Can you make a living on Substack?
Aemula Media Spotlight - 7.23.26
In response to Substack’s recent “I make a living” marketing campaign, I published a post exploring whether or not you should actually expect make a living on Substack. It outlines:
Why you shouldn’t expect to make a living on Substack
How Substack’s design determines who succeeds
The winning strategy within that design
How to implement that strategy to actually make a living on Substack
To have that discussion in a more neutral forum, I published the piece on my personal Substack. You can read it here:
While that post is primarily meant for an audience intending to publish on Substack, I realize that most Substack users care more about their experience as a reader. As part of our mission to improve the process of discovering independent writers, I put together the below on how to navigate Substack’s features to gain more control over what you read.
How to Succeed on Substack as a Reader
From the reader perspective, I would personally define the successful use of Substack’s platform as the ability to freely explore new publications, engage with content I enjoy reading, and support writers that I value.
To achieve this type of experience on the platform, it is important to realize that many of Substack’s features were built as growth mechanisms for new publications, not as a means of discovery for new readers. It is easy to fall into the growth pipeline and get lost in the “make the number go higher” machine that was built for the writers. Once you click through a few subscription flows and accept the recommended subscriptions, you can quickly find dozens of unfamiliar newsletters landing in your inbox every day.
Fortunately, Substack’s direct subscription model gives readers a ton of control over what they see. It just takes a bit of effort to curate your own subscription list. While the Notes feed or the leaderboards might seem like the obvious choice for discovery, these are also just growth mechanics for publications. The Notes feed is not much different from traditional social media in that it does not necessarily promote quality content, only what performs well in the algorithm.
Instead, use the search feature to find long-form content covering the topics you want to read. Actively searching for content gives you more control over the publications you come across. If you find a piece you like, read more from that publication to see if they are consistently publishing work you want to read. Ignore social proof signals like subscriber counts or checkmarks. If you like a publication, subscribe to it. If you don’t, don’t. That is so simple it is almost offensive to consider it advice, but I frequently find myself subscribing to publications just because they have a large following, and then I end up archiving all of their emails without opening them.
Once you subscribe to a publication, see if you routinely continue reading. Ruthlessly trim your subscription list. You control your inbox. It should only receive emails you want to read. If you aren’t opening emails from a publication, unsubscribe. You will improve their open rate and you will have less noise in your inbox.
Hold paid subscriptions loosely. Substack makes it easy to cancel a paid subscription and start new one elsewhere. Your time, resources, and attention are finite, so your money is best spent on publications you actively want to engage with and support. Holding on to paid subscriptions you don’t utilize just perpetuates the power-law distribution of success for writers on Substack and limits the ability for more voices to effectively contribute to the discourse. We need more voices.
This is not advice to support small publications for the sake of supporting small publications. Success as a reader on Substack means you leverage the discovery tools that give you control over what you read. Your inbox is sacred, and you should efficiently spend your money on the subscriptions that bring you the most value and earn your engagement.
Media in the Media
Trend: Traditional publications getting back into the local market
The New York Times to Launch Local Newsletter in the Twin Cities — The New York Times
“The Local is the latest in a series of projects The Times has recently pursued both to cover the United States in greater breadth and depth and to support local journalism. Earlier this year we announced the creation of a Texas news hub, now a half dozen reporters strong and growing.”
“One of our goals for The Local is to support local news outlets, viewing them not as competitors but as partners. We will frequently promote their stories and journalists and look for innovative ways to collaborate. Two such projects are already underway: We will be recording a special episode of a Wirecutter podcast at the Minnesota Public Radio booth at the state fair in August and be a sponsor of the Minnesota Star Tribune’s North Star Summit in September.”
Theme: Legal protections for journalists
Justice Department Agrees to Withdraw Subpoenas for New York Times Journalists — The Wall Street Journal
“The Justice Department on Thursday said it would withdraw subpoenas related to several New York Times reporters’ recent articles after a federal judge grilled prosecutors over whether they had followed proper procedures for the criminal investigation.”
“David McCraw, senior vice president and deputy general counsel at the Times, said he was pleased that the Justice Department agreed to withdraw the subpoenas, ‘but they should never have been issued in the first place.’”
Spotlight
This week, we highlight writers discussing the interactions between journalism and ideology in the ever-evolving modern media environment. We encourage you to explore their work and consider subscribing directly.
Random Minds
Written by Katherine Brodsky, a journalist, author, and cultural commentator whose work spans free expression, artificial intelligence, culture, and society, drawing on years of reporting for major publications and interviews with leading public figures to explore complex issues through a humanistic and intellectually curious lens.
“Many people imagine that journalism has fallen from some golden age of objectivity into today’s landscape of partisan media outlets, influencer commentators, and algorithmic outrage.
But that’s not quite its origin story.”
Nathan Organ
Written eponymously by Nathan Organ, a philosopher and systems architect whose work explores human agency, cognition, artificial intelligence, and institutional design, developing practical frameworks for preserving independent judgment and coherent thinking in an increasingly complex technological world.
“Advocacy is the constructive process through which a grievance is investigated, represented, negotiated, and translated into workable reform. Activism is an escalation mechanism that should be used only when advocacy is being ignored, obstructed, or denied the attention it requires.
When that sequence is reversed—when movements proceed directly from grievance to activism—the movement begins applying pressure before it has developed an adequate understanding of the problem. The resulting ideology can eventually reproduce the very forms of intolerance, exclusion, simplification, or coercion it was created to oppose.
That inversion is the Ideology Paradox.”
The OmniAmerican Society
Written by John Wood Jr., founder of The OmniAmerican Society and a national ambassador for Braver Angels, whose work focuses on bridging political divides, strengthening a shared American identity, and fostering civic renewal through dialogue, storytelling, and community-building.
“But philosophically, The OmniAmerican Society is also based on a certain understanding of the roots of our divisions as a nation.
While we will certainly deal with the subject of partisan polarization in a deep way, I bring to this project an emphasis on the role of identity in fostering conflict between the American people. Our identities — racial, religious, and otherwise — are weaponized against us by entrepreneurs of division. I’m sure that you know this. But culture and identity are deep facts of human life and society that do not have to pit us against each other.”
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