Established Writers Are Making More Money After Leaving Substack ⇥ digiday.com

Alexander Lee, Digiday:

A year after leaving Substack in early 2024, newsletter writers are making more money peddling their words on other platforms.

Across the board, writers such as Marisa Kabas, Luke O’Neil, Jonathan M. Katz and Ryan Broderick — all of whom exited Substack in early 2024 following the publication of an open letter in December 2023 decrying the presence of politically extreme voices on the platform — told Digiday that they are receiving a higher share of subscription revenue after making the switch from Substack to rival newsletter services such as Ghost and Beehiiv.

That these services are less expensive for writers is distinct from subscriber growth. Substack’s network is surely a subscription driver, but that becomes less important as a writer’s popularity grows and people begin spreading their work in other ways. Beehiiv and Ghost are a little more old-fashioned — which is not necessarily a bad thing: they focus on providing a specific service instead of trying to be a social media company. But that means more self-promotional efforts by less established writers.