#Substack content marketing

[mehmetyildizmelbourne-blog]

How Substack Writers Can Leverage Reedsy to Become Published Authors

And How They Scale Their Publishing Business with Global Collaboration Dear Subscribers, Earlier today, our chief editor Dr Mehmet Yildiz published Chapter 18 of his best-selling book Substack Mastery for free for our community. His goal is, while educating our community, to obtain feedback from beta readers to improve the quality of this exceptional book for next versions and make it a…

[sintagma11]

Que Herramienta de Email Marketing usar para monetizar mi boletín electrónico

Vamos a desglosar las principales diferencias entre Substack, HubSpot, MailerLite y Mailchimp, enfocadas en la monetización de newsletters:

Comparativa Funcional y Técnica para Monetización de Newsletters

Substack

Enfoque: Diseñado específicamente para creadores de contenido que desean monetizar sus newsletters a través de suscripciones pagas.

Funcionalidades:

Monetización directa: Permite establecer suscripciones pagas con diferentes niveles de acceso.

Comunidad: Facilita la creación de una comunidad en torno al contenido, con comentarios y discusiones.

Diseño: Ofrece plantillas minimalistas pero personalizables para un aspecto profesional.

Integraciones: Limitadas, principalmente enfocadas en herramientas de escritura y análisis.

Ventajas para monetización:

Sencillez: Fácil de configurar y usar para creadores sin conocimientos técnicos.

Enfoque en el contenido: Permite centrarse en la creación de contenido de valor.

Desventajas:

Limitaciones: Menos opciones de personalización y automatización que otras herramientas.

Costos: Puede resultar costoso a medida que crece la base de suscriptores.

HubSpot

Enfoque: Plataforma de marketing completa que incluye email marketing, CRM, automatización de marketing y más.

Funcionalidades:

Email marketing: Permite crear campañas de email personalizadas y automatizadas.

Segmentación: Ofrece opciones avanzadas de segmentación de listas.

Integraciones: Se integra con una amplia variedad de herramientas de marketing y ventas.

Ventajas para monetización:

Complejidad: Permite crear estrategias de marketing más sofisticadas.

Escalabilidad: Ideal para empresas en crecimiento.

Desventajas:

Curva de aprendizaje: Puede ser más compleja de usar para principiantes.

Costo: Los planes más completos pueden ser costosos.

MailerLite

Enfoque: Plataforma de email marketing enfocada en la facilidad de uso y la relación calidad-precio.

Funcionalidades:

Email marketing: Ofrece una amplia variedad de plantillas y opciones de personalización.

Automatización: Permite crear flujos de automatización básicos.

Landing pages: Permite crear landing pages sencillas.

Ventajas para monetización:

Precio: Opciones de precios más asequibles.

Facilidad de uso: Interfaz intuitiva.

Desventajas:

Funcionalidades: Menos opciones avanzadas que HubSpot.

Mailchimp

Enfoque: Plataforma de email marketing con una amplia gama de funcionalidades.

Funcionalidades:

Email marketing: Permite crear campañas de email personalizadas y automatizadas.

Segmentación: Ofrece opciones avanzadas de segmentación de listas.

Integraciones: Se integra con una amplia variedad de herramientas de marketing.

Ventajas para monetización:

Popularidad: Amplia comunidad de usuarios y recursos disponibles.

Funcionalidades: Ofrece una buena combinación de características.

Desventajas:

Costo: Los planes más completos pueden ser costosos.

¡Absolutamente! Vamos a desglosar las principales diferencias entre Substack, HubSpot, MailerLite y Mailchimp, enfocadas en la monetización de newsletters:

Comparativa Funcional y Técnica para Monetización de Newsletters

Substack

Enfoque: Diseñado específicamente para creadores de contenido que desean monetizar sus newsletters a través de suscripciones pagas.

Funcionalidades:

Monetización directa: Permite establecer suscripciones pagas con diferentes niveles de acceso.

Comunidad: Facilita la creación de una comunidad en torno al contenido, con comentarios y discusiones.

Diseño: Ofrece plantillas minimalistas pero personalizables para un aspecto profesional.

Integraciones: Limitadas, principalmente enfocadas en herramientas de escritura y análisis.

Ventajas para monetización:

Sencillez: Fácil de configurar y usar para creadores sin conocimientos técnicos.

Enfoque en el contenido: Permite centrarse en la creación de contenido de valor.

Desventajas:

Limitaciones: Menos opciones de personalización y automatización que otras herramientas.

Costos: Puede resultar costoso a medida que crece la base de suscriptores.

HubSpot

Enfoque: Plataforma de marketing completa que incluye email marketing, CRM, automatización de marketing y más.

Funcionalidades:

Email marketing: Permite crear campañas de email personalizadas y automatizadas.

Segmentación: Ofrece opciones avanzadas de segmentación de listas.

Integraciones: Se integra con una amplia variedad de herramientas de marketing y ventas.

Ventajas para monetización:

Complejidad: Permite crear estrategias de marketing más sofisticadas.

Escalabilidad: Ideal para empresas en crecimiento.

Desventajas:

Curva de aprendizaje: Puede ser más compleja de usar para principiantes.

Costo: Los planes más completos pueden ser costosos.

MailerLite

Enfoque: Plataforma de email marketing enfocada en la facilidad de uso y la relación calidad-precio.

Funcionalidades:

Email marketing: Ofrece una amplia variedad de plantillas y opciones de personalización.

Automatización: Permite crear flujos de automatización básicos.

Landing pages: Permite crear landing pages sencillas.

Ventajas para monetización:

Precio: Opciones de precios más asequibles.

Facilidad de uso: Interfaz intuitiva.

Desventajas:

Funcionalidades: Menos opciones avanzadas que HubSpot.

Mailchimp

Enfoque: Plataforma de email marketing con una amplia gama de funcionalidades.

Funcionalidades:

Email marketing: Permite crear campañas de email personalizadas y automatizadas.

Segmentación: Ofrece opciones avanzadas de segmentación de listas.

Integraciones: Se integra con una amplia variedad de herramientas de marketing.

Ventajas para monetización:

Popularidad: Amplia comunidad de usuarios y recursos disponibles.

Funcionalidades: Ofrece una buena combinación de características.

Desventajas:

Costo: Los planes más completos pueden ser costosos.

¿Cuál elegir?

La elección de la herramienta dependerá de tus necesidades específicas:

Substack: Ideal para creadores de contenido que buscan una forma sencilla de monetizar su newsletter y construir una comunidad.

HubSpot: Perfecta para empresas que necesitan una plataforma de marketing completa con muchas funcionalidades.

MailerLite: Una buena opción para quienes buscan una solución asequible y fácil de usar para sus campañas de email marketing.

Mailchimp: Una opción popular con una amplia gama de funcionalidades y una gran comunidad de usuarios.

Consideraciones adicionales:

Tamaño de tu lista: Si tienes una lista pequeña, MailerLite o Substack pueden ser suficientes. Si tienes una lista grande y necesitas funcionalidades más avanzadas, HubSpot o Mailchimp son mejores opciones.

Presupuesto: Considera tu presupuesto y las funcionalidades que realmente necesitas.

Conocimientos técnicos: Si eres nuevo en el marketing por correo electrónico, MailerLite o Substack pueden ser más fáciles de usar.

[adickaboutspoons]

Happy sexual Sunday. In honor of Rhys announcing his upcoming substack by pointing at hand-written bulletpoints on a chalkboard with a screwdriver, I want to share the OnlyFans Stede idea that has been in my plot bunny pen for ages, but prolly isn't going to go anywhere. Stede's OF account was set up for him by Lucius, and is completely neutral content of him demonstrating basic auto maintenance and, like, how to tie a fishing lure, and a bunch of other Dad things, and he's completely oblivious to how unintentionally suggestive he's being. Like, he's filming himself working in the garden when it's super hot out, makes a "it's not the heat, it's the humidity" dad joke, strips off his shirt and uses it to mop his brow. He's on his hands and knees, pulling up weeds, and when he manages to pull up a particularly stubborn one, roots and all, kind-of-whispery/grunting-to-himself, "Aww, yeah. That's what you want, baby." Then he sits back and takes a deep drink from his water bottle, and accidentally holds it near his crotch while encouraging his watchers to stay hydrated. Ed is one of his subscribers and finds the whole thing just brain-meltingly hot. Eventually, they accidentally meet IRL, and Ed is trying to be SO COOL and not let it be known that he knows this guy and where from. And then they keep running into one another (by total coincidence - Ed hasn't become a convert to going to the farmer's market instead of just picking shit up from the grocery store on the off (likely) chance of running into Stede while he's there. Not at ALL.), and start becoming friendly. It's during one of these meetings Ed accidentally slips that he's a subscriber. He's mortified. For a moment he thinks Stede is going to get all weirded out. But Stede is just like "Oh! You like the feed? Why didn't you say so?! Always glad to meet my Only Fan!" (Stede has a v. healthy subscribership, but he thinks making the Only Fan joke is Hilarious) Stede asks for his username, and when he tells him, Stede is all "Oh! I know YOU! I can't tell you how much your feedback means to me. Always leaves me feeling all glowy for days!" Ed is all blushy and stammery and, "Uh... yeah, man. Me too." He offers Ed a hug, and Ed is internally combusting. Stede is all "If you've got any ideas for the feed, I'm always open to suggestions. Is there anything you'd like to see me doing?" There are MANY things Ed would like to see him doing. None of which are appropriate to give voice to in a crowded open-air market. Eventually eventually, after many instances where Ed is going crazy trying to figure out if it's a date or just a hang, there would be a v. thorough railing wherein Stede whispers all the tender, affirmational things Ed could ever have wished to hear. So! here's the only bit of it I've actually bothered to write:

The man on the screen smeared a little grease around the tight little hole, then inserted the cylinder into the gap in one smooth, gratifying motion. "There we are," he said, his voice a low, self-satisfied hum, "A nice, tight fit. And doesn't it feel good to do it yourself?"

Ed's breathing picked up pace a little.

"And that's how you replace a spark plug. Nothing shocking about it." He smiled a charming, little shit-eating grin and winked at the camera.

Ed's breath caught in his throat.

"So that's it for this one! Thanks, as always to my subscribers, and a special tip of the hat to this week's new friends," he looked away from the camera and put on a pair of gold wire-rimmed glasses. Ed swooned a little as he read out the names from an actual printed page.

At the end of it, he took off the glasses and looked directly into the camera again, his eyes soft and his smile genuine and kind. "Thank you for sharing this time with me. Lots of love!"

There was nothing explicitly sexual about the CapriSun_Erotica OnlyFans page. In fact, the most shocking thing about it was how roundly wholesome the content was. Just a man and his phone camera and a world of practical advice and dad jokes. An intensely hot man in the tiniest shorts or tightest jeans Ed had ever seen, who seemed allergic to doing up the top three buttons on his shirts, and that radiated so much DILF energy Ed was a little astonished the videos didn't just melt his phone screen. It was the most intensely arousing thing Ed had ever seen.

He eased himself out of his boxers and hit the replay button.

When he had cleaned himself up, he tapped out a quick reply. "Hey DaddyStede, great vid as usual. Really got my motor running. 😘"

[historicity-was-already-taken]

if you want to write traditionally published ("tradpub") non-fiction...

you need to start by building a platform. significant numbers of followers/subscribers will demonstrate to literary agents, acquisitions editors, and acquisition/marketing committees that you already have a built-in audience, and are therefore a worthwhile investment.

i didn't start this blog with the intent of leveraging the platform to secure a book deal (well i mean, it was a thought, but never a serious one until i realized what book i wanted to write); i started it because i'd finished undergrad early, hadn't heard back from grad programs, and wanted somewhere to talk about history. but when it was time to make Book happen, having a platform of over 100,000 certainly helped convince the decision makers that i wasn't a bad investment.

so whatever your thing is, get on tumblr or insta or tik tok or substack or medium or whatever, and get started putting out content that you're proud of.

warning: this will only work if creating content about your thing brings you genuine joy, because it does take years to build that platform, even longer to get that book deal, and even longer to see any money. for context, i started this blog in March 2011 at the age of 21. i realized that the book needed to be a thing in Spring 2018 at the age of 28. i got the book deal in March 2023 at the age of 34. I am now 35 and working on rewrites. The book won't be released for over a year and a half.

[mightdeletelater]

when fame turns fatal: the tragic cycle of celebrity exploitation

this blog post was originally posted on my substack

How do you capture the unknowable life of someone else? Someone only seen through interviews, music videos, and invasive paparazzi snapshots? Maybe starting by laying out the simplest biographical details? Liam Payne was born in 1993 in Wolverhampton. He first auditioned for The X Factor at 14. Joined the boy band One Direction at 16. Had a son named Bear at 23. Released his only solo album at 25. And passed away at 31 after falling from a hotel balcony in Argentina.

Another approach could be to focus on the photos, the ones from both the beginning and the end. In 2010, when One Direction was formed, judges Simon Cowell, Louis Walsh, and Nicole Scherzinger hovered over a polaroid of a 16-year-old Payne, arranging it with pictures of three future bandmates – Niall Horan, Harry Styles, and Louis Tomlinson – as if they were playing with dolls. "That looks good." "That looks great." "It looks unbelievable." When Payne passed away in 2024, TMZ published zoomed-in, cropped photos of his lifeless body. His arm, and section of his side, both with his distinct tattoos. The article had no warning of the contents. 

Denial of dignity in death is a tragic culmination of a toxic kind of fame, one especially endured by pop stars and teen idols. Payne was simply just another one who was dehumanized throughout his life – by the music industry that propelled him to stardom, by the tabloids, by social media, and even by his own fans. Being idolized can be as depersonalizing as being vilified. He became a pin-up poster, and eventually a literal doll (fans could collect all five members of the boyband). 

The cycle of objectification persisted even after One Direction disbanded in 2015. Payne's solo career and erratic interview behaviour became a source of online mockery. Once endearingly called the "dad" of One Direction for being more serious, ambitious, and occasionally a bit awkward, these traits grew exaggerated over time. His ‘cringe moments’ became viral content on social media. Despite being open about his struggles with mental health and substance abuse, he received little empathy. He was open about by long periods of boredom that came after the highs of performing to sold out arenas which led him to an alcohol and drug addiction and suicidal thoughts. Speaking on the Diary Of The CEO Podcast in 2021, Payne said: “I was worried how far my rock bottom was going to be. Where's rock bottom for me? And you would never have seen it. I'm very good at hiding it. I don't even know if I have hit it yet. I can either make that choice now and pick my last moment as my rock bottom or I can make a whole new low.” While the exact circumstances of Payne's fall from the balcony remain unclear, emergency services were called to the hotel for “a guest who has had too much drugs and alcohol.”

Before his death, Payne was accused by his ex-fiance Maya Henry of physical and emotional abuse, including chasing her with an axe and forcing her to get a self-induced abortion. Last week, Henry had issued a cease and desist against Payne, accusing him of repeatedly contacting her. She also alleged that the singer continuously contacted her friends and family, including her mother. 

The fantasy that One Direction embodied for a generation was always deeply co-dependent – a symbiotic relationship between the fevered daydreams of millions of teenage girls and the dream come true for five young boys. But what once seemed like a fantasy looks more like a nightmare. There is something undeniably troubling about adults marketing 16-year-old boys to children for maximum profit, despite the clear risks to their well-being and mental health. Why do we only recognize this when tragedy strikes? How can we justify doing this to such young people – isolating them from their families, their normal lives, and their sense of self – only to mock them as they struggle through adulthood? How many more lives must the pop industry claim before something finally changes? It all just feels irredeemable. What is someone supposed to do with all that fame and then all that vilification? What does it say about us when there is a market for identifying tattoos from a corpse?

And there will never be closure. Henry will not get justice. Payne will have never beaten his battle with addiction. While the tributes pour in for Payne, it is clear how most of the decisions he made – and that were made for him – never were in his best interest. But that never mattered because the industry chews and spits out young people but will continue to thrive and produce entertainment. Unregulated fame has horrific ramifications, for the person in the spotlight and all the people in their lives standing just outside of it. 

[floridakilo]

im excited to announce something thats been cooking up in my brain for awhile… i am starting a writing collective/independent publishing operation for thee fellow neo beats called JUNKIE SCHOLAR PRESS (JSP)…basically i will be collecting submissions in either digital or print form and then posting and publishing them through the platform (tumblr, ig, substack, big cartel for print, and my website)

this isnt a for profit thing it is basically just an opportunity for new creators to market yr work and so that you can say youve published…thats self explanatory for digital posts and for physical copies, you are still the sole owner of everything and any profit made through sales are 100% paid to you…

anyway message me if you want to submit yr work…content im looking for includes zines, poetry collections, chapbooks, essay anthologies, long form essays, novellas and short novels, art and photography, and more…the topic can be anything (doesnt need to be abt drugs) however anything that could be categorized as under the “beat” genre is a plus

tumblr is the best way to reach me but also

junkiescholar@gmail.com

ig at theworstgirlintheworld

[nanowrimo]

Journaling Practices to Help With Writing Funks

Feeling stuck in your writing? Journaling might be your answer to getting unstuck! NaNo Participant Ashley has some tips on using journaling as a guide to get you writing again. We all know writing is no easy feat, and it can be especially difficult when we find ourselves in a funk. Sometimes it’s best to take a break, reset, and turn our energy elsewhere and inward to help us get re-focused on the goal ahead. So, whether you’re struggling to start a new work or find yourself stumped on writing that next chapter, try these tips to help you get over the hump.

1. Brain dump

A brain dump is exactly what it sounds like. Grab a journal and write down everything on your mind. It can be specific to what you’re currently working on, or just anything that’s taking up space in your head. Set a timer for 5 minutes and let the thoughts flow. If you find this difficult to do, maybe start with one of these prompts:

What are five things I accomplished today?

How can I prioritize myself and my everyday tasks better?

Are there any goals I’d like to accomplish this week/month/year?

Pro tip: Using the voice note app on your phone works just as well! Go for a walk or hop in your car for a drive and talk all your thoughts out until there’s nothing left to say.

2. Use a guided journal

I’m a big fan of guided journals when I can’t seem to find the inspiration to write. Something about a journal prompt and the space to write freely about a variety of topics really helps me to get out of my head. There are a ton of guided journals out there, but these are a few of my favorites:

Cleo Wade’s Heart Talk

Rupi Kaur’s Healing Through Words

Michelle Obama’s Becoming

3. Keep a gratitude log

One of the best ways to get grounded and re-centered is by simply paying attention and being present to the world around us. Start your day or end your night making a list of 5-10 things you're grateful for. You can even take it a step further by choosing 1 or 2 things from your list and going into more detail about why you’re grateful for it. Give yourself a few minutes every day for this practice, and by the end of the week you’ll have a long list to look back on and come back to when you’re feeling stuck.

4. Get into nature

A change of scenery is another great way to switch up your writing routine. Find a new or familiar park, take a walk, and observe the nature around you. Take notes in your phone or in your journal of everything that comes to mind using your five senses (sight, sound, smell, taste, and touch). Get creative with what you jot down and write a poem from your observations, or perhaps a short story.

Ashley is a content marketer by day and aspiring nonfiction writer by night. She’s built a career of brand storytelling and now hopes to share stories from her own life on healing and self-care as she begins working on her first book. Follow her journey on Substack or Medium. Photo by Charlotte May from Pexels

[rustbeltjessie]

The other night, I got into a particularly good flow while working on one of my writing projects, and got excited by what came out of it. Afterwards, I realized, for approximately the 1000th time, that I’ve never had any success with my writing when I tried to suit it to what the market, or the general public, or even the lit world at large, wanted. The only successes I’ve had, in the 30+ years I’ve been writing professionally (I started young), have come when I’ve written what I most powerfully wanted to write, and written it how I felt most drawn to writing it.

This isn’t true of everything I’ve written or published; I have gotten paid for content and tech writing, as well as for reviews that were too short for me to go crazy with my writing style. I’m talking creative writing, here. So, with poetry, fiction, and personal essays/memoir, anytime I’ve tried to write in a way or about a topic that I thought was more likely to get published/win awards/find a bigger audience/whatever—it has completely failed. Those are the books and pieces that have never gotten published, that wind up moldering in a drawer somewhere because they’re so blah that I forget about them, too.

But when I write what, and how, I want to write, that’s when the successes come. Sometimes it comes in the form of publication, or accolades, but a lot of times the success isn’t financial or critical. Hell, sometimes I’m not even aiming for that sort of thing—I often write things that are specifically for my blog or my Substack or my zine. But they’re still more successful than when I try to write what I think people want to read; they always find their audience, no matter how small or niche. And sometimes no one ever reads those poems or essays or stories, either, but at least they’re something I can be proud of.

I’ll end this with a reminder to myself (in case I ever forget this again), and maybe it’ll resonate with some of you, too, whether you’re writers or visual artists or musicians, or any kind of creator: success in any kind of creative field is a crapshoot, and it’s not guaranteed, whether you try to make what you think other people want or you make what you most want to. So why not make what you most want to? Don’t try and sand all the edges off of, or take all the you-ness out of, your creations. Make what you’re passionate about, and it’ll find its audience, somehow, some way.

[cindylouwho-2]

RECENT SEO & MARKETING NEWS FOR ECOMMERCE, AUGUST 2024

Hello, and welcome to my very last Marketing News update here on Tumblr.

After today, these reports will now be found at least twice a week on my Patreon, available to all paid members. See more about this change here on my website blog: https://www.cindylouwho2.com/blog/2024/8/12/a-new-way-to-get-ecommerce-news-and-help-welcome-to-my-patreon-page

Don't worry! I will still be posting some short pieces here on Tumblr (as well as some free pieces on my Patreon, plus longer posts on my website blog). However, the news updates and some other posts will be moving to Patreon permanently.

Please follow me there! https://www.patreon.com/CindyLouWho2

TOP NEWS & ARTICLES 

A US court ruled that Google is a monopoly, and has broken antitrust laws. This decision will be appealed, but in the meantime, could affect similar cases against large tech giants. 

Did you violate a Facebook policy? Meta is now offering a “training course” in lieu of having the page’s reach limited for Professional Mode users. 

Google Ads shown in Canada will have a 2.5% surcharge applied as of October 1, due to new Canadian tax laws.

SEO: GOOGLE & OTHER SEARCH ENGINES 

Search Engine Roundtable’s Google report for July is out; we’re still waiting for the next core update. 

SOCIAL MEDIA - All Aspects, By Site

Facebook (includes relevant general news from Meta)

Meta’s latest legal development: a $1.4 billion settlement with Texas over facial recognition and privacy.  

Instagram

Instagram is highlighting “Views” in its metrics in an attempt to get creators to focus on reach instead of follower numbers. 

Pinterest

Pinterest is testing outside ads on the site. The ad auction system would include revenue sharing. 

Reddit

Reddit confirmed that anyone who wants to use Reddit posts for AI training and other data collection will need to pay for them, just as Google and OpenAI did. 

Second quarter 2024 was great for Reddit, with revenue growth of 54%. Like almost every other platform, they are planning on using AI in their search results, perhaps to summarize content. 

Threads

Threads now claims over 200 million active users.

TikTok

TikTok is now adding group chats, which can include up to 32 people.

TikTok is being sued by the US Federal Trade Commission, for allowing children under 13 to sign up and have their data harvested. 

Twitter

Twitter seems to be working on the payments option Musk promised last year. Tweets by users in the EU will at least temporarily be pulled from the AI-training for “Grok”, in line with EU law.

CONTENT MARKETING (includes blogging, emails, and strategies) 

Email software Mad Mimi is shutting down as of August 30. Owner GoDaddy is hoping to move users to its GoDaddy Digital Marketing setup. 

Content ideas for September include National Dog Week. 

You can now post on Substack without having an actual newsletter, as the platform tries to become more like a social media site. 

As of November, Patreon memberships started in the iOS app will be subject to a 30% surcharge from Apple. Patreon is giving creators the ability to add that charge to the member's bill, or pay it themselves.

ONLINE ADVERTISING (EXCEPT INDIVIDUAL SOCIAL MEDIA AND ECOMMERCE SITES) 

Google worked with Meta to break the search engine’s rules on advertising to children through a loophole that showed ads for Instagram to YouTube viewers in the 13-17 year old demographic. Google says they have stopped the campaign, and that “We prohibit ads being personalized to people under-18, period”.

Google’s Performance Max ads now have new tools, including some with AI. 

Microsoft’s search and news advertising revenue was up 19% in the second quarter, a very good result for them. 

One of the interesting tidbits from the recent Google antitrust decision is that Amazon sells more advertising than either Google or Meta’s slice of retail ads. 

BUSINESS & CONSUMER TRENDS, STATS & REPORTS; SOCIOLOGY & PSYCHOLOGY, CUSTOMER SERVICE 

More than half of Gen Z claim to have bought items while spending time on social media in the past half year, higher than other generations. 

Shopify’s president claimed that Christmas shopping started in July on their millions of sites, with holiday decor and ornament sales doubling, and advent calendar sales going up a whopping 4,463%.

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Taylor Lorenz at Substack:

We need to know who is funding the creator economy

Yesterday, a federal indictment revealed that a Tennessee media company working with right-wing influencers including Benny Johnson, Tim Pool, Dave Rubin, and Lauren Southern, was receiving significant funding from the Russian state-sponsored network RT to push Russian disinformation. The indictment is absolutely wild and WIRED has a great rundown on the details, including how the propaganda efforts worked. The case serves as the latest high profile example of how “independent media” on the right is anything but independent, and underscores the need for more transparency around funding models in the creator economy. It also shows how disinformation efforts have increasingly focused on penetrating U.S. media through content creators, and how lucrative being a pawn in these schemes can be. While right wing content creators position themselves as scrappy upstarts, leaning into anti-establishment and populist brand positioning, they frequently accept money from far right interest groups, extremist billionaires, and even foreign actors.  Tenet Media received nearly $10 million, distributed out across a network of YouTubers and podcasters. As part of the disinformation campaign, Tenet Media influencers published hundreds of videos on social media that promoted Kremlin talking points. The videos were shared across platforms including YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, X, and TikTok, reaching tens of millions of viewers.

[...] The far right recognized the opportunities in personality-driven media decades ago. After boosting talk radio stars in the 80s and 90s, when social media proliferated, they began to invest heavily in news influencers who seamlessly blend entertainment, news commentary, and far right political messaging into YouTube videos, Instagram memes, podcasts and more. 

[...]

Ben Shapiro's Daily Wire has been heavily funded by wealthy Republican donors, including the Wilks brothers, Texas-based billionaires known for their oil and fracking fortune. Charlie Kirk, founder of Turning Point USA, has benefited from significant funding from conservative mega donors including the Koch network.  When right wing creators began getting deplatformed more frequently on mainstream social media apps in the second half of the 2010s, an entire ecosystem of alternative platforms aimed at helping extremist influencers monetize and amass audiences, cropped up. Rumble, a video sharing platform similar to YouTube backed by billionaire Peter Thiel, began paying far right influencers and anti vaxx content creators hundreds of thousands of dollars to create content on its platform in 2021. Locals, a newsletter platform owned by Rumble, allows influencers to monetize through newsletters in a similar way to Substack. DLive, a right wing Twitch competitor, allowed influencers storming the Capitol building on January 6th, to make thousands of dollars off their live streams. Kick and Cozy.tv, two other right wing live streaming platforms, permit nearly any far right extremist the ability to create content and start earning money. And X, under Musk, has paid out hundreds of thousands of dollars to right wing influencer accounts.

The robust financial backing the right wing content creator ecosystem enjoys, allows extremists the ability to fund professional production teams, social media ad buys, and marketing initiatives that give them a competitive advantage online. In contrast, progressive creators are left to rely on meager donations and crowdfunding efforts to sustain their work. This financial imbalance has made it nearly impossible for left-wing content creators to match the reach or production quality of their right-wing counterparts. Already, several Russia-backed Tenet Media influencers, including Benny Johnson and Tim Pool, have been doing damage control. They've publicly stated that they had no idea about the origins of the money and claimed that they were merely unwitting victims who were misled by the company. 

Right-wing media influencers like Nick Sortor (even though he wasn’t named in the indictment), Benny Johnson, and Tim Pool aren’t “independent media” in any way.

[strangebiology]

My substack for is going well and I've even got some paid subscribers now! Even though all the content is free at the moment. Feel free to sign up and/or look through the old posts if you're writing a nonfiction, non-memoir book!

Of all the social platforms I've been on, Substack might be the most profitable. It might not be Substack, though, it might be because this group is focused on a professional endeavor rather than "isn't that interesting" type of content. Maybe people feel like it's worth investing money in something that should hopefully give them a return on investment? I make it clear that I love to talk about money and this group in particular approaches writing as a paid profession. It's ok if that's not for you.

I'm thinking of making some kind of guide called "How To Get Paid to Write a Nonfiction Non-Memoir Book Before You Even Write It" and maybe charge $5 or $10 for the guide. My book, Carcass: On the Afterlives of Animal Bodies isn't out yet so I can't talk about marketing books from any actual experience of success. Also I believe 99% of information on How-To-Market-Your-Book is BS because no one ever includes their ROI, profit, or sales. But I can tell you that if you are a serious writer who has tended your craft through lots of practice and self-improvement, you can make money before the book is even out.

I'll share my profit before the book is published: I got $106,000, or, after travel, fact-checking, and the agent taking a percent of the advance, around $75,000. There are things I wish I would have tried that, if successful, would have got me another $80k + $40k with no extra work except the application. (Who knows what my chances were of getting those opportunities, though, but I'd include them in the guide.) AND I want to point out that someone in the group got a $50,000 grant (the same one I did) and told me she never would have if it weren't for the group!

[mehmetyildizmelbourne-blog]

Substack Mastery Book: Chapter 18: A Special Chapter for Book Authors

How Substack Writers Can Leverage Reedsy to Become Published Authors and Scale Their Publishing Business with Global Collaboration Dear Beta readers welcome to Chapter 18 of my bestselling Substack Mastery book, where we explore another powerful tool for growing and scaling your Substack newsletters. This chapter promises to be an eye-opener for many freelance writers, as I have yet to come…

[inkedwingss]

For the ones joining my new writing-only blog, my baby Substack: I will upload one poem every day for the next 15 days, so expect some e-mails in your inbox! :)

If you have been here for a while, you must know I was in desperate need of a writing-only platform — in fact, if you remember, I even tried a side blog, but that didn't work for me (and the novel is cooking atm). So, for the sake of my peace of mind and my writing, I will upload all the poetry in here to this sparkling, brand-new Substack.

After a few days on that platform, though, I can already tell I'm not going to follow what I perceived to be the pattern. Do I feel like a fish out of the water? Yes. Do I plan to change? No. Is it good for ''marketing''? Nope! But I literally can't force myself into a non-authentic space. It gives me anxiety.

I believe in using the platform instead of letting the platform use me. I'm free. That is unnegotiable. So, I will do my best on my own terms, as many things annoy me about the writing culture of these times we live in and I refuse to wear the halter. Oh, I promise I'll never try to coach you, start mothering you, or try to sell you a "how to write poetry in 5 steps" guide. No hooking titles. I won't join the experts-on-shit FOMO cult to prey on other people's triggers or to feel ''good'' about myself at the expense of others. This type of thing actually creeps me out.

But I do promise we can just resonate and inspire each other by being honest and raw, by having a brave heart so we can keep being kind, and by pursuing truth, beauty and art... How about that? We can enjoy the vibe and cultivate this appreciation of words! We can even chat as writer friends, as reader friends or just as friends friends — and encourage each other through real, second-intention-free presence.

If my writing doesn't touch you, it's fine. If yours doesn't touch me, it's fine. It's not personal, it's not a bad thing. We are all finding our voice. The day you think you know everything, you're dead, so we have to keep searching, moving and growing together! How many times have I needed the words from @cssnder @goodluckclove @hersurvival or @remnantofabrokensoul, and so many others around here (iykyk)? And I'm very grateful for every word and idea you all shared here in this amazing space, helping me to keep going, to break from my shell and lay another brick in the foundations of what I want to create.

That is the beauty of it. Creation demands connection. That is respect and human experience. And I repeat it: sometimes what I create won't touch anyone but me.

Oh, but what if it does!

Well, that being said: I actually do have some crazy ideas for the Substack. At first, the focus was on creating some substantial and self-indulgent content about literature (I like to study). Although I still think that's important, exciting and valid, Poetry is making its way through my inked fingers more and more, demanding space, attention, and voice; so I will not neglect this calling.

What about the future? I don’t know. Paid subscriptions for specific academic literature content? Prophetic, devotional newsletters?Generating debates on books for the community? Just poetry that you can read for free and not engage at all because I can be quite antisocial at times? Digging around some old ancient advice on writing? None of the above? Anything is possible, really. For now, I will slow down and avoid contributing to the hamster wheel of modern despair for the speed of light living and likes.

For now, poetry, please.

And tea. Lots of tea, because it's raining.

The grass looks so green!

[mariacallous]

After years of sitting on the sidelines, content creators became a part of the mainstream political media this year, delivering election news, analysis, and political commentary to their online fans—all while sidestepping the traditional press.

Eighty-one-year-old Joe Biden was serenaded on camera by the delightfully cringe TikTok singer Harry Daniels. Bernie Sanders stumped for Kamala Harris on a Twitch stream cohosted by an anime catboy VTuber. Donald Trump collabed with the quintessential creator brothers, Jake and Logan Paul. Instead of making time for traditional sit-down interviews with the mainstream press, Harris and Trump relied on creators to galvanize votes and spread their campaign messages.

“There’s just no value—with respect to my colleagues in the mainstream press—in a general election to speaking to The New York Times or speaking to The Washington Post, because those [readers] are already with us,” Rob Flaherty, deputy campaign manager for Harris, told Semafor in December.

Influencing has grown into a $250 billion industry. More than 70 percent of Americans between the ages of 18 and 29 say they follow an influencer on social media, a Pew Research survey found last year. A more recent survey, published in November, found that one in five US adults get their news from news influencers. That shift in media consumption was met with record spending on creator partnerships. Priorities USA put at least $1 million toward influencer marketing. The Harris campaign paid at least $2.5 million to management agencies that book creators for political advertising campaigns.

This election, creators were everywhere—the Republican and Democratic conventions, fundraisers, rallies, and even parties at Mar-a-Lago. But the foundations for this creator takeover of political messaging were propped up nearly a decade ago. In 2016, Trump showed how social media platforms like Twitter could influence voters. Throughout the 2020 election, former New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg spent more than $300 million on a presidential campaign that recruited influencers and meme pages as paid digital surrogates, and the Biden administration routinely invited creators to the White House for briefings.

By embracing creators, politicians have started blurring the lines between talking heads and journalists. Unlike reporters, news creators are often not beholden to editorial standards and substantial fact-checking—something that is one high-profile defamation lawsuit away from changing but that, for now, marks a difference. Many creators do work similar to what journalists do—absorbing, translating, and communicating news to audiences online. But in the online political ecosystem, many of them come off more as fans than as objective observers. Some are explicitly party activists. Still, they are often provided access similar to what the traditional press gets.

The next step in the influencer political takeover could be lawmakers becoming the creators themselves. The industry has become so fruitful that Republican ex-lawmakers like George Santos and Matt Gaetz turned to the creator economy as part of their post-congressional careers. Santos and Gaetz are setting hefty prices for personal messages on the video platform Cameo.

Elected officials like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Jeff Jackson are also leveraging creator-like tactics in their everyday communications with their constituents and voters. Ocasio-Cortez can often be found answering follower questions on how Congress works or what’s inside a bill on Instagram Live. Jackson authors a regular Substack newsletter discussing his work in the House of Representatives. Ted Cruz has a podcast.

“Your candidate needs to become the creator; they need to find their niche and stick to it,” says Caleb Brock, a senior digital strategist for Democrats. “We need to find our 2028 presidential Hawk Tuah Girl—and I mean that seriously. Whichever candidate steps up and wields their respective, genuine personality into something that continuously pumps out content—content that people want to see, share, and engage with—will win.”

Adopting these tactics could be crucial to winning over young voters, millions of whom enter the electorate every four years. More than 8 million members of Gen Z entered the electorate in 2024, according to Tufts University. This year, 41 million of them were eligible to vote.

The industry hasn’t run up against much friction from the federal government either, despite criticism over its opaque nature. This year, the Federal Election Commission opted against requiring political influencers to disclose when a political group or campaign paid for content on their accounts.

“Because this is such a substantial part now of the information economy and information ecosystem, it’s absolutely vital that there are disclosures,” says Robert Weissman, copresident of the public interest group Public Citizen. “And just as disclosure is a core part of fair advertising law, it's a core part of fair election law too.”

[tirfpikachu]

hiiii gyns!!! QUICK CHAOTIC UPDATE..................

a) new sapphic visual novel in the works?! we're currently looking for some awesome artists/writers/marketers to help us with it! everyone involved will be paid a giftcard once the game is complete, and we will make sure that it'll be great for everyone's portfolios. the project will go throughout 2025, with hopefully it being fully done by summer 2026 ish. i don't want it to be rushed!! and i want us to have fun with it too. it'll involve romance, dark elements, and feminist & lgbt politics in really cool ways!! i'm looking for some awesome OCs who are sapphic and visibly gnc in some way (hairy fems welcome!)

b) we are still looking for tirfy/nuancefem folks to interview! to be added on the list, dm me on my radblr discord @ bunnyrats. i will take a bit to respond, but i pwomise i will in late january! <33 if you're already on the server, just go in the interviews channel and apply.

c) we are going to be BUYING articles from tirfy/nuancefem radfems! you will be involved with our team of editors and published in our substack, and once the article is done you'll get a giftcard.

and d) the pokegyns/server staff are setting up a patreon!!! we are now going by Lay & The Gyns tm on most platforms. i have two assistants from my server now officially?! which is still batshit crazy to me, but they're incredible and really helping me so much :'] we're gonna be offering fun art, writing, really cool opportunities and marketing for any freelancing gyn who needs more publicity!!

we focus especially on sapphics, but any misogyny-affected creator is welcome on the team! we're a content making group, but i'm actually going to film school in september 2025?! so i'm also trying to find radfems to help me make movies & animated shows in the future. i'm so fucking tired of libfem tras being the only ones making media. i want to add nuance in the tv/film world.

if you're not tangibly misogyny-affected in your day-to-day life, we can still use your support and might still want to interview you if your pov is interesting enough. just please try to be a good ally, and don't speak over ppl who are directly affected by all the misogynistic bullshit in the world. we are actually not only focused on misogyny but also on homophobia and gncphobia, to analyze their part in the patriarchy. if you're not facing misogyny in your daily life but you are visibly gnc and face lots of shit for it, we will still eventually want to know your side of things. for now though, we're focusing 100% on fellow gyns. if you want to support us, check out our substack. we'll be posting more updates and really cool stuff!!

more info about the sapphic visual novel ic

sooooo my sapphic magazine/network The Gyns is looking for writers, artists and marketing ppl to help me out with a sapphic visual novel?? it'll be a mix of romcom and horror/dark elements!

everybody involved would be paid in giftcard(s) for the finished game, and it would receive lots of marketing & hopefully help all our careers. i have lots of connections to sapphic youtubers and bigger youtubers too, and i have a specific story in mind. i would be the main scriptwriter and director, and i already have a main team of artists i'm interviewing, but i need more scriptwriters, artists, marketers, etc. it would be tied to my own lgbt activist youtube channel (which in turn is tied to my magazine & my private discord, which will eventually be mostly patreon-locked). i also just REALLY FREAKING LOVE YURI VISUAL NOVELS!!!!!!!!!!!!! and i want to help any sapphic visual novel makers get free marketing and really reach people. i know if i had found sapphic visual novels that really spoke to my heart when i was younger, i would've realized i was a lesbian MUUUUCH sooner. if you're involved and you're an artist/writer, your own writing & art will be promoted by the lay & the gyns staff throughout the process!!

if you're already in the industry or wanting to be, or just want to help out with a cool project, please add me on my alt discord account (my main is messy af lol) @ softbunmy! i can make us a discord server :] or at the very least initially a discord groupchat!!

we need scriptwriters, OC makers, marketing ppl, and ofc artists!!! it'll be a loooong project, but lots of fun opportunities.

you will be working closely with our magazine/yt staff. we interview radfems, sapphic influencers/businesses, write articles, and make videos! currently a lot of our content is server-exclusive, since we're still figuring things out and securing grants for Lay & The Gyns since it's like..... actually becoming a Real Thing?! we're offering marketing to sapphic people and helping them realize their dreams :'3 the first month of marketing is free so we just really help them with their freelancing and career building. i'm still a broke wheelchair dyke rn surviving on disability aid, but we got so many incredible connections thanks to networking B) and i want to connect tirfy/nuancefem sapphics to one another and help them not feel so alone!!!

all the $$ we will make goes directly to our sapphic radfem artists and writers who are trying to do this full-time. our motto is building bridges between feminism and trans/gnc communities, and calling out all the fucked up stuff going on with tras as well as the more extreme cases of unnuanced radfems who can be very harmful too. we also want to CELEBRATE gnc people, so the visual novel will be full to the brim with gnc OCs!!! the process for that will truly start in late spring, but we're trying to gather cool creative people already!

i know this shit sounds batshit crazy but it's actually becoming A Thing. my life feels like the most insane rollercoaster right now, but everything is also falling into place so smoothly?! in large part thanks to my beloved server gyns, who mean the world to me and really give me hope that we CAN solve the issues between true feminism and tras. thank you so much for following my little journey so far ;w; i can't wait to see what 2025 has in store for us!!!!!

[bardnuts]

I have a few different projects in the works because I want to grow something akin to an author platform, but I hate money and I hate marketing and I hate social media. Most agents won't look at you twice if you don't have some kind of digital foothold, but I'm basically unwilling to do any of the shit necessary to get one. So: what's to be done?

I'm probably going to revise and re-release a horror serial I half-finished a few years ago, called The Carving Bones, on Substack. Kind of hard to establish myself as a writer if I don't have any work out there, right? TCB was pretty well-received when I first released it and I'm sure a few folks would like to read it again in a new format.

I'm also giving serious thought to a YouTube channel? I have a lot of thoughts I want to verbalize to a camera, especially in regards to queer and mental health readings of media. I love to analyze writing choices as well, and since video essays are one of my favorite kinds of Content (another thing I hate), I do sort of want to dip my toes into the pool.

But when I'm considering all these new projects and why I want to do them--to get noticed, to get my work noticed, to get eyeballs on my art so other people can enjoy it--I start wondering if I'm really missing the point of art. Isn't it supposed to be about community? Isn't art deeply social? If I say I hate marketing and I hate social media, does that mean I also hate the prerequisite of art that is true human connection? I don't think so, but it is a worry.

I'm just thinking out loud here, really, but I think chasing fame is natural. Most people don't want to throw their art into a void. The pursuit of fame is a fun game to play, most of the time, but achieving it is more typically an indicator of skills in marketing and consistency--if not pure dumb luck--than a true endorsement of the honesty of your art.

I don't know if anyone else has noticed, but fame seems to be a miserable curse to the famous. They'll say it to anyone who will listen. It's isolating, exhausting, and sometimes even dehumanizing. And still we insist on playing the game. Posting, marketing, making content, pivoting, changing strategy, changing our art, changing ourselves. If we know how miserable fame can be, why do we still chase it? What, exactly, are we looking for?

I think I'm hoping not to die alone.