Getting Substack subscribers and changing writing focus
It has been around a month and a half since I launched my shiny new Substack. Previously, I’d had a science fiction and fantasy newsletter for a month and it got me one whole subscriber. She was a nice older lady, who had no real interest in either the sci-fi or fantasy genre but wanted to be supportive.
So I didn’t feel too bad when I cancelled it and launched a new one based on the themes I explored on Medium. Which, broadly speaking, is about interesting and quirky stories from throughout history, and across cultures. It is similar to the kind of thing you’d find on QI or the radio quiz show The Unbelievable Truth. (Both of which I highly recommend.)
It has dawned on me that while a lot of people love science fiction and fantasy, they don’t seem to be all that keen on reading about it. For my weekly newsletter, I was trawling sites like io9, Tor/Reactormag, Scifinow and others to get information. But even the big sites didn’t seem to have all that many readers. I guess it is all relative, but there seems to be very little interaction compared to even the crappiest YouTube video or Reddit post.
My options were to either persist, work hard, keep pumping out top notch science fiction and fantasy content and build a slow but steady fan base. Or try something new and hope that takes off instead. I went for option two. I am pretty lazy.
But this wasn’t solely down to idleness. It was more because I am trying to focus more on stuff that works and work I want to do more of.
Substack seems to be the place write if you are looking for a platform and some income, but I took a slightly circuitous route to get there. Also, you need to find the right topic to focus on.
Changing writing focus, going freelance, but still working for an income
I’m writing all this in case it helps someone in a similar boat, or someone new to writing and is wondering what platform to try out. I’ve been a journalist for a few decades and the first half of that was for print magazines. I had a job and editor who told me what to do, so I just did that.
I then went freelance and wrote for a lot of publications and editors I knew. But there was a whole new world of internet opportunities out there, and I wanted to give that a go. Being cautious – and needing the money – I took a job as a senior content writer at a university. As I had hoped, the job wasn’t very taxing, provided a decent monthly pay, and allowed plenty of time to try some of the new platforms that were coming out.
Fortunately, I had made some headway on Fiverr and Medium before Covid happened. Good times.
Fiverr and Medium
I tried Fiverr and Medium and a few others. I even tried a couple of content mills before decided I would rather starve than work 1 or 2 cents a word. Fiverr and Medium seemed a bit different in that there was a lot more potential to work my way up to a decent salary.
On Fiverr I became a top writer in the journalist category and got 200 five-star reviews before calling it quits. I grew to dread new clients and their weird demands and the whole uncertainty about how they were going to rate me. But it wasn’t all bad. I had also met some superb people whom I enjoyed working with and had continued to work with outside the platform. They still provide me with semi-regular work and pay today.
On Medium, I tried various topics before alighting on interesting stories from across the world and history. This was a lot of fun and I had a load of articles go viral, which is always nice. Especially when you are paid by the read. During lockdown I had several make four-figures (USD), which was awesome and very welcome.
Sadly, Medium seems to be dying slowly, and all the cool kids were going to Substack. As I mentioned earlier, it took a while to find the niche and weirdly, it turned out to be exactly what had proven so popular on Medium.
Unlike Medium or Fiverr, I have yet to make any money on Substack as I have decided to build an audience first. I have only been there a month. So if you are broke and want some cash, even if it is a pittance, that is something to keep in mind.
How do things stand?
I am mentioning all this as it is the kind of thing I would like to have known if I was starting out. Hopefully it helped someone and, as this can be read by billions, at least one person is likely to be helped.
Medium was great a couple of years ago. It isn’t so much now. Lots of people, some with tens or even hundreds of thousands of followers are unpublishing their work and moving it elsewhere. Some to blogs, others to Substack. I feel sad saying this, but right now, it isn’t the best.
Fiverr is probably still the same – you can make a living there but I found it generally a bit unpleasant. The algorithm and staff are massively biased on the side of the buyer, as they have the money. I have occasionally been paid straight away (despite a plea to talk to me first in multiple places) and hired to write unpleasant things – which I refused and got penalised for. For example, I was once asked to write on behalf of a North African country in defence of its persecution of journalists. Apparently, and not unsurprisingly, they were finding it hard to persuade journalists to defend the prosecution of journalists.
I have been asked to do other similar questionable things and when I refused, I got demoted. So screw ’em. On the plus side, I got quite a few clients from the platform.
The plan… Fiction!
So my plan is to do a weekly Substack and see how that goes. I now have over 50 subscribers, and when that hits 100, I will start to monetise. I read that roughly one subscriber in a hundred pays on Substack, so I might as well test that theory. I will also be importing older Substack stories to Medium after they have been live for few weeks. Might as well. I’ll also be posting weekly or more here.
Because of previous work, investments, and ongoing clients, I can now get by. My reliance on a salary is at an end. Or at least it is while I live in Southeast Asia, as it is cheaper here. The above work should keep things ticking along while I explore the opportunities of fiction.
There are more short story markets around these days and that is where I will start. I will then look into other ways to get paid like Patreon and Royal Road. Then, I will explore self-publishing as I will hopefully have finished a book in the near future.
I have self published collections of short stories before, as well as a book about Thai ghosts, and a sci-fi novelette. You can check them out here. They did ok on launch, but I soon discovered that if you don’t publish regularly, you fall down the rankings. So I need to write a ton more fiction.
I hope that above helped someone and hope even more that you’ll be back in the future to see how it all pans out.
Good luck with whatever you’re doing!
You can check out the Intriguing Times Substack by clicking on this. Go on, just have look.
