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It’s now six months since I turned on paid subscriptions for Looking Sideways. I wrote extensively about why I did this here:
So I thought I’d write a quick post reflecting on the experience, while also explaining how you can win up to a YEAR’S paid subscription for free, merely by sharing your favourite posts and episodes with people you think might be into it. Let’s have a gander…
Long-term listeners and readers will know that over the years I’ve a bit of an outlier in the podcast community for eschewing the classic ‘shit local radio ad read’ revenue stream that inexplicably seems to be the main business model across the industry.
Why? I chatted about it at length in that piece I linked above, but the upshot is that I wanted to find a way of financing Looking Sideways that DIDN’T involve spamming peoples’ ears with shite ads that wouldn’t make the cut on local radio, circa 1980.
Instead, I experimented with different things. I partnered with one of my best mates Owen to make a critically-acclaimed book. I set up a brand partnership with Patagonia that enabled me to make 30 episodes of my Type 2 podcast, and which I used to finance the wider podcast. I took on interesting projects with progressive partners such as Db, which enabled me to start the Db Fund and carry out live interviews with the likes of Chris Burkard, for example.
Then, in June 2022, I shifted the entire Looking Sideways editorial ecosystem to Substack. One reason was that I was fired up to start writing properly again, in a way I hadn’t really been since I semi-retired the journalist card to focus on my business
back in 2014.I also loved the way that Substack seemed to be a really natural home for the passionate Looking Sideways community that have supported my work since I started this thing back in April 2017. It seemed like it’d be a way better fit than Patreon, for example, which always looked really unwieldy and like a proper ballache.
That first six months went so well that in January 2023 I decided to go all in and turn on paid subscriptions. I had no idea how it would go, so the first thing I did was gift around 100 subscriptions to particularly loyal supporters and listeners (I’m still getting slightly bemused and delighted emails from some of these listeners and readers to this day).
In the subsequent six months, to my endless surprise and delight, hundreds of other listeners and readers have opted to back the show with a paid subscription. So many, in fact, that the other week Substack gave me one of their shiny Bestseller icons. Which was nice. And those numbers grow every month, enabling me to expand what I do and pay the people who help me do it.
The result is that the Looking Sideways eco-system has grown to become so much more than the podcast it originally was.
Here are some numbers from the last 12 months:
1 episode of Roundtable, my new panel discussion show exclusively for paid subscribers
31 episodes of Looking Sideways (including episode 200!)
7 episodes of Type 2
4 bonus episodes
52 editions of 10 Things, my weekly must-read round-up of that week’s essential industry news and links
11 Open Threads
12 guest articles (yes, they were all paid or offered payment thanks to my subscribers, although a fair number of people refused to take payment)
20 articles by me.
10 exclusive contests with prizes from the likes of Patagonia, Db, Finisterre, Yeti and Goodrays.
The Db Fund! Through which two winners are now being mentored and received a €5k prize to make their creative dreams a reality. I’m pretty proud of that one.
Yep. Paid subscribers get all that, which is LOT of LS conny for about £1.50 a week. And free subscribers, who are equally important to the community, receive every episode of Looking Sideways and every edition of 10 Things as a minimum.
And, as I’ve said before, that community that has grown up around LS really is my favourite thing about it. I’ve never been interested in chasing numbers, growth or revenue for the sake of it. God knows I’ve made that mistake over the years, and I was pretty determined not to do that with Looking Sideways.
Instead, from the beginning, I was interested in making something interesting, sharing knowledge and ideas, and sparking discussions with a sector of the outdoor and action sports community I suspected was sorely underserved by the rest of action sports media.
So to say thanks to that community, and give listeners who have yet to dip a toe into the paid universe an incentive, I’m going to use Substack’s new Referral scheme to offer free subscriptions and some nice bonus extras to listeners and readers who want to help me spread the word.
Here’s how it is going to work
1. Share Looking Sideways: 10 Things. Use the ‘Refer a friend’ or ‘share’ buttons to share this or any favourite post or podcast with a friend who you think might dig what I do here at Looking Sideways. If they sign up, you get credit for any new subscribers that signed up via you links. (Substack, gamifying keenos that they are, have also come up with a ‘leaderboard’ feature if you like the type of thing).
2. Get rewarded for doing this. When people sign up (either free or paid), you’ll get the following:
5 referrals: 3 months complementary paid membership
10 referrals: 6 months complementary paid membership, plus a copy of Looking Sideways Vol. 1
25 referrals: 12 months complementary paid membership, plus a mentoring session from me, if that would be at all useful.
That’s, er, it. Pretty simple, right? Basically, if you’re interested in a paid subscription, but can’t afford it, share a few links and you’ll get a freebie.
From the beginning, Looking Sideways has relied on word-of-mouth and recommendations, rather than me banging out clout-chasing social clips (OK I did try that for a while), ads (and that) or Reels (nope).
I think that’s one reason why it remains a refreshingly bellend-free zone, and is instead full of like-minded people interested only in sharing their passion for this sideways gig that has us all hooked, while debating and exchanging interesting knowledge and ideas. (Rather than, you know, arguing below the line about the type of nonsense that drives clicks across the rest of t’internet).
Anyway, if you want to help name expand that community by sharing with a friend or on social media, while earning yourself some nice perks in the process, that’d be ace.
I mean there must be more of us out there, surely….