I think the paid subscription model of the Substack platform is what finally spurred me to write a book. Perhaps that is a simplification, but the path did follow this trajectory. First I start a Substack, then I gather paid subscribers, then I imagine that Substack is something that I could make a living doing, then I start paying to join Sarah Fay, PhD ’s workshops and listen with rapt attention to every strategy she suggests.

I get really bummed when she talks about what turns people paid because I don’t offer a “service.” My paid subscribers are paying $80 a year while writers who I think are much better and more popular than me are charging $35 a year. So I change the price of subs but then I think if my paid subscribers find out what I’ve offered the new paid subscribers they’re going to be mad at me. I’m not worried that they’ll unsubscribe. That would be nice if they did. It would be a definitive action—something I could just know and grieve and move on about. I’m more focused on them just being out there spread across the country and the world being mad at me. So what I decide to do is comp their subscriptions for a year. Then this weird thing happens where Substack doesn’t send anyone including me a notification that this comp has taken place, so I just keep comping years from people’s subscriptions until some of them are comped all the way to 2026. The helpers at Substack tell me that there’s really nothing they can do to reverse this, which is fine because I have psychic crises about paid subscriptions anyways. I still want to get paid for my writing though, so I decide I’m going to strategize and write stories that the paywall cuts off at exactly the moment when the reader wants to know more and then is compelled to pay. This strategy works and I collect more subscribers to replace the ones I’ve lost, but this other thing happens when I post something paywalled I lose a handful of free subscribers!!

Then I decide I’m just going to serialize my memoir on here but only send it to paid subscribers and not to free because I don’t want to piss them off and have them unsubscribe. This means that hardly anyone reads my hooks and I get a long period of no one converting to paid. That’s when I say fuck it, hire a developmental editor, and focus all the strategizing on writing a book.

Because selling a book is easier than selling a subscription. So, thank you, Substack for making it so uncomfortable that I had to write a book.