I'm skeptical. I'm pretty confident the income curve for Substack writers looks a lot like the Authors Guild survey for book income that I cite in the post. Purely guessing, but seems likely that around 10% of newsletter authors could make a living from their Substacks, there's another chunk that makes "meaningful" income (a threshold I just barely clear), and then the vast majority that make relatively token amounts. Substack is happy to take their cut from the long tail, but the vast majority of their revenue comes from that top 10% and so they put the majority of their own promotion efforts into that group, or into projects that they think have a chance of joining that group. Maybe a rising tide lifts all boats, but there's not a lot of evidence for that and there's not much I can see that Substack does to try to create the conditions for a sustainable middle class. It's really just another place to come peddle your wares that has an easy-to-use interface, nice design, is low-friction overall, and run by a couple of guys who don't mind promoting white nationalists provided the white nationalist's newsletter draws enough eyeballs/subscribers. I don't think we can expect a platform to do the job of an institution. You've got me thinking, though, what something that could sustain a middle class might look like.
John, I hear you and share your view, although perhaps "meaningful" income is a suitable goal for me. I want to continue diversifying my income streams, gradually earning something like 10% of my income here, give or take. If it goes higher than that, that's great.
I could see Substack as being one part of a "middle class" income, but you'd also need to hustle more than most folks are capable of doing right now.
If you want to talk more openly about this stuff, feel free to reach out - I'm here to help think through stuff like this, and I really appreciate you opening a useful dialogue here.
I think that kind of goal is pretty reasonable, though I'm also wary (and wearied by) a system that requires this sort of cobbling by individuals as opposed to finding ways where we (both writers and readers) benefit from being bundled together. The limits of a platform of individuals are pretty significant. The amount of subscription money may scale as more people come to the platform, but the distribution is always going to skew to the top earners.
On a platform like this, at least to some extent, writers are in a zero-sum competition with each other for subscriptions. I try not to think that way and spend a good amount of time promoting the newsletters I read and enjoy, but at some point, how many annual subscriptions to individual writers can someone tolerate? I'm a paid subscriber to 12 newsletters. I wouldn't do it if I couldn't afford it, but in a different time, I could get those 12 newsletters bundled together in a periodical for a year for the price of one or two subscriptions. This structure obviously benefits Substack the most, the writers at the top of the curve the next most - they earn much more than they would bundled together - with another group to which I belong, that makes money, but less than I would were I bundled.
I think you've got me thinking my way into a future post.
I guess: what's a better alternative? I haven't found one yet, at least not one that lets me publish the way I want to. I've worked on a few other platforms, but probably nowhere near as many as some folks here. Still, my feet have gotten wet in the past, and I have a feeling about what else is out there: not a ton.
Sadly, I think the alternative is to invent a time machine and travel backwards and make sure that newspapers and magazines remain viable places for writers to publish their work and get paid reasonably for it. I think this is about as good as it gets for individuals now provided they have the drive to keep writing and some way to spread the word about their work. The website Deadspin is an alternative for writers who want to band together and create essentially a worker's collective where everyone gets enough to do their work, but there's no superstars. A number of Deadspin writers of high profile probably could go solo at a newsletter and make much more than they do now at Deadspin, but they made a different choice. That choice was bold and not at all destined for success, but they've made it work.
It does require some infrastructure for editing/production that being solo doesn't necessarily need, though many of the big newsletters with enough revenue have some kind of staff that they pay to help keep things moving.
When I was 15 (1985) if you'd told me that I was writing a weekly column for the Sunday Chicago Tribune (as I've been doing for over a decade) I would've assumed that was my "job" and it would be how I make my living. I'm grateful for the space to write there, but the money is just one of the blocks that I need to fit together to make an income. That labor is worth maybe 1/5th of of what it was paid in the past. I guess the question to keep wrestling with is how to make that labor something that brings in income that allows that labor to continue. For pretty much the entirety of my career, that mechanism has only been degrading, with a few stopgaps (like Substack) that allow a handful of people to rescue themselves, but which don't arrest the larger fall.
It does seem like we are experiencing the "best of the worst" here. Let me know if you make any progress on that time machine, though! Writing professionally 30 years ago sounds amazing.
30 years ago, I was 18, and I was self-publishing everything: zines, music, you name it. My reach was tiny and my content was lousy, but it got better over the ensuing decades.
Unfortunately, I think I'm only just now beginning to make work worthy of pay, and now the competitive landscape is brutal. That being said, I am all right with steady income from a variety of sources. That's the message the universe has pounded into my brain as much as any other over the last several decades: thou shalt have multiple income streams.
I love The Circus in Winter! I was struck by that since we seldom seem to have reading interests in common.
Yeah, the idea of the US supporting literature in any meaningful way is rather laughable. It's fascinating to hear how different it can be in other countries.
John, I'm teaching a class right now called Making a Writing Life, and the economics of creating art plays a big part in our discussions. This post is going on my syllabus. Thank you--as always--for supporting me and my work.
Interesting piece, John, as always. I struggle to know what to take away from this, though. On the one hand, yes -- it's a bummer to see the review go away. On the other, by your own admission, you didn't read it. I don't read it. Nobody really reads it. I've also subscribe to a few journals (Northwestern Review, Paris Review), but this was for similar reasons (to support & for reconnaissance mostly). I didn't read them much at all and ultimately the subscriptions expired -- which didn't feel like much of a loss.
You talk about a market for this kind of stuff. I wonder if the market actually exists. Is there supply and demand for academic creative writing? I'm not so sure. My faith is pretty much lost in small journals, for a few reasons. 1) I don't read that way -- I read online, on my phone, or by purchasing books: that literary journals are falling off is not surprising and doesn't feel like a huge loss in my life 2) better alternatives exist, like Substack or social media, where writers can directly interface with their audience and direct them to their writing a.k.a. every writer is their own literary journal 3) there doesn't seem to be a huge correlation today between publishing in literary journals -> becoming the 10% of financially comfortable writers. 4) literary journals represent a past where art must be curated and selected by people who "know better," thus giving them power, whereas today the "consumer" decides what it is beautiful and interacts with that directly
Finally, you mention Fosse as an shining example of government support. But what I read in that section was another description of one of those 10% writers. How are other, lesser known writers in Norway fairing, I wonder? (And any comparison here is undercut by the dramatic difference in size and government as compared to the US).
All in all, I'm not sure what to take away. Is it unfortunate that the review is closing? Yes. Is it the wrong thing to do? I can't believe I'm saying it but, I'm not so sure. Do I like the idea of the cinema? Yes. Do I go anymore? Pretty much no. I'm not seeing an proofs in my life, or in the lives of others, supporting the idea that university journals are essential to the state of literature -- not in the era of the internet.
I think you've put your finger on a number of interesting questions, one's I'm actually wrestling with further for a future newsletter (maybe this weekend), so consider these thoughts somewhat provisional.
> "1) I don't read that way -- I read online, on my phone, or by purchasing books: that literary journals are falling off is not surprising and doesn't feel like a huge loss in my life"
Mediums evolve over time, but print has been pretty stubborn in its persistence and I think will continue to stick around because it offers some advantages over digital texts. Lincoln Michel at his substance has a post where he talks about the latest issue of McSweeney's Quarterly and how beautifully designed it is. I will read some, but not all, of this edition but even if I didn't read any of it, I'm glad it exists because it's beautiful, because it looks like a lot of people put time and effort into bringing it into the world and I like a world where some people are dedicated to these things.
I reminds me of what I experience at the semi-pro/nonprofit theater I sometimes go to in the Western North Carolina mountains. The productions are filled with energy and enthusiasm and some talent, but no one would confuse them for professional theater in a place like New York or Chicago. They survive because there's a sufficient number of patrons who pay much more than market prices to see these shows because they want this work to exist in their local community.
">2) better alternatives exist, like Substack or social media, where writers can directly interface with their audience and direct them to their writing a.k.a. every writer is their own literary journal"
This is one of the threads I'm thinking about for the next newsletter, but you have to define "better." For sure, there's advantages for some who are prolific, who like to network and self-promote. Who write the kinds of things that garner attention online, etc...
But hat if you don't want to be your own literary journal? One of the functions of those journals is to be an imprimatur of quality that elevates the people they publish. This comes with the downsides of gatekeeping, but in a universe without gates, how will anyone ever find entry into your work?
And what if you want to be able to criticize the owners of the platform for elevating the work of a racist white supremacist, but worry that they have some behind the scenes power to choke off your audience? It's not just one publication you may be alienating, but the actual people who hold the keys to the kingdom. What happens if Substack goes belly-up? It is not profitable (as far as we know yet). Imagine rather than a diversified universe of places to publish, we all wind up here, and here suddenly doesn't exist?
">3) there doesn't seem to be a huge correlation today between publishing in literary journals -> becoming the 10% of financially comfortable writers."
There probably never was, TBH. There's a really interesting article about what became known as "literary fiction" by Dan Synkin that I'll be referencing in the next newsletter that makes some astute points about that. That lane may have existed, but was never that wide. Now, it just doesn't exit.
">4) literary journals represent a past where art must be curated and selected by people who "know better," thus giving them power, whereas today the "consumer" decides what it is beautiful and interacts with that directly"
This is a fallacy of the illusion of infinite choice. The truth is as individuals we don't have the capacity to sort through the array of choices and make optimum decisions about anything, including what is beautiful. We rely on all kinds of context and cues independent of the thing itself to help ourselves out. An editor at a journal is simply one mechanism of that kind, not necessarily better or worse than others, except that they may have some knowledge and insight gleaned from experience, or you may find someone whose sensibility matches yours and whom you come to trust.
There are, again, downsides to that structure. It can feel clubby or exclusive, like you've got to know somebody to get a fair shake, and for sure, connections help. I've seen that first hand. It would be a mistake to hold that system up as some kind of meritocracy because it isn't.
You strike me as a bit of a libertarian type (philosophically, not necessarily politically), and I have my own tendencies that way, but we can't pretend that platforms like this are any more open and predicated on merit than any other. All of the advantages at play in getting a high profile gig at the New Yorker would also work to one's advantage here.
">Finally, you mention Fosse as an shining example of government support. But what I read in that section was another description of one of those 10% writers. How are other, lesser known writers in Norway fairing, I wonder? (And any comparison here is undercut by the dramatic difference in size and government as compared to the US)."
In Norway, more than 10% of writers get to make a decent life pursuing the art because they've set things up so there is public support for these activities (and many others) independent of the market. Over time, some of these people will also see success in the market (something like 60% of Norwegians have read a Karl One Knausgaard book), but that success is not necessary to keep pursuing one's art. This also has an obvious effect on the kind and range of art that gets created. It gives artists the space and time necessary to explore and develop without sinking or swimming according to the market.
The state of literature is more than what gets bought and sold (or even read). It's what people do, how they do it, the activities that underpin the creation of literature, not just the end object and whether or not it is purchased. Declaring that anything that can't turn a profit is not worthy of continuing would leave us in a very impoverished cultural space with a decided lack of innovation and dynamism that allows for those breakthroughs to mass attention to happen.
The Gettysburgian continues to probe the discontinuation of The Gettysburg Review. The college president sticks to a bunch of consultant-speak talking points. https://gettysburgian.com/2023/10/the-college-administration-addresses-budgetary-constraints/
Could Substack operate as a wedge into creating a new "writing middle class"? Is that possible?
I'm skeptical. I'm pretty confident the income curve for Substack writers looks a lot like the Authors Guild survey for book income that I cite in the post. Purely guessing, but seems likely that around 10% of newsletter authors could make a living from their Substacks, there's another chunk that makes "meaningful" income (a threshold I just barely clear), and then the vast majority that make relatively token amounts. Substack is happy to take their cut from the long tail, but the vast majority of their revenue comes from that top 10% and so they put the majority of their own promotion efforts into that group, or into projects that they think have a chance of joining that group. Maybe a rising tide lifts all boats, but there's not a lot of evidence for that and there's not much I can see that Substack does to try to create the conditions for a sustainable middle class. It's really just another place to come peddle your wares that has an easy-to-use interface, nice design, is low-friction overall, and run by a couple of guys who don't mind promoting white nationalists provided the white nationalist's newsletter draws enough eyeballs/subscribers. I don't think we can expect a platform to do the job of an institution. You've got me thinking, though, what something that could sustain a middle class might look like.
John, I hear you and share your view, although perhaps "meaningful" income is a suitable goal for me. I want to continue diversifying my income streams, gradually earning something like 10% of my income here, give or take. If it goes higher than that, that's great.
I could see Substack as being one part of a "middle class" income, but you'd also need to hustle more than most folks are capable of doing right now.
If you want to talk more openly about this stuff, feel free to reach out - I'm here to help think through stuff like this, and I really appreciate you opening a useful dialogue here.
I think that kind of goal is pretty reasonable, though I'm also wary (and wearied by) a system that requires this sort of cobbling by individuals as opposed to finding ways where we (both writers and readers) benefit from being bundled together. The limits of a platform of individuals are pretty significant. The amount of subscription money may scale as more people come to the platform, but the distribution is always going to skew to the top earners.
On a platform like this, at least to some extent, writers are in a zero-sum competition with each other for subscriptions. I try not to think that way and spend a good amount of time promoting the newsletters I read and enjoy, but at some point, how many annual subscriptions to individual writers can someone tolerate? I'm a paid subscriber to 12 newsletters. I wouldn't do it if I couldn't afford it, but in a different time, I could get those 12 newsletters bundled together in a periodical for a year for the price of one or two subscriptions. This structure obviously benefits Substack the most, the writers at the top of the curve the next most - they earn much more than they would bundled together - with another group to which I belong, that makes money, but less than I would were I bundled.
I think you've got me thinking my way into a future post.
Good! I'll check it out.
I guess: what's a better alternative? I haven't found one yet, at least not one that lets me publish the way I want to. I've worked on a few other platforms, but probably nowhere near as many as some folks here. Still, my feet have gotten wet in the past, and I have a feeling about what else is out there: not a ton.
Sadly, I think the alternative is to invent a time machine and travel backwards and make sure that newspapers and magazines remain viable places for writers to publish their work and get paid reasonably for it. I think this is about as good as it gets for individuals now provided they have the drive to keep writing and some way to spread the word about their work. The website Deadspin is an alternative for writers who want to band together and create essentially a worker's collective where everyone gets enough to do their work, but there's no superstars. A number of Deadspin writers of high profile probably could go solo at a newsletter and make much more than they do now at Deadspin, but they made a different choice. That choice was bold and not at all destined for success, but they've made it work.
It does require some infrastructure for editing/production that being solo doesn't necessarily need, though many of the big newsletters with enough revenue have some kind of staff that they pay to help keep things moving.
When I was 15 (1985) if you'd told me that I was writing a weekly column for the Sunday Chicago Tribune (as I've been doing for over a decade) I would've assumed that was my "job" and it would be how I make my living. I'm grateful for the space to write there, but the money is just one of the blocks that I need to fit together to make an income. That labor is worth maybe 1/5th of of what it was paid in the past. I guess the question to keep wrestling with is how to make that labor something that brings in income that allows that labor to continue. For pretty much the entirety of my career, that mechanism has only been degrading, with a few stopgaps (like Substack) that allow a handful of people to rescue themselves, but which don't arrest the larger fall.
It does seem like we are experiencing the "best of the worst" here. Let me know if you make any progress on that time machine, though! Writing professionally 30 years ago sounds amazing.
30 years ago, I was 18, and I was self-publishing everything: zines, music, you name it. My reach was tiny and my content was lousy, but it got better over the ensuing decades.
Unfortunately, I think I'm only just now beginning to make work worthy of pay, and now the competitive landscape is brutal. That being said, I am all right with steady income from a variety of sources. That's the message the universe has pounded into my brain as much as any other over the last several decades: thou shalt have multiple income streams.
I love The Circus in Winter! I was struck by that since we seldom seem to have reading interests in common.
Yeah, the idea of the US supporting literature in any meaningful way is rather laughable. It's fascinating to hear how different it can be in other countries.
John, I'm teaching a class right now called Making a Writing Life, and the economics of creating art plays a big part in our discussions. This post is going on my syllabus. Thank you--as always--for supporting me and my work.
You might get ready for a sequel next week. It's really jarred something loose in my brain.
Interesting piece, John, as always. I struggle to know what to take away from this, though. On the one hand, yes -- it's a bummer to see the review go away. On the other, by your own admission, you didn't read it. I don't read it. Nobody really reads it. I've also subscribe to a few journals (Northwestern Review, Paris Review), but this was for similar reasons (to support & for reconnaissance mostly). I didn't read them much at all and ultimately the subscriptions expired -- which didn't feel like much of a loss.
You talk about a market for this kind of stuff. I wonder if the market actually exists. Is there supply and demand for academic creative writing? I'm not so sure. My faith is pretty much lost in small journals, for a few reasons. 1) I don't read that way -- I read online, on my phone, or by purchasing books: that literary journals are falling off is not surprising and doesn't feel like a huge loss in my life 2) better alternatives exist, like Substack or social media, where writers can directly interface with their audience and direct them to their writing a.k.a. every writer is their own literary journal 3) there doesn't seem to be a huge correlation today between publishing in literary journals -> becoming the 10% of financially comfortable writers. 4) literary journals represent a past where art must be curated and selected by people who "know better," thus giving them power, whereas today the "consumer" decides what it is beautiful and interacts with that directly
Finally, you mention Fosse as an shining example of government support. But what I read in that section was another description of one of those 10% writers. How are other, lesser known writers in Norway fairing, I wonder? (And any comparison here is undercut by the dramatic difference in size and government as compared to the US).
All in all, I'm not sure what to take away. Is it unfortunate that the review is closing? Yes. Is it the wrong thing to do? I can't believe I'm saying it but, I'm not so sure. Do I like the idea of the cinema? Yes. Do I go anymore? Pretty much no. I'm not seeing an proofs in my life, or in the lives of others, supporting the idea that university journals are essential to the state of literature -- not in the era of the internet.
I think you've put your finger on a number of interesting questions, one's I'm actually wrestling with further for a future newsletter (maybe this weekend), so consider these thoughts somewhat provisional.
> "1) I don't read that way -- I read online, on my phone, or by purchasing books: that literary journals are falling off is not surprising and doesn't feel like a huge loss in my life"
Mediums evolve over time, but print has been pretty stubborn in its persistence and I think will continue to stick around because it offers some advantages over digital texts. Lincoln Michel at his substance has a post where he talks about the latest issue of McSweeney's Quarterly and how beautifully designed it is. I will read some, but not all, of this edition but even if I didn't read any of it, I'm glad it exists because it's beautiful, because it looks like a lot of people put time and effort into bringing it into the world and I like a world where some people are dedicated to these things.
I reminds me of what I experience at the semi-pro/nonprofit theater I sometimes go to in the Western North Carolina mountains. The productions are filled with energy and enthusiasm and some talent, but no one would confuse them for professional theater in a place like New York or Chicago. They survive because there's a sufficient number of patrons who pay much more than market prices to see these shows because they want this work to exist in their local community.
">2) better alternatives exist, like Substack or social media, where writers can directly interface with their audience and direct them to their writing a.k.a. every writer is their own literary journal"
This is one of the threads I'm thinking about for the next newsletter, but you have to define "better." For sure, there's advantages for some who are prolific, who like to network and self-promote. Who write the kinds of things that garner attention online, etc...
But hat if you don't want to be your own literary journal? One of the functions of those journals is to be an imprimatur of quality that elevates the people they publish. This comes with the downsides of gatekeeping, but in a universe without gates, how will anyone ever find entry into your work?
And what if you want to be able to criticize the owners of the platform for elevating the work of a racist white supremacist, but worry that they have some behind the scenes power to choke off your audience? It's not just one publication you may be alienating, but the actual people who hold the keys to the kingdom. What happens if Substack goes belly-up? It is not profitable (as far as we know yet). Imagine rather than a diversified universe of places to publish, we all wind up here, and here suddenly doesn't exist?
">3) there doesn't seem to be a huge correlation today between publishing in literary journals -> becoming the 10% of financially comfortable writers."
There probably never was, TBH. There's a really interesting article about what became known as "literary fiction" by Dan Synkin that I'll be referencing in the next newsletter that makes some astute points about that. That lane may have existed, but was never that wide. Now, it just doesn't exit.
">4) literary journals represent a past where art must be curated and selected by people who "know better," thus giving them power, whereas today the "consumer" decides what it is beautiful and interacts with that directly"
This is a fallacy of the illusion of infinite choice. The truth is as individuals we don't have the capacity to sort through the array of choices and make optimum decisions about anything, including what is beautiful. We rely on all kinds of context and cues independent of the thing itself to help ourselves out. An editor at a journal is simply one mechanism of that kind, not necessarily better or worse than others, except that they may have some knowledge and insight gleaned from experience, or you may find someone whose sensibility matches yours and whom you come to trust.
There are, again, downsides to that structure. It can feel clubby or exclusive, like you've got to know somebody to get a fair shake, and for sure, connections help. I've seen that first hand. It would be a mistake to hold that system up as some kind of meritocracy because it isn't.
You strike me as a bit of a libertarian type (philosophically, not necessarily politically), and I have my own tendencies that way, but we can't pretend that platforms like this are any more open and predicated on merit than any other. All of the advantages at play in getting a high profile gig at the New Yorker would also work to one's advantage here.
">Finally, you mention Fosse as an shining example of government support. But what I read in that section was another description of one of those 10% writers. How are other, lesser known writers in Norway fairing, I wonder? (And any comparison here is undercut by the dramatic difference in size and government as compared to the US)."
In Norway, more than 10% of writers get to make a decent life pursuing the art because they've set things up so there is public support for these activities (and many others) independent of the market. Over time, some of these people will also see success in the market (something like 60% of Norwegians have read a Karl One Knausgaard book), but that success is not necessary to keep pursuing one's art. This also has an obvious effect on the kind and range of art that gets created. It gives artists the space and time necessary to explore and develop without sinking or swimming according to the market.
The state of literature is more than what gets bought and sold (or even read). It's what people do, how they do it, the activities that underpin the creation of literature, not just the end object and whether or not it is purchased. Declaring that anything that can't turn a profit is not worthy of continuing would leave us in a very impoverished cultural space with a decided lack of innovation and dynamism that allows for those breakthroughs to mass attention to happen.