Writers, are you using Substack?

When thinking of different ways to build an audience, communicate with that audience and then get paid, writers don’t have too many outlets. There’s Medium, of course, which uses a system of time on page and number of reads to calculate what your articles earn. There’s also Patreon where you can charge a monthly subscription fee for your content.

But what about Substack? Have you thought about using it? Are you even familiar with how it works?

What is Substack?

Substack is a platform that claims to be “a place for independent writing.” How Substack works is that it allows you to create a newsletter on whatever topic you feel expert on and charge for that newsletter. Using Substack is free. They only get paid when you get paid. They charge 10% of your newsletter fee, which must be a minimum of $5/month. They also take a percentage of your transaction fee.

What is unique about Substack?

One major difference I’ve recognized with Substack is that it allows you to include audio into your newsletter. This means your newsletter can operate almost like a podcast.

Another major difference, which I think is most important, is that it lets readers pay you directly. This is where it differs from Medium. With Substack, if a reader finds value in your writing, they can support it. That means having a few hundred readers subscribe to your newsletter can earn you thousands of dollars. With Medium, you’d need thousands of readers spending a certain percentage of time on all of your posts in order to theoretically earn thousands of dollars.

How can fiction writers use Substack?

I’ve thought about this. For me, one way to use Substack as a fiction writer would be as a marketing tool for your book. Let’s suppose you know you have a novel coming out in the spring. You can create a free newsletter (which is also an option on Substack) with excerpts from your book leading up to its release.

But on the flip side, you can actually charge right off the bat for full chapters of your novel. This can be an effective strategy if you’ve already built up some cache with your subscribers. Maybe you release one chapter each week for a month or two. Maybe you release all chapters and send the full novel to those who are already subscribers.

Those are just a couple of high-level ideas. I would suggest spending some time on Substack to learn how other successful writers are using the platform.