Checking in
Discover more from Zero Day
It’s been two months this week since I launched this experiment called Zero Day.
Now that I’ve had time to see what’s doable on this platform and what’s doable as a writing pace, I wanted to check in with readers to get some feedback.
When I launched, I intended to publish at least one article each week on Fridays, until I could figure out what publishing pace made sense. But two days into the launch, my father died and any schedule I had planned was abandoned. Since then, I’ve published sometimes once a week, sometimes multiple times a week — such as last week when I published several stories about the Colonial Pipeline ransomware breach.
I also indicated when I launched that all material would be free for at least the first month, after which I’d probably start to make some content available only to paid subscribers.
Now that some time has passed, I’m turning to you to see what is working and what is not, in order to determine how best to proceed with Zero Day.
To that end, I’m hoping you don’t mind if I ask a few questions to help me determine how to proceed. No pressure to respond, but if you do have some feedback you want to provide, you can respond either confidentially by sending an email to zetter@substack.com or by writing a comment here beneath this post:
Does it matter at what pace I publish stories here?
Should I be publishing on a set schedule or just publish whenever I have a story that merits publishing (even if a week goes by when nothing is published)?
Does the format work for you? Most writers on Substack publish as a traditional newsletter, with a mix of content in each email — original reported news, for example, plus links to interesting content they’ve read or something else. Do you like the style I’ve chosen — publishing each time as a standalone reported news story? Or would you prefer an email with a variety of content?
And last:
Paid subscribers have made it possible to do the work I’ve been publishing here; they’ve also made it possible for everyone to read all content whether they are paid subscribers or not. Do readers think I should continue to make all content free? Would paid subscribers resent paying for content that everyone else can read for free? If you’re a paid subscriber, would you be less inclined to renew a paid subscription if everyone is able to read all content for free?
Thank you for any feedback you feel like providing. It will help me chart the course going forward.
Kim
Checking in
Hi Kim,
We are maybe 6 weeks ahead of you with our own Substack experiment and have been thinking about similar issues.
Content: STRONGLY prefer publishing when you feel like you have something to say. Colonial was fast breaking and your coverage was excellent! (In fact, we just pointed people to you, which was incredibly helpful given other equities. We did so formally in our last “round up” newsletter too, as well as adding you to our recommended links based on this work.)
A regular schedule would have been too slow in that case.
It may be that you have something to say every week, in which case: great! Cyber is so noisy right now that quality is super important to stand out.
Paid subscriptions: Yes, make some paid only. Given that you are bundled with the 6(?) others for sidechannel, even a nominal amount is still probably worth it, unless you have another plan to monetize the content (such as building an audience for future books or other brand building, in which case free makes sense.)
Mix of content: Think hard about this. It is a LOT more work than it seems, at least to do it well! We’ve been doing this, and it’s not just the filtering from hundreds to ~10, it’s the fact checking and tracing “easy” things all the way back to primary sources, only to see the story fall apart. This was fine while bringing original content online, but it quickly starts to crowd out time to create/edit other work. There are a number of people doing this in cyber, so it’s also important to have a unique take to stand out versus “here’s the vulnerability of the week.”
Hope that helps! Keep up the good work whatever you decide!
FFG
Hello
From my point of view your newsletter is just fine and it's exactly what I need. The reason I decided to subscribe is that I know you won't send me "anything" just because the time has come. If I have an email - I know something important happened. I also like to read the whole story and only this one. There are plenty of newsletters with a lot of links in case of.
In the closest future I decided to become the "paid subscriber" not to have more, but to appreciate your great work. And... reading your articles moves me back in time to the days when I had beed reading "Stuxnet" :)