as a long-time traditionally-published author with a year on Substack, I support the idea generally Winston, especially as the programming team here seems to be always proactive to make new innovations. But I would say that to improve on existing competition, they would want to do at least three things;
-make the formatting options super-intuitive and easy, including TOC embed links and cover art
-find a way to protect the actual book file from being extracted and ending up pirated on random sites
-stay competitive, somehow, with the profit sharing margins that amazon offers.
In addition, and somewhat separately, I would love to see Substack somehow create a mechanism for passive income ala what youtube creators get, since the current business model is very much top heavy on the paid subscription side, which is not really dependable for the long term.
Keep up the good work and good luck in yoour publishing!
Hey there, Chris! Thanks for stopping by to comment. You've presented some great points and likely the most significant hurdles with this pitch. And TOC links and cover art would be fantastic. As for the passive income, I worry that it looks too much like ad revenue sharing, and I currently enjoy the lack of outside ads. However, you're onto something that could be like a writer subsidy, in which Substack shares revenue among writers inducted into a writer program, like Medium? Also, I notice a lot of folks linking to their Buy Me a Coffee for tips. I wonder if a tip feature could be implemented to help on that front. It could even be the precursor to a one-time payment model if Substack wanted to test it before rolling it out. Very interesting!
Cheers, Winston! I believe you're on to something with these additional ideas... to add on, perhaps what Substack HQ needs to do is take a more wholistic view of the value we all bring to the total information space (including comment boxes, where interesting and informed discusssions often take place as well as Notes), especially since they want to increase engagement of readers and writers in these spaces. There is an awful lot of valuable expertise shared freely by people with lots of experience of all areas of life, and that would only increase if they found some way to circulate money for active participation, which might also help counteract the wider internet's tendency to dumb down content in recent years.
I agree that no ads is the best way to go. I do believe that the appeal of subscription payments is always going to be limited, due to the sheer amount and variety of free content people can find online. (I have never been on medium, so I can't speak about your point there). But yes, Buy Me a Coffee seems to be an additional way of getting an occasional tip jar going, and I have seen people offer it. It would seem a little odd to offer it though unless it was integrated (I have asked both companies' HQs if this could be done, but not much response).
In the end, with your idea about forming a rival home for ebooks here, we will have to expect that HQ will have a cost argument when it comes to investing ini the software, as Amazon already has the world as a sort of captive market for everything. I fear only that Substack would argue 'yes, it's a good idea in principle, but would the sales exceed the investment?
And if the company si taking less than 30 percent (to compete with KDP), the software would have to be built fairly cheaply. Of course, maybe it can now, I'm not an IT expert. Let us hope for the best! CD
"There is an awful lot of valuable expertise shared freely by people with lots of experience of all areas of life, and that would only increase if they found some way to circulate money for active participation, which might also help counteract the wider internet's tendency to dumb down content in recent years."
Steemit tried that, with upvoting and curating compensated through crypto-currency, and it dissolved into a quagmire of pile-ons and bots. Not saying the problem can't be solved, but admitting I don't know how to do it.
Winston, as an independent author of 3 published books that are extremely difficult to get discovered, I greatly appreciate your concern for helping this massive and very important independent author, segment in book publishing, mostly undiscovered. Independent authors just don't have the resources to get their books discovered. As you say, they get lost on Amazon, Goodreads, etc. We are subject to expensive commercialization that does not offer any analytics, so we never can verify what works. We are always in an "expensive dark mode". Thank you again for thinking about us.
Thanks for showing your support, Sammie! I’m definitely invested in this community and wish for new ideas and opportunities to emerge so we can succeed. Discoverability is a major hurdle at the moment. Hoping we see some positive changes in the near future!
This is a fascinating summary. Thank you! Quick question: Is an author not able to do this right now?
"If Substack could allow for “Sections” or individual posts to be paywalled by a one-time payment, then writers could, in theory, sell serial or complete novels to subscribers."
Hey, Jim! Thanks for the kind comment and question. Individual posts can be paywalled, but as I understand it, the subscriber has access to every other paywalled post, which isn't conducive to someone wishing to monetize individual pieces of work but rather an entire body of work. I'm incapable of outproducing Netflix or other top entertainment platforms, and we've seen a decline in streaming revenue lately, so even corporations are feeling the subscription burn. I foresee individual purchases outlasting the subscription model in this case. But I'm sure there is a workaround I'm not thinking of. I'd love to implement this if you have some ideas!
Hi! You can do this now by hosting your ebook on Gumroad and using Page feature on your Substack site - check out my post on this! If they introduced a search feature for ebooks then author page listings would show up’
I believe some of us, myself included, do this by serialising our books for paid subscribers. But it would be great to be able to sell them whole, to all, via Substack, as Winston dreams of.
I think this is a brilliant idea, Winston. Selling eBooks through Substack is a natural step forward and would give readers who aren't interested in doing business with Amazon another option to purchasing quality fiction and non-fiction. I would sell eBooks and audiobooks through Substack in a heartbeat.
Thanks, John! I'm so with you on this. It would bring in a ton of fiction readers to the platform if their favorite authors were publishing books here. It's a win-win!
I've been thinking about this as it's easy to end up with a novella or short story collection if you are writing on a weekly basis. It's possible to run a stripe payment page and a triggered email with the book linked as a ePUB file (or PDF), but it's cumbersome and Chris points out below, you have to be careful about pirating.
However, with AI splurging across Amazon's lists, having a trusted site where you can buy, recommend and interact with the author would be wonderful.
Hey Natalie, a stripe payment page sounds interesting! I hadn't considered that. But you're right; who knows what happens to the file once it's out there? I like how you worded that last bit about the trusted interaction between author and reader; knowing it's straight from the source is a powerful connection! Thanks for your comment.
Pirated books are an issue no matter where you publish! Amazon hasn’t found a way to prevent it either. I’d love it if Substack would implement this program and some way to encrypt a file to prevent pirating. I know nothing about how feasible that would be, but it would be great if they could make it happen.
If I may offer an alternate view. Piracy is not a problem, but free marketing.
How dare I? Well, here are a few facts for consideration:
- Piracy has been large part of all entertainment since the dawn of internet. Nothing has ever stopped it. Nothing ever will.
- The percentage of people who bother to learn and use pirating, like torrents, is negligible. Need proof? Video games are a bigger business than music and movies combined, and are also the most pirated, and catered to the most computer savvy youth possible. They break profit records all the time. It just doesn't matter.
- People who will love your content will more likely become buyers or subscribers after having read a pirated version of your work. Those who don't like it and don't appreciate you, were never your buyers in the first place.
- If a book is heavily pirated, or show, music, movie... it is a sign of recognition. There are billions of people who cannot afford to buy these products, or can't for other reasons. They were never your buyers, but will spread the word of your work if they love it. You are not damaged in the slightest, you only profit in the long run.
The Game of Thrones was the most pirated TV show in the history of time. Did it matter? Did they not make tons of money despite or perhaps because of this?
Anyway, just my two cents. Worrying about piracy is a waste of time, in my opinion. In ever business there is a certain percentage of theft, scams, residue stock, things that go bad..., that is unavoidable and just needs to be accepted as part of the bossiness.
If I ever found my work being passed around on torrents and forums, I would be ecstatic and honored. :)
I actually agree with you...it doesn’t matter where you publish, piracy happens. Trying to stay on top of it is fruitless and exhausting. You do what you can to protect your work but realize at some point, it’s out of your hands! The biggest challenge for some KDP authors is that their books get banned because Amazon detects they are being sold elsewhere, violating the KDP select agreement. Not the author’s fault, but the author pays the price.
Draft2Digital already does this, including providing both ebook and paperback book formatting, without buying any extra programs, if your needs are simple enough. It also allows you to publish wide.
I could see this working for Substack. Or maybe, just have Substack work something out with Draft2Digital to add Substack as one of their "publish to" options? That could simplify a lot of the issues, since they already deal with them for other markets.
I haven't used D2D yet, but that's really good to know. And that would be really interesting if they partnered up since it would lift the engineering and technical load from Substack's shoulders, while bolstering D2D's foothold. Writers could easily add on the print option as well in that case. Hmm. Very compelling. Thanks for the comment, Mary!
As an indie author, I find this idea fascinating. I left a traditional publisher when they could no longer figure out how to market my work, which had become richer and more complex as my craft improved. Somehow I found my way through the labyrinth of self-publishing and now have a loyal if small following. Because my work is not quite mainstream and not quite haute literature, reaching new readers is well nigh impossible. I joined Substack a few months ago to see what I might do here in terms of expanding my readership, only to discover that despite the time and effort I’ve put into my writing here, the only direct way I’ve found to raise my author profile is to include a link to my website at the bottom of my posts—a frustratingly slow and unmeasurable tactic.
I have recently moved my author website from an informational one (the standard author site) to a transactional one, where I can sell ebooks directly to readers. It was a costly and time-consuming project. And now I’m left with the additional cost of advertising to attract attention to it.
(BTW, I see you link to your Shopify site; how did you embed a link to that directly into a Substack section?)
Hey, Robin. Thanks for sharing your journey into self-publishing. It's always fascinating to hear how others are managing in this field. You've described a major factor that draws me ever closer to Substack: the lack of costs to maintain the webpage for Substack. I've repeatedly considered creating a hub for my work outside of Substack, but then quickly realized that I'm depending on Substack more and more to be that hub. I feel your pain on the costs involved, as it can add up.
As for the store front, it's a link that you add in the settings. Go to Settings > Website > Navigation > Add new link. That should enable you to create a new tab on your Substack webpage menu to move around where you like. Let me know if that doesn't work.
I'll add my yes, please vote to this idea! I would love a platform other than Amazon to sell ebooks. I'd love to go a step further and have the option for people to purchase physical books as well, but that might be further than Substack wants to go.
Yeah, that would be ideal. They could partner with another service that specializes in printing, but it's less likely, which is why I limited it to ebooks. Still, it's worth mentioning. Thanks for the comment, Karen!
I have self published two books, the process can be frustrating and it’s hard to break through. If Substack did this, it would revolutionize self publishing, but also reinforce the incentive to write on Substack. People with bigger audiences will have better book sales, and will want to publish more on Substack to grow their list.
Definitely yes to one-time payment for sections. This would be so useful not just for book authors - musicians could put an album behind the paywall, it could hold a complete essay collection, a certain column written by one author at a publication with multiple contributors, artists could put graphic novels or art collections back there...
I didn’t even think about the fact you could have multiple writers on one publication using different Sections. Yes 🙌 now I want it even more haha. Thanks for sharing your thoughts on this.
Of course I love this and agree with your assessment. I bet you'd be hard pressed to find a Substack writer who doesn't share your dream. I hope the right people pay attention.
This is a feature that I never gave any thought to, but it totally makes sense. I wouldn't be surprised at all if Substack decided to roll out this feature. It's such a natural extension of what we as writers are already doing here. We need an alternative to Amazon, and how great would it be to publish your book under the banner of your own brand? The thought of having it all under one roof is very appealing.
Personally I think it’s a brilliant idea, and I’d be shocked if management hasn’t already at least thought about it. The world is way overdue for a revival of the literary serial and this would be the way to do it.
I look forward to drilling down into all of the wonderful details here. In the meantime, I effing love it. I’ve self-published and this is the place for it.
As a consumer substack is missing the pay per article feature. My tastes change and I don't like commitment. I like to follow the writers I like. I like to avoid the editors. If you could pay per article or book it would be amazing. One hit article could make an author. It also gives the consumer freedom to find new ideas new analysis.
So happy to hear that you agree! I hadn't thought about the taste thing. But my budget sort of fluctuates, too, which means that I might not always be capable of maintaining all of my subscriptions. So a purchase here and there for an article or book I really want to read would be more suitable to my needs. Thanks for bringing this up, John!
as a long-time traditionally-published author with a year on Substack, I support the idea generally Winston, especially as the programming team here seems to be always proactive to make new innovations. But I would say that to improve on existing competition, they would want to do at least three things;
-make the formatting options super-intuitive and easy, including TOC embed links and cover art
-find a way to protect the actual book file from being extracted and ending up pirated on random sites
-stay competitive, somehow, with the profit sharing margins that amazon offers.
In addition, and somewhat separately, I would love to see Substack somehow create a mechanism for passive income ala what youtube creators get, since the current business model is very much top heavy on the paid subscription side, which is not really dependable for the long term.
Keep up the good work and good luck in yoour publishing!
Hey there, Chris! Thanks for stopping by to comment. You've presented some great points and likely the most significant hurdles with this pitch. And TOC links and cover art would be fantastic. As for the passive income, I worry that it looks too much like ad revenue sharing, and I currently enjoy the lack of outside ads. However, you're onto something that could be like a writer subsidy, in which Substack shares revenue among writers inducted into a writer program, like Medium? Also, I notice a lot of folks linking to their Buy Me a Coffee for tips. I wonder if a tip feature could be implemented to help on that front. It could even be the precursor to a one-time payment model if Substack wanted to test it before rolling it out. Very interesting!
Cheers, Winston! I believe you're on to something with these additional ideas... to add on, perhaps what Substack HQ needs to do is take a more wholistic view of the value we all bring to the total information space (including comment boxes, where interesting and informed discusssions often take place as well as Notes), especially since they want to increase engagement of readers and writers in these spaces. There is an awful lot of valuable expertise shared freely by people with lots of experience of all areas of life, and that would only increase if they found some way to circulate money for active participation, which might also help counteract the wider internet's tendency to dumb down content in recent years.
I agree that no ads is the best way to go. I do believe that the appeal of subscription payments is always going to be limited, due to the sheer amount and variety of free content people can find online. (I have never been on medium, so I can't speak about your point there). But yes, Buy Me a Coffee seems to be an additional way of getting an occasional tip jar going, and I have seen people offer it. It would seem a little odd to offer it though unless it was integrated (I have asked both companies' HQs if this could be done, but not much response).
In the end, with your idea about forming a rival home for ebooks here, we will have to expect that HQ will have a cost argument when it comes to investing ini the software, as Amazon already has the world as a sort of captive market for everything. I fear only that Substack would argue 'yes, it's a good idea in principle, but would the sales exceed the investment?
And if the company si taking less than 30 percent (to compete with KDP), the software would have to be built fairly cheaply. Of course, maybe it can now, I'm not an IT expert. Let us hope for the best! CD
"There is an awful lot of valuable expertise shared freely by people with lots of experience of all areas of life, and that would only increase if they found some way to circulate money for active participation, which might also help counteract the wider internet's tendency to dumb down content in recent years."
Steemit tried that, with upvoting and curating compensated through crypto-currency, and it dissolved into a quagmire of pile-ons and bots. Not saying the problem can't be solved, but admitting I don't know how to do it.
I didn't know that it had been tried elsewhere already- thanks for the tip.
In a particularly automatable, gameable way. I like the idea. The devil is in the details of the implementation.
Winston, as an independent author of 3 published books that are extremely difficult to get discovered, I greatly appreciate your concern for helping this massive and very important independent author, segment in book publishing, mostly undiscovered. Independent authors just don't have the resources to get their books discovered. As you say, they get lost on Amazon, Goodreads, etc. We are subject to expensive commercialization that does not offer any analytics, so we never can verify what works. We are always in an "expensive dark mode". Thank you again for thinking about us.
Thanks for showing your support, Sammie! I’m definitely invested in this community and wish for new ideas and opportunities to emerge so we can succeed. Discoverability is a major hurdle at the moment. Hoping we see some positive changes in the near future!
This is a fascinating summary. Thank you! Quick question: Is an author not able to do this right now?
"If Substack could allow for “Sections” or individual posts to be paywalled by a one-time payment, then writers could, in theory, sell serial or complete novels to subscribers."
Hey, Jim! Thanks for the kind comment and question. Individual posts can be paywalled, but as I understand it, the subscriber has access to every other paywalled post, which isn't conducive to someone wishing to monetize individual pieces of work but rather an entire body of work. I'm incapable of outproducing Netflix or other top entertainment platforms, and we've seen a decline in streaming revenue lately, so even corporations are feeling the subscription burn. I foresee individual purchases outlasting the subscription model in this case. But I'm sure there is a workaround I'm not thinking of. I'd love to implement this if you have some ideas!
Hi! You can do this now by hosting your ebook on Gumroad and using Page feature on your Substack site - check out my post on this! If they introduced a search feature for ebooks then author page listings would show up’
Very cool! I’ll have to check that out. Thank you, Jayshree.
Sure, here is my post on it - https://open.substack.com/pub/techmadesimpleguide/p/organizing-your-content-on-substack?r=1si0oc&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
This was a huge help as I am an independent author and beginner on Substack. Very grateful.
You are welcome, glad it helped!
I believe some of us, myself included, do this by serialising our books for paid subscribers. But it would be great to be able to sell them whole, to all, via Substack, as Winston dreams of.
That’s a great alternative in the meantime, Candi. I’ve been doing it as well and it’s so fun. Thanks for the support!
This IS the solution
Agreed, at least one of the solutions.
I think this is a brilliant idea, Winston. Selling eBooks through Substack is a natural step forward and would give readers who aren't interested in doing business with Amazon another option to purchasing quality fiction and non-fiction. I would sell eBooks and audiobooks through Substack in a heartbeat.
Thanks, John! I'm so with you on this. It would bring in a ton of fiction readers to the platform if their favorite authors were publishing books here. It's a win-win!
I've been thinking about this as it's easy to end up with a novella or short story collection if you are writing on a weekly basis. It's possible to run a stripe payment page and a triggered email with the book linked as a ePUB file (or PDF), but it's cumbersome and Chris points out below, you have to be careful about pirating.
However, with AI splurging across Amazon's lists, having a trusted site where you can buy, recommend and interact with the author would be wonderful.
Hey Natalie, a stripe payment page sounds interesting! I hadn't considered that. But you're right; who knows what happens to the file once it's out there? I like how you worded that last bit about the trusted interaction between author and reader; knowing it's straight from the source is a powerful connection! Thanks for your comment.
Pirated books are an issue no matter where you publish! Amazon hasn’t found a way to prevent it either. I’d love it if Substack would implement this program and some way to encrypt a file to prevent pirating. I know nothing about how feasible that would be, but it would be great if they could make it happen.
If I may offer an alternate view. Piracy is not a problem, but free marketing.
How dare I? Well, here are a few facts for consideration:
- Piracy has been large part of all entertainment since the dawn of internet. Nothing has ever stopped it. Nothing ever will.
- The percentage of people who bother to learn and use pirating, like torrents, is negligible. Need proof? Video games are a bigger business than music and movies combined, and are also the most pirated, and catered to the most computer savvy youth possible. They break profit records all the time. It just doesn't matter.
- People who will love your content will more likely become buyers or subscribers after having read a pirated version of your work. Those who don't like it and don't appreciate you, were never your buyers in the first place.
- If a book is heavily pirated, or show, music, movie... it is a sign of recognition. There are billions of people who cannot afford to buy these products, or can't for other reasons. They were never your buyers, but will spread the word of your work if they love it. You are not damaged in the slightest, you only profit in the long run.
The Game of Thrones was the most pirated TV show in the history of time. Did it matter? Did they not make tons of money despite or perhaps because of this?
Anyway, just my two cents. Worrying about piracy is a waste of time, in my opinion. In ever business there is a certain percentage of theft, scams, residue stock, things that go bad..., that is unavoidable and just needs to be accepted as part of the bossiness.
If I ever found my work being passed around on torrents and forums, I would be ecstatic and honored. :)
I actually agree with you...it doesn’t matter where you publish, piracy happens. Trying to stay on top of it is fruitless and exhausting. You do what you can to protect your work but realize at some point, it’s out of your hands! The biggest challenge for some KDP authors is that their books get banned because Amazon detects they are being sold elsewhere, violating the KDP select agreement. Not the author’s fault, but the author pays the price.
I think adobe pdf has a function that would allow you to encrypt the pdf, and allow only the reader to open it.
I'd have to check on it.
Draft2Digital already does this, including providing both ebook and paperback book formatting, without buying any extra programs, if your needs are simple enough. It also allows you to publish wide.
I could see this working for Substack. Or maybe, just have Substack work something out with Draft2Digital to add Substack as one of their "publish to" options? That could simplify a lot of the issues, since they already deal with them for other markets.
I haven't used D2D yet, but that's really good to know. And that would be really interesting if they partnered up since it would lift the engineering and technical load from Substack's shoulders, while bolstering D2D's foothold. Writers could easily add on the print option as well in that case. Hmm. Very compelling. Thanks for the comment, Mary!
As an indie author, I find this idea fascinating. I left a traditional publisher when they could no longer figure out how to market my work, which had become richer and more complex as my craft improved. Somehow I found my way through the labyrinth of self-publishing and now have a loyal if small following. Because my work is not quite mainstream and not quite haute literature, reaching new readers is well nigh impossible. I joined Substack a few months ago to see what I might do here in terms of expanding my readership, only to discover that despite the time and effort I’ve put into my writing here, the only direct way I’ve found to raise my author profile is to include a link to my website at the bottom of my posts—a frustratingly slow and unmeasurable tactic.
I have recently moved my author website from an informational one (the standard author site) to a transactional one, where I can sell ebooks directly to readers. It was a costly and time-consuming project. And now I’m left with the additional cost of advertising to attract attention to it.
(BTW, I see you link to your Shopify site; how did you embed a link to that directly into a Substack section?)
Hey, Robin. Thanks for sharing your journey into self-publishing. It's always fascinating to hear how others are managing in this field. You've described a major factor that draws me ever closer to Substack: the lack of costs to maintain the webpage for Substack. I've repeatedly considered creating a hub for my work outside of Substack, but then quickly realized that I'm depending on Substack more and more to be that hub. I feel your pain on the costs involved, as it can add up.
As for the store front, it's a link that you add in the settings. Go to Settings > Website > Navigation > Add new link. That should enable you to create a new tab on your Substack webpage menu to move around where you like. Let me know if that doesn't work.
Thanks again for the excellent comment!
Worked like a charm! Thank you so much.
I'll add my yes, please vote to this idea! I would love a platform other than Amazon to sell ebooks. I'd love to go a step further and have the option for people to purchase physical books as well, but that might be further than Substack wants to go.
Yeah, that would be ideal. They could partner with another service that specializes in printing, but it's less likely, which is why I limited it to ebooks. Still, it's worth mentioning. Thanks for the comment, Karen!
I have self published two books, the process can be frustrating and it’s hard to break through. If Substack did this, it would revolutionize self publishing, but also reinforce the incentive to write on Substack. People with bigger audiences will have better book sales, and will want to publish more on Substack to grow their list.
Exactly this! Great comment, Stanley. The incentive would be so appealing to stay and write on Substack.
Definitely yes to one-time payment for sections. This would be so useful not just for book authors - musicians could put an album behind the paywall, it could hold a complete essay collection, a certain column written by one author at a publication with multiple contributors, artists could put graphic novels or art collections back there...
I didn’t even think about the fact you could have multiple writers on one publication using different Sections. Yes 🙌 now I want it even more haha. Thanks for sharing your thoughts on this.
I would welcome this if it ever came about.
Glad to hear it, David! Thanks for commenting.
Of course I love this and agree with your assessment. I bet you'd be hard pressed to find a Substack writer who doesn't share your dream. I hope the right people pay attention.
Thanks for the support, Seth! *fingers crossed*
This is a feature that I never gave any thought to, but it totally makes sense. I wouldn't be surprised at all if Substack decided to roll out this feature. It's such a natural extension of what we as writers are already doing here. We need an alternative to Amazon, and how great would it be to publish your book under the banner of your own brand? The thought of having it all under one roof is very appealing.
Right?! I hope it’s as natural as we imagine so that maybe one day it’ll be a reality. Thanks for the support and optimism, Dan!
As a self-published author, this thought process if very intriguing!
Personally I think it’s a brilliant idea, and I’d be shocked if management hasn’t already at least thought about it. The world is way overdue for a revival of the literary serial and this would be the way to do it.
I look forward to drilling down into all of the wonderful details here. In the meantime, I effing love it. I’ve self-published and this is the place for it.
Thank you, Christine!
As a consumer substack is missing the pay per article feature. My tastes change and I don't like commitment. I like to follow the writers I like. I like to avoid the editors. If you could pay per article or book it would be amazing. One hit article could make an author. It also gives the consumer freedom to find new ideas new analysis.
So happy to hear that you agree! I hadn't thought about the taste thing. But my budget sort of fluctuates, too, which means that I might not always be capable of maintaining all of my subscriptions. So a purchase here and there for an article or book I really want to read would be more suitable to my needs. Thanks for bringing this up, John!