Stop Writing Open Letters to Substack

Its CEO doesn't care what you think and I'm going to tell you why

There’s an open letter to Substack’s CEO making the rounds right now, imploring him to prioritize essays over Notes or something like that. I haven’t read it. I don’t need to. It will inevitability miss the point like so many other similar complaints that proliferate here. That’s because Substack doesn’t care about how you feel about anything except with regard to your role in making its investors money. If 20 years of social media have taught us anything, it should be that – but apparently a lot of people seem confused on the point.

Here’s the brutal reality: The Substack “experience” has been sliding backward for some time. As a publishing platform, there are multiple better options out there. Unless you’re already invested here as I am, I even encourage you to consider them first before you launch your own newsletter.

Notes aren’t the reason for this.

Nazis aren’t the reason for this.

AI isn’t the reason for this.

Capital is.

That’s going to take some unpacking, of course.

Notes, as near as I can tell, is now more important than essays/articles or even podcasts published to Substack’s leadership. Engagement there has skyrocketed for me. Meanwhile, 5AM StoryTalk’s essays/articles and podcast episodes’ engagement has held steady for a year despite the fact that my subscription base has grown by 40%. How is that possible? It would seem to defy logic.

Don’t worry, I’m going to tell you.

When I’ve checked out subscribers to 5AM StoryTalk, I often see they follow hundreds of writers here. I’ve seen some who subscribe to more than 1,000. Translation: the majority of these people aren’t reading me or any of the other legion of writers they follow.

Substack is now a platform where emails from writers are white noise at best – if the subscriber even remembers they subscribed to us in the first place — and spam at worst. In theory, all these new subscribers are supposed to be upgrade opportunities, but we all know paid subscriptions are down here, too. I’ve done a sloppy survey of my past paid subscriptions and it looks like over half of the readers who opted to financially support my work here at some point have deleted their accounts altogether. That is…concerning.

To be clear, paid subscribers at this platform are up overall. Substack is making money and Notes is clearly part of that. Leadership have successfully expanded the subscriber numbers to such a degree that quantity produces more income for them. But that quantity, that reach, has simultaneously diluted our reach, our relationships with our readers, our capacity to transform them into paid supporters – which is important for many of us. It’s the dream Substack sells, obviously.

In my case, I’m a professional screenwriter and novelist. That’s what pays most of my bills. If my ability to make money at Substack as a creatively and personally satisfying side-hustle crashes – as it has been – then I’ll have to take my writing elsewhere to places better suited to my ambitions for a healthy and vigorous community-based art conversation.

In many ways, it feels like a clock began to tick down the moment Substack started prioritizing larger writers over the aspiring writers and dreamers who will never be able to compete with A-listers, with awards winners, with some of the biggest journalists in the world. You might even say the power dynamic here has wildly changed — because it has. My success has been largely predicated on my success elsewhere, the experience and reputation and access I brought with me because of that, but even at 10,100 subscribers, my situation here has never felt more perilous.

Writers will only remain at Substack until Substack’s own policies make alternative platforms better options – which feels a year or two away for many of us, I won’t lie. I suspect Substack knows this, as well, which is why it’s expanding the way its subscriber base grows, embracing a more traditional social media format with Notes and half-hearted stabs at video, to staunch the bleeding. Being the smart readers’ Twitter isn’t a bad angle and I expect it will work for Substack in the long run, but not for its writers.

Substack is a corporation. As Capital, it is not here to provide you a warm and fuzzy community. It’s not here to help you publish your work or help you find readers. It’s here to turn you into cogs in its money-making schemes.

You have no more value to those schemes than a Nazi, rapist, or similar has.

Long story short: Writing open letters imploring Capital to not do what Capital does is like kneeling before a hurricane, clasping your hands together, and imploring it to behave more like a warm summer’s breeze.

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If 5AM StoryTalk adds anything to your life but you’re not up for a paid subscription, you can still support my work by buying me a “coffee”. It’s hugely appreciated - and you might even get a shoutout in the Notes!

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