I logged off Zoom, sweater armpits mildly sweaty from nerves, but cheeks sore with smiling. I had just finished leading the third meeting of the Tale Teller’s Writing Club. We laughed and learned, and for one hour we left behind the solitude of writing and got to be part of a warm, creative community—a community that would not exist if it weren’t for Substack. Months earlier, in New York City, I clutched a microphone and read an essay I’d written in front of people who had bought tickets to hear my work—and the work of several other very talented Substack writers—at the Tender Summer reading. Once again, this event, and this incredible opportunity for me as a writer, never would have happened without Substack. Just this past month, when I achieved a professional milestone I’d been working towards for years and signed with a literary agent, I was moved nearly to tears by the outpouring of love and support from my amazing Substack community.
This is the promise of Substack. Substack is a social media. But it purports to be different from other social media platforms. It claims that because Substack is centered around long-form content, readers engage more deeply with the writers they subscribe to. I will often spend as much as half an hour sinking into the world of the writers I follow. Through this experience, I feel that I come to know and understand them in a way that is less common on Instagram or Tiktok. This perceived depth and closeness creates a stronger sense of community than other social medias. This part of the promise, at least, I have found to be true. My writing club, the readings I’ve participated in, and the way so many of us interact on the platform is a testament to that.
But there is another promise Substack makes to writers who dedicate their time to this app. They promise freedom and autonomy. Unlike other social medias, Substack says its writers won’t be beholden to brands and collaborations for income. Writers will own their audience and be paid directly by that audience for their content. And Substack’s features—Notes, chat, etc.—provide an ecosystem where writers can grow that paying audience right here on the platform. As a writer who had only ever been paid paltry sums for my writing by various literary magazines, when I started my Substack a year and a half ago, this sounded like a dream. I could get paid for my writing, not article by article, but consistently, every month.
This is the part of the promise I think Substack is failing to keep. And that failure is why I almost quit…why I still might if things don’t change.
When I started my Substack, I believed its promise. And I threw myself into my Substack in pursuit of that dream. If I wanted to make money from this thing, I reasoned, I had to treat it like a real job. So, like a part-time job, I have worked on my Substack nearly twenty hours a week every week for the last seventy weeks. I took three weeks off to get married, go on my honeymoon, and move to a new state, respectively. So, in total, that’s nearly 1400 hours spent on Substack—hours spent writing, reading, and cultivating my community.
At first, this massive effort seemed worth it. The commitment I made to publish two newsletters a week got me writing more and encouraged a much more consistent and productive daily writing routine. It was so fun to share my experiences and see them resonate with readers. Of course, because Substack is a social media, it wasn’t all sunshine and roses. There were the inevitable trolls. There were weeks—sometimes even months—when I struggled not to focus on the metrics. There were times when a piece I loved soured in my consciousness because of its low engagement or poor reception. But I pushed through those moments of disappointment and self-doubt. I was on my way to building a real audience and making real income as a writer. And, above all, Substack made me feel like a real writer. It felt like such a gift. My account grew steadily, and by the end of my first year I had over twelve thousand readers. I was ecstatic.
So, at the end of my first year, I decided to begin charging for my writing. Not much. Just $5. But I was excited to finally realize the second part of Substack’s promise. Not just a community of readers, but a paying community of readers. Substack has stated in the past that successful accounts can expect around 5 to 10% of readers to upgrade to paid subscriptions. Independent analyses estimate the real conversion range is actually closer to 1% to 3%.
Either way, when I turned on paid subscriptions, I was excited. If Substack’s estimates were correct, even at the low end I could expect around 650 paid subscribers, which would be over $3000 a month. My part-time job would finally start paying like a part-time job. Even the more conservative estimates of three percent conversion would put me at $2000 a month in income, which still felt incredible to me.
But when I turned on paid subscriptions, for the first time, I truly started to doubt Substack’s promise. Over the last nearly half-year of promoting my paid tier, paywalling articles, and creating additional offerings for paid subscribers—like a writing club, a magazine, a group chat, and hand-written letters and merchandise mailed to all paid subscribers, I’ve barely surpassed 100 paid subscribers. And for the last month that number has ceased to grow entirely, each new paid subscriber accompanied by a parallel unsubscribe. At this rate I’ll never make more than a couple hundred dollars a month.
Of course, I understand there are so many reasons people unsubscribe or stop reading or can’t pay for subscriptions. There’s subscription fatigue. There’s budget constraints. There’s email overwhelm. Most reasons have nothing to do with me or my writing. I’m not here to critique individuals who can’t subscribe to a bunch of Substacks. Substack cannot change people’s individual ability to pay. BUT if Substack’s central promise is around not just great content and community for readers, but a marketplace where writers can make money from their work, they have a responsibility to prioritize features, content, and promotions that help hold this promise to readers. And, right now, it doesn’t feel like they’re doing that.
For example, Substack used to regularly promote the work of writers on its Instagram—a feature which personally helped me gain traction and grow my audience. But now, Substack’s instagram is awash with announcements of celebrities joining the platform and promotions of their new features, especially an ongoing Substack Film iniative. Substack has not promoted a piece of writing by a regular writer on their Instagram since April 1st. The Substack Post is also a great way to help writers get discovered, but it only shares free content. If part of Substack’s promise is that its writers will make money, why not share paid content they deem worth the upgrade? Or shout out newsletters doing cool things for their paid subscribers? Why not, instead of launching feature after feature we didn’t ask for, work on creating features that help writers get paid? Substack touts Notes as the best feature for organic discovery, but rather than boosting Notes that promote original writing or paid work, the most common “viral” notes are people posting inane shit like “Please connect me to all the lovers and dreamers” or else “Here how’s I grew my Substack following.” Substack has made a promise that drew thousands of writers to its platform, and lately it’s feeling like they’re not doing everything they can to hold up their end of the bargain. Meanwhile, I feel like I’m bending over backwards just to eke out one more paid subscription.
I’ve wanted to write about this and talk about this for a while. But something has held me back. What’s held me back is the knowledge that making anything on here is something to be grateful for—that in fact many people would love to be experiencing the levels of success I’m experiencing. I’m a bestseller, after all. And I am SO grateful for the success I’ve had and to each and every one of paid subscribers. There are people who might call me ungrateful and say “Why can’t you just write for the love of writing?” For me, the reason any of this matters is because time is finite, and I need money to live. I cannot keep allocating twenty hours a week indefinitely to work that does not pay me, no matter how much I enjoy it. Plus, I think the work I do is worth something. It’s why I chose Substack, rather than publishing my work for free on a blog.
Substack demands more than other social media platforms. To “make it” on Substack you can’t just post a photo dump or a quick, casual video. Substack demands effort, thought, editing, and time. In exchange for these elevated demands, it promises elevated outcomes.
But for the past few months, I’ve struggled to keep believing in the outcomes Substack touts. I’ll admit, the platform has become toxic for me. In addition to feeling like I will never be paid an amount commensurate with the effort I’ve put in, I’ve been struggling to deal with rapidly declining metrics. This is mildly humiliating to share, but I think we could all benefit from a little transparency, so I’m just going to do it. When I turned on paid subscriptions, my 30-day page views were at nearly 200,000. Since turning on paid, they have steadily declined and now sit just below 50,000 views. It feels like a Catch 22. Without the paywalls no-one upgrades, but with the paywalls, nobody comes to your page. With less people viewing my page, my subscriber growth has slowed to essentially a non-existent trickle. I’ve reacted to this by using Notes even more frequently, the tool Substack says will produce organic growth. It hasn’t worked. Less people are reading my work than ever, no matter what I do or how hard I work.
And I know this isn’t just a problem I am experiencing. Across the board the money and growth Substack promises is not being realized—even for top creators. I know this because with just 118 paid subscribers, I am the 65th most popular fiction Substack on the entire platform. I know this because last week I was listed the top fastest “rising” fiction Substacks and I only gained one paid subscriber. If that’s all it takes to be one of the fastest rising newsletters, it means very few people are growing at rates that justify the output and time Substack demands.
Finally, a few weeks ago, it reached a point where I sat down with my husband and told him I was thinking about quitting. This thing that had once been joyful for me had become a source of anxiety, constantly making me feel like a failure. I was graduating and leaving behind my steady publishing job in Wilmington, I said. I needed to focus my efforts on finding a job that valued me, that would pay me for my work. Head in my hands I said, “Like they say, the definition of insanity is trying the same thing expecting different results.” For me, it felt like the party had ended. The lights had come on. And the things that had once sparkled felt flimsy and faded. I needed to get real.
But, as Alan often does, through our conversation, he helped me reach a less extreme reaction. He reminded me of everything Substack has given me. And it has given me a lot. I genuinely love the community on here. I adore my writing club. I have had interactions with people who have read my writing that made me cry as people shared their own experiences and stories. I have met writers who have become genuine friends in real life. I have grown as a writer. I have had experiences I couldn’t have imagined just two years ago. On the good days, I am so proud of Fairy Tales by Caroline.
After talking with Alan, I sat and thought about my own words. The definition of insanity is doing the same thing expecting different results. I have six months until my two-year anniversary on Substack. So, I decided, rather than quitting, I am going to use these next six months to see if there’s any way I can make this platform work for me. I’m going to play. I’m going to experiment. I’m going to fuck around and find out. I’m going to throw everything at the wall and see what sticks. I’m going to try promoting my work on other platforms. Instagram, Pinterest, Tiktok. Hell, maybe even Facebook! I don’t remember my password from the last time I logged on in 2019, but I won’t let that stop me! I’m going to be more vulnerable, more honest. I’m going to write articles like what I’ve written in the past, and I’m going to write things wildly different from what I’ve written in the past. Because despite the fury and frustration and sadness I feel about how all this is going, I feel love more strongly. I love this community and I love writing so I’m not giving up yet.
All I want is for Substack do the same. What I’m doing isn’t working, so I’m going to try as hard as I can, and experiment as much as possible, to see if I change that. Will you—Substack—do the same? Will you work to introduce features and prioritize promotions that fulfill the promise you made to us writers? Will you work your hardest to make sure this platform benefits writers rather than working them to the bone for scraps? I hope so.
If you’re a paid subscriber, I’m going to share this whole messy journey with you. The rest of the article is paywalled, but below I’ll share my plan for the next few months, the questions I asked myself to guide and create this plan, and just more unvarnished truths about my hopes and intentions for this journey. Each month, I’ll be sharing everything I’ve tried, whether it worked or not, and how I’m feeling about this project. I hope you follow along. Let’s see if we can’t make this platform work for us, the way we were promised it was supposed to work.
