Chasing the next shiny platform gets exhausting at times. I love that substack has revived the “newsletter” concept but share your concerns about future direction. Sometimes I think my late mom’s, a true Luddite, had it right all along--she successfully wrote, illustrated and published a monthly cooking newsletter for 30 years. On paper. Using snail mail. Mostly word of mouth marketing, nothing digital. Started with her Christmas card list of 100 and grew to 9,000 subscribers worldwide, including a book deal (through a traditional publisher). The simplicity is astounding.
Beautiful writing, Simon! I’ve been on your list for a year on WP & here since you started, just trying to get five minutes to actually read (and the app has finally enabled my being here right now--it’s a beautiful thing, so far.) I always knew I was impressed with the glimpses I caught of your work… But more so now! Kudos! ✨🌿
Your thoughts and concerns on these matters mirror my own. One of the things that it has me thinking about is, what is most worth owning in this environment. I come from a technical communication background and with tech comm SEO and search ranking is everything. People with a specific problem with technology Google that problem and you want to be the most-served result.
When I switched to fiction, I assumed that the same thing applied. I started my own blog with my own URL because I wanted to own the SEO and build page ranking.
A newsletter is almost the polar opposite of that. Rather than spreading a wide net and hoping for occasional search hits that build over time as your site ranking improves, you establish a very narrow but rich channel to a few interested people. Blogs and newsletters are little different in form and content, but hugely different in this respect.
But is owning the SEO as big a concern for fiction? I suppose that in the sense that historical fiction readers are often more interested in the history than the fiction, you might hope to grow your site ranking by publishing history pieces, which is what a lot of HF authors actually do. But the problem with that for me is that I simply don't want to do it. So much of it is not so much history as old gossip, and it doesn't interest me.
But people who are interested in fiction for fiction's sake don't seem to rely on Google searches. They are more likely to hang out in various specific places on the web. So SEO may matter much less and being in the right place might matter more.
I have, for instance, refrained from publishing the same content in multiple places, because that is bad for SEO (unless it isn't). But maybe that is irrelevant. Maybe I should be trying to get my content into as many places as I can, because that is where my potential audience hangs out.
If being in a particular place is more important for fiction writers than SEO and page ranking, the question then becomes, is Substack a good place to be? It is getting press right now, as a hot new platform, but that won't last forever. Are there other reasons to suppose that it is a place worth being in the longer run? I don't know. Would I have more or fewer subscribers (would I have sold more or fewer books) if I were using MailChimp instead. I don't know.
This much I do know: I would not have met all the other Substackers that I have, and I would not be part of this conversation. That's something. But, long term, will it help me sell books? I don't know.
Great post and super-interesting essay about the content treadmill. The line "all of this has happened before and will happen again" has relevance again with everyone and their mother recommending to go big on TikTok for the "pure" organic visibility. Even traditional publishers are trying to get in on the madness early by establishing a "TikTok creator's house," whatever that means.
Once that era is over, I'm sure it will be on to the next platform and no one will have learned any lessons.
I've come to the same conclusion as you about putting everything in the Amazon basket. When the time comes when Amazon decides to alter the KU payouts or shut the whole thing down, everyone who didn't use these intervening years to become more independent is going to be frantically scrambling to stay afloat.
I have seen firsthand how destination platforms can change overnight when my earnings were cut by 80% overnight on Medium. I not overly concerned that Substack will become a destination platform like Medium. I think they are smarter than that. But they are certainly trying to build their own visibility as a platform. As expected.
And they do seem to be working on the real problem of discoverability for newsletter writers.
I actually love the new Substack reader app. It is a far better experience than reading in an email client and it makes commenting seamless. It is super handy to have all unread newsletters in one feed ready to be read without having to scroll through email to find them.
Social media is a losing game for me. It is simply not worth the effort it requires or the horror of actually reading social media for the few followers it provides. So I post a newsletter promo on Twitter once per week and ignore it the rest of the week. I don’t bother with Facebook at all.
As far as success writing, honestly, I don’t see a viable way (for me) to make a living writing fiction and humor. And I have no desire to write something I don’t enjoy for money. So I am treating it as a creative outlet (hobby) that provides a little extra burrito money. It is more enjoyable that way. 🤓
Chasing the next shiny platform gets exhausting at times. I love that substack has revived the “newsletter” concept but share your concerns about future direction. Sometimes I think my late mom’s, a true Luddite, had it right all along--she successfully wrote, illustrated and published a monthly cooking newsletter for 30 years. On paper. Using snail mail. Mostly word of mouth marketing, nothing digital. Started with her Christmas card list of 100 and grew to 9,000 subscribers worldwide, including a book deal (through a traditional publisher). The simplicity is astounding.
Beautiful writing, Simon! I’ve been on your list for a year on WP & here since you started, just trying to get five minutes to actually read (and the app has finally enabled my being here right now--it’s a beautiful thing, so far.) I always knew I was impressed with the glimpses I caught of your work… But more so now! Kudos! ✨🌿
Your thoughts and concerns on these matters mirror my own. One of the things that it has me thinking about is, what is most worth owning in this environment. I come from a technical communication background and with tech comm SEO and search ranking is everything. People with a specific problem with technology Google that problem and you want to be the most-served result.
When I switched to fiction, I assumed that the same thing applied. I started my own blog with my own URL because I wanted to own the SEO and build page ranking.
A newsletter is almost the polar opposite of that. Rather than spreading a wide net and hoping for occasional search hits that build over time as your site ranking improves, you establish a very narrow but rich channel to a few interested people. Blogs and newsletters are little different in form and content, but hugely different in this respect.
But is owning the SEO as big a concern for fiction? I suppose that in the sense that historical fiction readers are often more interested in the history than the fiction, you might hope to grow your site ranking by publishing history pieces, which is what a lot of HF authors actually do. But the problem with that for me is that I simply don't want to do it. So much of it is not so much history as old gossip, and it doesn't interest me.
But people who are interested in fiction for fiction's sake don't seem to rely on Google searches. They are more likely to hang out in various specific places on the web. So SEO may matter much less and being in the right place might matter more.
I have, for instance, refrained from publishing the same content in multiple places, because that is bad for SEO (unless it isn't). But maybe that is irrelevant. Maybe I should be trying to get my content into as many places as I can, because that is where my potential audience hangs out.
If being in a particular place is more important for fiction writers than SEO and page ranking, the question then becomes, is Substack a good place to be? It is getting press right now, as a hot new platform, but that won't last forever. Are there other reasons to suppose that it is a place worth being in the longer run? I don't know. Would I have more or fewer subscribers (would I have sold more or fewer books) if I were using MailChimp instead. I don't know.
This much I do know: I would not have met all the other Substackers that I have, and I would not be part of this conversation. That's something. But, long term, will it help me sell books? I don't know.
Great post and super-interesting essay about the content treadmill. The line "all of this has happened before and will happen again" has relevance again with everyone and their mother recommending to go big on TikTok for the "pure" organic visibility. Even traditional publishers are trying to get in on the madness early by establishing a "TikTok creator's house," whatever that means.
Once that era is over, I'm sure it will be on to the next platform and no one will have learned any lessons.
I've come to the same conclusion as you about putting everything in the Amazon basket. When the time comes when Amazon decides to alter the KU payouts or shut the whole thing down, everyone who didn't use these intervening years to become more independent is going to be frantically scrambling to stay afloat.
I have seen firsthand how destination platforms can change overnight when my earnings were cut by 80% overnight on Medium. I not overly concerned that Substack will become a destination platform like Medium. I think they are smarter than that. But they are certainly trying to build their own visibility as a platform. As expected.
And they do seem to be working on the real problem of discoverability for newsletter writers.
I actually love the new Substack reader app. It is a far better experience than reading in an email client and it makes commenting seamless. It is super handy to have all unread newsletters in one feed ready to be read without having to scroll through email to find them.
Social media is a losing game for me. It is simply not worth the effort it requires or the horror of actually reading social media for the few followers it provides. So I post a newsletter promo on Twitter once per week and ignore it the rest of the week. I don’t bother with Facebook at all.
As far as success writing, honestly, I don’t see a viable way (for me) to make a living writing fiction and humor. And I have no desire to write something I don’t enjoy for money. So I am treating it as a creative outlet (hobby) that provides a little extra burrito money. It is more enjoyable that way. 🤓