Substack— “the home for great blogging.” At least, according to Substack itself. Blogging is a wide category for a reason, and I suppose it is apt for Substack to brand itself this way, but the reality of what this platform has evolved into is even more cavernous.
As it happens, this results in writers and readers on this platform being constantly embroiled in discourse (read: squabbles) about what this platform is, what is isn’t, who this platform is for and who you are if you’re a reader or writer here.
People love to heavily romanticise or scathingly criticise this platform and its writers.
If you have been on Substack for even 10 minutes, you’ve seen a post that reads:
“✨substack is for the girls who read all the books in english class and feel everything too deeply✨”
“✨substack feels like frolicking through a meadow of poetry✨”
“⚠️substack is my personal diary, read at your own risk⚠️”
and if you spend another 10 minutes here, you’ve seen posts like these:
These kinds of cynical sentiments exist all over this platform, telling both readers and writers to flee because of Substack’s lack of “art and culture”, because you’ll never grow as a writer here, because Substack is no different and no better than any other social media platform, because Substack “sucks up your aura.”
and honestly… who is substack even for then?
If this platform is allegedly valueless for both readers and writers, then what is the point of it at all?
I would like to make a case here for amateur writing, especially the value of it existing publicly.
“to any aspiring writer who is reading this… get off substack […] please for the love of god, don’t let a platform based on an algorithm and uninterrogated personal essays replace literary publications with professional editors and writers who will give you constructive criticism and feedback and a diversity of opinion”
I would like to interrogate first, the misguided sentiment of professional publications inherently holding more value and frankly, the somewhat outdated idea of a writer growing their voice at a publication.
Yes, Substack has its own algorithm, its own trends, and aesthetics, but are we really going to be so naive to think that traditional publications are not just, as if not frankly more, beholden to these things.
You are not necessarily reading better writing just because you’re reading The Paris Review instead of someones independent Substack publication. Looking at traditional media as though it is not a profit driven industry that falls victim to the same trends present on social media, is simply being blind to reality. Not to mention the accessibility of these publications that are often based on who you know, or the institutions behind you, not how good you’re writing is.
As someone currently doing a masters in journalism I can tell you countless stories of people who have sat in meetings having to dissect the number of clicks and ‘time spent on page’ of their articles. People who are great writers, but are told that their pitched topics aren’t “newsworthy” enough or don’t fit the brand.
Writing industries are shrinking, and that shrinking results in things like fewer staff writer positions and fewer editors— the rise of freelancers. While I’m sure every writer would love to have a cushy guaranteed salary, stories, and editorial team, that reality is increasingly unimaginable in the current landscape.
Not to mention the overall trend, in traditional journalism at least, of the “MSJ” the multi-skilled journalist, who is often expected to write, report, edit, and produce, stories for print, digital, and video mostly independently. Staff photographer and videographer positions are dwindling as writers are expected to know how to take and edit photo and video. In the last decade alone, the role of the copy editor has all but vanished from publishing spheres from journalism to literature.
Being a professional writer doesn’t mean what it used to.
Joan Didion was a journalist and writer in the 1950’s, that is literally almost 100 years ago now. I value the work and opinions of professional editors, the idea of cultivating your voice with an editor is an enviable one. The reality however, is that the modern writer needs to find alternative ways to hone their craft.
This idea that working independently or within internet communities to hone your skills and voice as a writer is not as valuable as writing for traditional publications is not only coated in elitism, but is also flat out bad advice in the current landscape for writers.
Part of being someone who posts their writing publicly is literally asking for feedback. Trying to build a platform and community is a way for amateur or emerging writers to write unselfishly. To attempt to write for a specific audience and better their own writing for the benefit of their readers.
It’s great that Didion got to hone her craft under a “scathing and brilliant” editor, and I’m not saying that the opinions of the general public are the same as that of a professional, but sometimes as a writer, its the only feedback you have access to.
What is the alternative, engaging in the endless cycle of pitching your writing to publications? Not actually doing the thing you love, writing, until someone in the traditional media landscape deems your pitch to be good or valuable?
Writing for the sake of writing has value, and I don’t feel like thats a crazy thing to say.
Writing is meant to be read, and I don’t feel like thats a crazy thing to say either.
Writing here on Substack is going to help you hone your own craft weather for the end goal of cultivating a audience here, attempting to break into traditional publishing outlets, or simply having a creative outlet. For that matter, traditional publications don’t just want, they need you to have your own internet presence, to be bringing your own guaranteed readers/followers to their platform.
I’m not saying this is the way the industry should function, but is it the harsh reality.
Substack also doesn’t have to be a launchpad to a traditional writing career. There is value in writing here and in reading here!
“substack is not a substitute for real life culture and art […] engage with physical media, magazines, newspapers, books”
All I hear within the sentiment of Substack publications being less real, is an undermining of the art and writing of others because it hasn’t been brought to the world through culturally established means of quality control.
There are great writers on this platform who aren’t traditionally published, and while I hope they all achieve their wildest dreams, I also don’t think that their work inherently has less value just because no one has pumped it out in mass market paperback form or slapped it on the front page of the New York Times— yet.
This platform has an abundance of free content, everything from academics sharing their knowledge and expertise in every field under the sun, to serialised fiction, to pure blogging.
Yes, this platform has a lot of saccharine ‘ponderings’ and ‘unsent letters’, posts on girlhood, and joan didion, but we all know who is writing those pieces. It's culture’s favourite punching bag, teenage girls and young women.
There are obviously a wide range of topics and quality on this platform, but that also holds true for traditional arts and culture media outlets.
The advice to read more widely is always good advice, but again, Substack is a wealth of free writing for readers and has the ability to challenge your ways of thinking and broaden your horizons just as much as traditional media does.
Substack is a platform that encourages curiosity. It’s a platform that increases access to arts, culture, and education. The sheer volume of free(!!) writing on this platform is astounding and brushing it all off as being less real, sounds, again, elitist and institutionalist to me.
and is a reflection of the general sentiment that heralds physical media as inherently more valuable and real than digital media. The physical world is abundant, but I think we would all be remiss to dismiss what the digital world has to offer.
Or worse, devalue art and culture that exists primarily or entirely online.
Just because I read the London Review of Books online and you are reading the physical magazine subscription does not make you better than me. The fact that you print out your Substacks to read in the park does not negate the fact that you found those pieces of writing online. There is art here on Substack, there is culture.
I can easily imagine a world 10 years from now, where there are bestselling authors who attribute their early success to this platform and the community they built here. I can also easily imagine more writers who create and maintain their platforms here, having found a way to successfully scratch their creative itch and make a viable career off this platform. I can imagine the general increase in popularity of Substack, where the ratio of readers to writers stops being so indistinguishable.
The writing on this platform is very much real. The impact your writing has on your readers is real. The impact your readers have on your life is real.
You know what else is real, the fact that this platform creates the opportunity for writers to make direct income off their work. I’m sure when the money hits the bank, that it feels very real.
and not to be too cynical, but a lot of people making this fuss are not only making very real money from very real readers on this platform, but also are often writers who came to this platform with a pre-established traditional writing career… (this is not about glennon doyle)Internet communities are more valuable than ever for creatives. Demonising the internet is not what's going to get us where we want to be in a discussion about being engaged with arts and culture. For both readers and writers.
I don’t mean to fall into the category of romanticising this platform, but in a world where we’re all overstimulated all the time with news, social media, television, generative AI, I think an amateur writer posting mediocre work here on Substack is actively a good thing, let alone an aspiring writer using this platform as a jumping off point for their career.
Being an “online writer” is not going to “suck up your aura/mystique.” Being a writer is not some ephemeral mystical thing. Writing is tangible, it is an art, a skill, and it can be a career.
This line of thinking is honestly nothing but a romanticised ideal of what it means to be a writer, wrapped up in cynicism. The idea of the “starving artist” or having some necessary “mystique” in order to be a writer is misguided.
The idea that your online presence will always enter the room before your body of work is dubious. It overestimates the widespread nature of the internet. Just because something is prolific or infamous in your personal internet echo chamber does not mean that it is so in the physical world.
Yes, someone like Alex Aster or Lauren Roberts are “online writers”, they have traditional publishing deals almost entirely due to Tiktok fame (infamy?) I am by no means here to defend their work, but I will say that Roberts has 692.7K followers on TikTok, yet Powerless has sold more than 5.5 million copies globally. I would bet my bottom dollar that there are people with her entire series on their shelves who have never come across her Tiktok.The “death of the author” is a widespread literary theory, yet we are obsessed with the idea of the real lives of Shakespeare, Dickens, Ovid. No writer can really escape public curiosity. I would argue that in some ways it doesn’t matter that your internet persona is entering the room before you. So what if someone thinks of you as your most viral tweet, you could be the next Sylvia Plath and when you die someone literally publishes your diaries.
This idea that being an “online writer” devalues your work or makes your person more important than your writing is questionable at best, and is something that all writers will increasingly have to grapple with in the evolving landscape of professional writing.
The internet has value and with the right mindset, doesn’t have to be a doomscrolling hellscape. Substack is for readers, bloggers, artists, amateur writers, professional writers, lurkers, anyone with an email address.
The reality is that Substack is a powerful platform for both readers and writers.
To some extent, the power of traditional publishing outlets (be it novels, news, academia), is the reach. If you have work you are proud of, it makes sense that you want that work to reach as many people as possible. Where traditional publishing used to be the surefire way to achieve that goal, Substack is changing the game.
As creatives it is hard not to seek validation from the traditional media ecosystem, the stamp of approval that our work is good™ and that we have achieved success™. Substack cuts out the middle man, and allows for creative growth, fulfilment, and satisfaction.
The fact that Substack is an intersection between a traditional newsletter and an actual social media platform is, I think, a strength. It makes it easier for writers to connect with each other and to have their writing be read and circulated.
Substack isn’t everything, but that does not mean it doesn’t hold genuine value. I for one, hope to be writing here for a long time.
This was a more ponderous post than my usual writing, let me know what you think about all this! What is this platform to you reader? writer?
Also, in the time that this post was sitting in my drafts waiting to be published, this phenomenal and insightful piece was put out. It’s a must read for anyone writing on Substack.
