5 Reasons Why I Love Using Substack
5 Reasons Why I Love Using Substack
Substack has a lot to offer writers.
When you find a writing platform you love, stick with it!
I discovered Substack in October 2021, and have been writing consistently there since. I’ve published around 1,000 articles and have over 3,000 total subscribers spread across multiple publications.
Here are the top five reasons why I love writing and using Substack.
The built-in options for different forms of content.
When you click on Substack’s “New Post” button, you get quite a list of options.
Your options include:
Writing a post or article.
Create an audio post that you can record in Substack or upload a pre-recorded audio clip.
Create a video post that you can also record in Substack or upload a video you’ve already recorded and edited.
Write a thread, which is like having a chat with your subscribers.
Write a “note” which is like Substack’s version of X, the artist formally known as Twitter.
Pretty much all of these content options can be made available to everyone, or placed behind a paywall for your paying subscribers. More on that in a moment.
Substack doesn’t limit content creators to just one form of content. You can pick and choose the forms you prefer to communicate with your audience.
The freedom creators have.
The founders of Substack shared their views on censorship and moderation.
From the start, we have set out to encourage a broad range of expression on Substack. In most cases, we don’t think that censoring content is helpful, and in fact it often backfires. Heavy-handed censorship can draw more attention to content than it otherwise would have enjoyed, and at the same time it can give the content creators a martyr complex that they can trade off for future gain. We prefer a contest of ideas. We believe dissent and debate is important. We celebrate nonconformity. — Chris Best, Hamish McKenzie and Jaira J Sethi
While Substack does have some basic rules (like no pornography), for the most part, they take a “hands-off approach” to moderating content. They prefer to let the people choose who they want to trust instead of choosing them.
Platforms that allow more freedom of speech — like Substack — will always have problems they will have to deal with. The same is true for platforms that take a more activist approach to moderating content. Both have problems.
However, I prefer a platform that allows more free speech and the sharing of ideas rather than less.
The peace of mind only a subscriber list provides.
A day or two after I started writing on Substack in October 2021, Facebook had a major outage.
It was an eye-opening reminder about the problems of depending on a platform to reach people. Substack allows you to build a subscriber list that belongs to you — you can download that list and keep it.
Even if Substack shuts down, I still have my subscriber list. I can still reach my audience so long as I have an internet connection and a way to send emails.
And that’s what they call “peace of mind.”
The various ways to communicate with the audience.
Substack makes it so simple and easy to connect with your audience.
Readers can comment on your articles, podcasts, videos, or notes. You can engage in chats with your subscribers. People can respond directly to the emails you send them.
I’m engaged with my audience because of the various ways Substack has set up for us to communicate back and forth. It’s not a one-way street with me just lobbing content at them. They can actually interact in multiple ways.
And that’s a good thing because listening to my audience makes me a better content creator.
The opportunity to earn a living.
I will be honest with you — I’m not earning a full-time living through Substack. But some people are. Or at the very least they’re getting a nice boost to their monthly income through Substack.
With hard work and a bit of good timing and luck, it’s entirely possible to be making $5,000 or $10,000 a year from paid subscriptions alone. It doesn’t even take that many to make it happen.
100 paying subscribers at $5 a month and you’re receiving a nice boost to your “day-job” paycheck.
Nothing happens overnight, obviously. But it’s totally possible on Substack.
To recap, these are the top five reasons why I love using Substack:
Because of the built-in different forms of content.
Because of the freedom content creators have.
Because of the peace of mind you get from building your own subscriber list.
Because of the many different ways to communicate with your audience.
Because of the opportunity creators have to earn a living or supplement their income.
These reasons are a big part of why I plan to keep using Substack for a long time!
