Wow, you linked to theeggandtherock.com ! Thanks Adam. Honoured to be called "a triumph of the format". (Am I doing "scientific reports/data analysis"? I guess I am. It's hard to have perspective on my own work...)
Anyway, I agree with your take on blogs ("...being courageous and idiosyncratic isn’t just bloggers’ comparative advantage; it’s their duty. I shed a tiny little tear whenever I see someone on Substack trying to do an impression of The New Yorker or Buzzfeed.") If you are blogging, go weird or go home.
You will, I hope, be pleased to hear that The Egg and the Rock will be getting even weirder over the next few months; I just got an Emergent Ventures grant from the highly idiosyncratic – I would go so far as to say wonderfully weird – Tyler Cowen, plus my dad just died (great guy, always encouraged me to be my strange self), so I find myself giving even less of a shit than usual about the conventional rules of writing. Going to honour my dad's memory by seeing how far I can push this unique contraption I find myself pushing. Top of Everest. Bottom of the Mariana Trench. Both. We shall see.
I look forward to seeing what your readers come up with. I may even steer a couple of talented freaks in your direction. Hope you get the fabulous food your brilliant brain deserves.
This is a big commitment of your time...I think it would have even more impact if you limited submissions to those with less than 1,000 subscribers (not me), where your Recommendation would have a massive trajectory impact. A Reco from you to a 10,000 subscriber stack just doesn't move the needle for them (unless Substack is really gaming elite author connections). And, if you are going to read hundreds of submissions, which you will probably get...why not plug a minimum of 10-15 Substacks, not just a rather small tiered prize list? It's a big author commitment to compose a new essay just for this contest...chasing odds of 3%, 2%, 1% makes sense only if you are under 1,000 subscribers or under 500...Probability statistics matter a lot in submitting to high volume gates...And not letting people submit highly polished work from the last 12 months makes little sense to me...unless this is a stress test...
Everybody is welcome post their submission once the competition is over, so the only cost of submitting is a delay of a few weeks while I read. If I end up getting tons of great submissions, I’ll highlight more than just a few winners, even if it takes a couple posts.
It's a nice idea, but I think "a few weeks" may be a deal breaker for me. I only have something worth posting every couple of months so that would mean I would have to accept three months between posts on the off chance that you may like what I write.
Hey there! I see you want unpublished blog posts - but you might not get to announcing the winners until the end of August. Are you asking us to keep these drafts unpublished until then? Thanks for your guidance! Thank you for this contest! Thank you for your blog!!
Wow, you linked to theeggandtherock.com ! Thanks Adam. Honoured to be called "a triumph of the format". (Am I doing "scientific reports/data analysis"? I guess I am. It's hard to have perspective on my own work...)
Anyway, I agree with your take on blogs ("...being courageous and idiosyncratic isn’t just bloggers’ comparative advantage; it’s their duty. I shed a tiny little tear whenever I see someone on Substack trying to do an impression of The New Yorker or Buzzfeed.") If you are blogging, go weird or go home.
You will, I hope, be pleased to hear that The Egg and the Rock will be getting even weirder over the next few months; I just got an Emergent Ventures grant from the highly idiosyncratic – I would go so far as to say wonderfully weird – Tyler Cowen, plus my dad just died (great guy, always encouraged me to be my strange self), so I find myself giving even less of a shit than usual about the conventional rules of writing. Going to honour my dad's memory by seeing how far I can push this unique contraption I find myself pushing. Top of Everest. Bottom of the Mariana Trench. Both. We shall see.
I look forward to seeing what your readers come up with. I may even steer a couple of talented freaks in your direction. Hope you get the fabulous food your brilliant brain deserves.
Ah man, both condolences on your father snd congratulations on your success, Julian! What a lot happening at once.
Looking forward to seeing what you do next. And yes, please steer freaks this way.
This is so cool. I'm definitely going to work on something to send you. Thanks for the opportunity, Adam!
Neat idea. I may enter....
This is a big commitment of your time...I think it would have even more impact if you limited submissions to those with less than 1,000 subscribers (not me), where your Recommendation would have a massive trajectory impact. A Reco from you to a 10,000 subscriber stack just doesn't move the needle for them (unless Substack is really gaming elite author connections). And, if you are going to read hundreds of submissions, which you will probably get...why not plug a minimum of 10-15 Substacks, not just a rather small tiered prize list? It's a big author commitment to compose a new essay just for this contest...chasing odds of 3%, 2%, 1% makes sense only if you are under 1,000 subscribers or under 500...Probability statistics matter a lot in submitting to high volume gates...And not letting people submit highly polished work from the last 12 months makes little sense to me...unless this is a stress test...
Everybody is welcome post their submission once the competition is over, so the only cost of submitting is a delay of a few weeks while I read. If I end up getting tons of great submissions, I’ll highlight more than just a few winners, even if it takes a couple posts.
It's a nice idea, but I think "a few weeks" may be a deal breaker for me. I only have something worth posting every couple of months so that would mean I would have to accept three months between posts on the off chance that you may like what I write.
Hey there! I see you want unpublished blog posts - but you might not get to announcing the winners until the end of August. Are you asking us to keep these drafts unpublished until then? Thanks for your guidance! Thank you for this contest! Thank you for your blog!!
Yes, this is a very important question with an ambiguous and seemingly restrictive answer.
Still writing at 11:30; hopefully I get things done in time and/or this guy is a little flexible about that deadline.
I truly hope Adam is flexible, because I'm very proud of what I ended up with.