The Future of The Sunday Morning Post

Greetings! This week I wanted to go off script a bit and talk about what I am trying to do here with The Sunday Morning Post, where it came from, and where we are going in the year ahead. The foundation of all of this is a deep appreciation for you, the readers. Whether you wake up on Sunday morning to brew a hot pot of coffee and sit down with these articles or whether you bookmark them to come back to later in the week or whether you only read them once in awhile if a particular topic interests you, I am grateful to all who have made The Sunday Morning Post a part of their lives. Don’t worry, regular content is coming back next week, but for today, I wanted to talk about the state of the newsletter and offer some thoughts on what is in store for the future.

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Photo by Bram Naus on Unsplash

I published the first edition of The Sunday Morning Post on April 11, 2021, because I wanted to get word out to artists, musicians, writers, and other gig-workers that they were eligible for PPP (i.e. COVID-relief) loans. It was a topic that I knew a lot about, and I needed a way to reach a broad number of people. The Substack publishing tools allowed me to do that. Fortunately my employer, First National Bank, not only allowed me to publish that first article, but was actually encouraging of it, an attitude of support that has prevailed to this day and helped to make The Sunday Morning Post viable. I did not know what these articles would turn into, but I ended up starting a streak of writing that has continued for 160 weeks in a row since that first article was published three years ago.

This little newsletter and those 160 articles have now been read over 250,000 times by readers in more than 20 different countries. I am constantly amazed by the power of the internet, and I feel deep joy every time I hear from a reader who says they enjoyed an article. I have learned from you all, too, as the feedback and suggestions you have offered have made me a better thinker and writer. I treasure the community of readers here.

I also started writing The Sunday Morning Post because I was spending so much time sitting at a desk chair working on my computer (this was particularly true during the pandemic). I felt like I had to do something to avoid a mid-life decline in cognitive capacity due to this sedentary lifestyle, and writing these articles provided that creative outlet.

The idea of pushing myself in some new way solidified after reading Futureproof by Kevin Roose. This book is largely about the ways AI is going to take over various aspects of our jobs, and how people need to be able to differentiate themselves somehow over what a machine can do. As I lived, work, and sat through the pandemic day-after-day at my computer screen, it occurred to me that, indeed, much of what I did as a lender could be automated. I needed to do something different and creative, which is how I found my way to Substack as a writer.

What Now?

I am pleased to report that the editors of The Sunday Morning Post have renewed the publication for another year. This is a joke, of course, as this newsletter has a staff of one: the researcher, writer, editor, and marketer is me. I am committing to you all today that I will continue to write The Sunday Morning Post for another year (and hopefully beyond).

That being said, while The Sunday Morning Post is going to continue more or less in its current form, it can also be more.

Features I would like to roll out this year include an advice column. Quite frequently, readers will send me questions on financial topics, many of which may be of interest to the full readership. Since I try to take the time to respond to each one, why not turn that into a regular feature?

Secondly, I would to have more back-and-forth with readers and among readers. There are chat features offered by Substack that I have not used yet. Some of these could be used to develop small group discussions or something like a Sunday Morning Post book group.

I am also interested in doing more with podcasting, including offering an audio-only version of the regular articles, plus some additional bonus content. The medium of podcasting provides an opportunity for some longform content that may be appealing to people in a way that the written word is not.

I know regular readers are often coming for the articles about the economy with a focus on real estate, but I also like to write about other things, too. Sometimes the alternative topics are too far astray from the usual Sunday morning content, so you may start to see some of the different material showing up in your inboxes on Saturdays in addition to the regular Sunday stuff.

Finally, I would like to bring on a guest writer here or there who could contribute content that the readers would enjoy. This would not only provide me with a weekly break every once in awhile like if I am on vacation with my family, but it would also be a chance to share my platform with good writers and researchers who deserve a stage.

The Question of Compensation

Sunday Morning Post content will continue to be offered payment-free. I will repeat that: I will never require a paid subscription in order to access The Sunday Morning Post. I want to write for all people, not just the people who can pay.

However, I am excited to announce today that I am launching a paid model where people who want to pay a monthly or yearly subscription can do so. Starting today, you will notice a button within the articles where you can become a paid subscriber for $8/month, $80/year, or as a special $250/year Founding Partner. If you feel like you have gotten value out of The Sunday Morning Post or you simply want to support my work through a paid subscriber model, you will now have this option. My hope is to use this revenue to actually invest further into The Sunday Morning Post to make it even better in the months and years ahead.

I realize it might seem strange to pay for something that you could get for free, but let me explain…

Why?

As noted at the outset, I have been writing weekly for 3+ years. And I have loved doing it. But it does also take a fair amount of time. The average article takes me about 10-15 hours per week of researching, writing, and editing. A complex article sometimes can sometimes take even more time than that. I have been working on an article currently that I plan to publish on Father’s Day that will probably be 40+ hours all-in by the end. As The Sunday Morning Post has grown, it has evolved beyond a hobby into something more robust and meaningful, but also more time intensive.

I write outside of my normal day job. Writing time therefore blends into the weekends, which is family time. As such, I am often writing late at night on Saturdays once the kids have gone to bed. In order to continue doing this, I need to demonstrate that the return on the investment of time, energy, and brainpower is adequate. I am not ashamed to say that while my primary motivation has never been to get paid, some revenue would help justify the time not only to me but to those I love and for whom I provide (this is a nice way of saying that when I am up until midnight on a Saturday night writing, it would be nice to explain to my annoyed/frustrated/sleeping wife that there is some income coming in from it).

The other thing I will note is that as The Sunday Morning Post has grown, I have fielded a number of offers to write (and get paid for) a regular newspaper or magazine column or to publish my content in a freelance capacity or even to ghostwrite for others. Those offers have sometimes come with pretty meaningful compensation. I like the idea of publishing The Sunday Morning Post in my own voice to my own audience here on Substack better, and I think my readers appreciate this as well. But I have left some money on the table by declining these offers.

Lastly, there are a smattering of other reasons why I think this paid model is justifiable at this point including:

• I would like to be able to hire an editor at some point as well as to pay writers for guest content. There are also some graphic design possibilities and audio production variables of adding a podcast component that would cost money.

• People are making real financial decisions based on my data and analysis that I provide for free. On the one hand, I love this. On the other, if I was offering this content in a consultant or advisory capacity, it would be around a compensatory model.

• Similarly to declining offers to write for newspapers and magazines, I have declined a large number of sponsorship requests. Advertisers want access to you, dear readers. But I do not want my readers to wake up on Sunday mornings and see some bold advertisement for the latest thing at the top of the screen or have to watch a 30-second video before clicking on the page. It would be cluttered and jarring. But at a certain point the financial offers to implement things like this get pretty serious. My hope is that people who appreciate reading this content ad-free will pay a small subscription fee in recognition that a subscription model preserves the clean, ad-free space on their screen.

• People are already offering to pay. I do get messages from people sometimes offering to pay a subscription simply because they want to. They feel like they are freeriding on the content without paying, or they just want to financially support me in gratitude for the work (….thanks!). I have always politely (though gratefully) declined. Substack, the platform that I use to publish this work, has juiced this by sometimes inserting a “Pledge Your Support” button within my articles. I will say that those pledges have started to add up, so by not offering a paid model, I am just leaving that money from generous readers on the table.

• My own readers are paying to subscribe to other Substack newsletters. Substack provides an immense amount of data to a writer like me, and I can see how many of my subscribers pay for other content and as I have seen this number grow over the years, it has made me wonder if it is time to have a paid model myself. As a quick aside, I LOVE Substack and think is a great platform. It is a rare bright spot in an age when the media industry is really in peril (perhaps a discussion for a future article). But if my readers are paying for other related content on Substack, why not The Sunday Morning Post as well.

• Many of my readers are small business owners and real estate investors who may be able to deduct subscription costs on their Schedule C or Schedule E, so paying for content through a subscription becomes a win-win for you and me.

What Comes Next

To broadly summarize, The Sunday Morning Post can be better. Increased content, more engagement between you and me, better production value: there is really no limit to what this newsletter can become, but it will require some investment. I’m also not ashamed to say the paid subscriptions will provide me with some boost and extra motivation to keep this thing going.

Starting this week, you will be able to pay for a Sunday Morning Post subscription either monthly ($8/month), annually ($80/year), or as a Founding Partner (for $250/year). The main articles will always be free and available to all, but for those who want to support my work will now have the opportunity to do so.

Leveraging Good

Lastly, in order to leverage the good that can come from this, 10% of gross subscriptions net of the small fee that Substack takes out will be donated at the end of each year. I am going to try to think of some creative ways to do that, possibly by soliciting feedback and suggestions from the readers, or by finding charitable causes that are somehow related to the content of The Sunday Morning Post. Housing-related causes come to mind, for example, or something related to financial literacy.

I don’t think I am big enough to qualify for 1% for the Planet coalition, but I’ve always admired that cause and the symbolism behind it. So I’ll also add that on top of the 10% as noted above, 1% of gross subscriptions will go to support the environment with a particular focus on causes here in Maine.

A Final Word

I do not expect to make a million bucks with this. If all goes well, we are talking about several thousand dollars per year of subscription revenue, not even several tens of thousands. I do not ever anticipate this being my full-time job, but I know the content, engagement, and production quality can be better, and launching a subscription model is one way to help do that. As always, thank you for your commitment and support of The Sunday Morning Post. And thank you for considering a paid subscription to support my work and help me continue to grow. Here’s to a great year ahead.

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Ben Sprague lives and works in Bangor, Maine as a Senior V.P./Commercial Lending Officer for Damariscotta-based First National Bank. He previously worked as an investment advisor and graduated from Harvard University in 2006. Ben can be reached at ben.sprague@thefirst.com or bsprague1@gmail.com.