#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…

[gothhabiba]

The 2023 Barbie film is a commercial. I’m sure it will be fun, funny, delightful, and engaging. I will watch it, and I’ll probably even dress up to go to the theater. Barbie is also a film made by Mattel using their intellectual property to promote their brand. Not only is there no large public criticism of this reality, there seems to be no spoken awareness of it at all. I’m sure most people know that Barbie is a brand, and most people are smart enough to know this and enjoy the film without immediately driving to Target to buy a new Barbie doll. After all, advertising is everywhere, and in our media landscape of dubiously disclosed User Generated Content and advertorials, at least Barbie is transparently related to its creator. But to passively accept this reality is to celebrate not women or icons or auteurs, but corporations and the idea of advertising itself. Public discourse around Barbie does not re-contextualize the toy or the brand, but in fact serves the actual, higher purpose of Barbie™: to teach us to love branding, marketing, and being consumers.

[...] The casting of Gerwig’s Barbie film shows that anyone can be a Barbie regardless of size, race, age, sexuality. Barbie is framed as universal, as accessible; after all, a Barbie doll is an inexpensive purchase and Barbiehood is a mindset. Gerwig’s Barbie is a film for adults, not children (as evidenced by its PG-13 rating, Kubrick references, and soundtrack), and yet it manages to achieve the same goals as its source material: developing brand loyalty to Barbie™ and reinforcing consumerism-as-identity as a modern and necessarily empowering phenomenon. Take, for example, “Barbiecore,” an 80s-inspired trend whose aesthetic includes not only hot pink but the idea of shopping itself. This is not Marx’s theory on spending money for enjoyment, nor can it even be critically described as commodity fetishism, because the objects themselves bear less semiotic value compared to the act of consumption and the identity of “consumer.”

[...] Part of the brilliance of the Barbie brand is its emphasis on having fun; critiquing Barbie’s feminism is seen as a dated, 90s position and the critic as deserving of a dated, 90s epithet: feminist killjoy. It’s just a movie! It’s just a toy! Life is so exhausting, can’t we just have fun? I’ve written extensively about how “feeling good” is not an apolitical experience and how the most mundane pop culture deserves the most scrutiny, so I won’t reiterate it here. But it is genuinely concerning to see not only the celebration of objects and consumer goods, but the friendly embrace of corporations themselves and the concept of intellectual property, marketing, and advertising. Are we so culturally starved that insurance commercials are the things that satiate our artistic needs?

— Charlie Squire, “Mattel, Malibu Stacy, and the Dialectics of the Barbie Polemic.” evil female (Substack), 2023.

[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

[jurisffiction]

i guess just like taylor swift is not a musician or singer-songwriter first anymore she's just a celebrity / gossip diarist first. and not "what a shame that that's how the public sees her" but like. What she puts effort into and what outcomes she's going for. so it's wearing to talk about her new album like it's new music and instead should be Oh taylor swift has dropped the new substack letter. the new content. lol. Except that it's marketed as music. i have no idea who this guy is but this is larger the points ive been cycling around https://vt.tiktok.com/ZSFWrqAjr/ like. everybody has been on the same "she needs to stop obsessing over quirky #clever lyrical twists and write something good and welcome editing" beat for years but it's getting dire. and i know she SAYS this on the album, that she's aware that this is how her work is interpreted and it frustrates her, and she even keeps blaming both her circumstances/conditions and herself, but imo both for completely inverted wrong reasons. Just completely misattributes the tangled roles of fame and her own marketing behemoth and her very still-standing agency in it all, the elements she thinks she needs to recreate identically to cling to relevancy, the way she thinks anyone has had the ability to restrict how she thinks about her own life but her. like. Keep a diary and write good music! you're not too big to not fail at making art-that's-seen-as-good-art foremost but you have to think of it as art first too. sorry this is an open letter to a billionaire it's much more just latent thinking about what we've done to society with individualism and surveillance capitalism and all that. this is MY diary

[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]

Ads containing abortion-related misinformation are allowed to run on Facebook and Instagram in countries across Asia, Africa, and Latin America, while legitimate health care providers struggle to get theirs approved, new research has found.

The report, released today from the Center for Countering Digital Hate and MSI Reproductive Choices, an international reproductive health care provider, collected instances from across Vietnam, Nepal, Ghana, Mexico, Kenya, and Nigeria. Between 2019 and 2024 in Ghana and Mexico alone, researchers found 187 antiabortion ads on Meta’s platforms that were viewed up to 8.8 million times.

Many of these ads were placed by foreign antiabortion groups. Americans United for Life, a US-based nonprofit whose website claims that abortion pills are “unsafe and unjust,” and Tree of Life Ministries, an evangelical church now headquartered in Israel, were both linked to the ads. Researchers also found that ads placed by groups not “originating in the country where the ad was served were viewed up to 4.2 million times.”

In the report, researchers found that some of the ads linked out to websites like Americans United for Life, whose website describes abortion as a “business” that is “unsafe” for women. The abortion pill is widely considered safe and is less likely to cause death than both penicillin and Viagra. Other ads, like one run by the Mexican group Context.co, linked to a Substack dedicated to the topic that implied there is a secret global strategy to manipulate the Mexican populace and impose abortion on the country.

One ad identified in Mexico alleged that abortion services were “financed from abroad … to eliminate the Mexican population.” Another warned that women could suffer “severe complications” from using the abortion pill.

Meta spokesperson Ryan Daniels told WIRED that the company allows “posts and ads promoting health care services, as well as discussion and debate around them,” but that content about reproductive health “must follow our rules,” including only allowing reproductive health advertisements to target people above the age of 18.

“This is money that Meta is taking to spread lies, conspiracy theories, and disinformation,” says Imran Khan, CEO of the Center for Countering Digital Hate.

In these countries, where Meta often has partnerships with local telecom companies that allow users to access its platforms for free, Facebook is a key source of information. Some of these ads also ran on Instagram. “Anybody with a cell phone can access information. People use it to find services. When we ask clients, how did you hear about us? a lot of them will cite Facebook, because they live on Facebook. It's where they know to search for information,” says Whitney Chinogwenya, marketing manager at MSI Reproductive Choices. So when disinformation runs rampant on the platform, the impact can be widespread.

“Good health information saves lives. By actively aiding the spread of disinformation and suppressing good information,” Khan says, “[Meta is] literally putting lives at risk in those countries and showing that they treat foreign lives as substantially less important to them than American lives.”

Many of the countries impacted by this report also have high maternal mortality rates, making access to reproductive services particularly crucial. In Nepal, for instance, there are 239 maternal deaths per 100,000 live births, as opposed to only 32 in the United States. In Ghana, it’s even higher: 319 deaths per 100,000 live births. This comes as the US continues to grapple with the implications of the 2022 Supreme Court decision that struck down Roe v. Wade. On Tuesday, the US Supreme Court heard oral arguments on a milestone abortion case that will determine access to the abortion pill across the country. These laws and policies in the US are often fodder for those seeking to roll back abortion rights elsewhere in the world.

These findings are not the first instances of right-wing groups using social media to promote antiabortion messaging abroad. In 2022, the Spanish far-right group CitizenGo orchestrated a disinformation campaign on Twitter to rebrand a reproductive health bill focused on regulating surrogacy as an “abortion bill.” (The legislation did not address abortion.) A 2023 report from Amnesty International also cited social media as a key way that antiabortion groups disseminate their messaging and target reproductive-health workers.

The report also found that the problem extends beyond just abortion. In one instance, Meta removed one MSI Reproductive Choices ad for cervical cancer screenings in Nepal, saying it involved “sensitive information.” Another ad promoting breast cancer awareness in Ghana was also flagged, as was one in Kenya providing information on vasectomies.

After trying and failing to place ads on Meta’s platforms in Nepal and Vietnam, MSI’s local accounts were restricted from placing any further ads, forcing the organization to start new ones. “But of course, it doesn't have as much audience as we did on the original page,” Chinogwenya says.

Glenn Ellingson, a former Meta employee who worked on civic misinformation, tells WIRED that there are several factors that might lead to an ad being rejected from the platforms, including if it’s targeting a group considered “sensitive,” particularly in an automated system.

“When you’re operating at the scale Meta is at, there are always going to be errors,” he says, adding that greater investment in humans who could review and flag content would likely help the platform distinguish between content that violates its policies and content that doesn’t.

[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.

[linaket]

I keep seeing hopeful things about the revival of web serial writing after Dracula Daily took off and I really, really, really want to be on board with these. I mean, I wrote a thesis about this exact subject in 2013. I love serial writing. I REALLY DO. I actively chose to write my main story as a serial and not in a more "traditional" manner.

But you see, the problem is this: The sharks are already in the water, and the web serial industry has become toxic. If it ever wasn't.

I don't mean people using Substack or individuals at all. What I mean is that it's an entire industry already that, in the past several years, has kind of gone from bad to worst.

There is a general idea that web serial writing isn't as good as traditional publishing. Yeah, there's so much of it out there. There are a lot of people getting their start writing this way. But that doesn't mean that's the only people out here, even if there are a LOT of them.

However, it does mean there are a lot of hopeful writers just ripe to be taken advantage of.

The problem in the last few years has actually come from media conglomerates snapping up platforms left and right. Many of these are coming out of overseas markets, because web serials are HUGE there and have already proven to be profitable. Naver, which owns WEBTOON, also now owns Wattpad [link] Kakao acquired three platforms in the last year: Tapas, Wuxiaworld, and Radish. [link]

Webnovel is under Tencent. Here's a fun article about that.

and from that article:

Cultivating native writers

The huge success of a handful of Chinese stories has been great for the platforms, but also unpredictable and hard to replicate. Within China, the industry isn't just built on that. It's also about the thousands of B-list or amateur authors constantly pumping out new works to keep readers on the platforms.

To recreate that overseas, Chinese platforms have begun to cultivate non-Chinese writers. And the platforms have plenty of experience from the two decades of competing within China.

Emphasis mine.

These companies are predatory at best. Webnovel has a notoriously hellish contract. Authors are paid pennies and expected to "pump out" content, and those writers have to produce 500-1k words at least 5 times a week or be in breach of contract.

The kicker? Most don't retain the IP for their work, let alone moral rights.

While we often cite "to become a better writer, you must write," there is a point where the stress of the constant churn doesn't allow a writer to grow.

I've had friends get cut out of revenue shares for their work because, technically, it is considered contract work. You were paid what you were paid, and whatever profits come from that go to the company. Often this is done on a second season, or slipped into an amended contract.

Check the fine print on any of the contests. Most include something about entries only being able to be posted on that platform (see even The Wattys) which, understandable, but exclusivity is a low gate. It doesn't seem like a big deal until you're trapped behind it and at the mercy of whatever platform is holding your work.

And these larger companies often release massive waves of censorship.

Recently on Tapas, novels (and comics!) were shadowbanned from the app if they had the word "kiss" in the title. This was just weeks ago. If you search "kiss" on the Tapas app, the main way that the audience accesses the site, literally nothing comes up. Have a tweet about it:

[link]

It's the newest wave of censors that have been placed on the platform... and the platform has issued no statement on this. What other words are banned? Who knows? Well, omega is another one. But no one was told that. It's been a lot of trial and error among members of the community to find out if anyone can even find their stories anymore.

In the last few years, many of the more experienced authors I've met and highly respected on platforms just... left.

Does this mean that serial writing is dead in the water? Of course not.

I really, really hope not.

But if anyone out there is interested in taking that route, there's some pretty basic advice that everyone has heard:

read the TOC of a platform thoroughly before posting.

do not rely on a platform alone to share your work. you never know when something might happen, and suddenly your work will be unavailable. (this is one of the reasons that I run from exclusivity.)

plan to build your own audience, in your own way. Most platforms already have a niche, and that is what they are going to push more than anything.

understand that marketing is on you, just like any other kind of self-publishing route.

if your interested in becoming a "premium" author for the sites, read your contracts COMPLETELY. Even and especially renewals.

be wary if anything seems to good to be true when it comes to these large platforms. it probably is.

My experience, like everyone's, is obviously limited. I understand that. Personally? I loved platforms, and building communities on them with other writers, but I am finding it difficult to trust my work on them anymore.

I'm trying to figure out my own way now. I'm not sure what that's going to look like, but I'm trying to think of something. Because I haven't given up. I can't. I committed to writing my story as a series, and I'll finish it as such, because it is what is right for that story.

Let me know if you've got any ideas.