Am I writing on Substack for income or for community and what changes if the answer changes?

New thoughts and some helpful insights from the comments in this community as we all try to puzzle through what role it has for each of us

Today’s images free from Unsplash using search term “writers community”

Last week I shared my thoughts about why I mass unsubscribed to hundreds of Substack newsletters, although I loved most of them, and how I’m puzzling through what Substack means to me here. The comments on that post were really rich, supportive, inspiring, thought-provoking. Through them, I realized a few things:

1) I absolutely value the community aspect of the Substack platform and the resonance with so many creative people here.

2) We are, of course, all here for different reasons. There are people whose goals are simply to share their work, hone their writing, maybe promote another business and there are those of us who are here to write full time, and there’s no better or worse goals within that but knowing why we’re here makes a difference in how we approach it.

3) And so, I have to really figure out why I’m here. Am I here for a full-time income, which is what I originally intended? I am a full-time writer and I don’t want to be on a whole bunch of different platforms and freelancing for a million different publications anymore and what I want is a core group that supports my work … so that’s why I came here. Or am I here for the community? Of course, I can be here for both, but I have found that the community’s value isn’t likely to be in the form of paying for writing. I think this is just the nature of the platform - the echo chamber, the supply and demand … if most people here are writers seeking paying readers then most of us aren’t going to get a large number of paying readers because everyone can only pay for so much.

The Benefits of Community Are Invaluable (I Think?)

Ultimately, I believe in community. I believe in writers supporting writers, artists supporting artists, rising tides lift all boats. And I have found an excellent community here of writers, healers, artists, makers, thinkers. Were I independently wealthy I could easily enjoy just communicating and collaborating with everyone here full-time. It would be a dream. I would love to support everyone’s work and see what we can do to elevate each other.

And I like to think that this kind of connection can ultimately lead to financial sustainability. Maybe it doesn’t come from the 1000 paid subscriptions I would need to support working full time here but instead through the chance conversations and intentional collaborations that lead to new projects, things that happen off of Substack, recommendations to a new writing job … There is huge value in that.

But How Does The Money Work Out?

I was too ambitious. I had already become super enamored with the “1000 true fans” idea and was trying to make it happen when I discovered the Substack platform and really truly believed that if I put full-time work into being here for a year, I could get there. Maybe not to the 1000, but close. So, I self-funded almost a year here (ten months) and … It’s been a terrific experience with many benefits but financially it’s been … well, let’s just say that the amount of debt I’m now in forces my hand a bit about what’s next. That was a choice, a calculated choice, and it will surely evoke many opinions. What I can say is that I have been a full-time writer for nearly twenty years and have made leaps like that in the past and sometimes they pay off and sometimes they don’t and that’s okay.

So, the conundrum, I think, is that I was putting full-time work not just into the writing but really into the community. Into making friends and connections and uplifting others and doing a lot of interviews and trying to create a strong community within the community by really investing in others. Meaning putting a lot of time into knowing people’s work, engaging with it deeply, sharing it widely, celebrating it as much as possible. And, again, I believe in this. I wasn’t doing it as some kind of strategy. I was doing it because it is what felt good. Except, as aforementioned, I’ve come to the conclusion that I think it’s really unlikely that Substack writers are going to end up paying much to other people writing on Substack, at least not for “just writing.”

I’m Not Alone In This

As I said, the comments on that previous post were really rich and informative and insightful. I’m not alone in feeling some kind of overwhelm here. There were various threads of thought in that slightly discombobulated, meandering post and people resonated with different aspects. Some people resonated with simply trying to read too much or feeling guilt when they don’t read (a tangent I find very interesting) and some with the financial aspects. Here’s kind of an overview: