State of the Stack
A Behind the Scenes peek at Beyond the Bookshelf
Navigating the passages between books and being
Dear friends,
I took a walk this morning. It is an invigorating 45 degrees Fahrenheit here in western Tennessee. We had several days of rain and the wind is howling across the mid-south landscape. I have spent a lot of time in my reading chair in front of the fireplace this week. I have an essay coming out soon about Autumn and why it is my favorite season. One thing I love is that everything slows down. My mind has time to think. I need that space of reflection.
Something I have been thinking about lately is
. Most of you probably are familiar with Substack but for those who are not, Substack is a platform that allows people to publish a newsletter. It is the platform that hosts this newsletter in fact. I have been on Substack for a little over two years.When I joined Substack it was kind of this secret corner of the internet mostly reserved for writers who wanted an artsy, cafe like experience online. Many, myself included, were fleeing the big social media sites that had worn us down with constant doomscroll. Over the years I felt I had lost a part of my soul to to the gods of the internet and I needed a safehaven to see if I could reclaim a bit of what I had lost. Substack provided that for me.
Substack has changed significantly in that time as they have added features, removed features, invited celebrities to join, seen the departure of some big names, and generally grown in the way that many media sites have over the past 20+ years. This is all normal. Companies grow. They have shareholders and they need to make a profit. While the cozy cafe environment was great (It still is if you know how to curate your feed), there was definitely enough space for a lot of other creative types besides your typical moody writers. Now we have moody artists, moody photographers, moody videographers, and moody commenters. So we are all one big happy family.
Except lately there has been a lot of grumbling. If you only subscribe to my newsletter and you only read it in your email then you probably have no idea what I am talking about. But if you use the app to subscribe to multiple newsletters, go online to read your Notes feed, or actively participate in any of the social aspects of Substack, then you are probably aware that there is always someone or multiple someones who find an issue with the newest bright shiny object that Substack has released. This happened with Notes, video, live video, etc…
Recently there have been quite a few folks writing about doom and gloom in 2026. That Substack is going the way of all the other trash sites on the internet and it will no longer be a happy place for creative minds.
To this I say phooey!
I refuse to link to any of those articles because I don’t like being the bearer of bad news. I like kindness and compassion and grace and a place to share my crazy love of reading and writing without all the negativity.
So today I decided to send out this letter to share some of the great things about Substack and why I am in it for the long haul.
and here is a quote from his recent article, Why we built a social network:
I spent 24 years in the U.S. Navy. The first 12 of those years I was an enlisted Sailor in the submarine force. The last 12 years I was an officer leading Sailors onboard aircraft carriers, SEAL Teams, and admiralty staffs. I know a lot about the Navy. What I didn’t know a lot about when I started writing this little newsletter was how to write a newsletter. Trust me. Go read some of my early stuff to see how bad it was. Wait, don’t do that actually.
My point is that someone like myself, who had no experience writing or publishing, was able to come to this platform and create a newsletter about a topic that was of interest to me. I didn’t have to worry about the background program, the formatting, the email distribution, the pricing, or really anything at all. Within an hour or two of finding the website I had a basic setup going. Over the past two years I have refined and polished it numerous times as I learned about myself, became a better writer, and found my voice. None of that would have been possible without Substack.
I am going to get into some of the nitty gritty in a few minutes but before doing that I want to talk about some of the benefits that I, Matthew Long, have personally gained from being on this platform.
First and foremost is the people. I can’t even tell you how many amazing friendships I have built over two years on this platform. If I tried to name them all it would be impossible. From fellow writers, creative spirits, subscribers who have believed in me, and, to be honest, even myself. Yes, I like myself better after the experience I have had writing for two years.
Second, I get exposed to some amazing art. I am talking about beautiful words like those of
, sublime photography from amazing humans like , and the profoundly beautiful artwork of people like .Third, I get to share my passion for reading and writing with the world. It’s like the old blogging days of the early 2000’s except people actually read my stuff now.
Guess how much Substack has charged me for all of this. Let me look at my account right quick. Oh, here it is. $0.00. Yep, totally free. So they have built this amazing creative engine and given it away for nothing. It doesn’t really get much better than that.
Let’s Talk About Growth, Baby!
Yep, on day 1 I had zero subscribers. By day 2 I had added about 20 family and friends who didn’t get a say in the matter. Some of them subsequently unsubscribed. Initial growth was slow but I listened to others who had been there for a bit, some amazing teachers such as
. Over time, as my writing improved, I found my voice, and I focused in on what I had to say, subscribers came along. In the charts below you can see my growth since October 2023. As of this morning the total subscribers was 7,750 and paid subscribers was 353.
I love seeing other writers share their growth stories. When people get their first paid subscription or they hit 100 subscribers. These are awesome milestones and should be celebrated.
recent shared her growth in a Note to the community and she is right to be excited:
Financial Disclosure
Substack doesn’t charge anything for you to create a newsletter and lots of folks create beautiful work and give it away for free. But Substack also provides the option for you to have paid subscriptions and, if you desire, to provide content behind a paywall for your paid subscribers. Newsletters tend to fall into a few different categories when it comes to paid content.
First: Everything is free and there is no option to pay. These folks just want to write or create or connect for the pure enjoyment of it.
Second: Everything is free but there is an option to pay. This is the option I went with. I don’t have a paywall, all of my content is available for free, but I set up paid subscriptions so that people can support me financially if they desire. Some of the most successful publications on Substack are set up on this model.
Third: Some stuff is free, some stuff is behind a paywall. This seems to be a very common strategy to take and I have seen some creators have a lot of success with it. I think it requires a bit more of a business mindset probably and/or this might be a primary source of income so they have a need for a paywall.
Fourth: Everything is paid. I rarely see this and am not sure how well it works but it is an option.
Here is my personal financial breakdown so you can see exactly what has happened since I started this publication.
Income from paid subscriptions = $7,006
My annual tier is $12/year and my founder’s tier is $125/year.
Income from affiliate links to Bookshop.Org = $42
Income from my Buy Me a Coffee tip jar = $125
Total income in two years = $7,173*
So that isn’t get rich type of money and when you figure that I probably invest 20+ hours per week on my publication it comes out to just a little over $3/hour over the course of two years. Some writers are making more and some are making less.
My point here is that amount would have been $0 if Substack hadn’t provided a place for me to write and share my passion with others.
*Of this amount I have invested around $1,500 back into subscriptions for other writers, buying copies of books released by Substack authors, and other misc. that have fed back into the creator economy.
My point in all of this is simply to say that every experience is what you make of it. There will always be diehard enthusiasts and committed naysayers. Stop being distracted by the noise and just do what you love. If you want to stop driving submarines in your mid-40’s and start writing a newsletter about life and literature then do it! Nothing is stopping you. Do it because you love it. If you make a little money along the way then that is a bonus. I never imagined I would get paid for writing, and look at me now, making $3/hour! That is about the same I made at my first job bucking hay bales on the farm back in the 1990s. I like writing a whole lot more than bucking bales.
I don’t think Substack is perfect. No platform is. But from the beginning it seems to me they have been proactive in communicating with their users and they have attempted to bring in subscribers so that we can all grow. Sometimes the ideas they have work great. Sometimes they release a dud. But at the end of the day they still charge me $0 to be here and that is a price I can afford.
Instead of listening to all the negative hype, doom and gloom, or other nonsense, how about you go create something beautiful or read something beautiful or subscribe to something beautiful. There are so many amazingly talented and wonderful people out there. Show them a little love and see it returned back to you tenfold.
Here’s to the books that take us beyond the shelf and into deeper waters,
Beyond the Bookshelf is a reader-supported voyage. If these literary explorations have enriched your journey, I’d be grateful for any support you can offer. Whether it’s the price of a coffee or a book, your contribution keeps wind in our sails and ensures these navigations through literature remain free for all readers. Thank you for being part of this crew.
Affiliate links: You can click on the title of any book mentioned in this article to purchase your own copy. These are affiliate links from Bookshop.org, earning me a very small commission for any purchase you make.
Congrats on writing a post about Substacking that's not incredibly annoying to read! 😁
Great piece. You have hit the nail on the head about being on Substack. I agree with you. I love being here in the company of others like you.