Driving American is on Hiatus
Death knell, or regroup?
I launched Driving American on July 4, 2023. The goal was to write three times weekly, but real life made that hard after the summer ended. So I switched to a once-weekly roundup of news and other information under the Monday Rundown column, adding more when I could. And now, on the first day of 2024, I’m putting the publication on an indefinite hold.
Yes, that’s bad for a subscriber-based publication. But I have no subscribers, so it doesn’t matter.
Yes, that’s bad for search engine optimization. But Substack’s SEO is as helpful for driving traffic as that Cadillac above is for running to Trader Joe’s. In addition, discoverability on the site and the app is terrible (for me, anyway). I’ve optimized images, headlines, and URLs, and nothing comes inbound from Google or anywhere else.
Driving American is a long-term play, and I’m willing to put in the work to make it a success. There is an audience for this niche, and the unique twist I put on it — my research suggests so. I don’t need to make money from it today. That’s for later. But I do want people to read it.
Since I don’t have an established following on a social platform that I can direct here, building an audience for this publication requires SEO and discoverability on a platform, and in my experience, Substack doesn’t work for that.
Or the Driving American concept sucks.
Either way, I can’t figure out if the problem is Substack or the concept unless I take a stab at the idea elsewhere. Medium? A Ghost site? Not sure yet. But this six-month experiment has been a learning experience.
If you’re reading this, have a terrific 2024. I’ll update this page with whatever decision I make regarding a new home for Driving American.
Be safe out there. People drive like they’re playing a video game, apparently forgetting there is no respawning in real life.