In 2005, I was laid off from my last “real” magazine job (as the associate editor at Organic Style, a women’s lifestyle magazine owned by Rodale that was absolutely the proto-Goop you are imagining) and decided to take my tiny severance package, buy a tiny desk for our tiny Harlem apartment, and start freelance writing. It was terrifying; I woke up at 4am in a panic for months, and would just start working, right there in bed. I also began running obsessively because losing weight somehow made me feel less unemployed. (In retrospect, 24-year-old me should have spent that desk money on therapy. Almost 20 years later, I’m still unpacking my perfectionism shit.) But it was also exhilarating. And the smartest thing I did that year, on the advice/insistence of my mother, was write a business plan.
It’s a practice I’ve maintained ever since. If you want to thoroughly geek out about how to write a freelance business plan, here is the start of an ancient series I wrote for Medium about it. (Here’s part 2 and there were more parts and they are possibly lost to the depths of the Internet, sorry!) The short version is: I set goals for every year, both professional (what kinds of stories do I want to write? Am I working on a book? Am I trying another medium like podcasting?) and financial (how much money does my family need me to make, and now, how much money do I want Burnt Toast to make in total so I can cover my Substack and Stripe fees, pay my contributors, give honorariums to podcast guests and so on).
But first, I look back on the year that was, to reflect on what worked and learn from what didn’t. And I thought this year, I’d share that piece of the planning process with all of you.
So Who Are We Now?
When I wrote 2021’s end of the year post, this community was a little over 10,000 strong. As I reported in November, we recently broke 20,000—and as of this writing we are 22,288. Doubling the list was my target for 2022, so I’m pretty pleased to have blown right past that goal.
I reported on the demographics of this list in June and I’ll wait a few more months before I pester you with another survey. But I know from your emails and comments that we are doing very well on age, sexual orientation, and body size diversity, and much less well on racial diversity. That’s something I’ll continue to push myself on next year. (We also don’t have a lot of cis, straight men readers but I admit, I don’t lose sleep over that. We are glad to have the dudes who are here!)
10.6 percent of you are paid subscribers, and we’re currently giving out almost 100 comps. (If you want to join the paid community but can’t swing the subscription price, just email virginiasolesmith.assistant@gmail.com and we’ll add you, no questions asked!) 10 percent is the average Substack conversion rate, so I feel fine about that and yet also, of course, am laser-focused on how we can increase it. That isn’t just about my income: Growing paid subscribers is how I grow my ability to hire contributors and technical support, to compensate podcast guests for their time and labor with honorariums, and to just generally think bigger and more flexibly about what Burnt Toast can be. At the end of this year, Substack is also wrapping up their financial support of the podcast and a few other writer perks, like my Getty Images subscription—so those are recurring business expenses that the newsletter will now bear.
I have several ongoing text conversations with fellow Substack writers and we talk a lot about that 10 percent average and why some newsletters achieve much higher conversion rates. (Lots of awe for Morning Person Leslie Stephens right now.) Strategic use of paywalls is certainly a big part of it. There is one school of thought that you should make most of your content free to bring in as many readers as possible, some percentage of which will eventually convert. And there’s another model where almost everything is paywalled, so the total list stays smaller, but super invested. (The traditional Substack wisdom has been that this works best for industry-focused newsletters where readers are likely to be able to expense their subscriptions to an employer. But again, see Morning Person!)
I am committed to keeping the majority of Burnt Toast content free and accessible to everyone (without you having to do the labor of asking for a comp subscription) because we are a newsletter about inclusivity. So I use paywalls fairly minimally. But those of you currently on the free list will see some experimentation with new kinds of paywalled content in 2023, as we continue to study what works and what doesn’t. My goal is to add on paywalled perks (without sending you more emails, I promise! Think: Some small bit of thrilling bonus content at the end of the newsletters you already get) rather than paywalling the Tuesday essay or the Thursday podcast, which will always be the core conversations happening here, and I hope, inspiring conversations elsewhere.
What Did You Love Most Last Year?
OK, now let’s talk about what really worked last year.
The email with the highest open rate: The final installment of Jeans Science. This makes me want to do another reported series for sure, and also helps me understand how important recommendations are to good newsletter-ing. Even when I’m recommending jeans while very clearly explaining that all the jeans are bad!
The podcast episode with the highest open rate: “If My Daughter Wanted to ‘Eat Healthier,’ I’d Respond Like She Wanted to Smoke Cigarettes.” Give it up for the fabulous Signe Darpinian and also never underestimate the power of a provocative subject line (that delivers!).
The newsletter that brought in the most free subscribers: 375 people subscribed in one day after you all read and shared the heck out of “Do I Wear Spanx to Family Court?” Get excited for Thursday’s podcast is what I’ll say right now and also: That piece is absolutely in my sweet spot of narrative reporting, dysfunctional gender norms and anti-fatness/diet culture criticism so yes, we’ll be doing more of that.
A close second place for that: 327 people subscribed after you shared Perfectionism and the Performance of Organizing. That one felt like a little bit of a reach piece for the Burnt Toast brand, so I love that y’all wanted to come along for the ride.
The story with the most comments: Meal Planning is Like Democracy. Ugh, fine. Meal planning was also a hugely popular topic in 2021, so yes, we will say more about this.
The story with the most shares: It’s a dead heat between The Cautionary Tales of Vogue Mom and Fat Sam and The Myth of “Regular” Exercise. God, I need to be better at remembering to write the timely hot take on the pop culture thing having a moment. But also yes, let’s keep figuring out how to fight anti-fatness in fitness culture.
The podcast episode with the most downloads: The Myth of Visible Abs so yes, I get it, more on fitness culture! In Pursuit of Clean Countertops' Sara Petersen's first appearance and The Unpublishable's Jessica DeFino's episode are just about tied for second place, though, so I guess more on influencers and beauty culture too, please. (Sara and I are actually planning something cool for 2023—stay tuned!)
The podcast episode that converted the most subscribers: This Diet Wants You To Throw Out All Your Food. Confession time: I sometimes find debunking diets a little tiresome because they are always the same story once you strip back the marketing. But y’all seem to love it? So we should do it some more? (Almost as many of you converted from the most recent Corinne episode though, which makes me happy.)
The paywall that converted the most subscribers: What If I Just Don’t Want to Be Fat? convinced 500 of you to subscribe. Look, I am beyond excited if a piece converts 50 people. Which a lot of them do! And most of the time we chug along with 10-30 conversions and that’s just great too. So this was a bananas response. How and why did this lightning strike? Part of it certainly was that it was the first time Substack let me put a 7-day free trial on the paywall. But that trick hasn’t worked so well since, so there’s also SOMETHING ABOUT THIS QUESTION. I will be forever trying to duplicate it.
I’d love to know: Which podcast episode or essay was your favorite/most shared/most memorable this year? (I’m making comments open to everyone on this piece, so please share!)
What Did We Learn From Last Year?
What mistakes did Burnt Toast make last year? Or at least, what can we learn from what you liked less?
There are a generous handful of pieces and podcast episodes each year that don’t get much traction. Maybe they don’t get many shares or comments, or they don’t bring in any new readers or convince anyone to pay. Most of these are things like the rerun episodes we put up to make the Apple Podcast algorithm gods happy when I’m on vacation, or the book research link round-ups (which were a little too dense). Sometimes it’s because some other giant thing happened in the news and all of our attention is understandably/appropriately elsewhere.
There are also weeks when I don’t push subscriptions very hard and one thing I now know for sure about the newsletter business is people rarely convert spontaneously—we need to be explicitly told it’s a good idea. (Yes, “we,” I am the exact same, that’s why Universal Standard knows to inform me so enthusiastically every time their ponte pants go on sale!)
Social activism-driven pieces don’t bring in paid subscribers, which makes sense — there were a lot of weeks when I told you to donate to the Burnt Toast Giving Circle instead and I’m so proud we did that. I’m already thinking about what kind of major fundraising project we should undertake for 2023 and I’d love your ideas!
Interviews with book authors usually don’t bring in revenue either, which I hope means you all rushed off to BUY THEIR BOOKS INSTEAD and don’t worry, nothing will stop me from interviewing authors I love.
I am rethinking what a Burnt Toast Book Club should look like though, because neither of our attempts did particularly well in terms of engagement. Would we like virtual discussion events more than a live thread? Do we need to pick different kinds of books? Or did I just not give this concept enough runway to gather momentum?
Last week’s Ask Virginia brought in the least number of new readers of anything I wrote this year. This intrigues me because so many of you told me you were thrilled to see a question on the intersection of ageism and fatphobia (but of course the paywall makes that one a bit hard to share). But I also expected the free question (on why kids in bigger bodies are disproportionately punished at school) to generate more discussion.
And October’s What Makes a Food Healthy? converted the lowest number of paid subscribers of any written piece. I’ll admit, that one is a bummer. It’s a short piece, but it took more time than some of my longer essays because I had to read through so many wonky FDA documents, and all the media coverage about the FDA’s proposed labels.
I’m not going to talk about which podcast episodes performed less than amazingly because I don’t want any of the guests on those episodes to feel sad about it. This has been a year of really educating myself on HOW to podcast—how to structure interviews, how to build rapport while chatting, how to train myself out of certain annoying vocal tics, how to edit conversations to improve the flow but keep the meaning (you have no idea how many times I actually say “yeah absolutely, absolutely, I love it” in a conversation. Corinne and Tommy protect you from a lot!). And I know that our learning curve likely impacted any individual episode’s performance much more than the guest’s resume. I’m learning a lot about what makes audio fun to listen to — and my original skill set as someone who interviews people for the written format doesn’t translate as much as you might think.
So, What’s the Plan For 2023?
I’m still thinking about concrete goals for next year. But I know I’m excited to keep getting better at this job: To pursue several deeply reported features for you (to everyone who has asked: Injectable weight loss drugs are high on the list!), to start experimenting with more heavily produced podcast formats, and to make more time to think through the essays that generate our best conversations. I also want us to continue to evolve our activism (Is that a campaign about plus size kid clothes? About another aspect of anti-fatness? Where can we make a real difference?). And to have fun and be in community together, because that’s truly the best part of Burnt Toast.
My immediate plan, though —as in, the day you read this essay—is to finish up the podcast episode you’re getting Thursday and then get my family in a car to the airport for our big winter break trip. The newsletter will be on break until January 5 — and thank you again, to the paid subscribers who underwrite my ability to have this kind of work/life balance.
I hope you’re also looking towards some kind of year-end rest and reflection and not, of course, to setting any kind of draconian New Year’s resolutions. But more on all of that in a few weeks. Thanks so much for all you do to support this space. See you in 2023!
This is such an interesting look into your process, Virginia! Thanks for sharing. Re paid subscriptions: for me, I pay for subscriptions for people like you (and Lyz Lenz and Anne Helen Petersen, to give just a couple examples!) who are doing really valuable, unique content, and for whom that's really a big chunk of their business. I think you've done a really good job articulating why your work is important and is harder to publish or faces editorial interference in legacy media channels. So it's quality of the overall work that leads me to a paid subscription, not *stuff,* if that makes sense.
I love you but I hate book clubs! it’s nothing personal! The moment a book is ~mandated~ I lose all interest in reading it. (Thanks, ADHD!)