The reality of Substack

A rambling on the writing life

Like most Substack writers, I don’t write about writing on Substack all that often—both because I know most of my readers (A.K.A. my mother and our loving family friends) don’t care to read this sort of stuff and because, well, there are many other things I’d rather write about.

But I feel today like I’ve got something on my mind. So I’ve decided that I am going to ramble for a bit. Please enjoy.

---

The one thing that bugs me about Substack is that the engagement I get seems to depend entirely on how much I engage with other people’s work. Part of this, I know, is a consequence of the fact that my readership isn’t yet big enough to, for lack of a better phrase, sustain itself—both because I’ve not yet “built a name for myself” (more well-known writers don’t necessarily have to put as much effort into marketing their work since they’ve already built repoire with a readership) and because only a small percentage of any given audience will engage with a writer’s work. But the other part of this is the nature of the platform.

At first thought, this may not seem so cumbersome a problem, since it means I get out of Substack what I put into it. But you must know that, on the other hand, it also means that those who do the most volume prevail, and not that the best work naturally rises to the top.

Of course, this is an oversimplification (and, in many ways, more of a benefit than a problem). Generally speaking, the majority of the best writers on Substack have the largest audiences. But it’s not necessarily because the highest-quality work circulates the most (because the algorithms cannot judge for themselves the quality of a piece, although really good pieces do occasionally, and rightfully, go “viral”); it’s because these people have been here the longest. Meaning that they’ve persevered in doing the necessary volume, and that they’ve put in the reps to become good writers.

And I would say that work that actually makes a point—and is well-written—tends to perform the best . . . Beautiful prose, you know, doesn’t have much value in the marketplace if it’s not effective (I highly recommend watching this lecture if you want to be a writer, btw).

Nevertheless, it is frustrating to spend tens of hours on a piece you think is really, really good, only for it to perform poorly.

---

I know all of what I’ve just shared may be conveying a mixed message, so let me make my position clear: Substack is awesome. If you want to write, and own your work, and not have to cater to a magazine’s or publisher’s brand or style or genre or cadence or voice, then this is the place to be.

What I mean to say, if you are a new writer here, is simply that there are some things you must understand about it all (I write this now, indeed, because I myself need reminding of some of these things today) if you wish to stick around. *See M. E. Rothwell’s “How to think about the Substack network” for a more technical explanation:

How to think about the Substack network

Now, you can certainly go the traditional publishing route if you’d like, or you could create your own blog and channel traffic to it yourself via other media platforms. But that is a lot easier said than done.

In my opinion, Substack is one of, if not the best, opportunities out there nowadays for new writers. Not only is everything you need to publish and market (and make money from) your work available on a single dashboard, but there are already on this platform tens of thousands of writers to connect with and tens of millions of people who actually like to read.

This isn’t to say it’s easy; as with any endeavor, it takes a damn long time to succeed. Both because it takes a long time to gain “algorithmic traction,” and because it takes even longer to become a good writer . . . and then even longer to know enough about something that you’ve got anything worthy to say. Because being a good writer requires more than simply, as I said, being able to pen down beautiful prose.

In addition to becoming an excellent writer, you must also know enough about a particular subject to be able to offer unique and valuable insight. You need, in other words, to become fluent in something else (meaning that you’ve got to read a lot). For this reason, you’ll be hard-pressed to find any truly successful writers on this platform under the age of, I don’t know, 28 or so (shoutout to one of my favorite writers here, Tommy Dixon, who I think is around my age). And really, almost everyone who does well is over the age of 30 (because they’ve been writing for a long time).

So, unlike the case on most other media platforms (and somewhat contrary to my original complaint above), success here is largely merit-based—rather than on one’s willingness to do something altogether insane and potentially degenerate in the name of views and clicks.

*It’s important to note here that merit-based means that success is based on skill and intellect, which is cultivated via volume.*

So, you see, the rules of writerly success remain. You must write a lot, and for a long time, and you must publish often, and you must read and know a good deal so that you have something worthy to share, and you must build connections with other writers and relevant resources. You needn’t worry too much about writing poorly, because nobody really cares—although I would say be careful not to publish not-so-good work too frequently, or else risk losing your readership . . . though this isn’t all that much of a concern, because once you have a strong readership, you’ll likely have written so much (meaning you’ll be so good of a writer) that it’ll be quite the challenge to publish bad work consistently.

And again, unlike the case with other platforms, you are, in all likelihood, not going to be able to succeed (let’s call success the ability to generate a full-time income from paid subscriptions—though, of course, the opportunity to write every single day is really what it’s all about)—in a year, or two, or perhaps even three, unless you come here with a previously built audience, or are already a great writer, or already know exactly how to build an audience.

As a side note, I want to add two things here:

1. Even though it takes a while to generate an income, you stand to be able to make a lot more money if you stick around long enough—more than most staff writers would be able to make—thanks to scalability.

2. It’s hardly any different than getting a degree: you invest and learn and fail and try for a period of time, and after a while, you see a return on your input.

This timeline is easy to forget, especially when you’re putting all your work on the same playing field (A.K.A. the Substack platform) as other people who seem to sneeze success.

And don’t get me wrong, there will always be those grungy, intentionally punk-style folks who don’t capitalize the first letter of their sentences and seem to not convey much other than air with their words whose posts attract attention you feel you could only ever dream of . . . Or those people whose seventh post garners a hundred likes while your hundredth post struggles to garner seven.

But these people, I promise, are not to be worried about.

What’s to be worried about is your input. Your input, if you're here to stay, ought to be no different than what it’s been for any writer throughout history: a word count aimed at the millions. I’ll tell you this—if your total lifetime word count has not entered into the hundreds of thousands, you shouldn’t even concern yourself with marketing. And, I mean, it’s good to try and market, because that’s the best way to learn. But do not be disappointed by failure.

Because writing is not a get-rich-quick thing. It takes a very long time to get good, and then even longer to get good at making money.

New writers are mistakenly made to think they’re just gonna “start your blog!”, turn on paid subscriptions, post ten or twenty or thirty times, and have generated hundreds or maybe even thousands of dollars. For most, this will not be the case.

Despite the fact that we’re in the super-duper advanced 21st century, the craft of writing still requires immense dedication, perseverance, and, quite frankly, hardship. The majority of people who start a newsletter with the intention of turning it into a full-time income do not stick around because, like any endeavor, it’s much more difficult than it’s made out to be.

I write all of this today, as you might have guessed, because I published a post this week that I had worked on for many, many hours, and it really saw no traction in the slightest. And the reason it saw no traction in the slightest is because I’ve not been putting any effort—or volume—into marketing my Substack for the past several months.

Even though I’ve already got about 250 subscribers and close to 700 followers, few people seemed to take a look.

There are many reasons for this. I could list some of them out . . .

• I haven’t been active on the platform as much, so the algorithm doesn’t push my work

• I haven’t kept up with the connections I’ve made here, and so those people were less likely to read my work

• I could have made the title more compelling

• Even though I have an audience, it is still very small, and only a minor portion of your readership is likely to open any given newsletter (a 40%+ open rate is very good)

• My prose isn’t all that punchy, and I tend to ramble and meander, losing the interest of readers who don’t know and trust me already

I could go on, but the reason I list all these out is to demonstrate that even though sometimes things don’t make sense here—random stuff goes viral, and stuff you were really proud of doesn’t perform well in the slightest—there are generally a list of inputs you can act on to ensure your success. Meaning that if you want to succeed, you must treat your work, at least in part, as a sort of business.

Again, if you don’t like doing all the extra work (mostly marketing and learning how to craft copy and being intentional about what you consume) that you think a writer shouldn’t have to do, but still yearn for success, you could always aim for the traditional publishing route. Or, if you just want a place to publish, but are fine with letting the success of your work blow in the wind of chance virality (or don’t care at all about outcome), then by all means!

But if you want to be a writer, and you want to own your work, what I’ve just shared is more or less what life must look like.

I have to remind myself of this often, because I struggle to get myself to do the work I know I need to do in order to grow, and it’s easy for me to get frustrated and envious and feel it’ll never work out . . . Many times, I’ve wished I could just write a piece and have the rest of the work done for me so that I could just send it out into the void, garnering millions of eyeballs. But this, at least in the beginning, is not how things work nowadays.

Nonetheless, it is a blessing. Because life could undoubtedly be a heck of a lot worse. There could be a famine, or the plague, or an alien invasion. I’m sure writers throughout history who didn’t have access to this kind of stuff—and had to rely on a publisher—would very likely have jumped at the opportunity we all now have.

With that being said, keep this in mind: you’re going to have to treat yourself like a professional writer for years before you actually feel like a professional writer. You must, in other words, fake it till you make it.

Don’t be surprised when, after writing and writing every day for months on end about what feels like nothing, you come to the seemingly immovable conclusion that your life is a joke, and that you ought to give up and “get more serious,” since you’re not making any money, and nobody is reading your work . . .

In reality, my friend, your life is not a joke—you are just a writer.

---

Thanks for reading. If you enjoyed this post, please share it with your best friend. Or anyone.

Until next time,

RB