cookie-cutter suburbs.

However, Banff, the mountain town next to Calgary, is probably the best place I’ve ever visited in Canada. I would live there in a heartbeat. Unfortunately, since Banff is a national park, it has strict residency restrictions. Essentially, you can only live there if your parents or grandparents did, you have to be grandfathered in.

England

Next, I spent a couple of months in a small town in Dorset, England.

It was the quintessential countryside experience.

The town was dotted with old cathedrals:

And surrounded by fields and gardens:

I took a train to the Isle of Portland, on England’s southern coast, to write a story about their refugee crisis.

This was as close as I could get to the barge full of asylum seekers, I had to climb a hill to get this angle, it was tucked away out of sight and surrounded by a large perimeter fence.

• https://www.theamericanconservative.com/the-ballad-of-the-bibby-stockholm/

Italy

I went hiking in Tuscany for a couple of weeks:

Then I spent a month in Rome, in an AirBnB. This was the garden:

I didn’t like Rome for one reason: too many tourists. It's ironic since I was a tourist myself. However, the city felt overwhelmed by AirBnbs and endless walking tour groups, which was offputting. It lacked the vibe of a lived-in city and instead felt like an open-air museum/tourist trap.

I wish I could say I explored all the museums and every inch of the Vatican, but the crowds were terrible, I really can’t deal with crowds. Instead, I spent most of my time preparing for my presentation at Stanford.

While in Rome, I wrote a profile on Giorgia Meloni:

• https://www.theamericanconservative.com/giorgia-meloni-falls-short/

Greece/Turkey

I embarked on a week or two-long cruise around the Greek islands.

Santorini was beautiful but felt artificial. Like Rome, it seemed more like a tourist trap than a place where people genuinely live.

The cruise ship stopped in Istanbul, which became my least favourite city of all time. In 2023, Istanbul was the most-visited city in the world, drawing over 20 million international travelers. As a result, every street was packed with people, making the entire city feel congested and cramped, or at least that's how I remember it.

The cruise was pleasant, but I felt a constant unease about the fleet of servile Filipino staff catering to my every whim. I did not enjoy having servants.

I thought about writing a piece on the opulence and excess of modern cruises, but I stumbled across David Foster Wallace’s 24-page essay on the same subject, and that bastard nailed it so perfectly that I got depressed and gave up.

Perhaps I shouldn’t have gotten depressed at my lack of talent compared to DFW.

Perhaps the lowering of one’s standards is the necessary step for the creation of art.

After the cruise, I spent a month on the Greek island of Crete. I chose Crete because it was inexpensive, given the off-peak tourist season (winter), which offered good deals on AirBnBs.

I chose a small town by the sea:

More specifically, zooming in, this farm was my AirBnB:

I chose an olive farm filled with cats, dogs, chickens, and geese because I wanted to experience farm life firsthand. It’s hard to overstate how much more enjoyable a peaceful farm is compared to the bustling streets of Istanbul. When I settle down (soon, hopefully?) I will not be settling down in a big city.

I spent much time biking around Crete aimlessly.

I frequently biked past groups of gipsies.

They had loud parties & bonfires every night.

I was jealous of their sense of community.

However, they are filthy.

Their settlement was surrounded by mountains of garbage.

I can't begin to fathom the psychological toll this environment must have on them. It baffles me why they don't organize and clean up their space. If they banded together, they could transform their surroundings in less than a day, freeing themselves from living amidst such filth.

I often biked into the biggest city on the island, Heraklion.

One day I biked into town for coffee and saw that I had taken down the president of Harvard.

Cool.

On Christmas Eve, I left Greece.

Romania

I had COVID throughout my entire stay in Romania, leaving me weary and unable to engage in much activity. Consequently, I have few pictures to share from this leg.

The thing I will remember most is a small cafe.

I spent most days there, finding a small comfort in the routine.

Every morning, I ate the same breakfast.

It was good to have something familiar.

It gave a sense of structure to my days.

After a month of wandering the city, I wrote an article about it:

• https://www.theamericanconservative.com/romania-is-quietly-doing-great/

Recently, wrote a reply:

Fara Suparare: Journal of Balkanik Ethology

Christopher Brunet is wrong about Romania: here's why that's a problem

This poast is a premature diversion from the speculative, ethological/evo-psych oriented brief I set myself here. Yet I thought it worth responding now, while it’s still fairly fresh, to Christopher Brunet’s article in The American Conservative, titled ‘Romania Is Quietly Doing Great…

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2 years ago · 9 likes · 12 comments · Shade of Achilles

I was over the moon to receive this! Even though the gist of the article was that I was wrong, it was nice to know that someone cared that much to write a thoughtful reply. The author has spent 22 years in Romania, which you can see in every word.

Florida

I left Europe because I needed to attend a conference in Florida.

While in Florida, I spent a few weeks visiting my family.

I bought a Harvard hoodie as a war trophy.

El Salvador

Florida was relatively close to El Salvador, just a few hours by flight.

Since I had never visited Central America before, I decided to go.

We all know that El Salvador was #1 in murder a few years ago, and is now #1 safest. It’s still in a state of emergency. In Santa Ana, this is evident as everything shuts down at night. While you can walk the streets safely, they are eerily empty, giving the city a ghost-town feel at night.

After so many years of murder, the locals are thrilled to have tourists back, the return of tourism a point of national pride. Walking down the street people would randomly come up to me and shake my hand.

Every conversation in El Salvador involves someone asking you about pupusas, the national dish — HAVE YOU TRIED PUPUSAS YET?! — it gets old fast, the lowest form of conversation. Pupusas are essentially just tortillas with melted cheese. They’re fine. I think the reason they are brought up in every conversation is the locals need something, anything, to be proud of.

This was my view from my hostel in Santa Ana, the second biggest city.

Every night the mountains would light on fire. I later learned it was a volcano.

Santa Ana is pretty ghetto, this is what every street looks like:

Many buildings had watchtowers with slits for guards to shoot out of.

The only good building in the city was the cathedral.

On literally every street corner, and standing in every business, was a man with a shotgun.

In Canada they name their high schools after social justice warriors.

In El Salvador they name their high schools after Albert Camus:

One idiosyncratic quirk of the country is that every public bus in El Salvador was uniquely pimped out by its driver. My favorite was one adorned with a huge Confederate flag.

Since El Salvador has embraced bitcoin, you can pay at McDonald’s in bitcoin.

One thing about El Salvador is that the bread sucks. In Europe, they had amazing artisanal bread everywhere, but here, every restaurant/store exclusively sells these white puffy buns.

After Santa Ana, I went to the capital, San Salvador. This was a mistake.

One thing I learned about Central America is that the worst city in each country is always the capital. Every capital is just ugly pavement and traffic and favelas, with few redeeming qualities. The best part of every country is always nature: beaches, mountains, jungles, etc.

Honduras

I took a bus from El Salvador to Nicaragua.

Every bus is always full of people blasting music, games, and movies on their phones without headphones. This noise used to bug me, but I’ve gotten used to it, and barely notice it now. It’s just their culture. I accept it.

Our bus cut through Honduras, and this country gave me the heebie jeebies; made my skin crawl. I have no desire to visit Honduras. It felt dangerous and mean.

Nicaragua

My bus dropped me off in Managua, the capital of Nicaragua, this was also a mistake. As I said, every capital city sucks. I didn’t leave my hostel very much:

When I did venture out, there wasn’t much to see or do. Rampant poverty. Nicaragua is the second poorest country in the Western Hemisphere, after only Haiti.

There were murals everywhere demonizing America and the CIA.

Nicaragua’s national rhetoric seems to be stuck in the 1980s, nostalgic for the era of Iran-Contra when they were relevant on the world stage. Throughout the towns I visited, murals adorn the walls, portraying the CIA as the enemy—a testament to their existential struggle against perceived oppressors.

I fled Managua and went to San Juan del Sur, the top backpacking destination in the country.

On the chickenbus to San Juan del Sur, I got a really bad heat stroke.

See that Jesus statue in the top left corner?

This is the view from the top of the hill overlooking San Juan del Sur:

I stayed in a boujie party hostel and fell into the trap of partying a little too hard.

Every weekend it looked like this, which made me feel like I was in college again:

I ended up staying at this hostel for over 3 weeks, and it was a blur.

Every night the bar was lit.

I measured the passage of time in karaoke nights.

Random cattle wandered around the hostel.

I heard tales of one nearby hostel that had a pet pig living there, and guests were allowed to feed the pig dozens of beers.

To get from the hostel into town, I had to take a shuttle through dirt roads.

One thing about Nicaragua is that it’s a brutal dictatorship with no free press, which made things dangerous for an investigative journalist. I would have been thrown in jail instantly if they found out about me. I got sketched out and fled.

Here is a sneak peek of my Nicaragua article I wrote for The American Conservative, which should be published any day now:

Costa Rica

After Nicaragua I spent a month in Costa Rica, splitting my time between surfing hostels in the towns of Tamarindo and Puerto Viejo, both of which were heavily gentrified. At this point, I had learned to avoid the capital cities and simply find a nice beach town.

Costa Rica is much more affluent than Nicaragua — it felt downright 1st world, almost. The dogs, instead of being strays, all seemed to have owners and collars. The population was visibly healthier and happier.

Again, I fell into the trap of relaxing a little bit too hard. It’s difficult to be passionate about autistically investigating corruption in academia while living in a beach paradise.

Panama

Yesterday I took a 10+ hour bus ride to Panama.

I arrived in a small town…

Then took a boat…

… and finally arrived on my island off the coast, where I will be staying for at least the next couple of weeks.

I don’t have many insights into Panama since I just arrived.

America

In July my Central American tour will come to an end, as I will be flying to Washington DC to speak at a conference:

• https://nationalconservatism.org/natcon-4-2024/

Sadly, I don’t think the headline speaker will be able to attend, since he will have to report to prison the week before.

After my talk, I reckon I will stick around in America for a while 🙂.

I am not sure which states to visit, though. Planning that now.

Advice

Don’t become a writer or journalist.

Even with insane luck, dedication, networking, and a little bit of skill, and rising to be in the top 1% of Substack writers, I am barely scraping by with 311 paid subscribers.

If you are one of the 311, your support means the world to me. Thank you from the bottom of my heart. If you aren’t, I won’t use this as an opportunity to pester you into paying; rather, I will keep trying to break big stories and hope you will see the value in them and in supporting me.

Subscribe now

Since day 1, I’ve struggled with the idea of paywalling content. I could probably double my subscriber count overnight if I started paywalling my articles. Maybe I should. However, I have focused on overall growth instead of pure monetization.

My point is this: unless you are already a famous big shot, you will struggle financially and spiritually. But the struggle is good. The struggle is the essence of the journey.

If you can’t help but write, embrace the struggle—it means you are truly alive. With a bit of luck, you won’t have zero readers, and your stories can hold the power to change the world… or even compel the president of Harvard to step down.

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My origin story is relevant because it provides me with unique insight into the Twitter topic du jour: the Alabama Supreme Court just ruled that destroying frozen embryos amounts to wrongful death of a child. The biggest hospital in Alabama has suspended all in vitro fertilization (IVF) treatments, IUI’s petri-dish ally, which produce many such embryos.

Now, Democrats are using IVF as a stick to whack Republicans. I don’t blame them: It’s a political winner. Polls show that 78 percent of voters who identify as “pro-life” support IVF, and even 60 percent of Republican women believe fertility treatments should be covered by health insurance. 

It’s mainly observant Catholics who are against IVF as a constituency. The Church teaches that….

READ THE REST HERE, IN MY LATEST FOR THE AMERICAN CONSERVATIVE:

• https://www.theamericanconservative.com/ivf-and-its-children-arent-going-away/

As always, retweets and shares of the article are appreciated:

• https://x.com/realChrisBrunet/status/1762894750649086056?s=20

• https://x.com/amconmag/status/1762888039984927151?s=20

If you tweet out the article, I will make sure to find it and retweet you.

It is currently on the front page of the website:

• https://www.theamericanconservative.com/

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I am coming off the most successful story of my Substack career, spanning 11 different articles of dogged coverage culminating in me giving a lecture at Stanford University.

Readership is growing strong, with nearly 6,000 free subscribers, and accelerating.

And yet, paid subscriptions have plateaued below 200.

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This temporary plateau can be attributed to two primary factors:

1. In the past few months, I deliberately scaled back my Substack articles to dedicate my full attention to preparing for my Stanford speech. Throughout my entire life, I grappled with a fear of public speaking, and I was determined to conquer this apprehension and crush it on the big stage. I achieved that goal, but it came at the expense of my productivity as a writer.

2. During the year 2022, as I experienced rapid growth in paid subscribers, I frequently placed articles behind paywalls. However, in 2023, I significantly reduced this practice. Looking ahead to 2024, I intend to reintroduce paywalls for a more substantial portion of my content.

of explains the efficacy and purpose of paywalling in this article:

Contra

Why the Paywall?

A reader complained last night via email about the paywall on my “Lee’s Ghost” piece. Based on what they wrote, this person struck me as a recent arrival, fresh off the boat to Contra. But it warrants a response anyway, considering most content used to be free. I’m sure they’re not the only ones with questions…

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3 years ago · 59 likes · 16 comments · Pedro L. Gonzalez

Rarely do I spell it out, but I have a pregnant stay-at-home mom for a wife. We do things this way because we believe it’s best for our kids. That means I’m the only earner. I can’t work for free, although freedom is the goal.

The oldest reference to liberty is the ancient cuneiform symbol “ama-gi.” It appeared on a Sumerian tablet dated to c. 2400 B.C. In its most literal sense, it means freedom from debt or slavery, release from the yoke of another. For a writer, and not to bash editors because we all need them whether we admit it or not, that is the possibility of Substack—freedom. The rare opportunity to make a living by writing what we really think, doing what we love, with total independence.

I’m close enough to that goal with Substack it hurts. If everyone who opened and read this became a paid subscriber, I would be there tomorrow and could stop juggling four things and focus all my attention and efforts on one thing: Contra.

…

I’m on Substack to make a living as a writer. But I also write because I love to hear from readers about how the things I write affect them.

So please, if you’ve read this far, consider becoming a paid subscriber today. It helps me inch toward my goal of freedom, it helps me support my family, it helps me produce more and better content on Contra, and it would mean a lot to me.

He’s asking you to become a paid subscriber for his family (‘‘Rarely do I spell it out, but I have a pregnant stay-at-home mom for a wife’’), and for freedom (‘‘The rare opportunity to make a living by writing what we really think, doing what we love, with total independence’’).

‘‘I’m close enough to that goal with Substack it hurts.’’

Same.

Although I'm not supporting a pregnant spouse, I'm tantalizingly close to absolute freedom. As many of you are aware, I've embarked on a journey across the globe, sustaining myself through writing. My travels have taken me to various places, starting with six months in Mexico, where I learned that Mexico has its downsides:

Next, I spent six weeks in Calgary, where I indulged in hiking the majestic Rocky Mountains:

Then, I went to Montreal for another six weeks, featuring this stunning picture from the peak of Mount Real, the city's namesake:

After summer in Canada, I left for Europe, where I now live indefinitely.

My initial stop was six weeks in a quaint town in Dorset, England.

During my time in Dorset, I had the opportunity to write a feature on the Bibby Stockholm for TAC, which you can read here:

• https://www.theamericanconservative.com/the-ballad-of-the-bibby-stockholm/

When I finally went to see the barge, I couldn’t get very close. It was surrounded by 15-foot metal fencing and two sets of gates guarded 24/7. So I climbed a nearby hill to get a better view. On my climb up this hill, I spoke to roughly ten passing hikers about the barge. None of them seemed concerned about demographic replacement, but they each found it puzzling and infuriating that there would be 500 young men housed there with no women or children. That was universally their number one concern: they would find the barge much, much more palatable if there were women and children onboard.

Following Dorset, I embarked on a week-long hiking adventure in Tuscany:

I then spent six weeks in Rome, where I am currently situated. After Rome, I'll be spending December in Greece, followed by January in Turkey.

My Travel Secret

Now, you might wonder how I afford to live in places like Dorset, known for its high cost of living, on a Substack and freelancer income. It would cost several thousand Euros to rent a place there for 6 weeks.

The answer lies in getting creative. To be transparent, I confess that this summer and fall, I occasionally pet-sat dogs and cats in exchange for free accommodation. For instance, my stay in Dorset would have cost me thousands of dollars, but instead, I paid nothing, and as a bonus, I got to have a cat.

I am not petsitting anymore—mostly because there aren’t any petsitting opportunities available in the Mediterranean—but the Mediterranean is so affordable that I can live in cheap Airbnbs indefinitely. That's why I'm heading to Turkey and Greece next, where I can rent beautiful seaside condos without straining my budget.

Nevertheless, even with the low cost of living in Greece and Turkey, living solely on a Substack and freelancer salary can be challenging, especially if I plan to reside in a first-world country, or choose an Airbnb that's not the cheapest option available. Therefore, I'll need to reach 200 subscribers at some point. So, please consider becoming a paid subscriber to help fund my quest for freedom and my travel dreams:

Subscribe now

Beyond supporting my dreams and the promise of future paywalls, there's a third reason to support my work—I deliver results.

Support Independent Investigative Journalism

Independent media often struggles to be part of the conversations that shape society. Karlstack stands out as an exception, whether it's bitchslapping Yale at Stanford or having my work featured in the New York Times, New Yorker, Huffington Post, Bloomberg, Coindesk, Blockwork & Slatestarcodex.

Many of my articles could only be published on Substack — I still firmly believe that Substack is the future of media and that the platform will continue to grow.

Here are some examples showcasing the impact of my journalism on Substack:

1. My speech at Stanford University

2. Elevating Helen Grus's fundraising campaign from $13,000 to over $47,000.

   The Dossier

   Trudeau regime puts Canadian detective on trial for investigating link between infant deaths and mRNA vaccines

   This is a The Dossier guest post by Christopher Brunet, a great up and coming journalist who also serves as an editor for The American Conservative. Please follow him on X (https://X.com/realChrisBrunet) and subscribe to his Substack. If you’d like to write a story for The Dossier or become a regular contributor, please pitch us at Jds921@protonmail.com…

   Read more

   3 years ago · 415 likes · 165 comments · Christopher Brunet

3. I shut down the Ford Foundation Fellowship

4. Influencing retractions at JF, JFE, and AER

5. Sending Avraham Eisenberg to jail

6. My coverage of Lisa Cook was featured on Tucker Carlson and debated in the US Senate

   

Moving Forward

Tomorrow, I am headed on a cruise with my parents. Since they are retired and I'm in Europe, it's a perfect opportunity to spend quality time with them. So for the next 12 days, I'll mostly be away from the keyboard, relaxing on a boat.

I might put out 1-2 articles that are already in the pipeline, but don’t expect much.

Upon my return (or more accurately, when the cruise docks in Greece, where I plan to stay), I'll be going goblin-mode and diving headfirst into writing as many articles as humanly possible in 2024. These articles will be available behind paywalls on my Substack, on other Substacks, in The American Conservative, and in various other freelance outlets. I'm actively seeking more freelance opportunities, so if you're an editor, please reach out to me at chrisbrunet@protonmail.com. I'm eager to write for you on a consistent basis rather than as a one-time endeavor.

If you're reading this, I genuinely appreciate your support as a paid subscriber. I understand that asking for financial support isn't always easy, I hate asking for money, but reaching 200 paid subscribers is crucial for me to continue pursuing my dreams… Especially if I want to support a family one day.

Your support means the world to me.

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Some of you may have received a double-email. Sorry for the glitch.

Pope Francis stirred controversy last week by criticizing the "backwardness" of conservatives in the U.S. Catholic Church, saying that American traditionalists exhibit a "reactionary attitude" and "have replaced faith with ideology."

The irony of this statement must be lost on him — Francis often blurs the lines between politics and faith, and is widely perceived as the primary source of politicization within the church.

Last month, for example, Francis held a private audience at his residence with Alex Soros, the son of billionaire George Soros, who was recently named as the next chairman of the Open Society Foundation. Holding this meeting is an overt political statement.

A week prior to meeting with baby Soros, Francis raised eyebrows by hosting artist Andres Serrano at the Vatican. Serrano is known primarily for his provocative "Piss Christ" photograph, which features a plastic crucifix immersed in the artist's urine.

Read more

I just hit 5,000 Substack subscribers!

The spike at the end, followed by the dip, is when I had an article go viral last month that briefly pushed me over 5,000. The reason it dipped back down is because I then deleted a few hundred subscribers (inactives, fake emails, etc.) in order to boost my email open percentage to 45%:

Some of you may have noticed the update on my Twitter bio; I've recently become a contributing editor at The American Conservative.

Following my ongoing investigation into the EJMR hacking (article 1, article 2, article 3, article 4), I have been invited to speak at The Classical Liberalism seminar series at Stanford University!

When I look at the list of speakers in this seminar series, I am humbled to see heavyweight names I recognize like Chris Rufo, Alan Dershowitz, Roland Fryer, Joshua Rauh, Greg Conti, Heather MacDonald, among others. I admit that I can't help but feel a bit intimidated, I am the youngest and, by traditional metrics, the least qualified.

The first reaction I've received from a few other people is nervous apprehension on my behalf, comments like, "Definitely prepare for that…”. For some reason, economists seem to think that my master's degree from the University of Western Ontario doesn't quite stack up against a Yale professor with a PhD from MIT. People seem to think I am a sacrificial lamb being sent to the slaughter; meant to be trounced; meant to make EJMR look bad.

However, rest assured, I'm as well-versed in this research topic as anyone else in the world. I am a subject matter expert on EJMR, and given two months of preparation, I'm confident that I will prevail, for the righteous truth is on my side, and its weight will become evident. Truth is all I need. I am grateful to Stanford’s Classical Liberalism Initiative for giving me this chance to defend free speech in the face of this disgusting and heinous doxxing attack by Yale University, and I plan to do so in a professional, cogent, and courteous manner. I won’t let you down.

It's surreal; when I launched my Substack in 2021 I had zero subscribers and zero affiliations, and after toiling in obscurity for 2 years with nothing but delusions of grandeur, everything is finally starting to come together. The delusions are becoming reality. Here's to the next milestone, and to the next 5,000 subscribers. To me, this feels like merely the beginning of a long and promising journey.

Please consider becoming a paid subscriber to support that journey. I am finally starting to gain some traction and make enough money to survive by bumming around in Europe rather than bumming around in Mexico, lol... it’s an upgrade, but it’s still barely enough to bum around Europe. Your support makes this possible, so again, thank you.

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https://twitter.com/i/spaces/1gqxvyloAYAJB?s=20

Dear Karlstack readers,

Sorry for the lack of articles over the past 1-2 weeks — I have been working on various writing projects — I will be publishing 10 articles over the next 20 days, so hopefully, soon enough, you will be annoyed that I am sending you too many articles, rather than not enough.

It has been 7 days since my last email:

We had a mixed outcome from that session.

The goods news is that we had 119 people tuning in to participate.

Unfortunately, the event experienced significant throttling.

1. Firstly, anything related to "Substack" on Twitter faces restrictions, bans, or shadowbans by Elon Musk. This unforeseen limitation (“Substack” was in my space’s title!) inadvertently throttled our space.

2. Secondly, Twitter itself encountered technical difficulties and went down on the very day we chose to host our inaugural space event.

So, when you consider the throttling plus Twitter going down, 119 listeners tuning in is a pretty good result!

For the upcoming week, we have compiled a list of prepared speakers, including and , who will be joining us. One big mistake I made the first week is that I was not assertive enough in cutting people off. So this week I will be more assertive in cutting off speakers when necessary to maintain momentum and give others a chance to contribute.

Speaking of , he curates "Journal of Write Wing Righting" on a weekly basis. The most recent issue came out today:

Postcards From Barsoom

The Journal of Write Wing Righting - Issue No. 12 - 08 July 2023

Welcome, dear readers, to this week’s compendium of discredited race science, incorrigible nativism, irresponsible conspiracy mongering, wild-eyed mysticism, hateful panphobism, and literary terrorism expectorated from the ignorant and uneducated grinning chud maw of Substack’s write wing…

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3 years ago · 24 likes · 19 comments · John Carter

Postcards From Barsoom

The Journal of Write Wing Thought – Issue No. 11 – 01 July 2023

Welcome, dear readers, to this week’s edition of the nominatively indeterminate Journal of Write Wing Thought, brought to you on Dominion Day, which is to say Canada’s birthday, July 1st. It’s three days earlier than America’s birthday because Canada is three days better. To celebrate, here’s a little something I wrote a few months ago about the deep an…

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3 years ago · 72 likes · 37 comments · John Carter

He also writes sci-fi:

Postcards From Barsoom

Perspectives from Earth's older, better-looking sister world

By John Carter

We have recognized the synergy between his weekly roundup and our weekly Twitter space events, which prompted us to merge them! His extensive weekly roundup will serve as a pipeline of guests for our Twitter spaces moving forward.

With a more structured approach and this new pipeline of guests, we are hoping tonight to more than double last week's participation of 119 listeners.

Thank you for your patience while we work out the kinks with this weekly Twitter space. The goal of this space, remember, is to showcase various independent writers, to support independent writing. If you choose to tune in tonight I hope that you will discover a new writer that you love, and subscribe to their Substack.

TONIGHT’S SPACE STARTS AT 8:00PM EST

https://twitter.com/i/spaces/1gqxvyloAYAJB?s=20

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I am a member of a Twitter groupchat specifically designed for Substack writers. In this group, we promote each other's work, as well as discussing various topics related to writing, publishing, and marketing on Substack. If you are a Substack writer interested in lifting each other up, kindly send me a direct message on Twitter (@realchrisbrunet), and I will be happy to add you to the groupchat.

Today at 2:00pm EST, I will be conducting interviews with several of these Substack writers on Twitter Spaces. You can find the link to the interview session here:

https://twitter.com/i/spaces/1nAJErLArVOxL?s=20

Recently, I've been actively seeking opportunities to practice my public speaking skills, and hosting this interview session will be a valuable experience to refine my interviewing techniques while also allowing listeners to discover new and talented Substack writers.

See you there! Or not. I understand that it's Canada Day and many of you may have prior commitments. Nonetheless, as only a small minority of Substack writers are Canadian, we decided to proceed with the session. We intentionally scheduled it for a non-weekday to accommodate those who have day jobs.

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Today, it is upaywalled. That is how their system works, I guess, they paywall new articles, and then release them after a month. Please go read it!

It’s not exactly a glowing review…

https://www.theamericanconservative.com/the-taco-truck-delusion/

I just wrote a Twitter thread promoting the article, it would a tremendous help to me if my Substack audience could boost this Twitter thread, it would help the algorithm notice it:

https://twitter.com/realChrisBrunet/status/1661577142663012354?s=20

Here are some more people tweeting about the article, please give them a like and a retweet, too, if you are so inclined:

https://twitter.com/herandrews/status/1661472342969831424?s=20

https://twitter.com/herandrews/status/1659689274961444870?s=20

https://twitter.com/amconmag/status/1661460353132245000?s=20

https://twitter.com/FabiusMaximus01/status/1661508079454756864?s=20

https://twitter.com/Taurus_Moon_/status/1661580503311437825?s=20

Thanks!

Substack Reads

Now live: Substack Notes

Today we’re launching Notes to all writers and readers. Notes is a new space where you can find and publish short-form posts and join conversations with writers and fellow readers from across the Substack Network. The Notes tab is designed to inspire, enlighten, and entertain readers based on the writers you’re already reading and help you find new write…

Read more

3 years ago · 1010 likes · 118 comments

I have been using it, and would love for you to join me.

How to join

Head to substack.com/notes or find the “Notes” tab in the Substack app.

As a subscriber to Karlstack, you’ll automatically see my notes. Feel free to like, reply, or share them around. If you encounter any issues, you can always refer to the Notes FAQ for assistance.

Go to Notes

While getting my feet wet with the Notes beta, I figured I may as well turn on Chat while I am at it. Join my subscriber Chat, and we will see how that goes.

I am still trying to wrap my head around these new features, Notes and Chat, so I have no hot takes yet, I will reserve my judgement.

Looking forward to seeing you there!

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But another reason is that I wanted to touch base with my 177 paid subs:

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I am deeply appreciative of the support, and I value each paid subscriber tremendously… which is why I feel so bad that I have been dealing with writer’s block lately. In the first week of 2023 (The Future of Karlstack: We All Need a Little Structure in our Lives Sometimes) I laid out a new publishing schedule wherein I would publish 1 paid-subscriber-only article every weekend… but I have had trouble sticking to this plan; in the 7 weekends since, I have put out 3 paid, 2 free, and missed 2 weekends.

This has been for several reasons:

• I am working on a few “big” Substack articles that take forever to research

  • Maybe these will lead nowhere, but I think it is worth investing in time-consuming moonshots rather than pumping out quick, surface-level op-eds

• I am working on a couple freelance articles for mainstream outlets

  • I will publish a link to these on my Substack once they are up 👀

  • I have major cognitive dissonance over this because I constantly shit on the very concept of mainstream media, but now I am freelancing for them? Sometimes I think I am selling my soul, but I also enjoy being paid money, and frankly I need the money. Besides, these are the “good guy” mainstream outlets whose values generally align with mine, and they give me virtually total freedom to write whatever I want.

  • I am open to more freelance writing, email me: chrisbrunet@protonmail.com

• It’s easier to grow your Substack with free articles than with paid articles

  • I initially put this below article out for paid-subscribers only… But then I saw it was starting to get traction, so I unpaywalled it, and once I unpaywalled it and tweeted it out, the tweet got thousands of likes and retweets. Those thousands of retweets resulted in hundreds of new free subscribers, and that explosive growth is more valuable to me than providing “exclusive” value to my 177 paid subscribers.

• Spreading myself too thin — I am working on several articles at once, and this is obviously not an efficient way to work. If I were rational I would dedicate myself wholly to one article until it was finished, then the next, then the next.

  • Art is irrational. The upside of my inefficient creative workflow is that I enjoy sleeping on articles and mulling them over for days/weeks/months… I like slowly chipping away at them.

The bigger problem with my productivity is that I am just generally suffering from writer's block…. I am having trouble concentrating on writing. We are approaching the end of February, and I have only published 4 Substack articles this month, which is less than half the rate I would usually publish at. I’ve spent most days in February biting my knuckles and wondering why I am not writing. It’s not even that I am lacking ideas — I have a million ideas for columns to write — I just can’t bring myself to sit down and materialize them.

I think a big reason why is that I’m about to leave Mexico after spending 6 months here, and whenever I get to the tail end of living somewhere, I always seem to tune out for a couple of weeks in anticipation of moving. I will buckle down and redouble my efforts in my next location, but until then, I guess I will enjoy my remaining week in tropical paradise maximally.

All this to say: I am planning on conquering writer’s block shortly, it is not a big deal, bear with me. I will keep pumping out paywalled articles soon for paid subscribers, but I am not sure when, or how many.

Subscribe now

Vaporwave Redesign

A few weeks ago I ran this poll that shows most people want to keep the dark-mode:

I’ve received plenty of disgruntled feedback, though… it seems that the people who dislike dark-mode REALLY dislike it. So I’m going back to light-mode.

In fact, I am planning a total redesign of my logo and colour scheme in vaporwave aesthetic. For a rough example of what this vaporwave aesthetic will look like, see's logo:

Please note that I am not just blatantly copying him — I’ve been considering doing a vaporwave redesign for over a year, I just haven’t gotten around to it yet. I also told him that I was going to do a vaporwave colour scheme, and he was okay with it.

I’ll probably pay some graphic design freelancer a few bucks to do it for me, since I personally have the artistic ability of a potato. I’ve had good success using Upwork for sourcing these types of small gigs.

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Karlstack

Opinionated investigative journalism.

1. writes, which has 282 paid subscribers each paying $8.50 per month. He writes about futurism, quantum computing, startups, emerging technology trends, venture Capital and investing trends, and breaking news in business.

   

His growth tip:

"Leverage the Peer recommendation engine of recommendations and writer referrals on both Substack and beehiiv - you want as many Newsletter Creators recommending you as possible with the best in your niche recommending you in a reciprocal manner. Manage that mini-game as if your growth depended on it. This is because reciprocity validation is lead-gen growth with human feedback that is taking over from the algorithms. This is the key prime mover and the compounding factor of Newsletter growth."

2. writes, which has hundreds of paid subscribers paying $29.99 per month. SemiAnalysis is a boutique semiconductor research and consulting firm specializing in the semiconductor supply chain from chemical inputs to fabs to design IP and strategy.

   Note that the y-axis here is cut off — he was reluctant to provide me the exact number of subscribers, but he is listed in the top 5 technology substacks by revenue, so it is fair to assume at least a few hundred.

His growth tip:

“Don't write to cater to audiences you think will subscribe. Write content you think is amazing and the subscribers will come. Paywall every post, partially, but keep as much of those paywalled posts free as you can. My rule of thumb is usually 75% free, 25% free. It keeps free growing and paid too, in lockstep. Sometimes I do more paywalled or less.”

3. writeswhich has 5,993 paid subscribers at $10 per month. Astral Codex Ten is a blog focused on reasoning, science, psychiatry, medicine, ethics, genetics, AI, economics and politics.

For the first 2 writers on this list, I obtained their chart by reaching out to them and politely asking for it. Scott Alexander, in contrast, posted this article showing his progress:

Astral Codex Ten

2023 Subscription Drive + Free Unlocked Posts

Read more

3 years ago · 108 likes · 163 comments · Scott Alexander

If I had to guess what his advice is, it would be “be a famous blogger before you start Substack.”

4. writes, which has 12,595 paid subscribers paying $8 per month. That translates into a gross income of roughly 1.2 million USD. Slow Boring is a newsletter on the substantive, tactical, and strategic aspects of American politics and public policy.

I reached out for growth tips, but did not receive a response. As you can see above, I obtained his chart from a public tweet.

If I had to guess what his growth advice is, it is to be consistent. Yglesias has been blogging every day for 20+ years. He has certainly paid his dues.

5. writeswhich has 957 paid subscribers, each paying $12 per month. Every Thursday he publishes ~2000 words on making great software, working with people, and personal growth.

   

   His growth tip:

   “1) write more — I went from weekly to twice a week and growth increased a lot 2) leverage recommendations — reach out to other similar newsletters to swap recommendations, cross-post editions, and in general do more work together 3) use ads! – twitter ads work well for me, but so do other channels (I am told) like facebook, tiktok, or quora.”

6. writeswhich costs $6 per month. This is a newsletter written in Spanish, focused on business in Mexico.

   I did not speak to him directly, but he posted his chart on IndieHackers which shows that he has 1,038 paid subscribers. Or at least, he did have that many subscribers. This chart is 2 years out of date, so presumably it is higher now.

7. writeswhich has almost 7,000 subscribers paying $9.99 per month. Noahpinion is mostly about economics, but sometimes about other stuff like technology, geopolitics, and culture.

   

   He wrote an entire post elaborating on his growth strategy:

   On Substack

   Grow: Noah Smith’s “try before you buy” approach

   The Grow interview series is designed to share the nuts and bolts of how writers have gone independent and grown their audiences on Substack. This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity. We invited Noah Smith, who writes Noahpinion, to share insights on the key to growth: focusing on the free list and doing work that is sustainable…

   Read more

   4 years ago · 146 likes · 42 comments

8. writes, which has 3,323 subscribers each paying $5 per month. He is a Marxist "of an old-school variety" who writes about media criticism and critiques of progressive pathologies.

   This chart is 1 or 2 years out of date, and he did not respond when I reached out, so presumably it is higher now, but at the time he was making $182,894 gross income.

   

I obtained this chart from:

Freddie deBoer

State of the Newsletter, December 2021

By the numbers. Here are the numbers as of when I’m writing, though bear in mind that these bounce around a bit. It’s been essentially all growth since March but there have also definitely been some slower and hotter periods. The scale here is a little misleading; the little bumps and dips are a lot more pronounced when viewed at 30 or 90 day scales. Pr…

Read more

4 years ago · 105 likes · 145 comments · Freddie deBoer

9. writesand has 480 subscribers paying $14.99 per month. Apricitas is the Latin word for sunshine and sunniness. It’s a name that embodies the ethos of this blog: positivity, optimism, and a commitment to seeking truth through evidence.

Politano wrote an entire article describing his growth journey:

Investing On Substack

How writer recommendations unlocked growth for Joseph Politano

We invited Joseph Politano to share how Recommendations allowed him to go to full-time on his Substack Apricitas Economics. What questions do you have for Joseph? Leave them in the comments and we’ll ask Joseph live at this week’s Investing Happy Hour on Twitter Spaces…

Read more

3 years ago · 10 likes · 10 comments

10. Rachel Leingang and Hank Stephenson write , with 941 subscribers paying $12 per month. This is a daily political insider newsletter for political outsiders, run by two longtime local journalists. 

They wrote an entire article about their growth journey: A Substack-funded local news publication’s founders talk candidly about how things are going.

11. writeswith 83 paid subscribers at $12 per month. The purpose of this newsletter is "to document my journey buying, growing and selling Micro-SaaS products."

    This chart is slightly out of date.

12. writes, with 181,567 free subscribers and an unknown amount of paid subscribers -- but we know that at least 10,000 of them are paying $15/month, since he has a blue checkmark. This is the #1 technology newsletter on Substack, and is highly relevant for software engineers and engineering managers, useful for those working in tech.

    

    He wrote an entire post elaborating on his growth strategy, where he says:

    “Respect the time of readers. There is no shortage of fluffy writing that says very little with a lot of words. And every day, there are more and more newsletters, blogs, and content out there. Write about something interesting and do this in a concise way. Make it easy for readers to digest what you intend to get across: may this be using short sentences, images, or clever formatting of the text.”

13. writes, with 250,000+ free subscribers and an unknown amount of paid subscribers. Every week, he tackles reader questions about product, growth, career growth, and anything else that’s stressing you out at the office.

Most of his growth comes from the Substack network effect.

14. writes , "Une newsletter sur la finance, l'économie et les cryptos avec une approche plus pratique que théorique."

    

    He says:

    “Price is : 6€/month, 60€/year Revenue paid (yearly) : around 250K€ Revenue sponsorships (yearly) : around 150K€

    Main « hacks »: A lot of transparency and build in public Highly differentiated from other newsletters (branding, tone of voice, etc.). Good content to increase word of mouth.”

15. writes , with 700 paid subscribers at $5 per month. He is "a writer and editor at Chronicles: A Magazine of American Culture and a senior fellow at the American Principles Project. I publish original writing and analysis on this Substack that you won’t find anywhere else."

    He just hit 700 paid subscribers.

    Contra

    Thank You for 700!

    You may have noticed I’ve started promoting my Substack lately and producing more content. It’s paying off: I broke 700 paid subscribers last night. Thank you to everyone, old and new, who supports my work. I quite literally couldn’t do it without you. Paid subscriptions help me produce more reporting and analysis here. It a…

    Read more

    3 years ago · 30 likes · 5 comments · Pedro L. Gonzalez

    He told me:

    “My main thing, what I offer to readers, is quality over quantity. I think it takes longer to grow that way but the foundation will ultimately be stronger. I've also made it a point to communicate that explicitly with my readers: I do not believe in content for the sake of content.”

16. Michael Fritzell writes which has 282 paid subscribers, each paying $34.90 per month. Asian Century Stocks is a newsletter providing financial journalism for companies and stocks in the Asia-Pacific.

His growth tip:

“My number one growth tip is to find the places online or offline where your target audience hangs out. And then make yourself known to those individuals. For finance-related Substacks, you might want to contact journalists at Bloomberg or CNBC. For tech-related Substacks, perhaps you'll want to market yourself on Reddit or Hacker News. It all depends on where your target audience hangs out.”

17. writes, with just over 1,000 paid subscribers at $5.99 each. MatchQuarters brings you the latest in football trends right to your mailbox.

His growth tip:

“My advice is to consistently add value to your work; have a purpose. My purpose is to make the complex game of football simple and to give coaches and fans the ability to grow in their knowledge of the game.”

18. writes, with nearly 150 paid subscribers at $35/month. This is a daily newsletter covering thoughts on market conditions from the perspective of a Professional Trader.

His growth tip:

“Find a community of like minded influencers in your niche. Interact with them daily and boost the growth of everyone. Not only will you gain traffic but will have many more perspectives for content. This makes the journey far more enjoyable and can improve your content significantly. My way to connect with others has been through Twitter.”

19. writes , "The best Colorado Avalanche/NHL coverage and analysis, and other musings." He has 394 paid subscribers at $5 per month.

He says:

“I had a built-in advantage to many others, with a 28 year history of covering the same team for other outlets. But my growth strategy has always been: write from the heart, try to be different from the conventional wisdom and be as authentic from behind the keyboard as possible.”

20. writes , a newsletter about market commentary, investment ideas and more. He has 198 paid subscribers at £25 per month.

He told me:

“My biggest bursts of unpaid subscriptions have come when other writers recommend my letter, or when I write something that catches a nerve and the article gets shared a lot. Plugging the letter on other publications and on podcasts also helps too. But to be honest I'm hopeless at marketing and I do very little to shill the letter. I just produce content as well as I can. I think you can send out too many articles if you're not careful. I try to send no more than two per week. My best period for getting paid subscribers was in the late winter and spring of 2022 when metals were doing really well. Second half of 2022 was horrible for those markets and understandably subscriptions dropped off. Markets have turned a bit in our favour again so subscriptions have picked up. I need to write a letter that is more resistant to downturns in commodities prices I've found the a good technique of getting people to go paid to put something that readers really want to know, a valuable bit of information, after the paywall. Many convert simply because they want to know that bit of information.”

21. writes , a community celebrating all things pasta-making and -eating, with recipes. Make ravioli, make friends! She has nearly 200 paid subscribers at $6 per month.

She says:

“In terms of tips, my focus as I've eased into Substack has been quality over quantity. I'm planning to increase my post cadence this year, but because pasta-making is such a labor of love, I put a lot of time and energy into each recipe, including step-by-step images and videos so readers feel confident when cooking at home. I want to make sure you learn something new every time you read my newsletter. I also think having a niche has always served me well--people know exactly what to expect when they subscribe to my newsletter.”

22. writes , a unique perspective on bitcoin and altcoins from a top crypto writer. He has 764 each paying $22 per month.

Hilariously, his subscriber chart mirrors the Bitcoin price almost perfectly.

He says:

“Say something others aren’t saying in a voice that’s authentic. With so many amazing creators and stellar newsletters competing for your readers’ time, you either need to do “better” work than they do or deliver something different so readers appreciate your unique or special talents. I took the latter path. Also, publish on free platforms like Medium or websites that cater readers in your particular niche. Along with recommendations from other Substack newsletter, that helps grow your audience.”

23. writes , which is "one of the longest running blogs about the future since 2006." He just shifted this blog to Substack a couple of months ago, and already has 121 paid subscribers at $5/month or $50/year.

His growth tips:

1. Write a great column once a week for all subscribers. People will sample you for free before they become paid subscribers

2. Offer extra stuff for paid and more on top of that for Founding Members. Since I write books, speak and advise about the future, I brought that into the two levels. Paid subscribers get four things that free subscribers do not get: ability to read all posts, the ability to comment, a free one of my Books as a downloadable PDF every year and the opportunity to participate in my monthly virtual book clubs. Founding members get all that paid subs do PLUS two signed print books mailed a year [within continental US] and two 30-minute phone or Zoom calls a year to discuss what they want to discuss about the future

3. Recommend other Substack writers

4. Cross-post with other writers whose posts you like or are aligned with what your audience is getting from you

5. Send a personal email to every paid or Founding Member subscript. Thank them, ask them how they found my newsletter, and ask what interests them about the future. 

24. writes , a newsletter teaching you how to learn and contribute to the web3 data ecosystem. This newsletter began just 2 months ago, and already has 1,283 free subscribers.

He says:

“The biggest tip is to choose a niche and try and build up a mix of content that's a mix of easy to read + interesting and harder to read + useful. I also built up my Twitter first, since its easier to build a following here and then launch on other sources (Twitter discovery > anything else because it's more likely big accounts will retweet or engage with you).”

25. is written by yours truly. I have 172 paid subscribers at $6.99 per month.

Subscribe now

If I could offer one tip that nobody has said yet, it would be… have thick skin. Here are my new paid subscribers (blue & green bars) compared to my unsubscribes (red & orange bars).

When you are a new writer, every unsubscribe is going to sting.

It will feel like the end of the world.

But they aren’t going to stop unsubscribing; churn is just part of the game.

With thousands of subscribers, everything you write is going to piss off *someone*, especially when you write about politics.

You need to put your head down, believe in yourself, keep putting out content that you believe in, and trust that new subscribers will more than replace the old subscribers.

Good luck.

If you are thinking about starting a Substack, feel free to use my referral code:

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26. Finally, you should subscribe to who writes . Today was his first day on Substack, and he has just written his first article!

    He doesn’t have any subscribers yet, so show him some love.

Mental Disorder

The science and politics of mental health

By Jonah Davids

The lesson here is that you will never grow your Substack unless you just start writing.

Many people dream of writing, but most are paralyzed by indecision and fear.

All you need to do is start.

I have big things planned for 2023! The future is bright, unlike this new color scheme.

This is the year Karlstack takes the next step. I started this Substack in May 2021 as a hobby, and transitioned to full-time in March 2022. It has been a learning process where I’ve made more mistakes than I care to admit, but also learned the corresponding lessons. Here is what this looks like in term of subscriber growth, where the red line is when I went full-time:

Karlstack

Opinionated investigative journalism.

These 3,626 free subscribers translate into 155 paid subscribers — good for a 4.3% conversion rate. As per Substack’s official “Guide to Going Paid,” We tend to see 5-10% of free subscribers convert to paying subscriptions, with 10% being a rate to aim for.” I think my 4.3% conversion is relatively good in this context because I barely provide any paywalled content whatsoever, just one or two articles here or there. I think I can double my conversion rate.

This is one of the things I struggled with this past year, the decision of what to paywall. Sometimes I will tell myself (or I will even tell my subscribers) that I will paywall more articles, then I will write an article with the intention of sending it to only paid subscribers, but once I put in the work and step back to look at the finished product, it feels like such a shame to send it to dozens of paid subs rather than to thousands, that when the moment of truth arrives I invariably click “send to all.”

I guess I value my own ego rather than valuing providing value to my paid subscribers. That is something I want to change, and now that I am getting hundreds of paid subscribers, I think I can comfortably shift my mindset from “drat, nobody will read this if I paywall it,” to, “great! hundreds people will read it if I paywall it!”

To that end, I am moving to a new system where I put out one paid-only article every Sunday.

One big reason I felt this change was necessary is to give my life some structure. It’s chaotic/stressful/anxiety-inducing following a “click publish as soon as you are done writing” schedule because my mind immediately goes to the next one. I can never relax.

Another reason is that it’s simply more professional to have set publishing days, which sets consistent expectations with readers. If you read any of the guides written by “growth experts” on how to grow a successful Substack, the most important key is always to set a consistent posting schedule and stick to it. Initially I flaunted this advice because I thought I was too cool, I thought I was a maverick for posting at random times on random days, but I am man enough to admit when I am wrong.

More generally, I just like the idea of becoming a Sunday columnist. I crave structure.

To receive my 52 paid-subscribers-only Sunday articles in 2023, consider becoming a paid subscriber. My first paid-only Sunday article will be released next Sunday, 7 days from now, and it will be titled, “The Federal Reserve Goes Woke 2: Electric Boogaloo.”

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Washington Free Beacon Names Karlstack “2022 Man of the Year ”

It was surreal to wake up this morning to see this from a semi-legit outlet:

I was confused for a few seconds before figuring out it was a sarcastic, sneering hitpiece. Their hitpiece is divided into 2 parts. First, they make fun of me for only lasting at the Daily Caller for 3 months before flaming out, and second they shit on me because I shit on their owner, billionaire Paul Singer.

God forbid anyone such as myself suggest that CIA has any assets planted in the journalism world. Its so funny how the Free Beacon guy got his parents to get him endorsements from multiple fucking ex-CIA directors, but you’re not allowed to point out that’s fishy lest the GOP slime machine write a half-baked hit piece on you.

It’s very on-the-nose that I shit on them for being a deepstate GOP slime machine, and they respond by sliming me at the behest of deepstate GOP operatives. It kind of proves my point?

Here is my response:

All in all, very weird episode. Very out of left field.

You might ask, who cares about this inside baseball BS? A random, petty personal grudge isn’t newsworthy. This isn’t news!

The answer is that apparently nobody cares.

Their article has gotten 8 likes from their ~152,000 Twitter followers.

To Preview, or not to Preview?

Whenever I’ve sent paid-only articles so far, I sent them to paid subscribers only, so free subscribers would have no clue that these articles even exist.

For example, I wrote this paywalled article which I’ve unpaywalled so free subscribers can read it now:

Karlstack

The American Economic Journal Goes Woke

This full article is available to paid subscribers only: I want to begin this article by stressing that I really don’t care about “lynching.” It is not an interesting / relevant topic, and I especially never cared because I am Canadian and in the entire history of Canada, there was…

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4 years ago · 9 likes · 4 comments · Karlstack

I notice a common practice by many authors, and for example, is to send their paywalled articles to free subscribers. Only the first couple of paragraphs are free before you hit the paywall. I have 2 minds about this: I am sure this teasing is extremely effective in converting free subscribers to paid, but it’s also annoying to be sent a paywalled teaser.

What do you think I should do every Sunday?

Have you been thinking about starting your own Substack?

If you click this button, you can start your own Substack that will be officially referred by Karlstack.

What this means that you’ll appear at the top of my Substack page, it looks like this:

This will appear at the top of my Substack page, too. So, if you don't have any audience, over the course of the next year this presumably will be a small boon to your growth because people will organically stumble onto your Substack from my Substack.

Creator Economy Tips

What is a Substack Writer Referral?

Hey Everyone, I’ll admit I’m bullish on Substack’s testing of referrals. To compete with beehiiv in the long-run, it will need to get good with Substack Boost, Substack Meetings, and Substack Writer Referrals, among other things. If you go to your profile on Substack, and open the tab you will notice …

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3 years ago · 1 like · Michael Spencer

If you don’t want to be affiliated with me, that’s cool too. You can probably reach out to literally any Substack writer and ask for their referral code and they will give it to you. It will probably be more effective for your growth to be referred by someone extremely famous.

On Public Speaking

The biggest professional weakness I have is public speaking. It’s held me back in terms of growth — every few weeks I get invited on podcasts, streams or even TV, and I always say no. If I could just say yes, I would be way ahead of where I am now in terms of subscribers.

Obviously the solution is to rip off the bandaid and just do it. Easier said than done. I’ve been working up to this for a long time, and think I will start saying yes to these requests in 2023. Part of my hesitation is that I wonder who would want to listen to me speak? But I guess if I am already getting the invites, the proof is in the pudding. I just need to be cockier.

The State of Travelling

14 weeks ago I fled Canada. First stop: Mexico.

I didn’t like Cancun.

I learned that the only reason to go there is to chill in the “Hotel Zone,” which is a secluded strip of hotels on a nice beach and nothing else. This is what the beach looks like:

The problem is that I couldn’t afford to live in the hotel zone (no AirBnBs there, and didn’t want to pay a hotel rate), so I lived downtown with the townie population, which was, in a word, a shithole. It was kind of charming to hear stray cats fighting in the alley outside my window every night, but it got old quickly.

So after a few weeks living in downtown Cancun I moved to a smaller beachtown a couple of hours away, and this town is muuuuch more the vibe I was looking for. I’ve been here for the past couple of months and I enjoy it so much that I extended my stay for 3 more months. The building I am at long-term has a really nice roof, which is where I often hangout and write.

Here is my WFH office:

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I’ll actually be working/writing/researching for Substack full-time & every day during this period, I’ll be grinding away (many of my articles require mountains of research, so it makes sense to plan them out weeks in advance), but email open rates during Christmas/New Years are rock bottom. It therefore makes more sense for me to build up a backlog of content that I can roll out in 2023, when people are paying attention… I will be going hard in 2023.

If there is any important breaking news over the next 1-2 weeks, I will cover it.

In the meantime, a Karlstack gift subscription would be the perfect gift for the grumpy professor in your life who despises research misconduct, as well as the perfect gift to me. I have 150 paid subscribers now and I value each and every one of them tremendously. Thank you so much.

Give a gift subscription

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Merry Christmas.

On Substack

Introducing the Substack Bestseller badge

Today we’re introducing a way to see, at just a glance, whether or not someone is a top-performing writer on Substack: Bestseller badges. A Bestseller badge sits alongside a writer’s byline and is displayed on their Substack profile, ranking them in one of three categories according to how many paid subscribers they have…

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4 years ago · 241 likes · 558 comments

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I have 100+ paid subscribers, so my landing page has been granted one:

Same with my headlines:

Same with my comments:

Once I hit 1,000+ paid subscribers, this pale orange checkmark will upgrade to bright orange, like :

Once I hit 10,000+ paid subscribers, it will upgrade to bright blue, like :

I have the option to turn off the checkmark:

Let’s examine that option.

The Case Against The Checkmark

The Substack community *hates* the checkmarks… there was immediate backlash.

Eclecticism: Reflections on literature and life

Substack badges? What a rotten idea!

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3 years ago · 23 likes · 39 comments · Terry Freedman

It’s hard for me to disagree with this general sentiment — writers are not merely “content creators,” they are artists, and the skill or worth of an artist is not properly measured by a popularity contest; just because Lil’ Wayne sells more records than Mozart, for example, doesn’t mean that Lil’ Wayne is a superior artist. In fact, the most highbrow writing will naturally only appeal to an elite few, while the most lowbrow writing will appeal to the lowest common denominator. In that sense, these new verification badges are a race towards the bottom.

Not to mention that the gamification aspect of these badges is just… gauche. Would Nietzsche submit himself to “gamification”? Would Hunter S. Thompson? Would Kierkegaard? Would Hemmingway? Would Bukowski?

In August 2006, Grigori Perelman was offered the Fields Medal (basically the Nobel prize in math), but he declined the award, stating: "I'm not interested in money or fame; I don't want to be on display like an animal in a zoo." Perhaps Perelman was inspired by Sinclair Lewis, an author who declined the 1926 Pulitzer Prize, who wrote:

“All prizes, like all titles, are dangerous. The seekers for prizes tend to labor not for inherent excellence but for alien rewards: they tend to write this, or timorously to avoid writing that, in order to tickle the prejudices of a haphazard committee.

…

Between the Pulitzer Prizes … every compulsion is put upon writers to become safe, polite, obedient, and sterile. In protest, I declined election to the National Institute of Arts and Letters some years ago, and now I must decline the Pulitzer Prize.

I invite other writers to consider the fact that by accepting the prizes and approval of these vague institutions we are admitting their authority, publicly confirming them as the final judges of literary excellence, and I inquire whether any prize is worth that subservience.”

Alpha.

Again, hard for me to point out any flaws with Perelman’s or Lewis’ logic here. I am jealous of their resolve.

Perhaps the most salient point, though — that which would make me a hypocrite — is that I deeply resented/hated the blue-check elites on Twitter for the past several years. They acted like their blue-check made them better than everyone, that they were “above” the masses somehow, and this elitist spirit fundamentally conflicts with the populist spirit of Karlstack. Who am I to put myself in a class “above” anyone else’s Substack?

Verification badges on Substack engender a winner-take-all dynamic where the rich get richer, and the poor stay poor… the exact same dynamic that plays out on Twitter, Instagram, TikTok, etc. Substack had a chance to do something fresh and different, but chose the default social media path, chose to highlight the already-big names at the expense of new/unknown/obscure authors. This is an elitist caste system, and it’s especially puzzling and off-brand because Substack has long portrayed themselves as champions of the little guy.

The Case For The Checkmark

The difference between a Substack badge and a Pulitzer Prize, Fields Medal, or even an old-school Twitter blue-check is that while the latter are bestowed by subjective committees, the former is decided by people voting with their wallets. The only way to earn a Substack badge is to get 100 people to pay for your writing. So, in that sense, if I kept the badge I would still be a “Substack of the people” because the people are voting to support it.

Substack CEO Chris Best describes this dynamic as follows:

On one hand, he makes a good point. On the other hand, what he fails to mention is that by promoting writers who make the most money, Substack is simply maximizing their own revenues. It’s easy to be cynical, then, about the prospect of him doing this for philosophical reasons rather than fiduciary reasons.

Lucily, I’m a beneficiary of this fiduciary goodwill. Over the long-term I am sure that being on the bestseller list will be a boon to Karlstack’s growth. Social proof works. One of the best ways to make more money is to tell people you’re already making money.

This is obviously a good thing for me because I’m trying to earn a living as a writer, so any accelerated growth is more than welcome. It’s easy for Grigori Perelman to decline a $1 million prize when he has a well-paying gig as a university professor; it’s harder for me to turn down a few extra subscribers when I am already a starving artist.

You could argue that I put in the work, so I deserve the checkmark, and I should even feel proud of it. I grinded in obscurity from 0 subscribers to where I am today simply by writing hundreds of articles, putting in thousands of hours of work, teaching myself to be a better writer, and doing all the marketing myself.

The grim reality of the writing world — that nobody who loudly complains about the checkmark wants to admit to themselves — is that most writers are not popular for a reason: most writers are bad, or write about stuff that nobody cares about. Why would Substack want to promote bad or uninteresting writers? That would just drive readers away from the platform.

99% of Substackers will never achieve 10 paid subscribers; let alone 100 paid subscribers… but among those 99%, I get the sense that there aren’t… exactly… too many… Hemmingway diamonds lost in the rough. At some point, if you have a tiny audience after years of hard work, it’s your fault. The cream tends to rise to the top.

What I’ve noticed about the new generation of Substack writers is that they seem to expect that the Substack head office should funnel them a constant stream of new subscribers just for showing up. They see big/established accounts being beneficiaries of the powerful network effect, and they feel entitled to the same network effect. Guess what: you shouldn’t rely on Substack, you should only ever rely on yourself. You should only ever view subscribers gained via the network effect as a nice little bonus on top.

Here is my advice to accounts that haven’t earned a verification badge yet but feel they have the skill/potential/ability to deserve one: rather than complain about those who have earned one, simply work harder and write better articles. Pull yourself up by your bootstraps. That’s what I did. Yeah, it’s unpleasant and requires toiling away for years in obscurity. Did you think becoming a famous writer was going to be easy? Get back to work and stop complaining. Life isn’t fair.

Conclusion

I’m on the fence… I don’t know… maybe I’m overthinking it.

What do you think?

Leave a comment

Here is the previous update:

Karlstack

🚨Karlstack Hits 100 Paid Subscribers🚨

Tonight I hit a big milestone… 100 paid subscribers! Free subscribers are also growing steadily, here is the past 90 days…

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4 years ago · 19 likes · 9 comments · Chris Brunet

Many readers find it illuminating, interesting or otherwise intriguing to follow me on my road towards becoming a professional writer.

If you don’t care about this journey, here is a reminder: Karlstack is split up into 5 sections: Economics, Academia, Politics, Crypto and Personal. To opt-out of this “Personal” section you can click the “Settings” button (at the top right corner of your screen) and then click “Manage Subscriptions.”

You’ll notice that I changed my tagline from “opinionated investigative journalism” to “guerilla gonzo journalism”

Karlstack

Guerilla gonzo journalism

By Chris Brunet

A large reason why I quit my job as a investigative journalist in the mainstream media was that I do not believe objectivity or unbiasedness in journalism is attainable, or even desirable.

I felt like a total clown every day writing “impartial” mainstream stories, knowing full-well I wasn’t impartial in the least. The cognitive dissonance drove me insane — in my mind, I wasn’t any better than an MSNBC or CNN reporter surreptitiously shoving woke narratives down America’s throat. I wasn’t living my truth. I felt like a fraud. So I quit.

Hunter S. Thompson said in an interview with The Atlantic. "Objective journalism is one of the main reasons American politics has been allowed to be so corrupt for so long. You can't be objective about Nixon"

I don’t know enough about Nixon to comment, but I agree with the general sentiment — I simply can’t remain objective about wokeness, academic fraud, political corruption, or central bank digital currencies — malignant cancers all.

I don’t have the resources, clout, experience, access, or reach of the mainstream media, but Thompson turned those liabilities into assets, mostly by ignoring journalistic norms and telling the unvarnished truth as he understood it. I arrive at the truth in much the same way.

Substack permits me the freedom to seek truth, to rant and rave to my heart’s desire, to be nakedly partisan and polemic, to attack whoever I want, to insert myself into the story — you may have noticed that I have a penchant for making myself the protagonist, which is the last thing a professional journalist is supposed to do. I’ve gradually developed this style over the past year… little did I know that what I was doing was becoming a gonzo journalist.

I actually didn’t know what the term “gonzo journalism” meant up until this week, I had vaguely heard the term before, but didn’t know the definition. I suppose if I had attended journalism school I would’ve been taught about it, but instead I organically reverse-engineered it by mistake.

As per Wikipedia:

As per Random House dictionary:

That describes Karlstack perfectly. I often get people criticizing the chaotic stream-of-consciousness format of my articles, and I always respond that this Substack isn’t classical music, this is more like jazz.

Much like I stumbled upon gonzo journalism by mistake, so too did it’s founder Hunter S. Thompson. His 1970 article The Kentucky Derby is Decadent and Depraved is generally considered to be the first true gonzo; he expected it to be a flop, but compared its unexpectedly popular reception to “falling down an elevator shaft into a pool full of mermaids.” Same with Karlstack; I just started writing in my own voice and was fortunate enough to fall down an elevator shaft into a pool of 3,244 mermaids:

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This growth has been unexpected, almost haphazard, and there was nothing inevitable about this mild amount of success.

Hell, maybe I’ll start doing a bunch of drugs.

One other similarity between Thompson and I is that he began his career as a writer bumming around in Puerto Rico, Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, etc. As described in the article Chasing the Origins of Gonzo in South America, “After a year in South America he came back with impressive clips, hard-earned reporting chops, admirers at big publications, and the new conviction that he was a serious journalist”

So while he stumbled through South America to seek his literary fortune, so do I.

Of course, it is unbelievably cocky and delusional for me to make these comparisons to Hunter S. Thompson. Many would say that gonzo journalism is sui generis because of its creator; thus, with his death, it could no longer continue.

I disagree. The flame of gonzo journalism must be kept alive at all costs (despite the fact that I only found out it existed this week, lol). On that note, to keep the flame burning, please consider becoming my 141st paid subscriber:

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You may have noticed that I just raised the price for a subscription from $5 to $6.99.

I did this because these 140 paid subscribers @ $5 translate into an annualized salary of $8,000 USD.

Life in the Global South is cheap but it’s not *that* cheap — despite popular belief, I am not a trust fund kid, in fact I am rather poor, which is the entire point of moving here — to stretch out my savings as long as possible so that I can pursue a writing career.

I live modestly and am on the verge of breaking even on my monthly expenses; meaning that by giving myself a a 40% raise, I will instantly cross the personal finance threshold from “slowly bleeding money” (I’ve been bleeding money for my past 6 months as a full-time Substack writer) to “slowly saving money.” Big milestone for me.

Over the next couple of years I am planning to keep growing exponentially as I become the world’s premier gonzo journalist (can you name a single other one? I might already be it), but until then, yeah it would be great if existing subscribers could chip in an additional $1.99 per month. This amount is presumably meaningless to you, but a 40% raise is tangible to me.

Gracias.

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