What a great interview both of you! It’s exciting to be a part of this platform , and learning about all of you is so encouraging, so much that I may someday try my hand at writing. Thanks a million
Thank you for this great interview with an inspiring person! I've never tried cold emailing people, I think I might do it more in the future. And how amazing that Substack gets more views now than all those prestigious magazines!
Great interview. I subscribe to Elle's Substack as well. I think she's totally right about traditional publishing versus Substack. I have written 13 novels over the past 12 years. I'd say five of them are prime-time, ready-to-go. (Meaning I've been working on them and editing/revising for years.) A few have had professional editors run through them and give me the green light. Several have had dozens of literary agents read and praise them, including one book which an agent read three times all the way through and was sending me long emails praising it...but then mysteriously rejected it and disappeared with no warning or explanation. (And another agent who also loved and praised it but rejected it [this was 2017, Trump Time] because the narrator was an upper-middleclass White Straight Male. Yes, I’m serious. I have the email.)
For so long I felt the desperate need to be "traditionally" published. It was just that burning hot need of the young, ambitious writer, especially the young ambitious writer obsessed with the classic 20th century masters. But, as we all know: Things have drastically shifted in publishing over the past 25 years. Self-publishing has become a major player. And now these other platforms. I've only been writing my Substack (“Michael Mohr's Liberal (But Not Woke) Writing Newsletter”: https://michaelmohr.substack.com/) for a little over a month (fiction, personal essays, cultural commentary) but already I can grasp why this is a much stronger publishing model.
Add to that the new revelations from the anti-trust Penguin/Simon and Schuster trial regarding how little most writers get paid in trad pub deals, and how little control these authors generally have over their work, not to mention that authors often have to pay for their own tours and get very low (sometimes no) advances most often nowadays, and it's like: Why NOT write on Substack? It seems to be the new platform for serious writers who don't want to be crippled by either insane Wokeism or anti-Art "safe spaces." Aka: A place for sincere, thoughtful prose which won't be denied or censored or rejected because you care more about aesthetics than political ideology.
Thanks for doing this interview. Elle was hugely inspiring to me and her articles convinced me to launch my own Substack. I love her passion for writing and building other writers up as she goes.
Great interview! Elle always has an interesting perspective on writing. Thanks for sharing :-)
What a great interview both of you! It’s exciting to be a part of this platform , and learning about all of you is so encouraging, so much that I may someday try my hand at writing. Thanks a million
Thank you for sharing!
Thanks for writing this interview. I enjoyed learning more about Elle. She’s one of the main reasons I finally decided to start a Substack.
Thank you for this great interview with an inspiring person! I've never tried cold emailing people, I think I might do it more in the future. And how amazing that Substack gets more views now than all those prestigious magazines!
Great interview. I subscribe to Elle's Substack as well. I think she's totally right about traditional publishing versus Substack. I have written 13 novels over the past 12 years. I'd say five of them are prime-time, ready-to-go. (Meaning I've been working on them and editing/revising for years.) A few have had professional editors run through them and give me the green light. Several have had dozens of literary agents read and praise them, including one book which an agent read three times all the way through and was sending me long emails praising it...but then mysteriously rejected it and disappeared with no warning or explanation. (And another agent who also loved and praised it but rejected it [this was 2017, Trump Time] because the narrator was an upper-middleclass White Straight Male. Yes, I’m serious. I have the email.)
For so long I felt the desperate need to be "traditionally" published. It was just that burning hot need of the young, ambitious writer, especially the young ambitious writer obsessed with the classic 20th century masters. But, as we all know: Things have drastically shifted in publishing over the past 25 years. Self-publishing has become a major player. And now these other platforms. I've only been writing my Substack (“Michael Mohr's Liberal (But Not Woke) Writing Newsletter”: https://michaelmohr.substack.com/) for a little over a month (fiction, personal essays, cultural commentary) but already I can grasp why this is a much stronger publishing model.
Add to that the new revelations from the anti-trust Penguin/Simon and Schuster trial regarding how little most writers get paid in trad pub deals, and how little control these authors generally have over their work, not to mention that authors often have to pay for their own tours and get very low (sometimes no) advances most often nowadays, and it's like: Why NOT write on Substack? It seems to be the new platform for serious writers who don't want to be crippled by either insane Wokeism or anti-Art "safe spaces." Aka: A place for sincere, thoughtful prose which won't be denied or censored or rejected because you care more about aesthetics than political ideology.
Sounds like heaven to me.
Michael Mohr
https://michaelmohr.substack.com/
Great interview! Very well thought out questions that gave me a great insight on who Elle is as a person. Thanks for sharing.
Thanks for doing this interview. Elle was hugely inspiring to me and her articles convinced me to launch my own Substack. I love her passion for writing and building other writers up as she goes.