Is Making A Substack Newsletter A Good Idea?
I have been hearing about Substack for a while now and I've decided to share my thoughts on it. Substack is a company which helps readers connect directly with writers. Substack facilitates the distribution of newsletters. Substack is a directory of available newsletters.
Most, if not all, of those newsletters are written by a single author. They aren't the publication of some massive media conglomeration with dozens of writers on their payroll. They are the thoughts and reportings of one person. By choosing to subscribe to a particular newsletter, you are connecting directly to one person and their writings. That can be more beneficial and desirable in some ways than simply looking for information from large media company websites.
The newsletters are listed in a directory that you can either browse by category or which you can search by keyword. You find several available newsletter options, each with a brief description of what they contain. Then, the main way to engage with that newsletter that caught your eye is to enter your email address to sign up to receive the newsletter. After you submit your email address, you will begin to find the future editions of the newsletter arriving in your inbox.
It seems like some of the newsletters also have some of the newsletter content available for preview on their Substack page so that you can really get a feel for whether you will enjoy the newsletter or not.
Substack is really cool because it is a method of generating direct, non-advertising revenue from your readers. Substack allows newsletter creators to offer a premium newsletter in exchange for a monthly subscription from readers. Authors get to choose how much to charge for the premium subscription, so they get to decide how much money they make to some degree.
There are some Substack creators who offer mostly premium content with just a few free pieces as teasers for their paid stuff. There are also lots of creators who have everything available for free and are simply using Substack as a publishing platform. So, whatever your newsletter budget, you'll be able to find something to read.
The way Substack helps writers generate an income directly from their audience and their writing is what is really significant and revolutionary. There are already lots of companies/products that allow you to send things to an email list. Companies like MailChimp and Constant Contact enable you to connect with those people who have signed up for emails from you. And you could easily use those services to send out a newsletter.
But Substack facilitates the payments from readers to writers, allowing content creators to charge for their content. That is so huge. So many creators are forced to make money from advertising because it seems like the only way to make money from your writing when you can't charge your audience directly. Advertising can pay relatively little for lots of work, and showing ads to your readers can annoy them. Allowing for readers to pay for premium content can ensure higher quality work is produced and keeps irritating ads out of the reading experience.
One major application for Substack newsletters is for journalists. Journalists used to need to work for some kind of news organization, such as a newspaper or a TV news station. But working for a news company means that their boss tells them what they should be investigating and also filters their work before it reaches the audience. And, in recent years, news organizations have been reducing their staff of journalists, instead opting for cheaper writers.
Journalists can create and charge for a newsletter which would allow readers to follow the output of journalists they trust and for those journalists to generate an income which sustains their work and makes it possible for them to keep writing.
This whole process has been described as a journalism renaissance. People want good reporting, and if they are willing to pay for it, journalists are excited to produce it. The advertising-supported news model has been tried and it has resulted in a reducing of the quality of news and reporting. If things are to get better, people must be willing to pay for it.
I listened to a podcast episode from the a16z show, which is produced by the Andreessen Horowitz venture capital company, that interviewed Substack writers at different levels of success and found out what their opinions of the process were. They were all excited for the opportunity to reach an audience and have that audience provide an income for them.
The most successful person interviewed is a C-level executive for a tech startup. That person writes a tech newsletter, and because of his position within the industry, he has an existing large following of people who want to hear what he has to say. Because of that following, when he starting charging for a premium newsletter, people signed up and paid for it. For him, Substack is nothing but great.
There were newsletter authors with middle tier levels of success. They had some paying subscribers, but the income generated was not enough to replace their full-time jobs, so it was just a side income until they grew their audience more. For them, also, Substack was a worthwhile investment of time because they are part way to generating a full-time income from their writing, so they can see that it is possible. And being part way to success is better than nothing because of the momentum that is generated that helps you get where you want to go.
There was also a person who had no existing audience who was running a newsletter. That person wasn't able to generate any significant income at all because nobody knew them or yet cared about their work. Without an audience, Substack doesn't do much for writers. Some random people could happen upon your newsletter and possibly sign up, but that is not really sustainable. To build a dependable income around your writing, you need to build an audience that knows you, likes your work, and wants to continue to read your work. For this person, Substack was a frustration because they were putting in the work for the newsletter and not really getting anything for it.
And that is the point that leads me to my ultimate opinion about Substack. I think it is a great tool to generate an income if you already have an audience. You have done something somewhere which has attracted the interest of lots of people, and you simply need a way to charge those people for something to make an income.
I don't think Substack is a great option for newer writers or those just starting out. You need to work on building an audience first. And hiding all of your writing behind a paywall will not help you attract an audience. Nobody is going to pay to find out if they like your stuff. You need to convince them that they will like your stuff, then they will pay for it. And the best way to convince them is to offer your stuff for free. Remove all of the friction that could stop them from reading you.
You should publish a lot of good content for free. I think the best place to do that would be on your own blog. You can use Substack like a blog and offer all of your content for free, but then you are hosting all of your hard work on someone else's website. I think you should build up a website of your own that will become a lasting asset for you that isn't owned or controlled by anyone else. That way you can do whatever you want with your blog in terms of content and monetization, and simply use Substack as a tool or an offshoot of your business. I don't think Substack should be your whole business.
I am very excited about the opportunity and the possibilities that Substack offers for writers to generate an income from their writing. I am also very optimistic about the change this could have on people's willingness to pay for valuable writing and the changes that could cause in journalism generally.
Have you heard of Substack? Do you subscribe to any newsletters? Do you pay for premium writing? How do you feel about directly supporting your favorite writers through something like Substack or Patreon? Let me know in the comments!
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