The Joys of Publishing a Weekly Essay

How to build an audience on Substack

"Blog Marketing Up Close Blue Pen Graphic" by Maria Reyes-McDavis is licensed under CC BY 2.0.

Many of the people who read Sharpen Your Axe will be wondering whether it is worth setting up your own Substack. My advice is to go for it! I think the platform is particularly good for people who tend to over-think issues and spend far too much time in our heads. Plotting out regular essays is a great way of focussing on one issue at a time and then letting go of the subject after publication. It is also a good way of managing an argumentative streak.

In my experience, Substack can act as a busman’s holiday for journalists. There are many of us who do difficult work grappling with tough subjects in financial and B2B journalism from Mondays to Fridays. We toil away in relative obscurity behind paywalls, which protect our incomes while limiting our public profiles. Having a space to let off a little steam at the weekend while building a wider audience can be healthy if you have enough mental bandwidth and your boss gives you permission.

Substack is also a great resource for authors in a world where reading books is seen as a little old-fashioned, as well as for readers who want to discuss material they find inspiring. As well as using the platform to build an audience with weekly essays, authors can also use it to test out material, as I did with the beta version of what turned into my book on social media debates. Alternatively, you can use it to give away your book for free, as music author (and former jazz musician) Ted Gioia is doing on his rather excellent Substack, The Honest Broker.

Although it is outside my area of expertise, I suspect that Substack might also be a great choice for academics, who want to build a connection with the general public. Weekly essays could cover the literature in your chosen subject, as well as research breakthroughs, book reviews and interviews with people doing groundbreaking work.

Substack was founded in 2017 in San Francisco. I first found out about it in July 2020 when Andrew Sullivan (a liberal-conservative author who led the campaign to legalize gay marriage) announced he was moving his thought-provoking blog, The Daily Dish, to Substack. At the time, I was wondering what to do with the beta version of my book, which was originally focussed on thinking critically about conspiracy theories. I ended up joining the platform in October 2020 and began publishing weekly essays in December 2020.

What makes Substack different from other platforms is that the founders want to build a monetization engine for journalists, writers and other content creators. They say that roughly 5% to 10% of a writers’ free list will probably upgrade to a paid subscription at a price that is normally around five dollars or euros per month before taxes and fees. The platform takes a small cut.

In practice, most Substack authors will probably choose between one of two monetization strategies. Big-name authors with huge followings like Gioia and Sullivan can monetize now to unlock plenty of upside. The platform will probably provide them with much larger income streams than they could get elsewhere, including legacy media.

For humbler names, including myself, Substack is better at protecting against potential downside than it is at creating true upside. Many of us are unlikely to build an audience large enough to replace our day jobs any time soon, but - if we are lucky - we might just get numbers that can provide us with some potential income if we ever find ourselves out of work. Think of the downside strategy as an insurance policy for journalists and authors. It can sit alongside our intrinsic motivation to mull over unformed ideas, publish a polished version and move the material from our own heads to other people’s.

Over the last couple of years, I have seen many people get off to a great start on Substack with one amazing essay. All too often, though, the aspiring essayists run out of steam and stop publishing almost immediately. I suspect that the single most important attribute of growing your Substack is to develop a good rhythm. That probably means publishing one free essay a week, as I do, although if you have the bandwidth to do more, then please do so. I have my doubts about the benefits of publishing less frequently. You should always publicize your essays on other social media channels after publication.

Substack’s software allows you to stack essays up ahead of time. I write one essay most weekends, but sometimes miss the odd weekend when I’m busy. I like to line up a few more on staycations. For example, I’m writing this one on Sunday 9th April after getting back from a short Easter break. I have four more essays scheduled for the coming Saturdays before this one comes out. Doing it this way avoids any feeling of panic about not having material ahead of the weekend, although it also makes it harder to publish hot takes about breaking news. This is not necessarily a problem.

I normally spend days letting each column take shape in the back of my mind. When I sit down in front of my computer at the weekend, it is almost a relief to get the words out. It normally takes me around an hour to write the first draft of each essay. The shorter ones might be 45 minutes and the longer ones two or three hours. After lining up an essay for publication, I often find myself jumping in and making small tweaks until I am perfectly happy with it. In some of the longer essays, that might be five to ten minutes every day over a week or two, sometimes even more. It all adds up in the end. Even so, typos still sometimes make it into the final version. Substack lets writers fix them on the website after publication.

The most successful Substacks seem to often have one over-riding theme that is flexible enough to cover a wide range of material. My theme - thinking critically about the news without getting conned by gurus - can cover everything from deconstructing Russian propaganda to fact-checking the myths of the Catalan independence movement. It can cover bleach-drinking cults, Greek philosophy and Bayesian statistics.

We can see a similar thematic approach in some of my favourite Substacks. Economist Noah Smith writes about tech-optimism at Noahpinion, in theory, but in practice this is wide enough to cover everything from development economics to Japanese popular culture from an economically literate centre-left perspective. Meanwhile, journalist Helen Lewis’ free weekly column, The Bluestocking, is ostensibly concerned with moderate feminism, but in practice she is one of the smartest commentators on our ongoing culture wars.

Finally, historian Heather Cox Richardson publishes at least six free essays a week under her Letters from an American brand. She reflects on the events of the day in American politics and draws parallels from US history, particularly from the time of the Civil War.

Are you thinking of setting up your own Substack? If you want any help or encouragement, give me a shout - the comments are open. Also, if you know anyone who should have a Substack, please send them the link to this article! See you next week!

Further Reading

Building in public

Sharpen Your Axe is a project to develop a community who want to think critically about the media, conspiracy theories and current affairs without getting conned by gurus selling fringe views. Please subscribe to get this content in your inbox every week. Shares on social media are appreciated!

If this is the first post you have seen, I recommend starting with the second anniversary post. You can also find an ultra-cheap Kindle book here. If you want to read the book on your phone, tablet or computer, you can download the Kindle software for Android, Apple or Windows for free.

Opinions expressed on Substack, Twitter, Mastodon and Post are those of Rupert Cocke as an individual and do not reflect the opinions or views of the organization where he works or its subsidiaries.