Taylor Lorenz, Matt Yglesias and longer Shorts

It’s been a busy lately. Lots of interesting moves, news and updates that felt too timely to save for even a few more days. That’s why you’re getting an extra Sunday Project C instead of the usual Thursday-only send. Stay tuned this Thursday, though, for part two of my chat with WTF Just Happened Today’s Matt Kiser: The One Where Matt Shares His Pro Tips.*

What’s Been Going On

• Taylor Lorenz is no longer at The Washington Post. Going full-on creator, she launched a re-branded version of her Substack as User Mag – which will become one half of a Lorenz universe bookended by her Vox Media-distributed podcast, Power User. Navigate to the new Subtstack home page for User Mag and you’ll find a robust home page full of a backlog of stories. That’s because Lorenz has been newsletter-ing on Substack off-and-on since 2019. Until last week, her home there was branded “Taylor Lorenz’s Newsletter” (see below). It makes sense to build on a list she’s been curating for almost five years and it’s easier for creators to make decisions about rebranding vs. a legacy media brand trying to do the same thing (though it would be LULZ to see WaPo suddenly rebranded as “Jeff Bezos’ Newsletter.”) P.S. There has been a fair amount of scuttle around Lorenz’s move. Project C ain’t the place for that. (But this is.)

• Matt Yglesias is a newsletter millionaire, per Business Insider. Four years into writing Slow Boring, BI estimates he’s bringing in $1.4 million each year based on some back of the envelope math (18,000 subscribers X an $80 a year subscription). For Yglesias, that works out pretty well considering he only has two employees, one of whom is his wife. Reminder: Yglesias was a high-profile talent get for Substack back in 2020 when they cut him a check for $200K to guarantee his year one income. (Full disclosure: I worked with Matt for a couple of years at Vox when I was running podcasts and he was still hosting the long-running policy podcast, The Weeds ☠️.)

• Not every Substacker (there were an estimated 17K newsletter writers using the platform in 2023) gets a signing deal or makes enough to cover costs, let alone clear a mil. Over at Journalists Pay Themselves, Lex Roman interrogated Substack’s built-in subscriber growth model and discovered low conversion and clunky tools.

• Embedded’s Kate Lindsay talks to shit you should care about’s Lucy Blakiston about launching a then New Zealand government-funded project with her two BFFs in 2018 that now reaches millions each day across Instagram, Twitter, TikTok, Substack, and two podcasts.

• Hey video peeps, something for you too after all this text-y news: YouTube is making changes to Shorts. They will, henceforth, be less short. Starting Oct. 15th, creators can post Shorts up to three-minutes long.

• In more platform news, Instagram launched a new hub for creators full of their recommended best practices that “include guidance on topics across creation, engagement, reach, monetization and guidelines.”

• For any of you newsroom stalwarts out there wondering how to partner with creators, the American Press Institute is spearheading a program to help six local newsrooms partner with regional influencers around election coverage. Which is smart because, per Teen Vogue, Gen Z voters could determine the outcome of this election and a new survey from Collective Voice finds that 70 percent of consumers are actively seeking out election-related content from their favorite creators.

• Reminder: The joint Project C-Trusting News creator journalism standards survey is open through Oct. 11th. If you haven’t taken it yet, please do. You are the target audience.

YouTube & Chill

After seeing one of these unofficial street view cars in my neighborhood YESTERDAY, imagine my luck in loading up Phil Edwards’ YouTube feed to find he’s got a 22-minute explainer on the story behind these emblems of a hidden economy.

🎃 Halloween Watchlist Help: Every October, I watch many horror movies. I’m a folk horror girlie mainly, but here for anything that isn’t gore and transcends jump scares. If you have movie recs or even some good independent journalism about horror or Halloween or spookiness in general, hit me in the comments section. 🎃

What the hell. Here’s what I watched last October:

1. Apostle 👎

2. The Ritual 🫲

3. Antlers 👍

4. The Borderlands/Final Prayer 👎

5. You Are Not My Mother 👍👍

6. The Hole in the Ground 👍

7. The Canal 

8. The Hallow 

9. La Llorona 👍👍

10. The Wicker Man (1973)👍

11. The Isle 👎

12. Cropsey 👎

13. Barbarians 👍

14. Nope 👍👍👍

15. Don’t Leave Home 👎

16. Us 👍👍

17. The Unbinding 👎

18. The Pope’s Exorcist 👎

19. Guillermo del Toro's Cabinet of Curiosities 👍

20. Goodnight Mommy 👍