I Started a Substack. Should I Keep My Website?

I’m sure I’m not alone in trying to answer this one…

The world of writing online and marketing one’s stories has changed radically since I started.

I’ve been around since before the birth of the Internet. Yes, I know. It’s possible. I’m old.

Before the advent of anything online, I busied myself writing fiction stories to sell to magazines and anthologies. I also wrote a lot of books. A lot.

The cycle of destruction always broke down to this: write the story. Edit the story. Try desperately to sell the story. Start over with a new story.

It was a vicious cycle, my friends. Too cutthroat, and even back then, too many writers trying to do the same thing.

Online writing was a thing, until a traditional publisher accepted me.

For a while, I was on the cutting edge of internet publishing. I jumped on the Amazon bandwagon and, boy, it paid off well. I was riding the waves and knew how to market myself and my books.

Then a traditional publisher picked me up, and I stopped focusing on anything relating to online writing from there.

The publisher folded. They stole the rights to the books I published with them, as icing on the cake.

And then I had to start all over again.

Throughout all of this, though, I had my website. It’s at Original Worlds if you’re interested. I put a lot of effort into making it nice, and growing the visitors to it.

At this point, it’s modest but okay, with over 200 visitors a week. That may not sound like much, but it’s okay for a guy who hasn’t put in a massive marketing campaign toward growing it. The people who come there are ones I cherish.

Things have changed a lot over the past decade and I am still getting accustomed to the possibilities. Social media marketing is a royal ball-ache, to say the least. While I do it, it’s not something I want to put a lot of effort into.

Enter Substack.

Before a few months ago, I had never heard of the thing. Neither had my wife, and she spends more time trawling the internet than I do daily.

At first glance, it appears similar to Patreon. A friend I discussed all of this with compared it to OnlyFans, but specifically for writers. I got a kick out of that one.

I know the importance of email marketing, especially relating to newsletters. I already have a decent email list through my website and I get a good amount of mails opened because of the work I put into it all.

However, the trouble with the website is it’s hard to set things up on the back end to do direct sales. It… works, just not as well as I would hope. It’s also a pain in the rear for a guy like me who has disabilities.

I’ve found the interface and workability of Substack so far to be more comfortable for me to use.

There’s always a “but,” isn’t there?

The can I’ve been kicking down the road is the decision of whether to go all-in on this thing. I can see the potential with it, and as far as I can tell, it has an excellent reputation among other authors.

Here’s my conundrum with it:

I know how important it is to have a website to storehouse your links for selling books. I have built a fair amount of backlinks to the website for that purpose.

It’s also a pain to use and update, and I admit I don’t post as much to it as I should because of it.

There is also the fact if you have too many eggs flying around, they’re going to smack the wrong faces. If I have multiple platforms I am writing to, none are going to be as effective as if I had only a couple.

I have Medium, and I am sticking to it because I know it’s a paying horse. I have my website, but it doesn’t generate as much income as I’ve seen even with Medium in 2 months’ time.

I have a Substack, but I can’t say if or when it will be successful, since I’ve just started it up in the past week.

So, what to do?

Do I stick with things as they are and hope potential readers (and book purchasers!) will find me in the watered-down mess I have going on? Or, alternatively, do I point my OriginalWorlds domain over to the Original Worlds Substack and try that tuxedo on for size?

I’d love input from anyone who has gone through a similar situation. Did it work out for the best in the end?

Perhaps some of what I’ve got going on is my ADHD brain seeing something shiny and wanting to go for it. That goblin instinct to grab the pretty rock and run with it is ever-present, unfortunately.

What would you do, my dear friend?

Thank you for being you.

If you like my work and feel inclined to support it, please consider buying me a Ko-Fi. I also have a Substack available with content you’ll find nowhere else. Both ways of support go directly to helping this blind man feed his family.

Thank you from the depths of my soul for being here. Keep striving to “be the best you that you can be” at this moment.