Is there a 'best' way to use Substack?
Is this the writer's main dilemma when coming to the platform for the first time?
Sometimes there are just too many Social Media questions for a writer when it comes to engaging with their potential readers: “Do I ‘do’ Social Media, and if so, how much and where?”; “What if it gets in the way of my writing, because it’s going to take-up writing time?”; “How can I possibly compete with some of the ‘Giants’ already on these platforms, either already famous writers or those people with tens of thousands of followers?”
And so on. Three questions off the top of my head.
As with lots of things in life, many of us - secretly or otherwise - hope there might be ‘right’ answers lurking somewhere, that magic wand which will catapult us to wherever we desire to be. Inevitably upwards.
A couple of months into my Substack journey, I feel the time is right to step back just a little and try and answer the questions above - and in doing so discover what that means for Writing until the light goes out and its readers.
Do I ‘do’ Social Media, and if I do how much and where?
Obviously, yes - after all I’m writing this aren’t I? But the picture is a little more complex.
I have a personal website which I have built up over the last six or seven years and which now has over a thousand posts and many hundred followers. I also have a publishing website which has been live for perhaps half that time and is focussed on the books and activities of my ‘Coverstory books’ imprint. That sounds grand, but it’s small scale!
Over the years I have also flirted with Facebook and Twitter/X, and once set-up a TikTok account and then immediately ran away! Not my thing… I’ve binned Facebook - partly for being just too limited for me - and use Twitter/X (@CoverstoryB) sparingly. As far as the latter is concerned, much of the content is negative, selfish and shallow, people focussed on getting ‘followers’, not to mention the often vitriolic and unpleasant content...
Okay. But having established my position on Facebook and Twitter, you might ask why I’ve not stuck with just the personal website and made that do. Several reasons:
the lure of having a platform where the relationship between myself and my readers is much closer, and where I have more control over content & who and how I engage with;
the awareness of having a huge backlog of work that - having put in the hard yards to produce it - wasn’t earning me anything;
the persuasive enthusiasm of Farrah Storr who, in one of her workshops (facilitated by the Society of Authors) convinced me to give Substack a go.
So here I am. Two months in and I’m glad to be here.
Social Media sorted, right? Well not quite. My new nagging doubt is that I’ve not got my ‘site’ quite where I want it to be… The ‘best’? Well, let’s just say there are lessons to be learned…
What if Social Media gets in the way of my writing?
No matter which platform you choose, Social Media takes time right? And surely that’s time we should be devoting to our writing?
Well, maybe not. Because as a writer it’s really, really hard to spend all your creative time on one ‘strand’ of effort i.e. just writing creatively. We need variety, and - whether we like it or not - we need to engage with our potential readers. So Social Media should be a blessing…it’s the platforms that can make it a curse, especially for those who find themselves addicted to non-creative rubbish. Yet another cute picture of a kitten anyone?
And let’s be honest, sometimes even the creatives themselves can, on the really huge market platforms, produce nothing but populist shallow dross. Particularly the poetry.
With one or two exceptions, from what I’ve seen thus far the quality of engagement on Substack - from articles themselves to the responses they provoke - is pretty universally high. And in another common trait you see lots of writers talk about connection and community, and - accepting that some of that will be driven by a desire to increase revenue - you do get more a sense of community on this platform than anywhere else. So a big tick.
Because of all that - the platform, environment, quality of engagement etc. - I’m happy that Substack is the place to be. I’m thinking of it as an investment of time, not a waste.
But a note of caution. I worry about the Notes function because I can see people falling into bad Social Media habits and starting to share what they may have previously shared on Twitter/X or Facebook. And I worry that the video facility might go the same way.
So a plea to Substack: never chase the lowest common denominator - otherwise it will look like Twitter/X in a couple of years, or some megalomaniac billionaire will buy it as a plaything.
How can I possibly compete?
So Substack’s good; I’m glad I’m here and I don’t see it as a waste of time.
But I’m small fry - or as someone said the other day, like many on the platform “faking it until we make it”…
Does it bother me that I don’t yet have ten thousand followers, or a six-figure income? ‘No’ - and ‘yes’. ‘No’ right now; but in two or three years? And then I slap myself round the face or look in the mirror and remind myself that I’m not Jacobsen or Rushdie or Atwood or Saunders and so forth.
Fact. Get over it.
And it’s also negative to think that way, obviously. I’ve not the books/the talent/the luck/the longevity [delete as appropriate] to compete. Yet I do want more readers, more subscribers, because to my mind that’s how writers are validated. Every subscriber is telling you that you’re not wasting your time; every ‘share’ or ‘like’ is them being prepared to go public with that fact.
Shares, subscriptions, likes, comments etc. are all gold dust. The real prize.
I’m lucky. My posts/emails have a 60%+ read/open rate, and I’m told 30%-40% is the norm - so I’m doing something right there. But it’s more of the gold dust I’m after…which is what makes me check my stats perhaps twice a day.
Maybe I’m already addicted - and in the wrong way too…
Finally, what does this all mean for Writing until the light goes out?
So two ‘ticks’ and a question mark, the latter related to my competitive nature, my desire to measure myself against others.
However there’s something else that’s becoming increasingly bothersome and which also relates to the whole numbers question.
When I started Writing until the lights go out I wanted to do two things: a) give as much of my work as possible the chance to ‘earn its corn’, and b) to give my subscribers (free or paid) ‘value for money’. So I set out to build up collateral on the site - which to my mind meant at least four posts a week. The nagging doubt I have now is whether that’s actually too much. I think it might be.
And not only that, it leaves little room for other, ‘fresh’ stuff. And I’ll come back to that in a moment.
So I’ve decided to rein things back a touch. I intend to keep going with the pre-publication serialisation of my new novel, 17 Alma Road, where the posts will finish in February after which the physical book will be published. And I intend to keep posting my reading of my poetry collection not the Sonnets. Both of those feel like part of a contract I’ve made with my subscribers. I am going to decrease the frequency of posting already-published short stories in order to reduce the email bombardment of my subscribers, and to give me room for other, new things.
And it’s the potential of this ‘fresh’ stuff I think is enticing.
It seems to me that the more successful Substack sites are those whose authors are offering readers new and immediate personal insights, content that is authentic and not ‘made up’ i.e. neither fiction nor poetry. On that basis, I feel as if there is not enough me on my site; rather, it’s full of my ‘stuff’. There are too few posts like this one.
And that, I’m guessing, is one reason my subscriber numbers have plateaued a little - because I am not as ‘present’ as I need to be. Or - to be brutal - perhaps not as ‘interesting’ or variable as I could be.
So I’m going to be experimenting a little. And this may not only be in the type of content, but in the way it is delivered. For example, in order to take the pressure off my subscribers’ inboxes, I may still post my work multiple times in the week, but only emailing out one ‘digest’ post a week with links to all that work. What do you think?
This is all me ruminating, of course, but that last question is a valid and open one. What do you think? In many respects your opinion is vital. I’d really like to know…