SmallStack
Today’s featured Substack is a new project by Robin Taylor: the SmallStack, aiming to help Substack publications with fewer than 1000 subscribers. Writing a very small publication myself, I love this idea. I haven’t signed up to be included in the directory yet because I have to fix a couple backend settings (i.e. update my domain link), but I plan to very soon.
Substack, while making it free for anybody to write, ultimately caters to 1) authors with already-published books and existing followings, and 2) journalists who have been escaping mainstream media companies in droves and are now teaming up to create brave new channels for reporting and punditry. There are also 3) some long-running newsletters (going back for decades!) that built massive audiences prior to being lured over to Substack. I totally get it. To launch an industry-shaking platform successfully, Substack’s founders had to start with proven writers who would bring their readers with them.
Unfortunately, what this early bias means is that everyone who doesn’t fall into one of those categories is going to struggle to get attention and build a readership, even if they’re publishing regularly and working hard to create quality content. Personally, I think the opportunity is still amazing, and Substack is building in tools to help even the little folks hone their niche, find their audience, and eventually maybe even bring in a modest living. No writer really needs 10’s or 100’s of thousands of readers. I take heart in Kevin Kelly’s famous advice about finding 1000 True Fans. That’s why SmallStack’s aim to help small publications building towards 1000 subscribers makes total sense to me.
I hope you’ll join me in subscribing, adding your own small ’Stack if you’ve got one, and when the directory comes out, giving lots of support to the intrepid writers who do what they do not for numbers, but for the Cause, for their Readers, for Humanity, for the Planet, for their Souls.
