Finding Community in the Content Jungle: What I Like About Substack

A few thoughts after 4+ months of writing on this platform

I’ve been writing and publishing on Substack for almost four months, and my first impressions are:

1. I love it! No, seriously, I get to write about what I love and…

2. I’ve discovered loads of writers and authors that I love.

3. Help, I can’t keep up with all of the great content! There’s waaay too much for me to digest!

4. Committing to posting something at least once a week is a great motivator to find things I want to write about.

5. I wish I had time to read all of the cool writers here.

6. I mostly don’t pay for subscriptions, but I have broken through the paywall on several writers for practical uses (they write about things to help me in my slow-moving writing career), or their writing or something about them just rocks, and I want to support what they do. Or, this may be a little weird, but I’ve picked out a handful of writers randomly and committed to helping them monetarily. Something must have resonated with me at some point.

Does any of this resonate with you? Are you consumed by the massive amounts of great content here on Substack? Are you overwhelmed and unable to get to all that you’d like to? Join the club!

According to Sarah Fay of Writers at Work, there are about 70,000 writers currently posting on Substack, and about 30 million readers are spread among those writers. I’m not going to get into how much money the top-paid most successful writers are, except that in one of her webinars, Sarah said that one person is clearing six figures and posts only once a month. I’m not sure who that is, but there is money to be made here. But keep in mind there are thousands of writers, like me, who aren’t here to make huge money. And I would wager that most are not in it for the money.

I didn’t come here to make a living (I’m already doing that elsewhere, plus I’m semi-retired anyway); I came here because I saw that a growing group of writers, authors, publishers, photographers, artists, and more is part of a community. You-name-it-you’ll-find-it. I came her after weighing the pros and cons and decided it was a great place to do what I wanted to do.

I also like the Notes platform on Substack, and if you haven’t looked, it’s fun. Kind of like a social media element that’s not crazy and algorithm-driven; it’s just people having conversations. Read, respond, contemplate, post. Everyone is so supportive of other folks here. It just feels good to be here.

Bridge over the North Santiam River in Mill City, Oregon

If you’re unfamiliar with Substack because you don’t spend much time here, I’d invite you to take a few moments and explore. Click on the Explore tab on the left and see what kinds of topics you can browse: food & drink, art & illustration, business, politics, fashion & beauty, music, spirituality, climate, science…the list goes on and on. There are thousands of people holding forth here on Substack about anything that might strike your fancy. Some lick the finger of a topic, some of them eat the whole cake and come back for seconds and thirds. One of the great things about Substack is that if you like well-informed, long, thoughtful pieces, there are many of them here. There are also a lot of short, easy-to-digest posts that leave you feeling satiated.

There’s something for everyone.

I mentioned above that there’s too much for me to digest, and it’s true. My email inbox has gone from taking about 20 minutes a day to sort through, now it’s closer to an hour, and there are so many incoming articles I want to read. But I can’t read them all. I’ve had to limit myself to about six or seven a day just to keep my brain sane. Here’s a collection of writers and posts that have grabbed my attention lately and might be worth your time to take a look at:

David Sutton:

Through Three Lenses

David calls himself “A writer/photographer/singer/songwriter/musician/animal lover/woodworker/thinker living in the Midwest.” So it’s all there, as far as I’m concerned. And dogs, too, of course.

Matthew’s Substack

An urban fantasy writer who shares chapters of works in progress, novelettes, novellas, and things not available on Amazon.

Beyond with Jane Ratcliffe

“Intimate Conversations with Heart-Centered Minds.” A little off my beaten path, but in the few weeks I’ve been reading Jane, I am drawn to the work she publishes. Over her career, she’s interviewed everyone from Sinead O’Connor and Tony Bennett to Ice Cube, Radiohead, Cheryl Strayed, and more. She has written for Interview, CH-1, Los Angeles Review of Books, The Oprah Magazine, and more.

Kathryn Vercillo

Create Me Free

Musings and research into the complex relationship between art and mental health. Her description of part of what she does on her about page caught my eye: “I really dig into the ways that our mental health symptoms can impact our creative process, content, productivity, medium choice, self-perception, and reception by others.”

M. E. Rothwell

Cosmographia

For intrepid travelers or those who like to see other people’s travels through their eyes, it’s all here: travel, history, art, and so on.

Futuristic cityscape at sunrise, thanks to Dreamscape

Mark Starlin Writes!

Many writers serialize fiction on Substack, and Mark is one. But there’s more! Lots of fun with short posts, humor, fiction, creative writing, comics, short stories, essays…loads of stuff from a prolific writer.

Liza Donnelly’s

Seeing Things

Liza is a longtime New Yorker cartoonist, writer, and journalist. Her posts are generally short and include a random cartoon that she made up that day, often of something topical, but just as often a rendering of something she saw out on the streets.

Gibberish from

Scoot

Fun stuff related to writing and, of course, enjoying good writing: short fiction, longer fiction, mostly science fiction, but as he says, he’s been known to stray into other genres.

Russell Nohelty’s

The Author Stack

I can’t quit this list without a shoutout to Russell, whose writings have been extremely helpful in helping me learn and navigate the trenches of the writing (and Substack) world. Probably one of the top experts on how to use Substack as a writer and author. Unfortunately, he’s also extremely prolific, and it’s damn hard to keep up with all of the things he publishes. (Don’t stop, Russell!)

Patti Smith

Yes, that Patti Smith. Her writings are mostly short and often include a photo or two, or a short video. A tender and tough heart.’

John Hodgman

Yes, that John Hodgman. Wry, often funny, always worthwhile.

Franco Amati’s

Garbage Notes

Franco is a writer, poet, and founding editor of Scuzzbucket. He often shares a poem and related notes.

Mike Elgan’s

Mike’s List

Mike’s been making lists for more than twenty years. As Mike puts it, “At its core, the newsletter is about ideas that people really shouldn't realize but are able to bring into reality because of new technologies available to us all.” Lots of fun stuff here.

Bottom line: there are thousands of creative people on Substack, and if you keep looking around, you’re bound to run into more than enough of them to keep your mind full of challenging, delightful, and thoughtful words strung together in ways you have not before seen.