A long-time political blogger named Andrew Sullivan is starting a subscription service. Guess what? He's making his effort 100% transparent. He's informing his fans exactly how many people have signed up, where they are and how much money they've taken in: http://andrewsullivan.thedailybeast.com/2013/01/the-dish-model-the-data.html This is how you act when you're not afraid of being perceived as irrelevant. You let your fans in on the ground floor and make them aware of how you're performing. It's refreshing.