Round Up: How is Ditch Rich Doing?
Here's an update on how the newsletter is doing, and an answer to the ever-important question of: "What's next?"
Since last April, I’ve written over 51,000 words about the University of Oregon.
Just to give you an idea of how I could have otherwise utilized all that writing energy: fifty-one thousand words is significantly more words than all of the words in The Great Gatsby.
Granted, I signed off each blog with “Go Ducks” fifty-eight different times, so 116/51,000 words were pretty easy, but still.
But first, if you’re reading this, and haven’t already subscribed to Ditch Rich, there's literally never been a better time to do so:
Now that we got that out of the way…
I lost my job in 2020 due to the pandemic, and I was lucky enough to get to channel all that pent up brain power into ranting about the Ducks.
And so far I’ve been lucky enough to find just a tiny bit of success.
As of writing this, 89 people—Duck fans and otherwise—have subscribed to the free Ditch Rich emails, and my open rate hovers somewhere around 44-45%. Obviously 100 is the first big benchmark, but I’ll even go on record here and set my goal at 200 subs by the end of 2021.
I’ve also been able to gain some traction through external posts on twitter and reddit. Some of those have translated into clicks, but they seldom translate into subs. I’ll have to figure that one out.
As far as top content or “Greatest Hits” go, my largest piece by volume and popularity so far was In Defense of RoboDuck. I attribute the success of that piece to my fantastic illustrator, Keith Read, and my one-time editor, Matt Brown. But also, I think the 650+ views on that blog was simply proof that secretly—in places you don’t talk about at parties—you all love RoboDuck, too.
My first big hit was my Payton Pritchard Draft Day Extravaganza. In which 200+ folks watched me call my shot that Pritch was a first rounder, as well as zillions of times better than Nico Mannion. That was one of the first times I broke my previous mold of game previews, recaps, or timely rivalry history lessons, and instead I just went off the cuff with a bunch of opinions that were rattling around in my brain.
By now I’m sure those kinds of pieces are coming far too often.
I wrote about Tom Cruise wishing he could play Pre, I wrote about Joey Harrington singing alongside Jason Mraz, and most recently I wrote about saving McArthur Court.
It’s all been fun, but that last one might be a good hint towards the future of Ditch Rich.
I don’t want to become a shiller of t-shirts—but I think I really did something here with these SAVE MAC COURT bois.
The NCAA Tournament is a lot of fun to cover, especially when both Ducks teams show up, but I was also encouraged by the participation I got from you all in the Men’s & Women’s Bracket Challenges. And this test run of tie dye Save Mac Court t-shirts came out so well, that I’d love to find more ways to both give them away, and maybe even eventually sell them?
Content-wise, I’d love to spend the summer taking a peek into the lesser-covered sports programs at Oregon, especially Softball, Baseball, Volleyball, and Outdoor Track & Field—who are all doing incredible things already. Rest assured, there will be a lot of Olympic Trials discourse (although UOmatters will always outpace me in real coverage on that subject). And Spring Football starts Thursday, so look forward to some Practice Report Reports and a whole lotta anti-QB battle coverage.
It’s gonna be a fun, fun summer.
All that said, this newsletter will always be free. 100%.
But I’d still love to get it in front of more folks. And I think you all—basically anyone who hasn’t already unsubscribed from my emails by now—might be the best advocates for growth.
If you happen to know a Duck fan (or ten) that might like what we’re building here, feel free to send them this blog and tell them to subscribe. Same goes for if you have Duck fans that follow you on twitter, facebook, or literally anything else. A little endorsement from the fine readers of Ditch Rich could go a long way.
Beyond that, I think substack specifically reacts well to readers “liking” and “commenting” directly on the site. I know that’s tough sometimes depending on being logged into your account, or if you clicked via an external link, or if you read this directly in your emails. I’m not super desperate to beg for action on that front.
I’m often sarcastic and cynical and seldom over-serious with you all, but I do kind of think we have something good here.
I’d love to keep it going.
Thanks again for reading, and as always, Go Ducks.