Can independent journalism on Substack survive?
It’s an important question.
There’s no doubt that Substack is a great platform. When I was considering how to come to market with my independent venture I spoke with two of the founders and was truly impressed with their vision and commitment to independent journalism and free speech.
But it is also the case that Substack’s business model kind of resembles that of an airline (which we know from Buffett is the worst sort of investment). A few very successful authors’ earnings subsidise the platform for everyone else.
That’s fine while it works. But even the most popular authors will suffer from ebbs and flows in subscription revenues.
The truth is that being an independent is pretty grueling. It’s the Uber driving for the intellectual class. You’re only ever as good as your last story; if you have to take a vacation or some time out for health, it comes at the cost of your subscriber relationships (hence all the apologies on Substack about taking time out) and your earnings will always be sensitive to financial conditions. In a sense it’s worse than freelancing because at least with freelancing you benefit from the editorial support and protections offered to you by a proper newsroom.
I would be very surprised if the vast majority of those who have made the leap into independent Substacking haven’t found the experience (and current times) exceptionally challenging.
Also, the space is now way too fragmented. This is why even the big successful authors are scaling up and beginning to replicate small newsroom operations. A similar thing happened with Uber drivers who increasingly saw the need to form syndicates to get ahead on the platform.
I anticipated early on that the fragmentation problem would only get worse and lead to this sort of consolidation. The problem for Substack is that the more authors scale up, the less margin per author they can eke out. This leaves them with a not bad business model - provision of tech to growing independent news publishers - but far from the revolution in journalism or publishing that was promised.
The fragmentation burden, meanwhile, doesn’t go away more scaled-up news operations because personal brands are merely replaced by even harder to keep track of news brands - which are hard to judge on a standards and value basis.
This is why I started my venture, The Blind Spot (www.the-blindspot), on Wordpress with a view to scaling up and developing a broader brand right from the beginning. I wanted to be platform agnostic.
Even so, I’ve been very dependent on Twitter for marketing - and it’s becoming clear that this is no longer the most reliable way to promote oneself to readers. Visibility has crashed.
As a result, I thought why not test Substack for its reach potential by reposting some of my old Blind Spot content, which is now free.
If you like what you see, consider heading over to the-blindspot and taking out a paid subscription. The advantage of doing so is being able to plug into my unique deal with POLITICO, where I am also a senior finance editor. This allows me to repost a small selection of stories from their paywalled service for my subscribers. These stories are personally curated by me, and aim to reflect what I believe are important trends that investors need to be on top of stemming from the policy world.
If you are an author looking to associate with the Blind Spot ecosystem - I am looking for freelance contributors and editors who understand finance. Do get in touch.
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The Blind Spot is an insight and commentary journalistic service focused on finance and media that believes in holding power to account, maximizing free speech within the limits of the law and being as fair as possible while scrutinizing everything. Being human, we will of course occasionally make mistakes, be swept up in our own group think or get caught out by our own blind spots. But we will always endeavor to be open to respectful challenge and opposition. We encourage critical feedback as long as it is civil and constructive. We aim to be cheeky rather than mean, unless obviously punching up. And even then in a proportionate way.
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