THE literary community is thriving on Substack. Since its launch in 2017, the online platform has allowed writers to create and send e-mail newsletters to subscribing readers, attracting a range of contemporary authors and any number of inspired approaches to using the tool. For those who subscribe to an author’s Substack, the value proposition is simple: a chance to read more writing by someone they admire, including personal essays and opinion pieces that often feature more candid, intimate, or even gonzo vibes than those published in traditional channels. Readers seeking considered, self-published dispatches on topics like the pressures involved in selling debut novels or the downstream effects of artificial intelligence on the business of fiction are in luck. So too are those who might enjoy, for example, annotated tours of wildly expensive, totally tacky properties advertised on Zillow—the novelist Rebecca Makkai’s real estate investigations, also published on X, née Twitter, are a fun way to lose an hour online.
For authors, meanwhile, the value derived from using the platform is both more complicated and subjective. In the attention marketplace, Substack’s comparatively long-form nature and creator-driven business model distinguish it from the dominant social networks and more traditional media properties vying for access to your inbox. While the platform is still best known for the journalists and opinion columnists who use it, the healthy ecosystem of literary writers on Substack is driven by the instability and, at times, outright hostility of platforms like X and the ways in which the newsletter format complements deeper examinations of creative writing’s intersection with issues of the day, as well as literature’s nuts and bolts. Many publish Substacks, as the newsletters are colloquially known, as adjacent practices to their primary work and appreciate the ability to build community on the platform, along with the income from paid subscribers. Authors can
