Substack’s Growth Proves There’s a Market For All Sorts of Writing Except Yours
Anyone but you can thrive here!
You might have heard the news that Substack recently crossed the 4 million paid subscriber mark. This tremendous milestone is a testament to the hunger people have for high-quality, independent writing. Substack is proving to be a successful model for thinkers and creatives to monetize their work, and the breadth of content on the platform shows there’s a robust market for all sorts of writing.
All sorts of writing aside from yours, of course.
Explore the platform and you’ll see that Substack has a wide range of newsletters catering to every interest you can think of. There are takes on news and politics that span ideology and style from Bari Weiss to The Bulwark to The Borowitz Report. It just goes to show that people are eager to hear every perspective besides yours and that anyone but you could earn a living by sharing their thoughts on Substack.
Where the mainstream media is struggling, independent journalists are thriving here on Substack. Matt Yglesias’ newsletter is making over $1 million a year. If a newsletter that’s literally called Slow Boring can gross seven figures, then surely any number of people other than yourself could be making a hefty chunk of change by sharing their takes on the topics of the day.
But it’s not just the big subjects like news that are making the big bucks. There are plenty of Substack newsletters catering to specific audiences, demonstrating that just about any other writer not named you can make bank on Substack if they just find the right niche. There’s a super successful Substack that’s dedicated to salad for chrissakes! If there’s a market for salad, there’s a market for anything. Anything other than the niche you happen to write in, obviously.
With 4 million people paying for someone’s writing other than yours on Substack, it’s becoming easier and easier for people who aren’t you to find folks willing to pay for their work. Notes, for example, is proving to be an incredibly valuable tool that writers apart from you have successfully used to find their audience. Writing advice, adorable animal art, Kamala Harris memes — these are all examples of viral Notes content that writers minus yourself have posted to great effect but that definitely won’t work for you.
It’s exciting to see what the coming years have in store for Substack. There’s no doubt that, at this rate, there could soon be ten million or even twenty million people paying for newsletters that you don’t write. So what are you waiting for? Start writing and getting not paid today!
Disclaimers
I just want to be super, super, super clear that this is not an indictment on any particular newsletter or on Substack as a platform. This is just a silly little thing I wrote for folks like me who are nowhere close to making a living from writing on Substack despite working our butts off. If you found it cathartic, please share it with your fellow Substackers so we can all have a good laugh and then get back to work.
Housekeeping
If you subscribed to this newsletter after reading my recent post “How to Find Joy After Last Week’s Election,” then, first of all, welcome! Second, you should know that I write two newsletters. My newsletter, Shades of Greaves is where I post personal reflections like “How to Find Joy After Last Week’s Election.” And this newsletter you’re reading now, The Takedown, is where I post satire about politics and pop culture, and silly stuff like this. If you enjoy both, then A) you’re officially my favorite kind of person! And B) you can subscribe to Shades of Greaves at the link below:
Comments
Any advice for best ways not to attract paid subscribers?
Should I rename my newsletter Slow Boring so that people accidentally subscribe to it thinking it’s Matt Yglesias’ newsletter?
I was so successful at not making money I removed the paid subscription tier altogether. Now, nobody can fail to make money better than me.
It's a testament to the power of Substack as a platform, which also can't make enough money to support itself.
I think you should go with Slower Boringer.