How independent writers can make serious money on Substack
We were having an interesting chat at work the other day, and it really opened my eyes to a world that’s screamingly obvious but also one I’d never really acknowledged. As a proper internet geek/Gen Z/general social media & content guzzler, this surprised me.
The world I’m referring to is the world of writers and content creators using email newsletters, and more specifically, Substack to generate an income. This sounds more vanilla than it is, just bear with me a second. This is the modern way people are Carrie-Bradshaw-ing at home, and there might even be food for thought that you can apply to your own project or current creative venture.
I was familiar with the standard Mailchimp procedure, and thought this was a given, that everyone with a blog or website would set up a regular email newsletter and these would be fairly boring updates of what they’d posted online, and that would be the end of it. BUT NO. This is where it gets interesting…
The conversation actually started with my colleague saying, “Omg Polly, you will f***ing love this Substack. It’s by an Aussie writer and comedian called @Frooomes, and she’s done this hilarious $500 experiment with cryptocurrency this week. You have to follow her.”
Although the introduction to Froomes led me down this fun internet hole into Substacks more generally, and writers making money on this platform, Froomes’ newsletter is free and not charging a subscription fee. It’s published every Wednesday at 8pm Aus time. Here’s a link to subscribe. It’s actually been a weekly highlight during these cold Sydney winter months.
In short, I did love it and I’m now obsessed. Rather than me attempting to explain Froomes and butchering it, check out her website here. Her Instagram stories have me crying with laughter. She refers to her followers as employees of Froomesworld and it’s just the sort of genius internet nonsense I crave.
I’m ashamed to admit this, but I’d never even heard of Substack. I don’t know if it’s more of an Aussie/American thing or I’m just a tech dinosaur that should piss off, dig up my old Motorola pink flip phone and send some love on Bebo or what.
But what I do now know is, “Substack is an online platform that provides publishing, payment, analytics, and design infrastructure to support subscription newsletters.” My colleague was basically explaining to me how so many of her writer friends used Substack to share their writing, and this was one of her favourite ways to digest entertainment or lifestyle content and it’s just such a thing now.
Obviously, when I decided to write this post, I did a good amount of reading up so I didn’t sound like a total divvy.
I learnt a lot. Substack was founded in 2017 by Chris Best, the co-founder of Kik Messenger; Jairaj Sethi, a developer; and Hamish McKenzie, a former PandoDaily tech reporter. Apparently, this $650m newsletter platform is setting up a new feature called Sections. It allows the writers to set up and manage multiple newsletters and podcasts from one publication, to pick and choose your content from, giving traditional publications a potential run/jog for their money, if you will.
Substack CEO Chris Best has even said that the goal is “to allow writers and creators to run their own personal media empire.” While Substack takes a 10% cut of earnings and payment company Stripe takes another 3%, writers pocket the rest. I love this.
Writers and content creators can switch to paid on Substack, and charge a fee for regular exclusive updates from that person via email. I think this is really cool, because due to the fact that everyone with access to the internet can now create a space online for their writing, it can be really difficult for writers to earn a decent buck from their work. Back in the day, being able to get your writing into a magazine or newspaper was the only way to get a lot of people to read your work, so things have changed so much in recent years. The media industry took a huge hit during the pandemic, so a lot of people lost their jobs, and anything that allows people to earn a profit from their skill or talent is a winner in my book. I guess it’s a similar concept to Medium or Patreon, but into your inbox? Probably a thick comparison, but we move.
I feel there will be more to come on this topic in the future on Massive Orange Book, but I’m content with this for now.
To sum up:
- If you’re a writer with a loyal audience, Substack could be a great platform to utilise the paid feature of. If you think about it, you’d only need to have 1,000 subscribers paying $5 per month to be earning $5,000 monthly income from it! Obviously people would drop off naturally and people would pick up, but if you think of it simply it can be a great thing to invest some time in.
- Froomesworld – Get involved. She’s bloody hilarious and the CumRocket cryptocurrency story had me hooked. Check out her Instagram highlights on this, titled ‘$CUMMIES’. So funny.
Feel free to leave a comment below describing your own experience of Substack, join the conversation or just educate me more on this topic because I’m FASCINATED. Also comment any good Substack newsletters you subscribe to below, I want them all!!
Since the time of writing this, I also had the task of setting up a newsletter for Massive Orange Book… and GUESS WHAT. I WENT FOR SUBSTACK. It is honestly just the most simple platform for it, and the one I got most excited about. Subscribe, please and thanks.
Thanks for reading. P x
