internet_jockey

There's dark mode in the app (iOS or Android) and in the web reader at substack.com (which you can see when you're logged in)

We're 100% focused on subscriptions, so we're unlikely to do this any time soon (or at all).

You can add any RSS feed to the app via reader.substack.com. As long as other newsletter providers support RSS, this should be no problem.

Yes! So far we have only three Cs and it's the three people who founded the company, so there's certainly room to move...

This is completely correct and me is duly chastened.

There's a giant universe of voices on Substack and I'm sure you'll find many who fit that description. A couple of ways to do so:

Peruse the leaderboards at substack.com and in the new app (in the Discover tab).

Check out the profiles of the writers and readers you most respect (just click on their faces). You'll find lists of Substacks they're subscribed to, which may lead you to some interesting places and new writers to respect.

Our strategy with Dillon is to keep sending him coffee mugs until he relents.

+++ to Bernard/The Kaka, and go Kiwis.

Hello, I (Hamish) will answer question #1 and leave the rest to my colleagues.

I think what has driven our growth is a nice synthesis between the product, the business dev work (i.e. convincing writers to give it a shot), and the business model.

The model may be the underestimated part. It's compelling for many writers, partly because of its simplicity and transparency: you own the relationship with your audience, you publish stuff that gets sent to them, and then if you're doing good work some portion of that audience will choose to pay you to keep going. That's a good deal for writers, since:

a) It lets them do the work they believe is most important b) No one can mess with their audience c) There's a clear path to making money, which is the major thing absent from most other options for writing on the internet (or, increasingly, anywhere else).

These things make Substack a relatively easy "sell".

Of course, some writers are better poised to succeed with this model than others, so we have put in a sustained effort to identify those writers and let them know about their opportunity on Substack. In a small number of cases, that has meant we've offered a financial package to derisk the move for them (you can think of it as like startup funding to get them going; many don't have much financial buffer and may be reluctant to leave jobs even if they are unhappy in those jobs). But the vast majority of writers doing well on Substack have come to the platform of their own accord, without any kind of deal.

Yes. VP of Partnerships, VP of Communications, Head of Talent are all women at the top table.

If you're talking about getting Substack publications into your RSS reader, you can add /feed to the end of the relevant URL and then add that into your reader (e.g. https://sinocism.com/feed).

For adding non-Substack publications into the Substack app via RSS, go to reader.substack.com (make sure you're logged in) and click on "Add RSS feed" in the left sidebar.

That is very kind of you. Thank you.

Thanks. We agree that there is definitely a promising market in those fields, too.

Clear and honest messaging to your readers about why you're doing this and what the benefits will be for them. Also: let's talk? You can email us at hello at substack dot com

Thanks for the suggestion. Yes, we've given a lot of thought to that.

Good questions.

To answer the burn-out point: I think this is something writers have to take into account when they're starting their publishing businesses. Running a publication is definitely a demanding exercise and it is often under-estimated. That said, I think Ben Thompson, for example, handles this problem well: he makes it clear to Stratechery's subscribers that he regularly takes some time off to recharge, and he lets them know well in advance when he's going to take a break.

This is one of the areas we hope Substack can be helpful in, actually. We are building up a knowledge base of best practices, informed by the people who are publishing with our tools, so we can help all kinds of writers succeed. Part of the advice we offer relates to content strategy, pricing, cadence, etc, and part of it relates to less tangible stuff, like how to manage your own time and expectations.

And yes, converting readers from free to paid is a huge and unending challenge! We focus a lot of our effort on solving this very problem. One small piece of advice we offer is for a writer who is contemplating going paid to clearly signal the transition in advance to their readers, then give them incentives to subscribe early – like a special charter price, for instance. More broadly, Neil Cybart from Above Avalon shared some useful thoughts on the subscriber model recently. This comment stood out:

"Going from a scenario in which all content was public to one in which only a fraction of content is public can be jarring. Most sites have handled this transition by keeping content free and instead giving paid subscribers a very marginal amount of exclusive content. In essence, sites are treating subscriptions and memberships like donations. This is not sustainable for or attractive to subscription-based models."

What Neil is saying there is that it is better to set the expectation that the bulk of your content be available only for paying subscribers.

As a writer who has worked with a number of great editors over the years: I agree. In the short-term, the best writers will recognize the value of having an editor and factor that expense into their business models. Ultimately, I'd love to see an ecosystem evolve where editors can sell their services to writers who want to improve their publications. I see that as a pretty exciting opportunity for a platform like Substack at some point in the future.

Honestly, we are seeing a lot of strength in the crypto newsletters on Substack and we love them. There are plenty of genres that are out-performing some of them – from absurdist humor to bankruptcy industry coverage to foreign policy – but the truth is that the writer matters more than the subject. People subscribe to writers they trust. Those reader-writer relationships are key in this world.

To add to Chris's point (this is Hamish), I think Substack is just really simple. As a writer, I like the idea of not having to think about building and designing my own site, or coming up with various payment and rewards tiers, so I can focus almost all of my time on writing.

Fair question. The short answer is "hell yes." We already have writers on Substack making a lot of money with their newsletters. For instance, our first publisher, Bill Bishop, told the WSJ that he's making more money from his newsletter than he ever made from a corporate salary (he's a former exec and serial entrepreneur). Ben Thompson of Stratechery has many thousands of subscribers paying at least $100 a year. We can't share the private data of other publishers, but we have enough info to confidently state, that, yes, many people are happy to pay for newsletters.

Thank you very much. Yes, good suggestion. We are thinking about how to do something like this. Any ideas?

Yes, thank you, we love this feedback. We are trying to keep the product as simple as possible.

Just as a link in the footer. Substack is also in the domain name, though. Thanks for the advice!

Thanks, much appreciated. Yes, free newsletters don't have any charges. No subscriber limits, either.

Hey, this is Hamish from Substack. Thanks for this! We think this is a great idea and it's certainly something we're considering for the future. But in the meantime, the point of a 10% cut is that it specifically does not annoy publishers. In fact, it aligns our incentives with theirs – we only make money when they make money. When we established Substack, we wanted to get away from an ad model in which publishers had reason to favor ad-centric content strategies over reader-centric ones. We're attempting to create an environment where writers no longer have to worry about doing things that please advertisers. They should be focused only on doing things that please their readers. To us, that's a better way forward for the media. Taking a 10% cut is a substantial ask, but it is one that writers have so far been receptive to.