Thanks for letting us naive newbies in on the reality of this platform. I kind of figured it was rigged, so that tempers my expectations. I am still finding it preferable to any of the other social media platforms for connecting with likeminded creatives though. I’ll just have to dig a little deeper to bypass that algorithm!
Agreed — I'll take Substack over most other platforms any day. I do love Substack. There really isn't a day I don't feel moved, motivated, or even wiser from what I see on here.
But that doesn’t curb the fact Substack will bring disappointments writers already so often feel because of how it operates. All the while being maybe the best platform we’ve still got (atm).
Thanks for mentioning me! Your note brought up a really interesting conversation and I enjoyed reading everyone else's responses and experiences. I'll keep plugging along and doing my own thing and avoiding the temptation to write what I think will get the most engagement and instead focus on what I think needs to be brought into the world.
Doing your own thing is really the only path long term. Focusing on meaningful contributions is the only path long term. That's not cliche. Anything less and you'll end up extinguishing whatever joy you had burning that made you write in the first place!
...an easy solution would be to let us control our own algorithms or at least gain insight into how they work...users don’t need substack as much as substack needs users...but transparency in tech is like a silver garlic crucifix to a vampire...they want us to believe this is magic but the only real magic is this awesome song by olivia newton john ( https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=DnkHf069fvA )...nice thought curation...the best solution is probably to unhook and hike...
Substack gets this criticism about Writer Stories a lot, so I suspect that the reason they appear not to shine a light on those that have ‘made it’ on the platform without a big prior audience is because it takes years (maybe as many as 10?) to go from zero to a decent living and there probably just aren’t very many who have done that yet. Only ones I can think of are Michael and Brent are Going Places, and Laura Kennedy, who both have featured on Writer Stories before.
Also, the target audience of these pieces isn’t really the writers on the platform, but those people who have big audiences but haven’t joined yet. They’re trying to convince those people by showing them the success stories of their former colleagues.
My (completely unsolicited) advice would be just to ignore all the official Substack stuff and just keep banging out the best work you can. At the end of the day there’s only two things that we can do to boost our growth: consistency and quality. All the rest is fluff.
Understanding the target audience reality is pretty key to keeping sane, for sure. That's even touched on in the post — and lots of folks seem to see that. It's just hard to truly, truly accept that fact in your gut as you can in your brain.
Quality > quantity all day. Not to mention that's how you'll actually draw an enthusiastic readership. Why work toward a silent, passive mass?
I personally don't really mind these stories. People with success did some thing / many things right even if they played the algorithms. But I also accept to myself that I can never break it down and chase that specific growth metric that way too. I didn't, however, believe for a minute that substack wouldn't turn into another Algo driven platform that prioritizes the 10% who drive all the value. It was inevitable. 😅
Great piece and compilation of so much info about this so-called heaven for writers and their pockets. I also wrote a similar note, which surprised me by going viral. https://substack.com/@monicanastase/note/c-62343226
I was just lamenting poor writing being published, and I was a bit shocked to see how many people commented that they felt bound by all the rules, for the sake of the "algorithm".
I am, as someone else you quoted, on "team delete their emails," ironically because of the Dunning article/email. I say "ironically" because the email did contain valuable information. Its value just isn't what people want to hear. I will discuss my strategy as an illustration.
My strategy is to write two books (both underway), one on the rise and development of sexbots, and the other the novel, the idea behind which brought the sexbots to my particular attention. In the book promos I will, of course, reference Substack and a website, which will also reference substack. Taking these things, along with various other social media, I hope to build a combined audience, which Substack may help me monetize, and which will also provide value, I hope, to future readers. My point here is that I view Substack as primarily a monetization vehicle as well as, importantly, a vehicle for contacting and getting to know other writers. I do NOT see Substack as a way to generate an audience of readers. The Dunning article points to monetization more than generating an audience, as I recall.
I think your ideas on creative solutions are great, but I'm not sure we need Substack to do it. Specifically, co-writing articles seems golden. There's a marketer I used to know who used to co-author books with twenty or more people (from his massive audience) at a time. All the writers marketed the book to their audiences, multiplying the books' reach many times, getting all their names out there. YOU are popular enough to start such a project, and others reading this could do it, too. My novel, incidentally, does involve co-authors.
Cheers, Amy. You do great work. And to everyone else here, you all have my admiration for the work you put in and the beauty you bring to the world.
Thank you, Jack! Way to commit to weaving together that combined audience, there's a lot of hard work and intentionality behind doing that and doing it well. And yay TWO mf books!! You overachiever, you! Give me some of that grit, please.
Also 🥹 = my face reading that last line. This kind of exchange is what makes Substack lovely.
So well said, Amy! Thank you for the mention and for having the courage to explore tough, important questions. One thing I've started doing to bypass, or at least confound, the algorithm a little bit is follow a lot of smaller Substackers. My feed is so much more interesting now, and I'm seeing a lot fewer generic "viral" pieces from bigger names.
So smart. AND sensible! That's the kind of thing well within all our controls when we find our neurotic selves growing just a bit too disheartened with feeds 😅
This is a great essay and very grounding for what we 'normal' writers live day in and day out. Want to make money here? The dirty secret for those of us who aren't already big is that the fastest way to monetize Substack is to write a Substack about how to monetize it. Don't worry about providing new content, just go online and pull the common tropes, empathize with the poor writers, slip those tantalizing tips behind the paywall and Voila! monetization.
I've seen a handful of these pop up and soar because they're monetizing the angst of authors and feeding them lines that feel good but don't reflect the brutal honesty of this post. They feed the tropes and they prey on authors. Yet they make money. Be very very wary of them
Is it rational to expect to get a paying audience? My wife is an amateur musician who runs a string quartet camp for a week during the summer, plays in a couple of college and community orchestras, a summer band, and in a quartet, all as a hobby. She's a chemical engineer (MS) like me (PhD) and earned her living as an engineer. Many of the community members in the orchestras she plays in had other jobs, some as music teachers most others in unrelated field. Some are professionals hired as section leaders, or students.
The professionals are very good, yet they earn little from their talent. My wife hires several of them to serve as coaches at the camp. It pays $700 for 5 days, room and board provided, which it an above average rate. For her 70th birthday she commissioned a string quartet from a composer she corresponds with. It was like 250 bucks (he asked for less, but she said that is too little and bumped it up). So it is in a creative field that a lot of people really want to do (and so will do it for cheap). Only the truly extraordinary will make a good living at it. The rest will either find a paying gig that lets them do what they love as a amateur, or piece together a living from a variety of gigs here and there.
One thing I will note about the folks with lots of paid subscribers regardless of how they got them. They pay the freight here. I pay nothing and get a place where I can blog my ideas in a readily linkable fashion and which is attached to a twitter like forum where you can have discussions. It's a pretty good setup and its free. Its the closest thing to a return of the glory years of the net from 20 years ago.
Yes to everything you wrote. I also feel like it’s extraordinarily difficult right now for people like me whose primary focus is something other than politics or being famous. As much as I love Heather Cox Richardson’s posts. I doubt she’d have the following she does if she simply wrote about history.
I wish the spotlight would shine a little brighter outside political and celebrity sphere.
I will add on positive note: Substack does seem to do a good job with SEO. My posts here, especially the ones from my primary Substack, WHY THIS MATTERS (German resistance during the Shoah), shows up great when searching for those topics on Google etc.
Trying to be patient to see if the emphasis on politics and celebrity dies down after the election.
These are all SUCH good points, and also good to balance the scales shouting out what Substack does seemingly do well (SEO/Google SERPS.).
Politics and celebrity topics make sense from a trending standpoint, sure. There's ALWAYS something new and hot-take ready for writing in these niches. But that doesn't disqualify feeling bummed out by that fact! Or even if you do want to write about these things, even occasionally, you're fighting such a saturated market.
First, I have, to date, written, edited and published over 40 posts on Substack, and have not seen nearly the traction I keep reading about. Growth is slow, one subscriber at a time, and I'm nowhere near charging for any of it yet.
Second, I don't care.
Even if it's not as steep as I'd like, the line is still moving upward and to the right. I've produced quite a bit of good work. Some of it's really good. And I get messages like this: "I really like how this man writes. Every Thursday is some thing new to ponder."
Messages like those feel like a gulp of air after too long holding your breath. I don't think people realize what a gift they're giving when they share those notes and praise. It's very much like, 'You think I make your day with my writing — buddy you just made mine!'
Not overstepping in the slightest, Jack! So interesting too, because both this piece and this note have popped up on my feed! They're getting traction, and rightfully so.
Thalia's idea is just so lovely btw — and simple! It's certainly now something I've got lodged in my mind and want to run with over the next few months.
Thanks for letting us naive newbies in on the reality of this platform. I kind of figured it was rigged, so that tempers my expectations. I am still finding it preferable to any of the other social media platforms for connecting with likeminded creatives though. I’ll just have to dig a little deeper to bypass that algorithm!
Agreed — I'll take Substack over most other platforms any day. I do love Substack. There really isn't a day I don't feel moved, motivated, or even wiser from what I see on here.
But that doesn’t curb the fact Substack will bring disappointments writers already so often feel because of how it operates. All the while being maybe the best platform we’ve still got (atm).
Thank god we have each other!
I’m glad I found it and though flawed, I hope it remains distinct from the other social media platforms. Fingers crossed!
Exactly, you and me both!
Thanks for mentioning me! Your note brought up a really interesting conversation and I enjoyed reading everyone else's responses and experiences. I'll keep plugging along and doing my own thing and avoiding the temptation to write what I think will get the most engagement and instead focus on what I think needs to be brought into the world.
Doing your own thing is really the only path long term. Focusing on meaningful contributions is the only path long term. That's not cliche. Anything less and you'll end up extinguishing whatever joy you had burning that made you write in the first place!
...an easy solution would be to let us control our own algorithms or at least gain insight into how they work...users don’t need substack as much as substack needs users...but transparency in tech is like a silver garlic crucifix to a vampire...they want us to believe this is magic but the only real magic is this awesome song by olivia newton john ( https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=DnkHf069fvA )...nice thought curation...the best solution is probably to unhook and hike...
"Unhook and hike" — amen. My neurotic ass needs that reminder 😅
Appreciate the shoutout!
Hell yeah, Alex! Appreciate the original comment.
Substack gets this criticism about Writer Stories a lot, so I suspect that the reason they appear not to shine a light on those that have ‘made it’ on the platform without a big prior audience is because it takes years (maybe as many as 10?) to go from zero to a decent living and there probably just aren’t very many who have done that yet. Only ones I can think of are Michael and Brent are Going Places, and Laura Kennedy, who both have featured on Writer Stories before.
Also, the target audience of these pieces isn’t really the writers on the platform, but those people who have big audiences but haven’t joined yet. They’re trying to convince those people by showing them the success stories of their former colleagues.
My (completely unsolicited) advice would be just to ignore all the official Substack stuff and just keep banging out the best work you can. At the end of the day there’s only two things that we can do to boost our growth: consistency and quality. All the rest is fluff.
Understanding the target audience reality is pretty key to keeping sane, for sure. That's even touched on in the post — and lots of folks seem to see that. It's just hard to truly, truly accept that fact in your gut as you can in your brain.
Quality > quantity all day. Not to mention that's how you'll actually draw an enthusiastic readership. Why work toward a silent, passive mass?
I personally don't really mind these stories. People with success did some thing / many things right even if they played the algorithms. But I also accept to myself that I can never break it down and chase that specific growth metric that way too. I didn't, however, believe for a minute that substack wouldn't turn into another Algo driven platform that prioritizes the 10% who drive all the value. It was inevitable. 😅
You were wise, sensai! Or, ya know, just very functionally disillusioned 😂
Great piece and compilation of so much info about this so-called heaven for writers and their pockets. I also wrote a similar note, which surprised me by going viral. https://substack.com/@monicanastase/note/c-62343226
I was just lamenting poor writing being published, and I was a bit shocked to see how many people commented that they felt bound by all the rules, for the sake of the "algorithm".
I remember seeing this very note in my home feed a few weeks back!! And liking it 😂 Because it's mf TRUE.
Also, isn't it wild the pattern of content that does tend to lift-off so well on here often centers writing?
Yeah, it's all quite random I find...
I am, as someone else you quoted, on "team delete their emails," ironically because of the Dunning article/email. I say "ironically" because the email did contain valuable information. Its value just isn't what people want to hear. I will discuss my strategy as an illustration.
My strategy is to write two books (both underway), one on the rise and development of sexbots, and the other the novel, the idea behind which brought the sexbots to my particular attention. In the book promos I will, of course, reference Substack and a website, which will also reference substack. Taking these things, along with various other social media, I hope to build a combined audience, which Substack may help me monetize, and which will also provide value, I hope, to future readers. My point here is that I view Substack as primarily a monetization vehicle as well as, importantly, a vehicle for contacting and getting to know other writers. I do NOT see Substack as a way to generate an audience of readers. The Dunning article points to monetization more than generating an audience, as I recall.
I think your ideas on creative solutions are great, but I'm not sure we need Substack to do it. Specifically, co-writing articles seems golden. There's a marketer I used to know who used to co-author books with twenty or more people (from his massive audience) at a time. All the writers marketed the book to their audiences, multiplying the books' reach many times, getting all their names out there. YOU are popular enough to start such a project, and others reading this could do it, too. My novel, incidentally, does involve co-authors.
Cheers, Amy. You do great work. And to everyone else here, you all have my admiration for the work you put in and the beauty you bring to the world.
Thank you, Jack! Way to commit to weaving together that combined audience, there's a lot of hard work and intentionality behind doing that and doing it well. And yay TWO mf books!! You overachiever, you! Give me some of that grit, please.
Also 🥹 = my face reading that last line. This kind of exchange is what makes Substack lovely.
Go big or go home, right? :) Thanks for your reply.
So well said, Amy! Thank you for the mention and for having the courage to explore tough, important questions. One thing I've started doing to bypass, or at least confound, the algorithm a little bit is follow a lot of smaller Substackers. My feed is so much more interesting now, and I'm seeing a lot fewer generic "viral" pieces from bigger names.
So smart. AND sensible! That's the kind of thing well within all our controls when we find our neurotic selves growing just a bit too disheartened with feeds 😅
This is a great essay and very grounding for what we 'normal' writers live day in and day out. Want to make money here? The dirty secret for those of us who aren't already big is that the fastest way to monetize Substack is to write a Substack about how to monetize it. Don't worry about providing new content, just go online and pull the common tropes, empathize with the poor writers, slip those tantalizing tips behind the paywall and Voila! monetization.
I've seen a handful of these pop up and soar because they're monetizing the angst of authors and feeding them lines that feel good but don't reflect the brutal honesty of this post. They feed the tropes and they prey on authors. Yet they make money. Be very very wary of them
Is it rational to expect to get a paying audience? My wife is an amateur musician who runs a string quartet camp for a week during the summer, plays in a couple of college and community orchestras, a summer band, and in a quartet, all as a hobby. She's a chemical engineer (MS) like me (PhD) and earned her living as an engineer. Many of the community members in the orchestras she plays in had other jobs, some as music teachers most others in unrelated field. Some are professionals hired as section leaders, or students.
The professionals are very good, yet they earn little from their talent. My wife hires several of them to serve as coaches at the camp. It pays $700 for 5 days, room and board provided, which it an above average rate. For her 70th birthday she commissioned a string quartet from a composer she corresponds with. It was like 250 bucks (he asked for less, but she said that is too little and bumped it up). So it is in a creative field that a lot of people really want to do (and so will do it for cheap). Only the truly extraordinary will make a good living at it. The rest will either find a paying gig that lets them do what they love as a amateur, or piece together a living from a variety of gigs here and there.
One thing I will note about the folks with lots of paid subscribers regardless of how they got them. They pay the freight here. I pay nothing and get a place where I can blog my ideas in a readily linkable fashion and which is attached to a twitter like forum where you can have discussions. It's a pretty good setup and its free. Its the closest thing to a return of the glory years of the net from 20 years ago.
Yes to everything you wrote. I also feel like it’s extraordinarily difficult right now for people like me whose primary focus is something other than politics or being famous. As much as I love Heather Cox Richardson’s posts. I doubt she’d have the following she does if she simply wrote about history.
I wish the spotlight would shine a little brighter outside political and celebrity sphere.
I will add on positive note: Substack does seem to do a good job with SEO. My posts here, especially the ones from my primary Substack, WHY THIS MATTERS (German resistance during the Shoah), shows up great when searching for those topics on Google etc.
Trying to be patient to see if the emphasis on politics and celebrity dies down after the election.
These are all SUCH good points, and also good to balance the scales shouting out what Substack does seemingly do well (SEO/Google SERPS.).
Politics and celebrity topics make sense from a trending standpoint, sure. There's ALWAYS something new and hot-take ready for writing in these niches. But that doesn't disqualify feeling bummed out by that fact! Or even if you do want to write about these things, even occasionally, you're fighting such a saturated market.
Two thoughts:
First, I have, to date, written, edited and published over 40 posts on Substack, and have not seen nearly the traction I keep reading about. Growth is slow, one subscriber at a time, and I'm nowhere near charging for any of it yet.
Second, I don't care.
Even if it's not as steep as I'd like, the line is still moving upward and to the right. I've produced quite a bit of good work. Some of it's really good. And I get messages like this: "I really like how this man writes. Every Thursday is some thing new to ponder."
The rest will take care of itself.
Messages like those feel like a gulp of air after too long holding your breath. I don't think people realize what a gift they're giving when they share those notes and praise. It's very much like, 'You think I make your day with my writing — buddy you just made mine!'
At the risk of overstepping, I do think you should check out these two articles: https://substack.com/home/post/p-147173458 and https://substack.com/@thaliacomedymuse/note/c-64261722 if you haven't already seen them. Thalia's, in particular, brought you to mind.
Not overstepping in the slightest, Jack! So interesting too, because both this piece and this note have popped up on my feed! They're getting traction, and rightfully so.
Thalia's idea is just so lovely btw — and simple! It's certainly now something I've got lodged in my mind and want to run with over the next few months.
Thanks for posting this!
Thank you for reading it! My neurotic self is ever appreciative 😅