When I tell folks (like during my XOXO talk) that I’m leaving a lot of money on the table by not paywalling my stuff on Substack, this is what I’m talking about: “You probably can’t make more than $1 million a year on Substack. But Matthew Yglesias does.”
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Discussion 4 comments
I find it a little ironic that an article about putting things behind a paywall is behind a paywall.
The article blows by the fact that substack guaranteed him $200k the first year. They were motivated to *promote* him. The hundreds of thousands of other people trying to make money on Substack don't get that promotion.
I think you have this backwards. It was Yglesias that was promoting Substack (and, incidentally, leaving a lot of money on the table in the process).
Substack is an example of the 80/20 rule. Let's presume it's perfectly true for writers who are writing consistent content and trying to earn money on Substack. 20% of the writers there make 80% of the revenue, which means 80% of the Substack writers are fighting for crumbs.
Of that 20% of writers making 80% of the income, 20% of THOSE writers are making 80% of that income. So, you have 4% (20% of 20%) of writers on Substack making 64% (80% of 80%) of the income writers are generating there.
Let's do it again. 20% of that upper 4% are making 80% of the 64% slice reserved for the top writers. So, you have 0.8% (20% of 4%) of the writers on Substack making 51.2% (80% of 64%) of the income there.
In other words, more than half of the revenue earned by writers on Substack go to less than 1% of the writers on there.
Basically, for every Matt Y., there are more than 100 writers trying to make it on Substack and earning crumbs.
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