In five years on Substack, I've made $10 per post and I'm okay with that

Also I have some tips, but why would you follow them?

In a couple of months, I will have been writing You Think Too Much on this platform for five years. When I went to look it up, I thought surely it had to be longer. It is not.

Over those five years, I’ve had A LOT of thoughts about this platform. Back in 2022, I was part of some workshop-y thing called Substack Go which put various newsletter writers into small groups where we were supposed to exchange tips and support and, well, I don’t remember what else was supposed to happen. Important and helpful things. Growth. Growth was supposed to happen and it did…just very, very slowly. As in, it took me four years to reach a thousand subscribers slow.

There was a period when the dream of becoming a financially self-sufficient writer through Substack was a very real thing for me. As in, I thought it was something that was actually possible. This was back when the Substack people were saying that you could expect 10% of your subscribers to be paid, which resulted in me doing so much math to figure out how many subscribers I would need to, say, pay for a trip to Europe. Or even, you know, to quit my job.

Of course, this never happened. Over the entire five years of this newsletter, I’ve made $3,509.89 and have sent out 325 newsletters which comes out to about $10 per post. If you include the money that generous people have given me on Buy Me A Coffee, that number goes up to $11 per post. Writing this newsletter is not an economically viable activity, at least as far as that goes.

Let me confess now that after a certain point, I pretty much gave up on trying to get people to become paid subscribers. This isn’t because I don’t think people should make money from their writing. I absolutely do! Hurray for people paying writers! I also don’t think it’s because I didn’t understand how to grow subscribers and paid subscriptions. I have read many newsletters on this topic. These newsletters are part of the answer to both questions—you can both grow subscriptions and get more paid subscribers by writing a newsletter about how to grow your subscriptions and get more paid subscribers, but this has no interest for me.

This has nothing to do with this post, it’s just a cool painting of my cat, Gilly, with the weird Victorian lady paperclips my friends got me.

I could also have a bigger and more profitable newsletter if I specialized. In fact, I have a secret newsletter that is on a specialized topic and its growth rate far outpaces this newsletter. I write for that newsletter roughly once a year because I long ago understood that I am not the kind of person who enjoys writing about one topic. Just…not me. And there are many topics I could pick. I have a lot of expertise. I could write about sociology or community or gender or race or any of those topics combined with sports. So many things I could write about. Why limit myself to one? I’m a liberal arts graduate. I might be constitutionally unable to specialize. Not gonna do it.

So the pace of growth for this newsletter had been glacial. This is a trade-off I am totally okay with. As I’ve said before, I use this newsletter as a sort of writing playground. I write about the things I’m obsessed with (Van Gogh) or the things I love (also Van Gogh). I write to figure out what I think about something. I keep doing this newsletter because writing books is so long and sometimes you want some instant gratification and this newsletter gives me that, which is pretty cool.

There are times in these past five years when I have very much wanted to step off the particular ride that is this platform. Substack has been creepy (letting in Nazis) and stupid (full of AI-written newsletters) and in small moments, snarky and mean in the way of the old days of literary Twitter, which I confess, I hated much more than I ever loved, as useful as it could sometimes be.¹

There was a period of at least a few months when I said to my husband almost daily, “I’m over Substack.” Or, “I’m done with Substack.” But like the liar I am, I stayed. I kept on writing. I kept on sending out newsletters. At this point, Notes is the social media I use most often and, here’s a crazy thing to admit at this point in my life and in the history of the internet, I enjoy it.

Yes, I like Notes. I like seeing other people’s art. I like the book recommendations. I like all the literary conversations. I like that Notes has a high tolerance for weirdness. I love that my one viral post is about the joy of old lady water aerobics. I very, very much like that sometimes there just isn’t anything very interesting on Notes (like especially on Sunday mornings?). Sometimes I open it up, take a quick look, see nothing compelling, and go back to my life. I LOVE THIS. This is how the world should be and, perhaps, especially the internet.

Notes, at least my little corner of it, feels like the way the world and the internet should be. Supportive. Funny. Kind. Weird. Sometimes boring. I know that’s not everyone’s experience, but I’m lucky that way.

On Substack, I’ve connected with some amazing people who now feel like friends, even if we’ve never met in person. There are people whose newsletters I’ve been reading for years. People who I knew from other social media platforms. I’m pretty sure I found out about Galiot Press, the wonderful people who published my book, Sex of the Midwest, on Substack. Certainly so many people on here helped me get the word out about my book or interviewed me or bought copies.

Substack has helped me connect to people all over the world, but I also keep writing because the people right here in my little town read my newsletter, too. I like talking to people on the street or at the bar about what I wrote. I like how excited folks are when they get mentioned in the newsletter. I like reflecting the place and people I love back to them.

My old lady aerobics painting for our library’s tiny art competition

Will I always feel this way about Substack? Probably not. If there’s any lesson we’ve learned about tech companies it’s that they have an incredible ability to fuck things up. Substack will probably be no exception, but while it lasts, I plan to enjoy it.

If you want to make more than $10 per post, I have nothing to offer you. But if you’d like to enjoy yourself, here are, as promised, a few tips:

- Lean into your curiosity and enthusiasm. I didn’t really think anyone would want to read my four-part series on Van Gogh. I didn’t much care, either. I wanted to write about Van Gogh because I was very into him and I had A LOT to say. Turns out people are drawn in by your own curiosity and enthusiasm. Write about the things that you have talked about so much to your spouse or your people that they want you to just shut up already. Give them a break and put it in a newsletter.

- Find a level of engagement that works for you. I try to write a newsletter once a week. Sometimes I don’t. The only person who I think really notices if I’ve skipped a week is my friend Randy and he lets me know. Sometimes shit happens and I just can’t write that week. A lot of people will tell you that’s a bad idea or a disaster or whatever, but come on. People are living their very busy, very consuming lives. They probably have not noticed that you skipped a week. Except for Randy. Thanks, Randy.

- Become a fan of other people’s work. You can’t be a good writer unless you’re a good reader. Same applies on Substack. I don’t think you can be much good on here unless you sometimes look at what other people are doing. Most of the people I interact with on Substack are very nice and who doesn’t want a fan? So comment on their posts. Like their stuff. Restack them. Subscribe and, you know, pay for a few. Show up for other people and they’re more likely to show up for you. It’s also a good way to get ideas about cool things other people are doing.

- Just be nice. This is the most important tip. I never have and never will understand why people are mean to each other on the internet. I mean, seriously? What possible good could come of being snarky and mean in the comments? Do people think there’s a prize for shittiness? Or that the rest of us are going to be like, “Ooh, look at that mean person! They’re so cool!” Shouting at random drivers from the safety of your car? Totally understandable. Being mean to strangers on the internet? Incomprehensible.

I can count on one hand the number of times people have been mean to me on Substack, which is really nice. When it has happened, I ignored it. Well, I felt a little sad for those people and then I ignored them. I’d much rather spend my time cheering people on. I respond to every comment I can, not because it “drives growth,” but because I’m so grateful to people who took the time to read my words and then add to the conversation.

Will being nice get you tens of thousands of subscribers and a six-figure income from your newsletter? I don’t know? Probably not? Will it make your life more pleasant? Yes. Your call.

1. This is also why you do not see me much on Threads, which is very clearly the new literary Twitter, which is to say, just as mean and crazy and like a middle school lunchroom and, Jesus, fuck, when I spent two minutes on Threads I immediately think to myself, “Are all these people okay?” and also, “Didn’t we move past this? I thought we moved past this. I thought we learned something from the whole Twitter thing. Oh, I guess not.”