I recently dropped $100 to become a “founding member” and subscriber of Paul Flannery’s Running Probably, a newsletter he started back in November 2020. For someone who has proudly (and stubbornly) been using the free version of Spotify since 2010, this is an odd decision. Eight bucks a month to read one person’s writing? That’s basically the cost of Spotify, and while Paul puts out a handful of pieces each week, the Spotify library is infinitely large. It’s also roughly the cost of my New York Times subscription, which has over a thousand writers! How could one person’s content be worth so much?
Well, for one thing, Paul is Paul. He’s (apparently) a sports journalist and Celtic’s beat writer. I don’t know because I’ve never been a basketball fan. But I do know that he’s not the New York Times, or Spotify. He’s just one guy, who replies to my comments and emails with enthusiasm, and who puts himself in the pieces he writes. He’s a trail running writer who is going out on a limb to produce freelance content that other people relate to. And people really do relate, if the comments are any indication:
This is also the first comment section I have ever participated in to any extent and I think it is due to you, Paul, and the wider community, that so many of us feel the comfort required to share of ourselves.
Joe
i know these articles aren’t about me, but every article you write startles me because i think it is about me.
Hoon
this really resonates. the running part is universal, but I think it’s a particularly helpful mindset when applied to the rest of our lives and the relationships that are important. glad you worked through this and wrote it.
Gonz
And that’s where Paul has struck gold. Writing about running is just writing about life. His pieces have covered resilience, toughness, self-doubt, healthy eating, aging and friendships. Initially I was shocked by how perceptive he was of his readers… until I realized that he’s just another runner like one of us. We all suffer the same things. We all question our abilities and agonize over our shoes. He’s just taken on the responsibility of putting that journey on paper and sharing it with the rest of us. He also has a badass beard and trail-runner long hair, which doesn’t hurt his credibility. He screams runner.
I used to read Runner’s World, but when it went behind a paywall I stopped. There was no one on the other side of those articles, just listicles and product placements and the occasional great piece of writing about a race or human story. I didn’t need to sift through that noise or pay for that product. A running website without a living, breathing personality on the other end of it – not to mention a strong community of readers – is just like anything else on the internet. Indistinguishable.
Unfortunately, people like Paul and projects like Running Probably struggle to be commercially viable. No one is going to pay for something they’ve never read before, but they also won’t pay for something they can have for free. So writers are forced to give away content for a period of time, attract a loyal following, and then move to a paid model. The hope is that the loyal following converts to subscribers and that some free teaser content continues to draw new people in. That is exactly where Running Probably finds itself, about five months after getting started. I have my own, less ambitious newsletter and can’t imagine the effort that Paul puts into offering his product for free.
A ton of content creators have taken their work directly to customers with this business model, whether on Substack, Patreon, Twitch or OnlyFans. It’s the 1,000 True Fans concept, popularized by Kevin Kelly:
“To be a successful creator you don’t need millions. You don’t need millions of dollars or millions of customers, millions of clients or millions of fans. To make a living as a craftsperson, photographer, musician, designer, author, animator, app maker, entrepreneur, or inventor you need only thousands of true fans.”
But for this to work, consumers like me need to choose paid over free. We need to invest in these creators early in the journey to give them the opportunity to run with it. We need to recognize that reader-funded work will by design be of higher quality than ad-funded work. Paul does not want us to click briefly on his article and then turn our attention elsewhere. He wants us to read every word, then stick around for a while in the comments.
So I subscribed to Running Probably. I’m not sure that the content will end up being life-changing. I doubt Paul would claim that it will be either. Nor can I guarantee that all the future work that has been promised will come to pass. Things happen. But I am more than willing to make a small upfront investment to give him the best chance to keep the magic alive and see where he can take this project of his. That’s the role that any customer and patron should play in supporting a product that they believe in.
Running may not be your thing. Fine. But I think it’s worth us all revisiting exactly how we consume the things that we do. Why did you continue to order from that one neighborhood pizza place throughout the pandemic? Why did you tip so much? Was it because their pizzas were the cheapest, or the fastest to arrive? Or was it because you knew the person on the other side of that order, and wanted them to succeed? Maybe that mentality should not disappear with the vaccine, but continue into our post-pandemic behavior as consumers.
This is the approach I’ve taken for the last few years. If anyone I know is putting themselves into an endeavor, I support it. I bought a watercolor from a childhood friend off of Facebook. I have a coworker’s nature photography hanging on my wall. I had a random Redditor draw an anniversary gift for Anne. I would rather be somebody’s only customer for a venture they put their heart and soul behind, than a blip in some monolith’s database. And unfortunately, with the direction that online content is headed, it’s becoming harder and harder to go against the grain and do that.
So give guys like Paul a chance. Don’t make the comparison I did – $8 a month to Running Probably is not the same as $8 a month to the New York Times. Paul is not motivated by clickbait. He’s motivated by his community to produce content that will resonate.
And resonate it has.
If you’re interested in Running Probably, start here: