I was first introduced to Substack by Joanna Campbell Slan, who migrated her newsletter list there in December 2023.
“Substack has brought me 207 new subscribers,” she said. “Since I don’t pay Substack, I count that as a huge win. Previously, I was paying around $120 a month, and the other email list servers sure didn’t recommend me to anyone.”
Should you use Substack to deliver your newsletters? Is it worth it to switch? Let’s look at the pluses and minuses.
According to Forbes magazine, “Substack is a subscription-based platform that allows writers, journalists, content creators (and everyone in between) to publish newsletters to their audience directly.”
Right now, Substack is free to creators, though you are encouraged to get your subscribers to pay for your writing and Substack takes a small percentage of whatever you earn. So, it’s a viable alternative to newsletter companies that charge authors to send out their mailings, often at high rates depending on the size of your audience.
Before you start
If you don’t already have a newsletter, know what you want to convey and how often you intend to communicate, and do your best to stay in your lane. If you jump between historical romance and contemporary politics, you may find it hard to develop a following because Substack won’t know how to recommend you.
Consider if you want a paywall. Do you have extra content to provide? Or do you want to give readers a way to support you beyond your books?
Getting started
It’s simple to import your existing list as a .csv file, but you will lose most of the information you may have collected from other platforms, including first name and location. This removes the option of personalization.
You’ll have to choose a name for your newsletter, and a logo, to be most effective. Terry Odell calls hers Writings and Wanderings, which encompasses both notes about her books as well as her travels—which often influence what she writes. My original title was simply Neil’s Substack, but after working on this article I’ve updated it to Neil’s Ruff Drafts—which connects to my writing, which almost always includes dogs.
The “short description” field shows up to people browsing and in Substack recommendations. Mine is, “Dog lover Neil Plakcy writes on the intersection of business and creativity,” which I like because it focuses on both my MBA and my MFA, and my views on self-publishing, as well as information about my new books and works in progress. My logo is my author photo. If you have a logo that illustrates your content, that’s a big bonus.
The layout is simple and straightforward, allowing you to insert images and links, but isn’t quite as author-focused as other products. Emails can have both a title and a subtitle. You can also include polls, recipes, and PDF files. In one of my earliest posts, I attached a short PDF that was a prequel to my golden retriever mystery series, and I got a lot of engagement from it.
Free vs. paid
When I switched from MailerLite, I saved $65 a month because I have just over 5,000 subscribers. Other newsletter providers charge varying prices. And none that I know of recommend readers to your emails. Like Slan, Brent Hartinger and Michael Jensen, authors of Brent and Michael are Going Places, also benefit from Substack recommendations, with about 200 of their 10,000 subscribers finding them that way.
Unlike standard emails, you can monetize what you write. If you are a journalist, or writing about hot topics, this can be a very useful opportunity. I was stunned the first time I published a Substack when I got two paid subscribers.
“Ultimately, I think people become paid subscribers because they identify with you personally and want to support you,” Hartinger said.
You can make some content free and reserve other content for paid subscribers. Cookbook author David Leibowitz puts recipes and restaurant suggestions behind his paywall.
Hartinger said, “We ask ourselves the question: Is this the kind of content that might go viral? If so, then yes, we’re more likely to make that free. The result is that our paid content tends to be the more detailed or information-heavy, with more action-oriented or specific ‘value’ advice, and our free stuff might be more humorous or general-audience-oriented.”
You can include prompts to upgrade to paid in your emails. Hartinger and Jensen often include a coupon to upgrade at a discount, usually 40% off.
You can set a monthly price, an annual one, and a “founding plan price.” It’s similar to Patreon in that you can encourage people to support you at different levels. Free subscribers generally get email access to your current posts, while paid subscribers can read through your archive. Substack’s minimum monthly fee for paid subscribers is $5. As with Patreon, you can provide extra content such as deleted scenes, epilogues, or other material. You can also give paid subscribers advance looks at some of your work, such as the recipes that will be accompanying your new book.
PJ and Thomas McKay, who write under the name Okay McKay, are masters at writing intriguing taglines like “How we find time for intimacy.” The newsletter will open with what they’ve been up to (they are home remodelers who have adopted children), and then there will be a reference back to that intimacy question … which is only available to paid subscribers.
Substack pays you through Stripe, so you’ll have to have or set up a Stripe account. If you offer a paid subscription, the platform charges a 10% commission fee, plus another 2.9% plus 30 cents per payment and 0.5% for recurring payments charged by Stripe.
You can include affiliate links. And if you have a large enough base, you may even be able to include paid advertising.
Because the primary audience for Substack is journalists seeking to monetize their content, there are many options in the dashboard. Those include subscriber growth, revenue, and open rate.
Growing your list
Readers who come to the Substack home page can choose from a variety of categories to find authors they want to follow, and perhaps support. Options include Literature, Fiction, Culture, and Technology, among many others.
Substack will also suggest similar authors for readers to follow. When you sign up for a new author, you’ll be given several suggestions as part of the sign-up process. As a reader, this is a great way to discover new voices. And as an author, it’s nice to have an impartial engine recommending you based on your content. This is where having a solid short description and a catchy name can help—it’s an opportunity to encourage people whom Substack suggests to follow you.
Readers can repost your free content and leave comments, which you or other readers can respond to. I wrote recently about banned books and asked readers to post books they’ve read that they are worried might be banned, and why those books were important.
Minuses
If you have an elaborate welcoming system for your emails, then Substack isn’t for you, as it doesn’t provide the opportunity to do more than send a simple welcome message. And currently, you can’t segment your list based on reader interest.
“I have had a few readers message me concerned with Substack’s history of allowing Nazi content,” said Lainey Davis. “There are readers deeply concerned with the company’s stance on free speech. The company eventually did remove Nazi content, but there is a lingering sense of distrust from readers.”
You are entering someone else’s ecosystem and must adhere to their rules, which may change in the future. With Patreon, you can charge as little as $2 to first-tier supporters, and the $5 limit at Substack may discourage some readers from supporting you.
More ways to monetize
“Another thing to keep in mind is that the way you monetize your Substack isn’t just through subscriptions,” Hartinger added. “There are so many other ways to make money. You can pursue sponsorships or ads (alone or via the dozens of services that now do this); you can use affiliate links (if clearly disclosed); you can syndicate your content on other platforms; you can get paid speaking or consulting gigs, or other job opportunities can come your way.”
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After retiring from a 20-year college teaching career, award-winning author Neil Plakcy now writes full time, kept company by his husband and their two rambunctious golden retrievers.