Why Has Nobody Been Sent to Murder Chill Subs with a Money Pillow?

Examining some industry insights to figure out whether or not we were simply in the right place at the right time.

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I was at my brother's birthday party last year when a friend of his told the room to quiet down. "I have an idea," she said, "but before I talk about it, everyone in this room needs to promise not to steal it." 

We agreed, of course, because who's going to say, "Actually, I'd likely steal it so let me see myself out for a few minutes."

Her idea was this: "Christmas Tree rentals for apartments. Think about it, nobody likes real trees, anyway, and where are you going to store a fake tree in an apartment? So, we rent out the trees for the holidays, then pick them up after!"

It was—admittedly—a good idea. 

So good, in fact, a quick Google search offered me six companies that already do this.

I didn't tell her this. What would be the point? Anyone not motivated enough to Google their idea before announcing it at a party is unlikely to be the type to start it. The point wasn't to share her future vision, but to let a group of revelers know how brilliant she was while simultaneously assuming them unbrilliant enough that no one would think to look it up. 

I don't see a problem with this so long as it's not hurting anyone—if I can do anything to make someone feel brilliant, loved, or beautiful, in any moment, I'll take it. But that won't stop me from double-checking their work and mercilessly judging them inside my own head as a bozo.

Or it was simply Christmastime, and she was simply shit-housed.

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But this scenario got me thinking about why nobody had created Chill Subs by the time we got around to it. As our audience and user base have exploded over the past year, we've been so tense—always wondering, why? Why hasn't someone done this? What horrific, company-demolishing roadblock lay ahead? But, a year later, we're pretty sure we haven't missed anything.

So, back to the question: why? Are we so brilliant that we are the first to think combining a database, community, and set of tools for the writing community was a good idea?

I don't think so. If anything, there are several factors we attribute to how positive people have responded to the work we do.

It is very (very) niche.

I'm not sure how an MBA professor would respond if he tasked students to come up with a valuable market and they came back with, "Poets frustrated by receiving endless rejections from niche literary magazines with no money."

"Which one has no money?" the professor might ask. To which the MBA student would have to respond, "I don't understand the question."

I don't think that the time and energy it would require someone to acquaint themselves with the online writing community would be worth it in the end unless the person had a deep interest in writing. It is a community full of people intensely dedicated to the idea of being incomprehensible.

I would note, however, that “there is no money in writing” is a misconception. There is no money in writing for writers & editors. But we’ve seen a bundle of companies making a bundle of money off of our industry (often in sneaky fucked ways. More on that in future posts).

The pandemic (and the writers that came with it)

This is only a theory, but while combing through thousands of literary magazines, we've found that a significant number were minted in the past few years (over 900). Along with that, when the world was shut down for two years, and millions of creatives were left alone with only their cats and the screaming drive for validation, many turned their attention to finally "putting themselves out there." 

We know, we were doing the same.

Major players have become complacent & overpriced.

There have been a lot of insurmountable gripes (overpriced, unresponsive, boring) within the community with the established players (who, with the resources they have, could mercilessly smother us with a digital money pillow), and we can't imagine them coming out and saying, "We've got free Rejection BINGO now!" is going to do them many favors. 

Our goal is to be useful, yes. But I think what sets us apart is that we also want to have fun—something that's been sorely missed.

A unique set of skills & circumstances at a unique time.

Karina and I have been working as freelancers in the startup industry for years. We've seen many successes, but even more failures. So we know what to watch out for and the skills we've developed fit the need. 

And we'd both gotten to a place where we had just enough savings to dedicate ourselves to Chill Subs full-time.

Experience & time.

Sometimes, it's that simple.

We know what we are—and know what we aren't

Most startups in the writing industry focus on how to make people better writers. We focus on how to connect creatives with publishers and connect publishers with an audience.

That's it. 

Publishing & lit has always inevitably led to hierarchies. There are academic camps, ideological camps, trends, squabbles, and so on. That will likely never change, but we wanted to create a place where everyone could relax, like indie-lit’s breakroom where writers & editors could be more casual, shoot the shit, and share what they're doing while playing around with our platform.

Editors and writers are collaborators after all. Writers spill their guts, and editors take those guts and arrange them in a way that can be best enjoyed.

We were driven to build Chill Subs because it was something we felt we needed to keep going as creatives. And, it seems like a lot of people have been feeling the same.

Good ol' dumb luck.

This, I think, amounts to roughly 50% of the success of any business and is not credited enough. We were lucky that several influential people picked up on Chill Subs early on; lucky that Karina took an interview with Lit Mag News; that I read it; that neither of our emails fell into the spam folder of our brains. 

We have been lucky to catch the attention of so many wonderful and helpful people over this past year, and lucky to have the friends we do.

Luck is sort of like a wave; when it's there, and you've got the time and motivation to catch it, you can ride it all the way down the beach. 

But without luck…well, you're just left paddling around in still waters like some dumb fuckin' seal waiting to be eaten.

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