Three Years of Blogging
I’ve now been blogging1 for three years. This last year has been a further year of growth, with some major highlights and the feeling that it’s now begun to grow into a real, if still small, community.
By the numbers, I now have a little over 1250 subscribers, or more than two and a half times as many as a year ago.2 I’ve written 56 posts.3 Every post this year has had over 1,000 views, and half of my last ten have had more than double that. Since this time last year the site has been viewed over 130,000 times - all of which continues to feel like a tremendous privilege, for which I remain deeply grateful.
There are now 13 other substacks recommending this one. If you do have your own substack, and enjoy reading mine, please do consider adding me as a recommendation - it’s one of the most helpful things you could do.
In terms of my patented4 ‘tier’ system, this was the year I levelled up from a Tier 2 to a Tier 3 blog:
Tier 0 (1-9)5: You have a blog! Well done! It’s read by your Mum, your brother and your best mate.
Tier 1: (10-99): Tribal bard. Your readership is in the tens, mainly people you know and see regularly, plus perhaps a few others.
Tier 2: (100-999): Small community. Your blog is read by hundreds of people, including many people you don’t know. You’ve broken out of your ‘personal contacts’ space. In the grand scheme of things though, it’s still pretty small.
Tier 3 (1000-9,999): Large community. Thousands of people read your blog every week. You’re likely to be known and cited within a particular specialism, field or hobby, though probably not outside it.
Tier 4 (10,000 - 99,999): Global or national reach. Tens of thousands of people ready your blog; it will be shared many times each week. It’s likely that some of those readers are influential, or speak of it to others. Yours is a name that other people may have heard of, in that if someone says, ‘I was reading X’s blog’ to a stranger, they might know of it.
While still at the lower end of Tier 36, it really does feel like I’ve levelled up since a year ago. The blog has been referenced in the Financial Times, the I paper and in Schools Week. The forecasting contest received 376 entries, making it the largest of its kind in the UK that I’m aware of. I swung at least a couple of dozen votes7 in the Cambridge Chancellor election. Most posts now receive a lively set of comments, often with people responding to each other.
In terms of where subscribers are based, the UK still accounts for the lion’s share, but I now have more than 100 subscribers in the US, more than ten in multiple countries, including Canada, Australia, Spain and Germany - and at least 1 in a great diversity, from Slovenia to Japan to Chile.
Some of the most successful posts of the last year include:
Giants and Heroes - on who we choose to remember from history.
We need a NICE for education - on the SEND crisis.
The Scopes Monkey Trial of our time - on the trans debate
Britain Isn’t Working (in three parts) - on the rise of Reform.
Seven Public Policy Rules of Thumb - on guidelines for making public policy.
We Too, Are Elves - on falling global birthrates
Once again, a tremendous thanks to all who read, subscribe, lurk, comment, recommend and share. And if you’re an avid reader, please do take the time to recommend this to a friend or share on social media - I rely on word of mouth for my audience.
This time round.
Over the last few months growth has switched from looking exponential to linear, which sadly means I can no longer joke about having the entire world as a subscriber by the early 2030s. However, it is still growing!
Again, narrowly exceeding my ‘at least once a week on average’ goal.
Not actually patented
Either subscribers, or typical readers of a post - to date, mine have marched in lockstep.
And recognising that divisions based on powers of 10 are entirely arbitrary.
At least; this is based on direct personal feedback.
Well done, any update on the forecasts or is that for the new year ?