Why Substack?

Why I left, and why I'm back.

Since making my (second) return to this platform after previously deciding to leave it, I’ve gotten more than a few questions about it over email: Why am I back? Why did I leave in the first place? What happened to my issues with Substack, and have I changed my mind? What is my strategy around content creation, audience building, and platform choices nowadays? Et.c.

Replying to those emails, I’ve given the short answer. This is the long one.

I wish platforms didn’t matter as much as they do. I wish my content could live anywhere and be just as accessible and discoverable. I wish I wasn’t so affected by each platform’s rules, norms, culture, incentives, and algorithms. Never before has the phrase “the medium is the message”, by philosopher Marshall McLuhan, felt more true than now. How our work is received is very much determined by the medium in which we create and share it. Content doesn’t live in a vacuum. Platforms aren’t interchangeable. And where we publish greatly affects what and how we create.

A few years ago, I had the idea of double-posting all of my videos on both YouTube (for the increased reach) and here on Substack (to allow for ad-free viewing by my audience.) That idea quickly fell by the wayside when I realized that the videos I make, I make with a YouTube audience in mind. Most of them are strangers that don’t yet know me and aren’t subscribers of my channel. That’s how it works on YouTube nowadays - just like on platforms like TikTok and Instagram, who’s following you matters less and less. Your content gets pushed out to whomever the algorithm thinks might be interested. This dynamic affects all of my content decisions: from idea generation to script writing, to editing. And so to re-publish those videos here on Substack would feel awkward and ill fitting. I have a different relationship with my audience here. I want to address them in a different way than I would my YouTube audience.

I also want to address blog readers differently than my email newsletter subscribers. Readers differently than viewers or listeners. Fellow artists differently than potential art buyers or likeminded friends. Swedes differently than international, English-speaking readers. Et.c. But I have very little control over who sees my content, and where and how they’re exposed to it.

Meanwhile, many (most) of the platforms we’ve grown to depend on for publishing content, building an audience, making new social connections, staying in touch with friends, are being enshittified. Are being weaponized against us. Are becoming increasingly unusable, and insufferable to spend time on.

And good alternatives are hard to find. There are downsides to every platform. There are algorithms, profit schemes, (and nazis), almost everywhere we go online. And many factors to pay attention to when choosing where to invest our time and effort (and possibly money).

All of this is to say: It’s damn near impossible to make the “right” decision about it. Which is why I’ve experimented so much, and changed my mind back and forth.

To be completely honest, I’m increasingly fed up and exhausted with even having to be online in the first place. I fantasize about running my business solely on posters, flyers, business cards, and irl networking. (Coming from an introvert, that says a lot.)

But I also have to lie in the bed I’ve made for myself. My business is a mainly online, mainly global, operation. And so I have to keep trying to make these impossible decisions for the health of my business, and my sanity.

Why Substack?

I originally moved my email list to Substack from MailChimp because it was a free alternative, looked a lot more fun and easy to use, and came with built-in growth mechanics and community functions.

I was immediately rewarded with a more pleasurable publishing experience, leading to more frequent newsletters, and much quicker growth of my email list. The biggest contributor to the growth of my email list before had been YouTube, but Substack quickly became a runner-up. My Substack analytics tell me that around 20-30% of my subscribers came as a result of the Substack network or app. That’s thousands of people who wouldn’t be with me if I hadn’t been on this particular platform.

But as I like to remind people: more subscribers aren’t better by default. What matters more is wether or not the subscribers you do have are a good match for you. If they resonate enough with you and your content to stay subscribed. If they interact with you, reply to your emails or posts, share your content with friends. And, if you run business - wether they purchase your stuff. These are the things that truly matter. And I’ve noticed that the people who discover me via Substack tend to be “my people”. They get to know me better, and can connect with me more easily here. My Substack doubles as a community in a way that a regular email newsletter can’t.

Writing on Substack feels a lot more rewarding than simply writing emails with software like MailChimp or Flodesk. Even though what I write still goes out as an email first, it also gets a second life in the form of a blog post. I can finally get around that age-old dilemma of “should I write this as a blog post or an email?” I can do both with Substack. What I write can continue to gain traction for years after publishing it, which makes it feel a lot more worthwhile than if it should just go out once via email and then be lost and forgotten.

I get a fair amount of email replies on my non-Substack emails, or from non-Substack users. But I get a lot more interaction on Substack, in the form of comments, quotations, and shares. My email list grows with each new thing I publish here. That’s not the case with a regular email list.

Then there are the paid subscriptions. They’re not my main goal with being here, but they are a very welcome addition to the patchwork of income streams that make my business work. And I happily share 10% of that with Substack for providing me with this platform. I much prefer that over having to pay a monthly or yearly fee, or having my space littered with ads and distractions.

Reading all this, you might ask yourself: “If Substack’s so fantastic, why leave in the first place?”

Why did I leave?

I’ve had four main arguments for leaving this platform:

1. Not wanting to be too closely associated with any particular platform or brand. (I want to be a writer, not a “Substack writer”.)

2. Not wanting my content to live on a platform I don’t fully own and control.

3. Not wanting time-sensitive, non-evergreen content to be published and archived.

4. Wanting access to specific marketing features that Substack either doesn’t provide or isn’t ideal for. (Such as audience segmentation, email sequence automation, personalization, et.c.)

In regards to not being associated with a platform: it’s a noble ideal, but one I’ve already failed by starting out as a “YouTube artist”. In the case of Substack, it’s a trade-off I’m willing to make. This platform has worked really well for me in the past, and still does. It’s aligned with my values, and my ideal audience. If that means I’ll be branded a “Substack creator”, so be it. At least I’ll have an audience in the first place.

“I want to own my own content…”

Here’s the uncomfortable truth about argument number 2: Unless we code our entire website and shop ourselves, from scratch, and host it on our own server, we don’t have full ownership and control over our online content. We will always be at the mercy of some platform or software, to some degree. So it’s not a question of either or. It’s a question of how much or little control are we comfortable with, and are the trade-offs worth it?

In my case, I could decide to host all of my content on my website.

The upside: I get to keep everything in one place, and can fiddle endlessly with the design and functionality.

The downside: Very few new people would find my content.

SEO isn’t what it used to be, especially now with AI disrupting search. Google has become absolute trash, littered with ads and AI slop. The content on my website won’t get eyeballs unless I constantly promote it elsewhere, to drive traffic to it. Social media used to be great for this back in the day. Not so anymore, because social media has become overcrowded, enshittified, surveillance capitalism hellscapes. Growing a self-hosted “blog” is slower and more difficult than ever.

My current website platform is Shopify, which I chose because I mainly run an e-commerce business and need good functionality for localization, currency conversion, payment options, et.c. Compared to my previous platform, Squarespace, Shopify lets me save $1000+ yearly in subscription costs and transaction fees. That’s a huge upside. The downside is that Shopify kind of sucks in the blogging department. They provide but the bare minimum functionality and customization. Heck, I can’t even get email notifications for new blog comments, which blows my mind. (If you’ve ever commented on my blog there, and haven’t gotten a reply, now you know why... Sorry…)

I’m just as much at the mercy of Shopify’s whims and decisions as I am of Squarespace’s, or Substack’s.

Therefor, I would rather have my content live on a separate platform like Substack, where it can - and does - get discovered by new readers every day. And commented upon. And shared and quoted. Without me having to do a bunch of tedious growth hacking. 🤮 I even get to reach these readers in a reliable way, via email. And collect those email addresses in a list that is mine to keep, and export, and take with me anywhere I want.

I actually have more control over my content, and its audience, on Substack than I do on my “own” website. How’s that for irony?

The evergreen dilemma

In a time when marketing is pretty much synonymous with “creating content”, I’ve decided to separate my marketing from my content, my newsletter from my blog/Substack. One still feeds into the other, but without being crammed into the same limiting format.

I cringe when I read through my old posts here, littered with sales campaigns, new courses and art collection releases. It feels out of place and should’ve just gone to people’s inboxes, not to a public archive of posts. Same goes for other time-sensitive updates that turned irrelevant very quickly. Those belong in a newsletter, not a blog, and it feels so good to finally separate the two.

My website is where my art business lives. Its main focus is the art shop, as well as my educational offerings for artists and creatives. The email addresses I collect on my website are tied to my newsletter, for which I use Flodesk. And my newsletter is centered around my art business, and the time-sensitive news, updates and offerings related to it. The newsletter is for those who enjoy my art, or courses, and want to be in the loop about it.

Meanwhile, my “blog” now lives on Substack. That’s where I write for writing’s sake, and not for marketing’s sake. That’s where I can share knowledge, or stories, or long ramblings like what you’re currently reading. That’s where I can find new readers, colleagues, and friends.

Potential customers still find me on Substack, just as potential blog readers find me via my website. The two are interconnected, and the two audiences largely overlap. The main difference is that I can write more freely, more creatively, here without the underlying pressure to also market my business. I can zero in on a particular type of reader for each piece I write, and ignore the rest. And I don’t have to waste my newsletter subscribers’ time and attention with a bunch of personal essays or art business content that they’re not interested in. Feels like a win-win for everyone.

“Content” can still market your business, without you having to market your business in all of your content.

But what about automation/segmentation/personalization?

As for argument number 4, I’ve concluded that these are highly overrated tools for my particular business and marketing preferences. I just don’t jive well with the model of lead magnets and email sequences anymore. And I cringe at “personalized” emails that just feel like weak attempts at artificial friendship. Most of us know exactly what we’re in for when we give our email address in return for a freebie: a never-ending series of marketing emails with one goal in mind: to coax us into buying something. It probably leads to sales for the businesses using it, and it has for me in the past. But so has what I do now.

I’ve realized over the years that I actually sell about as much by just focusing on being of value to people, building relationships, and gently mentioning my paid offerings when relevant. No need to hard-sell, no need to “warm up cold leads” with “content marketing”, and no need for long, complicated sales funnels.

I could never get those funnels and email sequences to work as intended anyways. My current one is super-simple: Let newsletter subscribers select their preferred language (Swedish or English), and send them the corresponding welcome email. And that one’s been complicated enough to get to work.

No matter how much I try, I can’t control each single person’s journey and relationship with me. I can’t dictate what they see and don’t see, and the order in which they consume my content, or get to know me. I can’t force them to purchase something they’re not inclined to purchase right now. And so maybe the most responsible, most honest, most humane, thing to do is to let everyone connect and interact with me in whatever way suits their needs and wants. And trust that they will look for more information on their own, if and when they want to.

When it comes to email subscriptions, I value clarity and honesty above all. I want people to know exactly what they’re signing up for, and what they can expect. This can be especially difficult with content, where not even I know exactly what I’m going to create any given month.

That’s what Substack does so well. Each publication has a clean, simple landing page, with a description of what the publication’s about and a sign-up box. But there’s also the “let me read it first” link that takes you to the publication’s content feed and archive. What you see is what you get. If you like what you see, you’ll subscribe. And probably, hopefully, remain subscribed. There’s a smaller likelihood of you subscribing and then getting annoyed or bored or disappointed.

I find Substack better suited to replace a blog than an email marketing platform. I could use it for both, and if my audience was only English speaking, I would. Substack allows me to send certain “posts” as emails only, to a selected segment of my list. I could even let my audience self-segment according to their interests or preferences.

But in my case, I want to tailor my newsletters to both a Swedish audience and an international one. At the time of this writing, I can’t translate the user interface functionality of Substack into Swedish. If that ever becomes possible (🤞🏻), I might create a second Substack in Swedish. But for now, I’m keeping Flodesk for my newsletter needs. It’s pricey, but it’s one of those warranted business expenses. My newsletters are primarily for driving sales, and so it’s an investment that pays off.

Anyways, I hope I’ve answered the question of why I’m back here, for you who are curious, or are wrestling with your own platform dilemma. 😅 There’s no easy answer, no “right” solution, and some back-and-forth might be necessary.