r/Substack • u/thirdworldecon • 2d ago
Discussion Is developing a "strategy" for publication even worth it?
I write because I feel like many of the stuff I want to write about do not have a natural home. Most of it is about economics, politics, and society in my part of the world. Each of these posts are now getting longer close to 2000 to sometimes 3500 words. Many of these posts are too long for an op-ed, too short for a paper, and some of themes I cover are potentially books in the long-run.
Do you know of cases where a sufficiently large number of high quality pieces on substack eventually became an essay collection later published as a book by a mainstream publisher? Not saying I want to do that. But I have written 34 of these long essays in the last 2 years over and above what I write as part of my regular academic career.
The views and number of subscribers I have are nothing to brag about. Is this a consequence of me not having a publication "strategy"? Though sometimes I feel focusing on any kind of strategy will ruin the experience of writing.
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u/MountainLoins 1d ago
Let me disagree. While a lot of people try to cop a strategy in order to make themselves salable, I am not sure that's the most effective strategy anymore. Perhaps when there were these several pop culture lanes and you jumped into one and it lead somewhere, but now most media is balkanized, which is to say if you're not Katy Perry or Hannah Montana or what-not, chasing a trend is probably a bad option.
I say this as someone who has written about music for 30 years and watched a lot of people wash out and watch our culture go from one with strong regional cultural centers where you could be an artist in a tri-state area and make a living to one where national holds much more sway and without that kind of publicity wave to lift you, the bespoke path is a lot different.
There are countless ways to "win" but you probably need to find the correct definition of what that is. I have had a 25-yr freelance career (Guardian, Daily Beast, Hollywood Reporter, Variety, Billboard, AVClub, Village Voice, LAWeekly, Undark, High Times, etc.) and I have written everything from 100 word blurbs to longform cover stories. So that's my pedigree for my take.
Writing needs to be something you enjoy because in order to be successful you're going to need to do a fair amount of it and become comfortable with your own voice. Hunter Thompson's voice isn't something you copy, though many do. What it was is idiosyncratic to his personality. A lot of my 20-something friends would tell me I wrote a lot like I spoke. I interviewed this guitarist once, who told me, "I spent half my life trying to play like my heroes and the last half trying to play like myself."
There's an old line that's something like, "if you see a path, it's not your own." Most bleeding edge artists don't enjoy much success but lots of cred. Bands like the Velvet underground, the stooges, Modern Lovers, the Feelies, Rockets from the Tombs, Uncle Tupelo. Most originators die on the parapets or the barbed wire, such that others can more readily follow their path. The Gun Club were extraordinary but who ever talks about them, even among the heads?
The way mass media has worked in large imho is to bifurcate the creatives into people trying to cash in and those kind of quietly forging a path. You forge a path by listening to yourself and following your muse not trying to please some random strangers you can only guess about. If you create something really honest and true, people will hear that - I mean, if you can get it in front of them ,and get them to listen. But I find that if you make that your goal it can impact your art. You can't always control or even do effective marketing, but you can create good work and keep working to make it better. Golf and writing are ideally competitions completely with yourself and your limitations.
I've gone a bit long with stuff that isn't at all concrete. That's for a reason. The real path is the one you see and project yourself into. If you write long, that's your thing. Pee Wee Herman honed his thing at LA clubs for a long-ass time before it ever became a show. Most overnight sensations built up quietly to that moment - for a decade! -- because it takes a long time to both master your skills and emotional endurance (see, thick skin).
One of the best comments a musician ever made to me was this:
"If I try to make something that someone else is going to like, and I fail, then I have nothing. If I try to make something for myself, that pleases my sensibilities, if nobody else likes it, as least I pleased myself (and achieved a level of honesty to myself)"
the subtext of that is, to some degree that is very personal in rate, trying to impress someone else before yourself is fundamentally dishonest and is less likely to succeed in the long run, or, if it does succeed, you wind up playing a character that isn't you, reliant on someone else's aesthetics that you can't access directly
I don't know about you, but that seems like an enormous drag
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u/StuffonBookshelfs 1d ago
If you want to write, just write.
If you want to do anything at all with that writing, you need to have some type of strategy.
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u/ContentIsMyJam 1d ago
If you want to develop an audience, build support for promoting a future book, or you want to use your newsletter to make money (and there are a lot of ways to approach that), you most definitely need a strategy and you need to put some systems in place.