Bo Sacks distributed an article by Leigh Stein called “Writing vs. Content” in which she asks if Substack is the savior of a vanishing media or simply a place for women to monetize their diary entries. (That’s actually pretty funny.)
For the first claim, Ted Gioia says print magazines are dead and Substack has filled that vacuum.
Of course print magazines are not dead and we’re all fairly sick of hearing that.
Ted seems to claim that writers have gone to Substack because they don’t need a periodical. I’m not sure that’s quite true. My impression is that most of the people who are killing it on Substack started out with a print publication and they went to Substack because they didn’t agree with the restrictions the publication was putting on them.
There are some people who are doing well on Substack who didn’t start out in media. Lenny Rachitsky was at Airbnb, and he writes on product management, growth, startups, and so on. There may be others, but I think most of the Substack stars got a big hand up – either from a large corporation or from a legacy media brand.
If I’m wrong about that, please let me know.
Emily Sundberg says Substack is a place where people monetize their diary entries – what they did today, what they’re working on. She says Substack is making everyone a writer the way Instagram made everyone a photographer.
This idea that everybody’s a writer now seems to annoy Stein – the author of the article Bo distributed. She wants us to distinguish between writing and creating content.
By “writing” she means literary stuff – serious writing. By “content,” she means stuff to sell your writing.
She points out that there are talented writers who aren’t very good at creating content, and there are content creators who aren’t writers.
Ideally you want to do both.
But doesn’t that get us back to the point at the beginning here, and show why writers need magazines?
A great writer might not have the social media skills to become an “influencer.” Only a small portion of writers can do both.
Also, I’d like to get back to Substack. There’s something about that platform that hasn’t grabbed me. I know there’s good stuff there, but it seems like work.
I think I’d like a monthly print magazine that gives me the best of Substack. That would be relaxing.
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