I'm sorry, I couldn't quite catch my own name....
How your first substack creates an immediate identity crisis
After a journalism career lasting well over four decades, I thought I’d better try my hand at writing on Substack.
I’m told all the best people are here. But they probably didn’t all spend most of a weekend trying to think of a name for their publication. It’s not easy as you might think.
Do you go for something quirky? I thought of calling it something like “Lying on the Sofa, Thinking.” But when I was actually lying on the sofa, thinking, it seemed like a really stupid idea.
The advice from most quarters is to use your name and/or keep it simple. Well that’s great if you have a big name that people will recognise, or even search for. Like Patti Smith, who apart from being a great musician, poet and seventies icon, has a very popular Substack newsletter in her own name.
If you’re a famous US election analyst like Nate Silver, you can get away with calling your newsletter The Silver Bulletin, without people thinking it must be a missive from metalsdaily.com.
And if you’re the English author, journalist and podcaster Elizabeth Day, you also have an obvious name for your elucidating Substack publication — Daylight, of course.
The obvious name for someone with my surname who wants to write informatively is “The Lowedown”. Well here’s the lowdown on how that went — Substack told me it had already been taken.
I was, however, offered the opportunity to be Lowedown467, which felt like second best. Or maybe 467th best.
I’ve checked out the other Lowedown and discovered no posts, only likes, which makes it more frustrating. And then I thought about Lowe Point, but worried it might just describe my efforts!
Anyway, I’m rather taken with an alternative, which is LoweNotes. It allows me to write about anything at all, while at least having a nod to music, which will be one of my subjects.
There are some wonderful names. I like that Professor Tim Spector, London scientist, nutritionist and specialist on the health of the gut, has called his Gut Feelings.
Ed Conway, the super-smart Economics Editor at Sky News - and therefore a former colleague - has a great substack called Material World. And that’s handy when you also have an acclaimed book of the same name.
It made me wonder whether Madonna had claimed the name Material Girl, but it’s already been claimed by someone called Caroline Reilly who writes about fashion, shopping and luxury goods.
Another former Sky News colleague, Mehdi Hasan, seems to be making a big impact with his own news media company, Zeteo — a Greek word meaning to seek in order to find. Straight answers from politicians is what Mehdi seems to be looking for.
As a big Radiohead fan, one of the first things I looked for was whether Thom Yorke had a newsletter on Substack. And he does! Rather humbly he writes: “I am an English musician and the main vocalist and songwriter of the rock band Radiohead.”
In the world of finance there’s a very successful newsletter on energy and economics which glories in the name Doomberg, which I rather love. And I also admire Caroline Chambers for breaking the rules of naming your Substack, by calling hers What To Cook When You Don’t Feel Like Cooking. It does what it says on the tin. And it’ll be ready in thirty minutes.
Stay alert for notes on news, journalism, politics, culture and music from LoweNotes, unless I’ve thought of an even better name….
Peter Lowe
Peter
I look forward to reading more of your thoughts and thinking back to our group's time in Cambridge this past summer. FYI, I did a podcast awhile back; I called it The Meanderings of a Librarian. The name came to me quickly. I read about the origins of "meander" and thought it captured my podcast's purpose. I haven't recording anything in a year or two, but it's still out there. I just wanted to try something new during Covid and practice my communications skills. It served its purpose. I might like to do some podcasting with students, so I have some experience. Cheers!