Q: What are the pros & cons of publishing your own work on Substack?
"The fact is, I love this platform."
Welcome to our weekend conversation!
Last week we talked about how writers should regard the work they post on Facebook. Is a posted poem now “published”? Might a journal reject a short flash nonfiction piece on account of it having been “previously published”?
The conversation, as always, was lively and interesting, with a range of views on offer. One thing that was brought up in the comments was publishing one’s own work on Substack or Medium. Some pros of cons of publishing on Substack were also laid out in Natalie Serber’s Thursday column, where she wrote,
For me, as I said, I was going to quit outsourcing my confidence where I can. That means eliminating some gatekeepers. Recently I wrote an essay about why I read and why I write. Rather than submit to a journal and wait to hear from an editor, I published it on my own Substack. Could I have reached a larger audience by submitting to a journal? Sure. But the benefit speaking directly to my subscribers, of connecting with readers, made the potential audience loss well worth it.
A few of you echoed this sentiment in the comments section. Shifra Sharlin said,
The thing is that it feels great to write for Substack. It's freeing. Without the worry of where I'll publish X and given that it is a more informal space, I am writing more quickly about topics I've always wanted to write about (not yet posted!). I am skeptical that I will ever have more than a few readers, but it matters that being on Substack is good for my writing.
Meg Robson Mahoney commented, “I’m grateful for Substack…not for sending out pieces of what I’m submitting but for turning to other work.”
This weekend, I thought we could dive deeper into a conversation about publishing your own work on Substack. Should you do it? Have you done it? What are the benefits? What are the losses?
I’ve found that one of the great benefits of Substack is that the infrastructure is already set up. That means we writers don’t have to deal with tech glitches (for the most part), website upgrades, pages that won’t load, code that gets inexplicably wonky, and all the backend stuff that can waste a lot of time and energy and generally have you tearing your hair out.
If you accept paid subscriptions, you will of course notice that there is a cost for that infrastructure. Substack’s cut of all subscriptions is not insignificant. However, back when I ran my own website, I had to pay regularly for freelance tech support. Plus there was tremendous stress when things went wrong. I had to spend a lot of time on discussion forums or trying to find people who could help, waiting to hear back from them, then explaining the problems and worrying over whether they’d be able to resolve the issues. Substack frees us writers from all of that hassle. Their fees are a cost I’m comfortable paying in order to have more time and energy to focus on what matters: creating and connecting.
The fact is, I love this platform. I love having a way to write and say what it is I want to write and say, and to communicate directly with all of you, while also opening up a space for all of you to communicate with one another around shared interests and concerns.
Now, speaking of you, it’s your turn.
When I first conceived of this weekend’s discussion, I thought I’d be laying out some Substack “Best Practices.” Certainly I’ve picked up a thing or two since I began Lit Mag News in 2020. But in fact, I want to hear from all of you about what you’ve learned to do and not do, and what your own best practices have turned out to be.
For those of you who have launched Substacks (or Medium pages, or used other platforms), tell us about it. I particularly want to hear from those of you who have published your creative work (poems, personal essays, stories) as well.
Please share your experiences with us! (And the link to your Stack.)
What is the conception of your Substack (or other platform service)? Why did you start it?
Do you publish creative work there (poetry, fiction, personal essays)?
If you do publish your creative work, why have you chosen to do this rather than submit the pieces to literary magazines?
What are the advantages of publishing your own creative work yourself? (The wait for a response from the editor must be pretty brief!)
What are the disadvantages?
If you publish both articles and creative work, does the creative work have a tie to the theme of your Substack? For instance, nature poems for a hiking enthusiast, flash fiction about food in a foodie space? Or does this not matter to you?
How have you grown your audience?
How has it felt to have a comments section open on your creative work? Has it given you satisfaction? Validation? Inspiration?
Other things you’ve learned, want to share, now that you are a bona fide Stacker?
I started my Substack to build a platform but really it's just the Marie Newsletter, a new version of the book blog I wrote for 10+ years on Blogger. Now the content is Marie-as-writer-and-cool-person rather than Marie-as-strictly-bookworm. My subscriber base has grown but it's teeny and that's OK for now. I don't publish any writing on it that I plan to submit. I do post what I call a "Trash Haiku" with every post. (I write a haiku a day as part of my writing warm-up and if there is one that I think is junky enough I put it on my Substack to punish my readers with.) I like the platform and it allows me to keep in touch with family and friends who might not want to bother with reading a blog. As I change and grow as a writer it will likely change and grow with me.
If you have literary ambitions and you decide to publish some of your work on Substack, HAVE A STRATEGY.
I've published a weekly newsletter, Introvert UpThink (https://www.introvertupthink.com), through Substack for more than two years. I have 1600 subscribers, some of whom pay anywhere from $30 to $100 a year to get one extra post a month in my "Introvert Book Club."
My strategy for publishing this newsletter was to build a subscriber base of at least 40,000 subscribers so I could get a book deal from a major publisher on my topic. I thought that publishing essays in literary magazines would help grow my subscriber list. This wasn't anywhere as easy to accomplish as I thought.
But the writing took on a life of its own, as I took essay writing workshops to hone my craft. I have 15 published or forthcoming new essays in lit mags or online commercial magazines since restarting at this. (I also published essays many years back.)
I still would like to pitch a book on my topic. I haven't settled on a viable angle yet, but writing 100-plus newsletters sure has enabled me to do a lot of research and thinking. For that reason I have no regrets for all the time and effort I have put into my Substack. And knowing I've had an impact on 1000-some-odd people in one corner of the Internet is gratifying, too.