I’ll be interested to watch your experiment. Elle’s article has nudged another writer this way, I believe, and I’ve suggested to him that I’m reluctant (read: unable, unwilling) to pay for every Substack writer I enjoy reading. I worry that there’s a zero sum game we’re playing as we “all” try to go paid. I think we’ll see a real test of how elastic budgets are for content.
I do not believe this is a zero sum game. Just the opposite! While I agree that every reader will only pay for a small percentage of the Substacks they subscribe to, that’s enough to support the entire economy.
All each author needs is for 1,000 people to decide that their newsletter is on their shortlist. Simon and I might share a lot of the same free subscribers, but one person might love and pay for Simon’s Substack while another might love and pay for mine. We both win because we both made somebody’s shortlist.
That’s the whole point of the creator economy. We don’t need all of the readers to pay for all of the writers (That’s a mass market play-like Netflix or Spotify) We only need a small niche of readers to pay for a small niche of writers. And that’s possible for everyone!
I've had similar concerns, Tom, largely based off my own behaviour. I pay for half a dozen Substacks and would love to pay for more but simply can't justify the cost. It sometimes feels like any income I get from my own subscribers, I end up putting straight back into other Substack writers (which is no bad thing, but feels a bit recursive!).
I tend to come down on the same side as Elle, though. Because we're a close-knit community, it can feel like there's a small pool of potential paying subscribers. But for most of us, *we* are not the key audience. We're just the noisy people chatting with each other. There are lots more people to appeal to, and I suspect that potential audience is only going to get larger as more people rediscover the joy of reading high quality material online.
I feel this too. I have WAY more people reading than commenting on posts. And way more one-off readers than subscribers. Though I think this is maybe because I’ve refused to niche down.
Elle, Simon, you both make really good cases! You stated my feeling exactly, Simon: I just can’t justify more subscriptions. So the answer you guys propose is that we expand the pool of readers so that it’s large enough for each of us to find our paying tribe. I get it … but I’m not sure I see it happening. In part, it’s because of the intense competition across all content forms: not just reading, but short-form video and TV and movies. All of these are competing for eyeballs and wallets. I hope I’m wrong, but I still count myself skeptical. (Not so skeptical that I won’t keep trying, mind you.) Thanks for the conversation, even if it is just among us “noisy people”! 🙂
I'm never sure how much it is competition, though. In terms of competing for time, certainly, but at the same time there will always be people who will prefer to read rather than watch Netflix or play games. And vice versa. I'm not particularly concerned about trying to convince someone who loves binging TV shows on Netflix to instead read serialised fiction in newsletter form. But the people who would like to be reading more in general? Those are the people to find.
In my experience, Medium is closer to a social network, with all of the associated pros and cons. Getting traction is much harder there, and it tends to feel like fighting for scraps under the table.
I've posted some of my work on Medium and I've also posted my fiction on Simily (a fiction version of medium, new and just getting off the ground). I am picturing these other platforms as a way to keep my content accessible, despite what I am trying with a paid subscription here on substack. A reader could read a few pieces on those platforms before being stopped by a pay wall, so that could provide some access to those unable or unwilling to pay for my work. In theory, haha. I haven't taken the leap yet and tried anything
I've also experimented here and with Medium. I like Substack's more focused approach to an audience. I think even if it's hard to have many paid subscribers, you get that audience which can be people who simply enjoy your work (yay) and others who may be interested in other things like short courses or books even if they can't or don't want to go paid. I really love this newsletter but as Tom and Charlotte say, I pay for a few and can't even really afford those until I make more myself! Would love to and am happy for any free subscriber. Substack recommends keeping your best stuff free and I try to do this, making the 'extras' just that and available for people who want to support as patronage. Keep going, Simon!
I have been struggling with paid subscriptions as well. I've been offering my newsletter and writing for free since joining this year (still very much a newbie), but I also believe that artists should be paid for their work and there is a precedent to set (by staying free you will only attract people who wish to continue getting your work for free), but, like you had said, asking for people to pay for each short story or episode I launch feels like too big of an ask. Thank you for sharing your journey with this experiment. I follow Elle as well and your insights are so helpful! I feel like we are all walking an unpaved path and every bit of cut back brush is helpful.
Good luck! I hope to hear more about your experiments.
Thanks, Reina. I'll keep everyone posted. I'm so pleased that there's a community of us poking at this stuff. It's the first time I've really encountered such a vibrant community of writers.
Love this. Feeling it all. More and more I think Wattpad is a UGC mine. I prefer Substack as well. Also love giving away free writing, while debating a more structured approach with payments.
I’m also already wishing there was a “Substack unlimited” option or a token system because I want to read so many different Substack off and on.
(that said, it might be interesting if specific writers could band together to offer 'group' subscriptions. So it wouldn't be a Substack-wide 'Unlimited' option, but all serial fiction writers could offer a single joint subscription, for example. That's a whole other can of worms, though....)
Every did that (Every.to), the problem is that, despite having a lot of newsletter subscribers as a group, and even a lot of paying newsletter subscribers, splitting the profits means none of the writers are earning a living.
I’d be curious to see a case study where the bundle works (Are we just recreating publications at that point? Do we then have to become a mass market play?) I still think independent writers have the best shot.
I like that idea. Like a co-op. Though I guess this could just be a single group Substack with multiple authors. Then again, we pay for every book by different authors (except for KU folks) so the question more becomes do we want to think of reading short form content as a luxury item or a bulk good...
Or something in between?
I go back and forth in a similar way with TV subscriptions—Netflix, Hulu, AMC, HBO, Showtime. Like I want to subscribe to ALL of them. Lol. But that’s just not realistic. So I do tend to subscribe and then cancel by shows... like I’m on Hulu now for The Handmaid’s Tale and when it ends I’ll cancel my subscription.
Yeah, 'Substack Unlimited' does appeal to me somewhat as a reader, but it doesn't appeal as
a writer. It immediately shifts the balance of power towards Substack rather than writers. It makes it more difficult to predict income or success, and makes everything a bit fuzzy.
One of the benefits of Substack is how diverse and distinct each writer is. A big part of that is that my Substack is entirely separate to yours. A reader can support my writing without feeling like they're supporting someone else's writing. Inevitably there's a wide range of opinions on Substack, many of which I don't like or agree with - as long as subscriptions and payment are firewalled off, that's OK. A more general subscription would mean that I'm supporting ALL writers on the platform, which I absolutely don't want to do.
We mentioned this concept to substack during their weekly office hours a few weeks back. The suggestion was to integrate a one-time KoFi type transaction (e.g., “if you like this post, buy me a cup of coffee/whatever to support my work”). They agreed to look into it...
That would be useful, I think, and a way for readers to test the waters before fully committing. And once they've paid for a single post, their details are likely to be in the system, making it easier for them to do so again in the future.
I wonder too about a “Substack unlimited” option (see my comment below on why). This is the model that The Atlantic chose when it bought Charlie Warzel and several other newsletter writers, but I’m afraid they don’t have enough variety to really make it work for long.
Elle seems to have tickled all of our writerly brains. I think you're asking the right questions, and there's no easy answer, other than to experiment and see where it leads you. You're a year further ahead of the game than I am, as I just launched my paid option, which I discussed in a post yesterday.
One encouragement I will make, is that your writing has tremendous worth, beyond getting paid for it. While it's nice to be paid for putting in the work, we have to be careful to attach its worth to how much money we can make from it. If you never reach the level of being able to support yourself full time with writing, it doesn't change the fact that you're showing up, putting in the effort, and risking putting something out into the world to see how it's received, paid or otherwise.
Good luck with the experiment, and thanks for being transparent with your journey!
This is absolutely a critical point. I've never put 'make loads of money' as a primary (or even secondary) goal for my writing. That's a fast route to despair, I feel. The writing is the writing, and that's the main goal and achievement and where I get my satisfaction from. The efforts to build a readership and encourage some financial support are a bonus - after all, I'd still be writing without any of that.
I'm still doing early access for paid subscribers, plus ebooks of new releases and my back catalog, and I also do exclusive art reveals. My paid subscriber number is pretty low, so can't say that it's working, but I think I will continue with the early access model, as it is a good compromise that lets everyone read my fiction for free while giving a perk to paid subscribers and also not devaluing the book when I launch my Kickstarter.
I did a lot more non-fiction posts earlier in the year, which were a lot of work and took away from my writing time. And I foolishly started a weekly comics column that I haven't been able to keep up. Going forward, I think I will switch to one post per month, one comics post per month, and a discussion thread.
I was enjoying that comics column, for what it's worth. :)
Keeping up the pace is a big challenge. I do 2 posts a week (one non-fiction, one fiction) and mostly seem to be able to hit that cadence. It's a challenge some weeks more than others, to be sure - that's part of why I'm building in some things like discussion threads, because that is not only great for community building but also lightens the writing load on me.
Thank you! And you're in luck because I will be running the next issue of the column tomorrow with an awesome interview!
I think it was a lot juggling three chapters a week (two per week of my first book and then one per week of the second book), plus interviews, plus non-fiction posts, plus discussion threads. You have the right idea about discussion threads. I think I will try doing 2 posts plus 2 threads a month, with one post/thread being about comics and one post/thread being about my fiction. Hopefully that will be a good balance.
Even aside from the writing, I find there's a surprising amount of admin around this kind of output - although Substack does make this about as streamlined as is possible. Content + admin of posting content quickly = no time left.
I continually read about posting weekly (and even daily!), but have to ignore that advice. It's just not sustainable to me.
I like some of the perks you offer, early access, but also your back catalog and ebook versions of new releases. Those are great ideas to provide perks to paid subscribers while not adding more expectations to your output
I think there's something to be said about establishing a cadence with your readers. A daily posting schedule is not workable for 99% of us, and originally I wanted my Substack newsletter to be weekly (in addition to the fiction posts, of which I had a backlog of), but that has proven unsustainable as well.
Thanks! I wanted to create perks that didn't make me go crazy creating new things. Hopefully as I release more books & comics, the paid subscription becomes more valuable and easier to sell.
I don't really see how daily is possible unless you're doing this full time, and even then I don't think I'd do it. You need a particularly dedicated readership for that to work. I've unsubscribed from some newsletters due to them posting too much!
I've always found a large benefit in having gaps between writing sessions, too. It's when my brain recharges and starts thinking of interesting new ideas. If I write too much, I lose that important creative time.
Thank you for this! I had the thought of making occasional posts paid, including some stories and serial chapters (say, one in five or so). This would allow most readers to read most of the story, while giving something extra to paying subscribers. One could also leave posts free for a week and then paywall them. In this way, faithful and motivated readers would get the content for free; new readers could see for a while what they'll get if they pay. And if they like chapters 37 to 41 and want to read the whole story, they'd have to pay. Seems like a good compromise between reader and writer interests?
I haven’t enabled the monetisation on my substack yet but I think about that occasionally. Similar thought process. My readership is smaller and I always say myself “I should go paid when I reach X readers, I am not ready yet” etc. Good luck with your experiment, it’s always interesting to see how other writers do things differently and see them growing.
I've also been considering going paid, and trying to have more community features, so I appreciated this. At the very least I'll probably add a 'just if you feel like supporting me' option soon as my part in normalizing the idea of paying writers.
I don't think there are any drawbacks to switching it on. Worst case scenario is that you don't get any paying subscribers, and everything carries on as it was before.
Oct 24, 2022·edited Oct 24, 2022Liked by Simon K Jones
I see writers asking for a “tip” option frequently, but I don’t believe most readers want it or would use it. If you tipped most of the stories you read each month just one dollar, that would add up fast. And giving pennies per story won’t add up to much. If you want pennies per story, you might as well write on Medium. 🤣
"Tipping" came up on the Substack Writers Unite Discord recently and I asked if anyone had ever gotten a "tip" for writing using Ko-fi or Buy Me A Coffee. The answer was one "no" and silence from everyone else. People are conditioned to tip musicians and wait staff, but not writers. I don't think it is a sustainable model. At least not yet.
One thing I have learned is, offering more newsletters is not what people want. I think many people subscribe to more newsletters than they can read. I do (I just unsubscribed to four because I rarely read them.) Personally, I don't want more newsletters per week. One is enough! 😂 Quality over quantity is the best strategy, I think.
I think the "community" aspect is the brightest possibility for fiction writers. I haven't really explored that.
The subscription model works well for some, but it is difficult for most of us "not well-known" writers. And especially for fiction (entertainment.) One Substack newsletter versus millions of songs or thousands of movies/tv shows is a tough sell. People will only take on so many subscriptions. Although, it is not a bad deal, really. People used to buy magazines every week for a few bucks. That added up to more than what you pay for a Substack subscription. Maybe writers should band together and put out Substack "magazines." Of course, then the money issue gets messy.
I have settled on a "patronage" option. Nothing else I tried worked and my paid readers all said they just wanted to support my writing. But I haven't gotten a new paid sub for almost a year, so patronage is not really working for me either. But my writing/newsletter is pretty unconventional. That could be a primary factor, in my case. So I will just write what I want, enjoy the comments, and know that some people enjoy my writing (10 people, enough to pay for it.) That is enough for me at the moment.
But I am keeping my eye on the "community" aspects like threads.
The Substack 'magazines' idea is interesting. In another comment above somewhere I pondered the option of having group subscriptions, whereby a reader can subscribe to a group of Substacks for a discounted rate. I'm not keen on a 'Substack Unlimited' option, Netflix-style, for all sorts of reasons, but built-in functionality whereby specific writers can optionally join forces could be interesting. It would need to be natively supported in order to avoid the finances getting icky, though.
There's two really interesting ideas here. One is the idea of a semi-literal magazine, where a bunch of substack writers make their exclusive content available in one inexpensive paid subscription. I'd pay $5 and get a whole bunch of normally paid content. Ostensibly there would be two or three writers that I'm there for, but it would also be a great opportunity to discover a whole bunch of new writers, conceivably who are like-minded to the ones that initially brought me to the magazine. While serialized fiction is a very fascinating idea, getting a new "episode" each week, it's also really cool to get a magazine where you're more likely to actually give at least a look to each item in there, and are more likely to make in a point to actually read the stuff you are interested in.
The other idea is there being sort of an umbrella stack you could subscribe to, that includes several writers within it, and that's how you'd get the paid content. So you can pay $5 for a subscription to "The League of Extraordinary Stackers" and get access to every writer who's chosen to sign on under that umbrella. As before, I'm there for certain writers, but am more likely to give associated writers a better shot.
It's a rough world out there for monthly subscriptions. For the first time in a decade, I've let my Netflix subscription lapse, and I'll sign back up when there's a bunch of interesting content in excited to watch. Similarly for HBO Max and most of the others I'm only going to subscribe in bursts. I've never done that before, but they've all raised prices so much that I have to actually evaluate how much I watch.
For all these things I just think there needs to be creative ways to package and market and charge for content.
I wonder if Substack readers will start bouncing from sub to sub, paying for a month, binge reading, then moving on. Like many people do with video subscriptions. The yearly option is a deterrent, but it could happen.
The “unlimited” option would probably mean we get lost in the mix and earn even less. Then writers start quitting. Small “magazines” with a few writers might work. But that is a whole other can of worms.
I certainly don't know what works. I brought out my illustrated novel in July with an email list of about a hundred people, many of which I only knew tangentially. As of today, I'm still just plodding along. Most of what I've read about this sort of publishing suggests you should make your best material free, and then charge for perks. I bought into that concept when I began. Trouble was, I didn't have time for extra credit assignments. Writing, editing and drawing the main content were taking up all of my available time, and I began to feel like I was undervaluing my work again; the same emotion I’ve felt each time I’ve published on some obscure lit mag that only pays ego-tokens. I put up a paywall on Chapter 10 or so and my fledgling readership plummeted. I panicked and went free again and continued to do so until Chapter 19. Then I started charging. My revelation was basically this: I have a really good book that I’ve spent years on. My dream, from the beginning, was to find people, or even one person, who find value in it. The readers who are truly engaged by my book won’t begrudge me the five-buck admission fee. The ones who are just browsing have 19 free chapters to look at. (I’ve lately been thinking of making it just the first ten.) Numbers are nice, but maybe that’s not the main thing after all. The main thing is to find “quality readers,” if I can make up such a term. I’m happy to have found a handful of engaged readers who are communicating with me about the book. Even if I fail to grow the site, I consider this much a victory.
I’ll be interested to watch your experiment. Elle’s article has nudged another writer this way, I believe, and I’ve suggested to him that I’m reluctant (read: unable, unwilling) to pay for every Substack writer I enjoy reading. I worry that there’s a zero sum game we’re playing as we “all” try to go paid. I think we’ll see a real test of how elastic budgets are for content.
I do not believe this is a zero sum game. Just the opposite! While I agree that every reader will only pay for a small percentage of the Substacks they subscribe to, that’s enough to support the entire economy.
All each author needs is for 1,000 people to decide that their newsletter is on their shortlist. Simon and I might share a lot of the same free subscribers, but one person might love and pay for Simon’s Substack while another might love and pay for mine. We both win because we both made somebody’s shortlist.
That’s the whole point of the creator economy. We don’t need all of the readers to pay for all of the writers (That’s a mass market play-like Netflix or Spotify) We only need a small niche of readers to pay for a small niche of writers. And that’s possible for everyone!
I've had similar concerns, Tom, largely based off my own behaviour. I pay for half a dozen Substacks and would love to pay for more but simply can't justify the cost. It sometimes feels like any income I get from my own subscribers, I end up putting straight back into other Substack writers (which is no bad thing, but feels a bit recursive!).
I tend to come down on the same side as Elle, though. Because we're a close-knit community, it can feel like there's a small pool of potential paying subscribers. But for most of us, *we* are not the key audience. We're just the noisy people chatting with each other. There are lots more people to appeal to, and I suspect that potential audience is only going to get larger as more people rediscover the joy of reading high quality material online.
I feel this too. I have WAY more people reading than commenting on posts. And way more one-off readers than subscribers. Though I think this is maybe because I’ve refused to niche down.
Same phenomena for me--and I too don’t want to fence myself in.
💯
Elle, Simon, you both make really good cases! You stated my feeling exactly, Simon: I just can’t justify more subscriptions. So the answer you guys propose is that we expand the pool of readers so that it’s large enough for each of us to find our paying tribe. I get it … but I’m not sure I see it happening. In part, it’s because of the intense competition across all content forms: not just reading, but short-form video and TV and movies. All of these are competing for eyeballs and wallets. I hope I’m wrong, but I still count myself skeptical. (Not so skeptical that I won’t keep trying, mind you.) Thanks for the conversation, even if it is just among us “noisy people”! 🙂
I'm never sure how much it is competition, though. In terms of competing for time, certainly, but at the same time there will always be people who will prefer to read rather than watch Netflix or play games. And vice versa. I'm not particularly concerned about trying to convince someone who loves binging TV shows on Netflix to instead read serialised fiction in newsletter form. But the people who would like to be reading more in general? Those are the people to find.
Yes, I concur. You can only pay for so many writers by monthly subscription and no one wants a class-based readership, though maybe that’s inevitable.
I’ve considered duplicating posts on Medium, but I haven’t experimented much with that platform.
In my experience, Medium is closer to a social network, with all of the associated pros and cons. Getting traction is much harder there, and it tends to feel like fighting for scraps under the table.
I've posted some of my work on Medium and I've also posted my fiction on Simily (a fiction version of medium, new and just getting off the ground). I am picturing these other platforms as a way to keep my content accessible, despite what I am trying with a paid subscription here on substack. A reader could read a few pieces on those platforms before being stopped by a pay wall, so that could provide some access to those unable or unwilling to pay for my work. In theory, haha. I haven't taken the leap yet and tried anything
I've also experimented here and with Medium. I like Substack's more focused approach to an audience. I think even if it's hard to have many paid subscribers, you get that audience which can be people who simply enjoy your work (yay) and others who may be interested in other things like short courses or books even if they can't or don't want to go paid. I really love this newsletter but as Tom and Charlotte say, I pay for a few and can't even really afford those until I make more myself! Would love to and am happy for any free subscriber. Substack recommends keeping your best stuff free and I try to do this, making the 'extras' just that and available for people who want to support as patronage. Keep going, Simon!
I have been struggling with paid subscriptions as well. I've been offering my newsletter and writing for free since joining this year (still very much a newbie), but I also believe that artists should be paid for their work and there is a precedent to set (by staying free you will only attract people who wish to continue getting your work for free), but, like you had said, asking for people to pay for each short story or episode I launch feels like too big of an ask. Thank you for sharing your journey with this experiment. I follow Elle as well and your insights are so helpful! I feel like we are all walking an unpaved path and every bit of cut back brush is helpful.
Good luck! I hope to hear more about your experiments.
Thanks, Reina. I'll keep everyone posted. I'm so pleased that there's a community of us poking at this stuff. It's the first time I've really encountered such a vibrant community of writers.
Love this. Feeling it all. More and more I think Wattpad is a UGC mine. I prefer Substack as well. Also love giving away free writing, while debating a more structured approach with payments.
I’m also already wishing there was a “Substack unlimited” option or a token system because I want to read so many different Substack off and on.
There is a “Substack Unlimited” option. It’s called Medium 🤣
(And it didn’t work for writers, which is probably why Substack came up with a better model 🥰)
(that said, it might be interesting if specific writers could band together to offer 'group' subscriptions. So it wouldn't be a Substack-wide 'Unlimited' option, but all serial fiction writers could offer a single joint subscription, for example. That's a whole other can of worms, though....)
Every did that (Every.to), the problem is that, despite having a lot of newsletter subscribers as a group, and even a lot of paying newsletter subscribers, splitting the profits means none of the writers are earning a living.
I’d be curious to see a case study where the bundle works (Are we just recreating publications at that point? Do we then have to become a mass market play?) I still think independent writers have the best shot.
I like that idea. Like a co-op. Though I guess this could just be a single group Substack with multiple authors. Then again, we pay for every book by different authors (except for KU folks) so the question more becomes do we want to think of reading short form content as a luxury item or a bulk good...
Or something in between?
I go back and forth in a similar way with TV subscriptions—Netflix, Hulu, AMC, HBO, Showtime. Like I want to subscribe to ALL of them. Lol. But that’s just not realistic. So I do tend to subscribe and then cancel by shows... like I’m on Hulu now for The Handmaid’s Tale and when it ends I’ll cancel my subscription.
Yeah, 'Substack Unlimited' does appeal to me somewhat as a reader, but it doesn't appeal as
a writer. It immediately shifts the balance of power towards Substack rather than writers. It makes it more difficult to predict income or success, and makes everything a bit fuzzy.
One of the benefits of Substack is how diverse and distinct each writer is. A big part of that is that my Substack is entirely separate to yours. A reader can support my writing without feeling like they're supporting someone else's writing. Inevitably there's a wide range of opinions on Substack, many of which I don't like or agree with - as long as subscriptions and payment are firewalled off, that's OK. A more general subscription would mean that I'm supporting ALL writers on the platform, which I absolutely don't want to do.
Yes exactly.
I dont use Medium much, didn’t realize it was like that! Good to know.
A way to pay for just one post would also be great.
We mentioned this concept to substack during their weekly office hours a few weeks back. The suggestion was to integrate a one-time KoFi type transaction (e.g., “if you like this post, buy me a cup of coffee/whatever to support my work”). They agreed to look into it...
That would be useful, I think, and a way for readers to test the waters before fully committing. And once they've paid for a single post, their details are likely to be in the system, making it easier for them to do so again in the future.
Nice! That’s a great idea.
I wonder too about a “Substack unlimited” option (see my comment below on why). This is the model that The Atlantic chose when it bought Charlie Warzel and several other newsletter writers, but I’m afraid they don’t have enough variety to really make it work for long.
Elle seems to have tickled all of our writerly brains. I think you're asking the right questions, and there's no easy answer, other than to experiment and see where it leads you. You're a year further ahead of the game than I am, as I just launched my paid option, which I discussed in a post yesterday.
One encouragement I will make, is that your writing has tremendous worth, beyond getting paid for it. While it's nice to be paid for putting in the work, we have to be careful to attach its worth to how much money we can make from it. If you never reach the level of being able to support yourself full time with writing, it doesn't change the fact that you're showing up, putting in the effort, and risking putting something out into the world to see how it's received, paid or otherwise.
Good luck with the experiment, and thanks for being transparent with your journey!
This is absolutely a critical point. I've never put 'make loads of money' as a primary (or even secondary) goal for my writing. That's a fast route to despair, I feel. The writing is the writing, and that's the main goal and achievement and where I get my satisfaction from. The efforts to build a readership and encourage some financial support are a bonus - after all, I'd still be writing without any of that.
Definitely a useful reminder, Brian. Thanks!
I'm still doing early access for paid subscribers, plus ebooks of new releases and my back catalog, and I also do exclusive art reveals. My paid subscriber number is pretty low, so can't say that it's working, but I think I will continue with the early access model, as it is a good compromise that lets everyone read my fiction for free while giving a perk to paid subscribers and also not devaluing the book when I launch my Kickstarter.
I did a lot more non-fiction posts earlier in the year, which were a lot of work and took away from my writing time. And I foolishly started a weekly comics column that I haven't been able to keep up. Going forward, I think I will switch to one post per month, one comics post per month, and a discussion thread.
I was enjoying that comics column, for what it's worth. :)
Keeping up the pace is a big challenge. I do 2 posts a week (one non-fiction, one fiction) and mostly seem to be able to hit that cadence. It's a challenge some weeks more than others, to be sure - that's part of why I'm building in some things like discussion threads, because that is not only great for community building but also lightens the writing load on me.
Thank you! And you're in luck because I will be running the next issue of the column tomorrow with an awesome interview!
I think it was a lot juggling three chapters a week (two per week of my first book and then one per week of the second book), plus interviews, plus non-fiction posts, plus discussion threads. You have the right idea about discussion threads. I think I will try doing 2 posts plus 2 threads a month, with one post/thread being about comics and one post/thread being about my fiction. Hopefully that will be a good balance.
Even aside from the writing, I find there's a surprising amount of admin around this kind of output - although Substack does make this about as streamlined as is possible. Content + admin of posting content quickly = no time left.
I continually read about posting weekly (and even daily!), but have to ignore that advice. It's just not sustainable to me.
I like some of the perks you offer, early access, but also your back catalog and ebook versions of new releases. Those are great ideas to provide perks to paid subscribers while not adding more expectations to your output
I think there's something to be said about establishing a cadence with your readers. A daily posting schedule is not workable for 99% of us, and originally I wanted my Substack newsletter to be weekly (in addition to the fiction posts, of which I had a backlog of), but that has proven unsustainable as well.
Thanks! I wanted to create perks that didn't make me go crazy creating new things. Hopefully as I release more books & comics, the paid subscription becomes more valuable and easier to sell.
I don't really see how daily is possible unless you're doing this full time, and even then I don't think I'd do it. You need a particularly dedicated readership for that to work. I've unsubscribed from some newsletters due to them posting too much!
I've always found a large benefit in having gaps between writing sessions, too. It's when my brain recharges and starts thinking of interesting new ideas. If I write too much, I lose that important creative time.
Agreed! The only "daily" newsletters that I think are successful are things like Morning Brew, the Skimm, where it's a curation of content/links.
Thank you for this! I had the thought of making occasional posts paid, including some stories and serial chapters (say, one in five or so). This would allow most readers to read most of the story, while giving something extra to paying subscribers. One could also leave posts free for a week and then paywall them. In this way, faithful and motivated readers would get the content for free; new readers could see for a while what they'll get if they pay. And if they like chapters 37 to 41 and want to read the whole story, they'd have to pay. Seems like a good compromise between reader and writer interests?
Let me know how it goes! Good to see so many people testing what works.
I haven’t enabled the monetisation on my substack yet but I think about that occasionally. Similar thought process. My readership is smaller and I always say myself “I should go paid when I reach X readers, I am not ready yet” etc. Good luck with your experiment, it’s always interesting to see how other writers do things differently and see them growing.
I've also been considering going paid, and trying to have more community features, so I appreciated this. At the very least I'll probably add a 'just if you feel like supporting me' option soon as my part in normalizing the idea of paying writers.
I don't think there are any drawbacks to switching it on. Worst case scenario is that you don't get any paying subscribers, and everything carries on as it was before.
I just started with sub stack so I will watch how you get on and learn
Good luck with yours, Kerrie!
Very excited for you Simon, I think you have a lot to offer your readers!
Thanks, Elle!
I see writers asking for a “tip” option frequently, but I don’t believe most readers want it or would use it. If you tipped most of the stories you read each month just one dollar, that would add up fast. And giving pennies per story won’t add up to much. If you want pennies per story, you might as well write on Medium. 🤣
"Tipping" came up on the Substack Writers Unite Discord recently and I asked if anyone had ever gotten a "tip" for writing using Ko-fi or Buy Me A Coffee. The answer was one "no" and silence from everyone else. People are conditioned to tip musicians and wait staff, but not writers. I don't think it is a sustainable model. At least not yet.
One thing I have learned is, offering more newsletters is not what people want. I think many people subscribe to more newsletters than they can read. I do (I just unsubscribed to four because I rarely read them.) Personally, I don't want more newsletters per week. One is enough! 😂 Quality over quantity is the best strategy, I think.
I think the "community" aspect is the brightest possibility for fiction writers. I haven't really explored that.
The subscription model works well for some, but it is difficult for most of us "not well-known" writers. And especially for fiction (entertainment.) One Substack newsletter versus millions of songs or thousands of movies/tv shows is a tough sell. People will only take on so many subscriptions. Although, it is not a bad deal, really. People used to buy magazines every week for a few bucks. That added up to more than what you pay for a Substack subscription. Maybe writers should band together and put out Substack "magazines." Of course, then the money issue gets messy.
I have settled on a "patronage" option. Nothing else I tried worked and my paid readers all said they just wanted to support my writing. But I haven't gotten a new paid sub for almost a year, so patronage is not really working for me either. But my writing/newsletter is pretty unconventional. That could be a primary factor, in my case. So I will just write what I want, enjoy the comments, and know that some people enjoy my writing (10 people, enough to pay for it.) That is enough for me at the moment.
But I am keeping my eye on the "community" aspects like threads.
Best wishes.
The Substack 'magazines' idea is interesting. In another comment above somewhere I pondered the option of having group subscriptions, whereby a reader can subscribe to a group of Substacks for a discounted rate. I'm not keen on a 'Substack Unlimited' option, Netflix-style, for all sorts of reasons, but built-in functionality whereby specific writers can optionally join forces could be interesting. It would need to be natively supported in order to avoid the finances getting icky, though.
There's two really interesting ideas here. One is the idea of a semi-literal magazine, where a bunch of substack writers make their exclusive content available in one inexpensive paid subscription. I'd pay $5 and get a whole bunch of normally paid content. Ostensibly there would be two or three writers that I'm there for, but it would also be a great opportunity to discover a whole bunch of new writers, conceivably who are like-minded to the ones that initially brought me to the magazine. While serialized fiction is a very fascinating idea, getting a new "episode" each week, it's also really cool to get a magazine where you're more likely to actually give at least a look to each item in there, and are more likely to make in a point to actually read the stuff you are interested in.
The other idea is there being sort of an umbrella stack you could subscribe to, that includes several writers within it, and that's how you'd get the paid content. So you can pay $5 for a subscription to "The League of Extraordinary Stackers" and get access to every writer who's chosen to sign on under that umbrella. As before, I'm there for certain writers, but am more likely to give associated writers a better shot.
It's a rough world out there for monthly subscriptions. For the first time in a decade, I've let my Netflix subscription lapse, and I'll sign back up when there's a bunch of interesting content in excited to watch. Similarly for HBO Max and most of the others I'm only going to subscribe in bursts. I've never done that before, but they've all raised prices so much that I have to actually evaluate how much I watch.
For all these things I just think there needs to be creative ways to package and market and charge for content.
I wonder if Substack readers will start bouncing from sub to sub, paying for a month, binge reading, then moving on. Like many people do with video subscriptions. The yearly option is a deterrent, but it could happen.
The “unlimited” option would probably mean we get lost in the mix and earn even less. Then writers start quitting. Small “magazines” with a few writers might work. But that is a whole other can of worms.
I certainly don't know what works. I brought out my illustrated novel in July with an email list of about a hundred people, many of which I only knew tangentially. As of today, I'm still just plodding along. Most of what I've read about this sort of publishing suggests you should make your best material free, and then charge for perks. I bought into that concept when I began. Trouble was, I didn't have time for extra credit assignments. Writing, editing and drawing the main content were taking up all of my available time, and I began to feel like I was undervaluing my work again; the same emotion I’ve felt each time I’ve published on some obscure lit mag that only pays ego-tokens. I put up a paywall on Chapter 10 or so and my fledgling readership plummeted. I panicked and went free again and continued to do so until Chapter 19. Then I started charging. My revelation was basically this: I have a really good book that I’ve spent years on. My dream, from the beginning, was to find people, or even one person, who find value in it. The readers who are truly engaged by my book won’t begrudge me the five-buck admission fee. The ones who are just browsing have 19 free chapters to look at. (I’ve lately been thinking of making it just the first ten.) Numbers are nice, but maybe that’s not the main thing after all. The main thing is to find “quality readers,” if I can make up such a term. I’m happy to have found a handful of engaged readers who are communicating with me about the book. Even if I fail to grow the site, I consider this much a victory.