Against the idea of building loyal subscribers

Daily writing promptHow do you build loyal subscribers?View all responses I’ve always found that a somewhat strange thing to aim for. I understand there are several thousand people worldwide working to build a loyal subscriber base (“building loyal subscribers” makes one sound like Dr. Frankenstein). And whatever their reasons are, I’m sure at least one of them is “to build community” or “to make money”. Those are perfectly legitimate things to do. But insofar as the question of a loyal subscriber base is raised with regards to writing, I don’t have an answer. Before I became a journalist in 2012, I’d been a blogger for four years, writing about physics and an intellectual life centered on that topic. After I became a journalist, I began to write on science, health, environment, spaceflight, higher education, science policy and administration, research fraud, and many other things that caught my fancy. And I continued blogging. Over time, I realised a few things: (i) I write because I…