What I love about Substack so far

My experience as a nicheless author

When the TikTok ban happened, I came over here and started really getting into the Substack platform and making an effort. Since then, I’ve gotten better at posting consistently but I still refuse to pick a niche.

You can’t make me.

I’ve made my living as a ghostwriter and author virtual assistant, with some editing and proofreader tasks thrown in. I’ve worked across many different non-fiction and fiction genres and been inspired by them all.

Because of that (and unmedicated ADHD), I have amassed a spreadsheet of over 100 ideas for books and novellas. My account here has over a dozen drafts waiting for me to write…and I impulsively write things like this instead.

The Pros of Substack

The biggest one: I don’t have to censor myself. I can curse, call out bigots and transphobes, talk about whatever I want, and I don’t have to worry about being dinged with a community guidelines violation.

I love that notes don’t seem to have a character limit and I can post photos, videos, and/or text. I can edit posts after I hit “send” and I don’t have to deal with a time limit to do so, like on Threads.

I know they exist, but I haven’t run into too many of those transphobes and bigots. Meta is rank with them. Maybe it’s my algorithm, maybe it’s that they’re not as loud on this platform. Point is, I’m not seeing many of them.

When I do see bigots, there are plenty of people that are happy to jump to the task of making them feel as uncomfortable as they should be. Seeing that when it happened made me feel warm and fuzzy.

This is a place where I can put everything. I can do video posts, text posts, photos, audio podcasts, and I can even attach files. It’s a good home base where I can eventually migrate all of my content.

I love that my subscribers can get my content directly to their email. They don’t have to wade through an fyp or following feed and they don’t have to deal with seeing comments if they don’t want to.

They can just get the posts in their email and read/scroll/watch the content there.

The Cons

There aren’t a lot and the biggest one is that I don’t have an audience yet. I don’t know if my posts aren’t being pushed when they first come out or if there’s simply less visibility with this platform.

I have 18 subscribers at the time of writing this and get an average of 12-15 views per post with little to no engagement.

Deep down, I know that quality over quantity is more important but I don’t feel like I have that either. I also feel that maybe it’ll change over time as I have more content and interaction across my posts and feed.

In the meantime, it feels a little lonely here. I’m a person who is better at interacting behind a screen. I’m autistic with ADHD & a ton of anxiety. I work from home, teach my kids at home, and basically only leave the house when I take my younger kiddo to speech and feeding therapy.

I have friends I talk to daily and I know that seeking validation from strangers isn’t the healthiest thing…but at the same time imposter syndrome frequently dominates everything good I do. So there’s that.

Another issue I have with this platform is that there’s a $5 minimum for paid subscribers. I’d love to offer a $1 or $2 option for people to have different tiers, like with Patreon, but I don’t want to also run a Patreon.

As a nicheless writer, I would like to be able to split up my different topics into separate publications. So far, I find that process to be clunky on the desktop site and not possible on the mobile app.

When I write on the mobile app, I have a problem with things saving to drafts so I’ve been writing on my Freewrite Traveler and transferring it over. Not a huge deal but it is an extra step I wish I didn’t have to do.

Final Thoughts

The cons I’ve talked about here aren’t anywhere close to enough for me to want to leave Substack. They’re things that could change in the future and that I can find workarounds for as well.

I’ll continue to write here, to try to bring people in organically from my other social media spaces, and enjoy staying consistent with my own writing. This platform has definitely been motivating for me to do that.

What can you expect going forward? More like this. My thoughts, posts about writing and building sustainable income at home, creative hobbies that mitigate anxiety, gardening, parenting, random rants, some light politics here and there, updates on my own books, thoughts on my research, and going back to school as an adult.

Until next time, stay weird nerds! And thanks for reading!