I spent this week in a kind of fugue state, completely obsessed with Tavi Gevinson’s 75-page self-published fanzine, titled Fan Fiction: A satire, about Taylor Swift. If that sentence is incomprehensible to you, let me put it like this: there’s a self-published PDF on the internet that’s like Nabokov’s novel
Thank you for the mention! I think there's an interesting tension between giving creative work away (and doing it out of love) and getting fairly paid for your hard work. As a writer at the beginning of my career I often think of myself as a "start-up" and tell myself that the money will come later, once I've refined my product and found my market/audience. The business world is very ok with tech start ups making zero profit and burning money for years. Maybe that's how we can view writing/creative careers too...
Thank you! I love this. I also give away my Substack posts for free, hoping readers enjoy reading them as much as I'm enjoying writing them. The best part is when they resonate with someone, and they either comment or email me to tell me. The connection is invaluable. ❤️
I'm a nobody here on Substack, and about five minutes ago I figured, what the heck, I'll post the first 20 pages of an unpublished book I wrote. Instead of it rotting away in a folder forever. Fun coincidence that I saw your post a few minutes later!
This blog inspired me to start the Mumbai's Rickshaw Drivers Dispatch. For some reason my mind thought.oO(zines. They were cool. I wonder what a rickshaw drivers zine would look like) 🤔 Thank you for your inspiring article! 🙏
I’m loving giving away work I really value for free on Substack. I believe in quality free content despite being a professional writer, someone who believes writers should (eventually) be paid and maybe even earn a living doing what they love and are good at. Readers are everything, and if you can’t give away your best, high quality stuff, they will never know how good you are, and in this attention economy you will struggle to build a meaningful audience for your work.
I loved this. Thank you for the read! All of my work is on substack for free. Sharing it with my readers has been a great honour. Some have chosen to pay me and I am incredibly grateful for that but every time I see someone come on to substack and say "I'm a new author. Show me who is earning from their fiction here" they're missing the point somewhat. Word of mouth and people actually enjoying my work is worth everything. The money is secondary. And before anyone asks, no I'm not rich 😂 I'm just patiently letting it do it's thing and connecting with my readers.
As someone who wasted many years sending poems off to literary magazine I hear this. I did publish in those magazines but it never felt satisfying and it never gave me the outcome I really wanted - which was to publish a full book. The most satisfying thing I did with my poems was create a one woman fringe show - donation based - where i stood in a pub for a month and shared them with whoever came by.
Love this Catriona! I still send my stuff to those literary mags, though they're rarely intersted in it. It's my Substack community that really keeps me fulfilled as a writer, even though I earn very little money from it!
Leigh, You've blown open my mind by introducing me to Tavi's zine, since ZINES were such a big part of my adolescence. I have a finished historical novel coming out 2026-ish, and early in the process, I wondered about writing it as a graphic novel, then changed my mind because graphic wouldn't work for the whole thing. Now you've helped me realize: I could still do a free zine, illustrated, about the process of researching the book with some selective biographical highlights (for example). And that would be way more interesting than a text-based companion essay I'll be asked to write two years from now, as promo. The idea is so fun and exciting that at this moment, it doesn't bother me that I would do it for free. It would be a labor of love.
I love this, Leigh! I supposedly wrote my last zines when I was 31 and did one each trimester for my first pregnancy. As I began to be a mother, I thought I should also become a different writer, one who didn’t give away her work, but circulated it inside books, mysteriously published by giant mysterious publishers. I got back into zines five years ago, but I still feel pulled to make a “real “book!
Totally! I think it’s hard to decide which work is niche and which might fit in the mainstream. I love the Dillard quote—encourages me to not fret too hard over choosing
Yesss I recognize that Vitaphobia cover & will forever wax nostalgic about my late 90s/ early 00's xerox print zine (and LiveJournal) days!! I really appreciate & am inspired by your sentiment here, to return to my/our purer roots in a way... <3 <3
Such an interesting take on the internet as a cultural collective and creative space. I sought out Substack as a place for an essay that needed to be serialized but what I ended up with was so much more than a platform to publish. The connection to readers and other writers was unexpected – Substack is a great corner of the world.
Many thanks to you for including my work in your post.
I really loved reading this, and it reminds me of something the man behind Die, Workwear! (an iconic men's fashion blog) said on Twitter last year: "i miss the content that was on the internet 15-20 yrs ago. created by passionate hobbyists who did what they did out of love…people wrote about interior decor, fashion, music, and all sorts of insane niche content—a blog focused on just 1940s political pins written by some wacko who clearly dedicated his life to this and didn't care if only his brother read the blog. now it's all song and dance for $5." https://twitter.com/dieworkwear/status/1631034550804697089
I'm conflicted because I DO think writers should be paid for their labor, and it's good for both the writer and reader when someone is free of financial stress and able to devote more attention and energy to their work. At the same time, for many forms of writing (lit mags, literary criticism especially) there's almost no money available to pay people. And it feels sad to not have that writing, and sad if the only solution is for writers to do the work they can easily get paid for…sponsored content and advertorials.
Some of the best writing I've seen online was by people who were total amateurs (I say this positively) and had no financial or professional stake in what they were writing about. They were simply autodidactic enthusiasts who shaped the internet and created communities around their love for niche topics. I admire those writers immensely, and that's basically the tradition I'm trying to write in—the earnest, devoutly committed fan.
Loved your closing questions especially: "What could you give away? What are you hoarding for later—for a better opportunity, for more money, for more prestige?"…these are questions every writer should be asking themselves, imo!
Yes to all of this! You can get paid for sponcon if your #1 priority is earning money for writing. If your #1 priority is creating cool/weird stuff, I think if you can find ways to share that for free...and grow an audience... there are ways to monetize once you've proven there's an audience for your cool/weird stuff.
I think there can be a balance in what you give away and what you seek compensation for. On Substack, I’m giving away weekly readings from The Flag Oracle deck that I made, but I’m not giving away the deck.
Thank you for the mention! I think there's an interesting tension between giving creative work away (and doing it out of love) and getting fairly paid for your hard work. As a writer at the beginning of my career I often think of myself as a "start-up" and tell myself that the money will come later, once I've refined my product and found my market/audience. The business world is very ok with tech start ups making zero profit and burning money for years. Maybe that's how we can view writing/creative careers too...
That's so true! I like that framing of "startup" for when you're sharing work and putting yourself out there before you start seeing a profit
Love the sentiment of being a "start up" - so spot on!
It's a nice way to take pressure off yourself when you're just starting out. 😉
Thank you! I love this. I also give away my Substack posts for free, hoping readers enjoy reading them as much as I'm enjoying writing them. The best part is when they resonate with someone, and they either comment or email me to tell me. The connection is invaluable. ❤️
I'm a nobody here on Substack, and about five minutes ago I figured, what the heck, I'll post the first 20 pages of an unpublished book I wrote. Instead of it rotting away in a folder forever. Fun coincidence that I saw your post a few minutes later!
This blog inspired me to start the Mumbai's Rickshaw Drivers Dispatch. For some reason my mind thought.oO(zines. They were cool. I wonder what a rickshaw drivers zine would look like) 🤔 Thank you for your inspiring article! 🙏
Love that!
I’m loving giving away work I really value for free on Substack. I believe in quality free content despite being a professional writer, someone who believes writers should (eventually) be paid and maybe even earn a living doing what they love and are good at. Readers are everything, and if you can’t give away your best, high quality stuff, they will never know how good you are, and in this attention economy you will struggle to build a meaningful audience for your work.
I loved this. Thank you for the read! All of my work is on substack for free. Sharing it with my readers has been a great honour. Some have chosen to pay me and I am incredibly grateful for that but every time I see someone come on to substack and say "I'm a new author. Show me who is earning from their fiction here" they're missing the point somewhat. Word of mouth and people actually enjoying my work is worth everything. The money is secondary. And before anyone asks, no I'm not rich 😂 I'm just patiently letting it do it's thing and connecting with my readers.
As someone who wasted many years sending poems off to literary magazine I hear this. I did publish in those magazines but it never felt satisfying and it never gave me the outcome I really wanted - which was to publish a full book. The most satisfying thing I did with my poems was create a one woman fringe show - donation based - where i stood in a pub for a month and shared them with whoever came by.
Love this Catriona! I still send my stuff to those literary mags, though they're rarely intersted in it. It's my Substack community that really keeps me fulfilled as a writer, even though I earn very little money from it!
Leigh, You've blown open my mind by introducing me to Tavi's zine, since ZINES were such a big part of my adolescence. I have a finished historical novel coming out 2026-ish, and early in the process, I wondered about writing it as a graphic novel, then changed my mind because graphic wouldn't work for the whole thing. Now you've helped me realize: I could still do a free zine, illustrated, about the process of researching the book with some selective biographical highlights (for example). And that would be way more interesting than a text-based companion essay I'll be asked to write two years from now, as promo. The idea is so fun and exciting that at this moment, it doesn't bother me that I would do it for free. It would be a labor of love.
I love this idea!!! Somehow I forgot to mention the zine I made in 2020 to go out with advanced copies of Self Care?! I will share in Notes
I love this, Leigh! I supposedly wrote my last zines when I was 31 and did one each trimester for my first pregnancy. As I began to be a mother, I thought I should also become a different writer, one who didn’t give away her work, but circulated it inside books, mysteriously published by giant mysterious publishers. I got back into zines five years ago, but I still feel pulled to make a “real “book!
What a great idea for a zine! I think we can have both, can't we? Published books and sneaky side projects...
Totally! I think it’s hard to decide which work is niche and which might fit in the mainstream. I love the Dillard quote—encourages me to not fret too hard over choosing
DIY !! ❤️
Yesss I recognize that Vitaphobia cover & will forever wax nostalgic about my late 90s/ early 00's xerox print zine (and LiveJournal) days!! I really appreciate & am inspired by your sentiment here, to return to my/our purer roots in a way... <3 <3
That Annie Dillard quote😮💨🙌🏼
Such an interesting take on the internet as a cultural collective and creative space. I sought out Substack as a place for an essay that needed to be serialized but what I ended up with was so much more than a platform to publish. The connection to readers and other writers was unexpected – Substack is a great corner of the world.
Many thanks to you for including my work in your post.
well said!
I really loved reading this, and it reminds me of something the man behind Die, Workwear! (an iconic men's fashion blog) said on Twitter last year: "i miss the content that was on the internet 15-20 yrs ago. created by passionate hobbyists who did what they did out of love…people wrote about interior decor, fashion, music, and all sorts of insane niche content—a blog focused on just 1940s political pins written by some wacko who clearly dedicated his life to this and didn't care if only his brother read the blog. now it's all song and dance for $5." https://twitter.com/dieworkwear/status/1631034550804697089
I'm conflicted because I DO think writers should be paid for their labor, and it's good for both the writer and reader when someone is free of financial stress and able to devote more attention and energy to their work. At the same time, for many forms of writing (lit mags, literary criticism especially) there's almost no money available to pay people. And it feels sad to not have that writing, and sad if the only solution is for writers to do the work they can easily get paid for…sponsored content and advertorials.
Some of the best writing I've seen online was by people who were total amateurs (I say this positively) and had no financial or professional stake in what they were writing about. They were simply autodidactic enthusiasts who shaped the internet and created communities around their love for niche topics. I admire those writers immensely, and that's basically the tradition I'm trying to write in—the earnest, devoutly committed fan.
Loved your closing questions especially: "What could you give away? What are you hoarding for later—for a better opportunity, for more money, for more prestige?"…these are questions every writer should be asking themselves, imo!
Yes to all of this! You can get paid for sponcon if your #1 priority is earning money for writing. If your #1 priority is creating cool/weird stuff, I think if you can find ways to share that for free...and grow an audience... there are ways to monetize once you've proven there's an audience for your cool/weird stuff.
I think there can be a balance in what you give away and what you seek compensation for. On Substack, I’m giving away weekly readings from The Flag Oracle deck that I made, but I’m not giving away the deck.
oh man, that zine picture really takes me back! i also had Vitaphobia and the Miranda July chapbook