Is Substack Really for Paid Newsletters or Is It A Writer's Social Media Site?
Aha - I just figured out why I've been so grumpy about Substack the past couple of months and maybe that means I'll have some idea of what to do next ...
If you’ve been following along then you know that I’ve been struggling to figure out what Substack means for me and what I have to give to others through this platform and I think I’ve come upon another important piece of the puzzle …
To catch you up, previous related posts were:
A blunt look at what's going to go away from Create Me Free soon if the financial realities don't start to match up with the creative dreams and specifically losing weekly digests, maybe changing to a milestone format. And finally, asking myself, am I writing on Substack for income or for community?
I’ve been engaging with people in the comments on my essays and in some comments on other people’s writing about this topic and over on Notes, and I’ve been doing that because often I figure out what I’m thinking by conversing through it with others. Someone says something and I respond and as I do, I realize something new, and I mull that over and perhaps sometimes say it a different way to someone else until it finally starts to click into place for me.
Why I’m disillusioned with Substack
And in that process, a small, but important, piece of the puzzle came together for me today. It’s this:
I came to Substack specifically because it was my understanding at the time that it was a place where people were writing subscription-based newsletters that people who believed in their work were paying to support.
I had been running a subscription-based newsletter over on Patreon for eight years. It did okay but never great there because it’s just really not a newsletter platform. People tend to expect to receive physical merchandise for their investment there, at least in my experience. I tried many different ways of doing that and they were all “okay” but really I don’t want to create merchandise. Yes, I sell books. Also, the amount of money made per book sale is so tiny that it would take tens of thousands of sales to actually support me.
So, when I discovered Substack, I really bought into the idea that it was a platform created for people who wanted to have a paid-for subscription based newsletter. I saw that as the focus, the mission, and perhaps that was because, well, that’s what I wanted to see. Or perhaps it’s because that is indeed part of Substack’s marketing. So, I started here in May of last year and I put full-time effort into building both a community here and an archive of work in my niche.
The community felt key to me. But the community is also where I got lost. In trying to utilize Substack’s communication and marketing tools, I became all wrapped up in the social media aspect of it. I thought/hoped/maybe was building some kind of community and doing my best to uplift and support and promote the work of others here. But ultimately, what seems true for me is that people who are already on Substack are primarily writers and they are able to afford to pay for very few subscriptions. So I can spend my time hanging out in this awesome community but it’s not going to be for a profit.
And when I wrote that piece about realizing that I needed to decide if I was here for community or for income, I was overwhelmed and frustrated and confused. Because why can’t it be both? It can, sort of, except that I came here for the express purpose of developing a paid newsletter as a primary source of income. And focusing on community-building, at least in the way I know how to do it, doesn’t lend itself to that purpose. And the conflicting feelings I had about it just kind of sat there.
But it helps to realize/ remember that this is why I chose this platform in the first place. I could have set up a blog (I’ve had several in the past, made ad income, even sold one for five figures) but I came here because I believe in the subscription newsletter model. More than that, I believe in people investing in something monthly or annually because they believe in the mission of it more than then product that they are getting. I believe in it. I put my own money towards it in my support of others here and elsewhere. And I want to believe that if I just find the right people then I’ll receive that support as well in a sustainable way.
Is Substack mostly social media and free subscriptions?
I’ve read what a lot of people have to say about this and I have looked at my own experience. My guess is that the really big writers here, the ones who had bestseller names long before arriving here to write, who choose to have a paid newsletter probably do get a decent base of people paying for that writing. But most people who are here probably don’t really make a whole lot of money on their Substack newsletter subscriptions alone.
Looking at my numbers and conversion rate and the numbers others have been transparent about here on Substack, it looks like anyone whose making full time money here is doing it not so much through subscriptions but instead through selling other things (workshops, community meetings, art, consulting, whatever). Which is great. Except that I could do that with any free newsletter tool. I thought that Substack was a different model that would lend itself better to a paid subscriber base.
But mostly the tools here seem to be about the social media aspect: Notes is very Twitter/IG/Facebook Feed-esque. Comments are bloggy. Chats and DMs are like texts or Messenger. I have pretty little interest in free subscribers, so you can imagine my interest in “followers,” a term that I’ve long loathed for the cult-y, Pied Piper-y aspect of it even thought it’s part of our common vernacular and I find myself using it plenty as a result.
Basically, my disillusionment comes from this: if I had been if I had been introduced to Substack as a really interesting new social media platform for writers, rather than as a platform for people who wanted to create paid subscription newsletters, I would have treated the entire experience very differently.
I may or may not have bothered to join up. I don’t join most social media but I do appreciate community in this form when it’s the right form for me and there’s a lot I like here about that and perhaps I would have been enticed and found the friends here that I have found. However, I certainly wouldn’t have come to Substack thinking that I was going to put full time or even part time investment of my energy into creating a product on a social media site. And because I had a certain idea of Substack being a good place for developing a paid subscription newsletter, I treated it that way.
The Good News
So, maybe I sound like I’m complaining a lot, but actually, the realization of where my own disillusionment was coming from is important. With over two decades experience carving out a full time creative career, I’ve regularly had to pivot and shift and find new solutions and approaches … that’s part of the creativity behind a creative career. And that’s okay.
And, in fact, I had this wonderful experience recently of discovering some old photography work that I did in my late teens and realizing that it connected to writing that I’ve done more recently and what that really did was remind me that I’m on a path, I’ve always been on a path, and the path is a lot clearer in retrospect than it ever is in the murky middle, and if I just keep winding my way through the thick foliage of this current creative forest, I’ll be able to reach another one of those points where I can look down from a hill and see where I came from. It’s all okay.
What Does This Mean For Me on Substack?
Honestly, I’m trying not to force any decisions here. I like Substack as a community of writers. I like being a reader here. I also like it as a platform for writing a newsletter - the minimal style suits me. I don’t see a ton of benefit of moving my newsletter off of this site to somewhere else unless I come up with a really specific plan or reason for doing so. For the time being, that means I’ll just treat this newsletter as originally intended - a newsletter designed for my paying subscribers - and I’ll come up with ways, probably mostly off of Substack - to promote it as such, and we’ll see what happens.
The Pitch
In case you’re new here, or you’re a free subscriber, here’s what I’m about:
I write about the complex relationship between art and mental health, honoring art as therapy but exploring the shadow side of how mental health issues impact creative content, medium, productivity, process, and artistic identity. I also look at art’s role in society and how to have a holistically successful life while creating art and maintaining wellness in the face of many intersecting “isms” and social challenges.
If you believe in the power of creating an online library of resources related to this as well as building a community around this, then my work is for you. Our expenses reflect our values. When you invest in Create Me Free, you invest in a value system, a community, the creation of a library of online resources about the complex relationship between art and mental health. This supports a societal shift away from a productivity-driven consumer market where your money buys x product that you can use for y amount of time on your own towards a model that supports holistic wellness, deep creative process, and meaningful social contributions.
I also believe in giving as much as I get from any creative community. I practice artistic tithing, giving at least ten percent of my annual earned income (usually more) to other writers, artists, performers, makers and small businesses. I also recognize that we are all in different financial positions and for that reason I offer a Sliding Scale: Pay What You Can option to subscribe to my Substack, which I’ve tried to make easy to use.
Complementary, Supplementary, and Opposing Viewpoints
We are all here for different reasons and have different goals and there’s no right or wrong way to “do Substack.” Some people have been in writing or marketing or business or art for decades, some are just trying out writing creatively in public for the first time. Some are hoping to earn a full-time income from Substack, some just a little side money, some not planning to try to make money at all. We all have different beliefs about all of this based on our own experiences.
Here are some of the other smart voices talking about different aspects of similar things related to Substack that you may want to explore:
My various side hustles are just that: a way to make a little extra cash. I paywall what I do for specific reasons besides money. 1. Sometimes, I get a little personal. It's simply not information I want to share with everyone. When someone pays to read my writing, they are putting trust in me to provide decent content. I'm return, I am trusting them with a little more access to my life. 2. It keeps out people with whom I do not wish to engage. It's a gate.
It's just that simple. I DO like the social aspect of Substack, and I like the flexibility of the platform for how we each engage with our readers. I really don't use other social media that much. This feels more like it has a purpose.
Would I depend on Substack for the whole of my income? Hell, no! I'd starve if I did that. I'm happy to use it as one of the tools in my kit, though, and I DO value the community that I've found here.
In the spirit of Taoist “Wu Wei” I just write, breath, and exist. Somehow things just work out.