I've seen people have success with shorter serials. Short stories do well around here. Limited series of, say, 10 parts as well. That way you can telegraph the length in advance, and people know what they're getting into.
The challenge I've had is that my stuff is VERY long, and that can be a challenge in terms of convincing new readers to give it a go.
It's hard to say whether 'fiction works' on Substack. Still feels quite early to make a call on that definitively.
That said, there are a LOT of fiction writers here (myself included!), and the writing community is really wonderful. Finding readers is as hard as ever, but I've thoroughly enjoyed serialising a story here for the last couple of years.
- Social media is largely a bit useless, especially now.
- Using services such as BookFunnel to join author promos has worked really well to bring in completely new readers.
- The reason I mix my fiction with 'how to' type stuff on the same newsletter is twofold: 1. I enjoy doing it and 2. The 'how to' is a good way to bring in new readers who are looking for answers. Most fiction writers are also readers, so a good chunk of them will hopefully also enjoy my fiction.
- It's a cumulative thing. The more good material you have, especially of the 'how to' kind, the more people come to your newsletter for answers, whether that's via Substack's systems or Google or elsewhere. (Googling 'can substack be used for fiction' for a time brought up my article as the top result).
Somehow, I found this post and I am glad I did. I originally came to Substack through a newsletter email I get and read every workday from a writer with 2+ million subscribers. I have been writing on Medium for about five years, though I do not consider myself a “writer.” Writing is what I do from time to time; being a writer is not what I am, and there is a difference.
Medium has recently changed its algorithm that has messed up the monthly pay for many of the writers, to the point that many are leaving. While I do not do this for a living or even for the revenue, getting a few dollars (or more likely, cents) every month is a nice benefit. I was hoping to see an explanation of how Substack pays. I read something somewhere about it but cannot find that post.
I have also seeing a lot more “how to” stories on Medium, many related to “growing an audience,” which I do not care about, and the “how to make $10,000 a month,” which sickens me. I am also not one who wants to have a presence everywhere; remember, I do this for me, not as a career or even for the money, so finding ONE platform that works best would be nice.
You won't find me writing any "how to make $10,000 a month!" posts, that's for sure. :)
There's a bit of that around here but far less than you might find on other platforms. The writing advice I encounter here, at least in the fiction community I hang out in, tends to be honest and well intentioned rather than clickbaity.
Sep 18, 2023·edited Sep 18, 2023Liked by Simon K Jones
Simon K. Jones of Norfolk, d'you know what a panic attack you just provoked? I mean, there I am, rolling along nicely, in therapy and under treatment, more handlers than an Amazon packing warehouse, and then you pop up asking, "Do you actually KNOW what's in your treatment?"
It's sugar and spice and all things nice. That's what Substack's made of. But I'll read your piece tonight, ta. When my condition's stabilised.
That alleyway is, indeed, rather splendid, but the view from the front, with the two old stone sections rising above the sign, is far more interesting, hinting at the building as it was before development partially-obscured That What Was. It is the small details such as these which give a place character, and show the continuity of change which a location has gone through. While I've no real reason to return to Great Yarmouth any time soon, I'll definitely be looking into the history of that building when I do spend time there.
Substack, for me, is a replacement for Wordpress, which I can no longer access. Most of the things which I posted there were three computers and two email addresses ago, and it doesn't seem worth the hassle to try and return. I very much appreciate these posts which illuminate things I may have skipped over while setting up Substack, or treated as irrelevant to any task at hand.
My lack of commitment to platforms hasn't softened. I'm still using Ko-Fi, and if another website appears to be useful, for any reason, I will add that to my arsenal. Being tied to a single platform, when so much of the internet changes constantly, seems limiting. Maybe my cynicism has increased thanks to what happened with Twitter, but I don't really feel like starting completely from scratch ever again.
Sep 18, 2023·edited Sep 18, 2023Liked by Simon K Jones
I can understand your cynicism. I bounced around between ideas and platforms on and off for many years before settling for a Ghost and Substack split and eventually tipping more towards the fiction side of things.
To be honest... wish I'd jumped on SS years ago!
Ghost lacks the platform and networking capabilities of SS and therefore acts as a kind of backup or motherbase in case the platforms I use fail for some reason. It's a small price to pay for a bit of reassurance.
I like the Ko-Fi donation app which also allows monthly subs, but what I'd really like to see is a native tipping app or a superchat function on SS for people that don't want to set up a subscription but feel comfortable chipping in when they feel like it (and not having to reach for details every time or fill out a form) just set up once and then tip an amount by clicking a nice big TIP button.
I'm very interested in the serial fiction opportunities here. Thanks for pointing that out. I have a question, is your Triverse link a separate section or a page? I am still confused about pages, and the best way to offer different content. Thanks,
That way readers can opt out if they're not interested in a particular aspect of what I publish.
The nice big stub for Triverse within this post was a simple link. When you paste a link to one of your own Substack posts inside another one of your own posts, you get the option of it showing up as a big, pretty fancy thing. All I had to do though was paste in this link, and the editor did the rest: https://open.substack.com/pub/simonkjones/p/how-to-read-tales-from-the-triverse
I very much appreciate this series. Thank you. I used the generate image to solve a problem that I had, namely, how do I make a sign for a pub called The Screaming Monkey's Head. I really don't know if I would have stumbled across that anytime in the near future. Thank you.
Rally helpful info about Substack! I just signed up today 👏✨
Thanks,Michael!
One challenge will be word count.
Serialisation seems to lend itself to long stories. Min is a 36,000 word novella.
More in the pipeline !
I've seen people have success with shorter serials. Short stories do well around here. Limited series of, say, 10 parts as well. That way you can telegraph the length in advance, and people know what they're getting into.
The challenge I've had is that my stuff is VERY long, and that can be a challenge in terms of convincing new readers to give it a go.
Hello Simon and friends. This is very encouraging. Just what I needed to read.
I'm wondering whether to serialize my vampire-climate change novel 'Nancy and the Count: Vampires' Gold' [Frogmort Press 2023] on Substack.
The hardcopy and e-book were published in August <www.FrogmortPress.com>
I would love to release the novella, and subsequent stories, on a weekly or maybe monthly basis - but wasn't sure if fiction worked on Substack.
I've published a lot of mainstream non-fction [mostly academic and policy stuff on Burma/Myanmar: <www.AshleySouth.co.uk >
But fiction writing and publication are a new for me.
I'll watch the videos. Many thanks!
Ashley
It's hard to say whether 'fiction works' on Substack. Still feels quite early to make a call on that definitively.
That said, there are a LOT of fiction writers here (myself included!), and the writing community is really wonderful. Finding readers is as hard as ever, but I've thoroughly enjoyed serialising a story here for the last couple of years.
Thanks for the encouragement Simon.
Any tips for finding readers?
We had a good discussion on this back in April (!) which is worth digging through: https://open.substack.com/pub/simonkjones/p/how-do-you-find-readers?r=3rwg&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
Lots of great tips from the community there.
For my part, this is what I've found:
- Social media is largely a bit useless, especially now.
- Using services such as BookFunnel to join author promos has worked really well to bring in completely new readers.
- The reason I mix my fiction with 'how to' type stuff on the same newsletter is twofold: 1. I enjoy doing it and 2. The 'how to' is a good way to bring in new readers who are looking for answers. Most fiction writers are also readers, so a good chunk of them will hopefully also enjoy my fiction.
- It's a cumulative thing. The more good material you have, especially of the 'how to' kind, the more people come to your newsletter for answers, whether that's via Substack's systems or Google or elsewhere. (Googling 'can substack be used for fiction' for a time brought up my article as the top result).
Hope that helps a bit!
Thank you! I needed to read this, it explained a lot. The information enlightened me on how Substack works and, provided an entire overview.
Somehow, I found this post and I am glad I did. I originally came to Substack through a newsletter email I get and read every workday from a writer with 2+ million subscribers. I have been writing on Medium for about five years, though I do not consider myself a “writer.” Writing is what I do from time to time; being a writer is not what I am, and there is a difference.
Medium has recently changed its algorithm that has messed up the monthly pay for many of the writers, to the point that many are leaving. While I do not do this for a living or even for the revenue, getting a few dollars (or more likely, cents) every month is a nice benefit. I was hoping to see an explanation of how Substack pays. I read something somewhere about it but cannot find that post.
I have also seeing a lot more “how to” stories on Medium, many related to “growing an audience,” which I do not care about, and the “how to make $10,000 a month,” which sickens me. I am also not one who wants to have a presence everywhere; remember, I do this for me, not as a career or even for the money, so finding ONE platform that works best would be nice.
You won't find me writing any "how to make $10,000 a month!" posts, that's for sure. :)
There's a bit of that around here but far less than you might find on other platforms. The writing advice I encounter here, at least in the fiction community I hang out in, tends to be honest and well intentioned rather than clickbaity.
Simon K. Jones of Norfolk, d'you know what a panic attack you just provoked? I mean, there I am, rolling along nicely, in therapy and under treatment, more handlers than an Amazon packing warehouse, and then you pop up asking, "Do you actually KNOW what's in your treatment?"
It's sugar and spice and all things nice. That's what Substack's made of. But I'll read your piece tonight, ta. When my condition's stabilised.
That alleyway is, indeed, rather splendid, but the view from the front, with the two old stone sections rising above the sign, is far more interesting, hinting at the building as it was before development partially-obscured That What Was. It is the small details such as these which give a place character, and show the continuity of change which a location has gone through. While I've no real reason to return to Great Yarmouth any time soon, I'll definitely be looking into the history of that building when I do spend time there.
Substack, for me, is a replacement for Wordpress, which I can no longer access. Most of the things which I posted there were three computers and two email addresses ago, and it doesn't seem worth the hassle to try and return. I very much appreciate these posts which illuminate things I may have skipped over while setting up Substack, or treated as irrelevant to any task at hand.
My lack of commitment to platforms hasn't softened. I'm still using Ko-Fi, and if another website appears to be useful, for any reason, I will add that to my arsenal. Being tied to a single platform, when so much of the internet changes constantly, seems limiting. Maybe my cynicism has increased thanks to what happened with Twitter, but I don't really feel like starting completely from scratch ever again.
It's a fascinating town. You can see layers of history all on top of each other.
I can understand your cynicism. I bounced around between ideas and platforms on and off for many years before settling for a Ghost and Substack split and eventually tipping more towards the fiction side of things.
To be honest... wish I'd jumped on SS years ago!
Ghost lacks the platform and networking capabilities of SS and therefore acts as a kind of backup or motherbase in case the platforms I use fail for some reason. It's a small price to pay for a bit of reassurance.
I like the Ko-Fi donation app which also allows monthly subs, but what I'd really like to see is a native tipping app or a superchat function on SS for people that don't want to set up a subscription but feel comfortable chipping in when they feel like it (and not having to reach for details every time or fill out a form) just set up once and then tip an amount by clicking a nice big TIP button.
The tipping option would be very nice to see here
I love Substack and believe it to be the best, most open, and inviting platform for getting away from “traditional” social media.
Just wish someone would do a guide to Substack from the reader’s point of view.
The app is labyrinthine and I think I shall never find my way.
Thanks for the explanation of Substack, Simon! Wonderful. Graeme
Substack ought to be paying you!
Ha, thanks! :)
I'm very interested in the serial fiction opportunities here. Thanks for pointing that out. I have a question, is your Triverse link a separate section or a page? I am still confused about pages, and the best way to offer different content. Thanks,
- Mark
Triverse exists within its own section. You can see my sections here: https://simonkjones.substack.com/newsletters
That way readers can opt out if they're not interested in a particular aspect of what I publish.
The nice big stub for Triverse within this post was a simple link. When you paste a link to one of your own Substack posts inside another one of your own posts, you get the option of it showing up as a big, pretty fancy thing. All I had to do though was paste in this link, and the editor did the rest: https://open.substack.com/pub/simonkjones/p/how-to-read-tales-from-the-triverse
Thank you!
Thanks for this simple, short summary! Really helpful
My absolute pleasure! Hoping to get another one in this series out very soon.
I very much appreciate this series. Thank you. I used the generate image to solve a problem that I had, namely, how do I make a sign for a pub called The Screaming Monkey's Head. I really don't know if I would have stumbled across that anytime in the near future. Thank you.
i don’t get it. i want to follow one specific person not these ppl i’ve never heard of.
Hi Todd. How do you mean?
Thankyou for explaining Substack !