I have yet to make a penny on Substack, but I’m thoroughly enjoying it. And there’s the added bonus that I will enjoy it more once a couple of pennies roll in.
I said a month ago that Medium was making a pittance and Substack… not even that. Well, nothing has changed. I said that only 1% or so of newsletter subscribers actually buy a subscription, so there is no real point monetising until I had a couple of hundred.
I wrote that about a month and a bit after I had started the newsletter, and I had 50 subscribers and around 100 followers. A month later and I have doubled that. I don’t know if this is faster or slower than average, but it seems pretty steady.
I mostly maintain this site as it has helped a couple of people who are navigating new writing platforms. I can’t really talk about my freelance work right now, as it is client based and I do a lot of ghostwriting. However, I would happily give all that up if I can start making a decent amount on Substack. The kind of money I used to make on Medium or Fiverr would be a good place to start.
Substack articles for the month – free and with links
This month, just to show you the niche – and obviously publicise the hell out of them a bit more – I published four articles.
They are all free at the moment, so check them out if you find them interesting.
Writing a book is proving time consuming
A lot of my focus is currently on a fantasy-type book that I’m working on. About which, there is not a lot to say right now. I started writing it in pubs while waiting for friends or my wife to finish work. I had the vaguest of ideas and so I just went for it.
A story formed while writing that was pretty good. But it was also pretty disjointed. Some bits were written while I was just drinking tea, and other bits after four or five pints. There are some brilliant passages (if I say so myself), and some where I am not 100% where I was going with it.
I started writing the story as a trilogy and so decided to write it all in one go, rather than publish something and get stuck later on. I’m not naming or shaming any fantasy writers here. Neither of them. But I don’t want to have a decade between books and stress out about finishing them.
I realised at one point that given the word count and the exciting scene I had just finished, that it would be the ideal moment for book one to end. So, I have a draft and am now rewriting the whole thing. To avoid a ton of issues and things I later thought should be added, I am now plotting it all out.
So, come back in several months, and I will update the progress.
Now get back to writing…
