Why I Switched to Writing on Substack

I could not keep writing about UFOs

It’s been a month since I started to write on Substack instead of Medium:

There are many reasons for my change of heart.

One reason, I’m sick and tired of wading through thousands of posts recommending how I can make a thousand or ten thousand dollars and even more writing for Medium.

God Bless the UFOs, But…

I never made any money writing for Medium except when I started to air my skepticism about UFOs.

Two months in a row in the Summer of 2021, I shocked myself by making over a thousand dollars each month, thanks to UFOs.

But I cannot keep writing about UFOs for two reasons.

I suffered a serious backlash from UFO believers who turned out to be as intolerant of opposing voices as the Mullahs in Iran. They are a True Believer crowd and no matter what you say, it won’t change their beliefs an inch. It’s a lost cause. (But John Ege is an exception, a well-read sincere man who, despite being a UFO fan, really tries to be objective, open-minded, and balanced.)

Secondly, yes I like making money like any other person on earth but I’m not solely writing to make money.

Knock on wood, after a lifetime of constant work, I do have enough to take care of my basic needs in this old age. I do not need to write about what is hot, popular, or what brings money.

A Writer First

But I have a voice and pride as a writer. I have ideas. I did not start to write only when Medium showed up on the scene.

I’ve been a writer for over 30 years, a professional one at that, writing for Fortune 100 companies. I published probably over 1,000 articles on the Internet and over 30 eBooks on Amazon Kindle.

So I need to be read, interacted with, and hopefully, appreciated.

At that point, Medium failed my expectations.

Yes, I do have over 1,500 “followers” and I’m grateful for that. But I have no idea if my articles are read by 1,500 readers or not. Most probably not.

I have no idea what my followers are viewing when they login to their home page.

Bunk Stats

And the stats are mostly bunk. Here is a typical one:

According to this, 12 people “viewed” my post, ZERO people read it (so, viewing does not mean reading), but 3 “viewers” still became “fans”?

What is a “fan”?

What the heck does all that mean?

What’s going on with Medium statistics, I have no idea.

The Substack Difference

Substack is more straightforward and transparent.

You schedule to send your pieces (automatically) by email to those who subscribe to your channel.

Period.

They read your pieces either for free or for a monthly subscription fee.

My Substack channel is for the time being free since I’m trying to reach as wide a readership as possible.

Currently, I have only 70 readers/subscribers but I got “open rates” to die for.

25%, 30%, 40% open rates are unheard of in the direct mail industry.

It’s clear to me that people who volunteer to receive my articles are actually reading them.

Some of them share the articles with their own lists and write back to give feedback.

Wow, what great news after getting lost in the murky labyrinths of Medium.

Here is a typical result from my Substack Dashboard:

Did you notice that even though 69 readers received this piece it was viewed 117 times? It means some readers are reading it more than once.

That’s the kind of dedicated “followers” that I hoped for on Medium but could never be sure.

However, another possibility is Substack sending “organic visitors” to my article, those who are readers but not subscribers yet who found the link to my article somehow through search engines, which is only a good thing.

My open rates on Medium were probably never more than 1% to 3% on a good day. 0% is probably more typical.

I never knew if out of 1,500 readers signed up as Medium followers, only 15 or 30 of them “viewed” the piece. It’s a mystery and (if you ask me) the result of a bad site algorithm.

My guess is only 15 or 30 of them are viewing my articles on their Home page and that’s why I get such abysmal open/view rates.

I’m not even getting into the number of “claps” and if they mean anything at all. Probably not.

All I know is some of the best writing I ever did rarely reaches my “followers” on Medium since most of the articles end up in the “zero views” trash bin.

But when I re-publish the same articles on Substack, they are read and appreciated at massive open rates.

As a writer, I can't ask for more.

Other Advantages

Another advantage of Substack is you own your subscriber email list. So if one day you decide to move onto another platform, you can just download the list and take your readers with you.

If you wish, you can broadcast your own podcasts as well from inside the same Substack account.

Podcasts

Substack has a no-frills but no-brainer podcast tool. You can record your podcast right on the spot and even include a cover image to it. You can schedule your podcasts easily. It will be emailed to your list either together with your article or at any other time you like.

“How can I find subscribers for my Substack newsletter/blog?”

You have to be patient on Substack.

You won’t have thousands of subscribers overnight unless you are Oprah.

My experience is, things start from a standstill and then start to roll slowly but surely.

How does that happen?

For one thing, when you write good stuff, people notice and start to share it on Twitter and other social platforms or send it to their own mail lists.

Sharing the good stuff is a deep human need. No person is an island. And one of the ways we want to stay in touch with those we care for is through sharing valuable information.

So, in good time, like a nuclear chain reaction, you start to gain subscribers thanks to the efforts and volunteerism of those who appreciate what you are putting out there.

Remember those times when you sent the link of something to a loved one?

Why did you do it?

Simple: you appreciate it; the piece made some sort of difference in your life, and you wanted your significant one(s) to feel and experience the same empowerment, same emotions, or the joy of glimpsing into something new and significant.

This brings me to the other related and important topic…

What to Write and Not Write on Substack

Yes, Substack does have a money angle. No use in denying it. Even writers need to pay their bills and put food on the table.

But Substack is also a special platform where authenticity and quality trump anything else.

People are not on Substack to read yet another article on “how to make money fast” or yet another listicle (unless it’s really on a topic that wasn’t addressed anywhere else).

Substack readers have a very well-developed BS-meter and they see a click-bait title from a mile.

It’s not a place to be clever but to be real.

Bland evergreen articles like “5 Amazing Tips to Lose Weight” are for Quora and Medium, not for Substack.

If you feel that you are ready to write stuff that probably no one on earth can write or are qualified to write, then you would have a home on Substack.

I keep my own advice.

My pieces, for example, are essays, meditations, and poems that grew from my own life experiences.

They are unique either in content and details or in terms of the voice with which I’m writing them.

Getting that personal makes me vulnerable of course since I share things that statistically cannot be reproduced or verified.

But that’s also what makes them authentic and real, I believe.

Reader feedback that I started to receive regularly these days confirms that I’m on the right track.

3 Times a Week

Until I learn how to write about “A Simple Trick That Earned Me $50,000 in a Day” I’ll continue with my Substack account and see what happens within a year.

I publish 3 times a week, Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, at 9 a.m. EST sharp.

You’re welcome to join The Ocean for free for some of my best writing under the sun:

60th Day Update — Jan 14, 2022

The irony of ironies!

This very piece announcing my switch to Substack turned out to be one of my best-read posts ever :-) (even though I did not make a single red penny since it was not a part of the Medium payment program).

Plus I was also selected “Top Writer” in the “Writing” category! What am I gonna make of that?

I thought the “Top Writer” designation was abolished some months ago, no? One more puzzling move from Medium I suppose. As I said earlier, I rarely know what’s going on with Medium at any time but I’ll take it. It’s an acknowledgment that I welcome of course even though it was unexpected. I thank all of you since without you, my readers, nothing ever happens.

Perhaps the fact that it was not beyond the payment wall and thus available to everyone played a factor in the high read count. But comments and highlights were plenty too. That’s why I believe this post really hit a raw nerve in more ways than one.

So what happened since I started to publish on Substack?

I started to publish on Substack on Nov 15, 2021. Sixty days have passed since.

I published regularly, first 5 times a week and then 3 times a week, without fail. My initial number of subscribers (60) slowly grew to 125 as of today.

The bad news is, I still have ways to go to 1,000 subscribers (a number the significance of which I’ll explain in a second). The growth in the number of subscribers is not too great.

The good news is, the curve’s angle is pointing up which denotes a slight acceleration in the number of subscribers.

I’m posting calls for new subscribers on LinkedIn as well as mailing to my in-house list of 3,000+ (TCC6.com) subscribers. But other than that I had no paid advertisement or anything. It’s all non-paid organic growth.

For a while, I tried podcasts but I think I’m way better as a writer than a narrator. My voice, pronunciation, and enunciation are definitely wide open to improvement. Just a few readers were downloading my podcasts, so I stopped it.

Significance of 1,000 free subscribers

Back to the magic of the number 1,000.

Substack monetization, just like anything else in life, is a numbers game.

I figure only 10% of total subscribers might become paying subscribers at $5 a month.

So if I get 100 paying readers, I can continue writing for them (with pleasure and gratitude) at $500 a month as a baseline and hope to go up from there.

Anything less than that would force me to ask the obvious question: “Why am I not flipping burgers at Burger King?”

That’s why my goal is to get 1,000 free subscribers within 3 months before I toggle on monetization.

If that happens, I’m planning to publish 3 paid and 1 free post a week, increasing the weekly total to 4 posts.

But when will that happen?

When will I blink and lose my faith in the process?

I’m not sure but I’m giving myself another 3 months to see if 1,000 free subscribers is a realistic goal or not.

We’ll have another update by then, and hopefully a positive and cheerful one.

Until then, nurture your dreams with a smile while getting ready for detours along the way.

Cheers!

90th Day Update — Feb 20, 2022

After 3 months of solid writing (3 times a week) on Substack, I still have only 138 subscribers. I’m grateful. But professional writing is a process that should have a check at the end to keep the engine running. I still have my doubts about whether I’ll be able to go from amateur (no check) to professional (a check) on this wonderful platform.

Perhaps my topics (self-development and philosophical meditations) are not sexy enough? Perhaps there simply are not enough people interested in reading “Prayer for Those with a Flat Tire on a Busy Highway” (an actual piece that I published last week).

If you write about SOLUTIONS about daily PROBLEMS (like which stocks to buy and make money on Wall Street, or, how to cure acne) then I think you’ll be able to build subscribers on Substack much faster than I did.

Another way to build a subscriber base on Substack is to be CONTROVERSIAL on DIVISIVE ISSUES. Boy, does that tactic build a forest fire in just a few days! But that’s something I can never do since I rarely see myself 100% on one side of such issues. I hate contemporary “Roman Games” where gladiators tear each other apart for the entertainment of click-bait-drunk masses.

As I explained earlier, unless you have a minimum of 1,000 subscribers, you probably won’t be able to make any money on Substack since it’s a numbers game: you can expect 5%-10% of your free subscribers to become paying subscribers. You can do the math to see if it’s worth your while or not IF you are expecting to get paid for your writing.

If you don’t care about getting paid, then it still makes sense to write on Substack since the QUALITY of subscribers is truly outstanding. These are real readers who subscribe because they appreciate and love what you are writing. To get a Substack reader note that says “Your piece was what I really needed today! Thanks much!” is a personal pleasure that you’ll taste rarely on Medium.

Another Alternative

Another sensible alternative is to use both Medium and Substack as a traffic channel and not as a revenue stream.

If, for example, you have a website where you are selling online courses or an Etsy shop, etc., then it makes sense to publish both on Medium and Substack for free to build up maximum traffic to your website/store and then enjoy the income from your website/store.

August Birch, for example, a prolific writer who publishes regularly on Medium, tries to get his readers to buy his email marketing course. As long as readers visit his website and buy his email course or eBooks, he is perfectly happy with making no money on Medium. It’s a strategy that I may adopt as well.

Take good care.

UPDATE — April 18, 2022

It’s been a long while since my initial decision to switch to Substack.

Since then Medium improved its statistic reports considerably.

Now we have the Audience Statistics which provides detailed and clear numeric feedback on three MONTHLY GROWTH categories:

• Followers
• Email subscribers
• Referred members (which provides a new source of income for Medium writers)

There are other factors that played a role in my decision to continue to write for Medium:

• I apparently could not find a sexy enough subject category to convince thousands to join my Substack list. The marketplace did not reward my choice to write on “personal meditations about life.” I think that was too general and vague a category to convince a thousand readers to part with $5 a month. It just did not work and I took note of that. If I can find a more specific topic that offers solutions to a specific problem, Substack might work. But until then, I’m placing my Substack newsletter on the backburner.
• You can continue to update a Medium story, like I’m doing it here. In contrast, once you publish and mail a Substack newsletter, that’s it. There is no way to update it according to changing facts and conditions.
• A Substack newsletter is read once since it is emailed once. Whereas, a Medium story continues to be read through the months that follow its publication. That means continuing recurring income if you are a part of the Medium Partner Program, plus, the possibility of additional income through sign-ups through your affiliate link. Here is a typical lifetime readership graph for this very Medium post:

• During the last 3 months, an unexpected number of readers/writers started to include my posts in their personal and public lists of posts they like. That of course provides an unexpected new channel of redistribution that you can’t duplicate in Substack since there is almost no contact between writers or readers at Substack except for an occasional comment or two.
• The interaction between writers/readers is very high on Medium but almost negligible on Substack, measured by the number and quality of comments posted to articles. I’ve made some good friends on Medium through such unsolicited exchanges and I count that as another excellent dividend of writing on Medium.
• Medium offers me the opportunity to write on almost any topic I like to write about. True, my established readership in any given publication expects me to write on one topic only. But there are many publications and many channels of specialization. So I can write on diverse topics without disappointing the reader's expectations at any one particular publication.

This is another thing not possible on Substack since you publish one newsletter and your readership is locked into that one topic. The only way to go around that is to create and maintain multiple newsletters for each Substack topic/group, which I’m sure will become a hard task to juggle as the days and weeks go by.