The key question to ask is: which vertical do you serve? You’re only competing with the top 1% of Substack writers if you target the exact same niche. The more specific your audience, the easier it becomes to attract a critical mass of readers because you’re fishing in a much less crowded pond.
Additionally, if you’re targeting a B2B audience, the willingness to pay is significantly higher. There are still plenty of untapped opportunities—think "The Hustle" for dentists or "Doomberg" with an exclusive focus on Asia.
Also, you’re not limited to readers who already use Substack. You can promote your newsletter wherever your audience spends time online. Substack is merely the backend that handles the technicalities.
Yes, that is true, but my guess is that those facts do not violate the overall Power Law distribution. Listing out two Substacks that are at the top of the Power Law distribution does not disprove that there is a Power Law distribution.
I'm not trying to disprove the Power Law distribution. Quite the contrary. It's Power Laws all the way down. The biggest winners you see on the surface make it easy to assume all the outsized rewards are there. But that visibility is deceptive. It blinds you to the niches where power law dynamics are playing out as well. The deeper you go, the more you uncover overlooked opportunities, where competition is lower, but the potential for asymmetric wins is just as strong.
I would agree with all that there are plenty of niches available on Substack, but that does not mean that an individual writer can fill them.
Realistically, writers only have the expertise to choose from a few domains. I, for example, cannot do some research and decide that writing about dentistry is a great opportunity to grow a Substack following, as it would take me years to acquire the expertise to learn about the topic.
I think most Substack writers write about:
1) What they are interested in, or
2) Their occupation and hope to grow a following.
Plus, readers still have limited time for reading (the key constraint), so the niches are in competition with each other for readers. If I subscribe to 5 Substack columns on dentistry, I have less time for reading about other subjects.
I would agree with you that if you have an interest and an expertise in a skill or occupation that does not have many Substack columns, you have a much better chance of acquiring a critical mass of paid subscribers.
It's a little sad when I get a new subscriber and I'm told they also subscribe to 250 other substacks. (I think 900+ is the highest number I've seen.) Are they really going to read my blog more than extremely occasionally?
I’d strongly disagree that limited reading time is the key constraint. The real constraint is relevance. If you target your audience super specifically and provide unique value, they will prioritize your content over alternatives. It’s not about squeezing into an existing reading schedule. It’s about being valuable enough that your audience makes time for you.
As for topic selection, of course, you need to stay within reasonable boundaries of your expertise to keep the workload manageable. But predicting which niche will be profitable is close to impossible. Twenty years ago, no one would have believed watching people play video games was compelling content. Yet today, some streamers make millions. The same principle applies to writing: the key isn’t just picking a niche, but owning it by delivering something others can’t.
The more precisely you define and serve your audience, the less you compete for “reading time” and the more you become the go-to source for a specific group.
Prioritization is only necessary when something is limited. In this case, what is limited is reading time.
If readers had unlimited reading time, then there would be no reason for them to prioritize based on relevence. Readers would just read every article regardless of how relevant or uniquely valuable the Substack is.
The reason why readers focus on a "go-to source" is because they have limited reading time.
Time is the ultimate scarce resource.
The second key constraint is money, which is why there are far more free subscriptions than paid subscriptions.
You prove my point. A "go-to source" is shaped by the niche and the reader. If time, not attention and preference, dictated choice, we’d all read the same newspaper. But we don’t.
I agree that the power law is likely to apply to Substack. I came here with essentially zero followers from other forums, since I was busy with a full time job and didn't do much with social media (and avoided Twitter). I expect I will never have many subscribers unless (a) I get some strong recommendations from high-subscriber writers; (b) my forthcoming book is surprisingly successful; (c) I become well known for some other reason.
Since I write for a work group blog, I am able to write for my own only occasionally. I don't seem to lose subscribers by posting only once or twice a month but presumably would gain more if I did. Another possible problem is that I seem unable to write short posts, which means a lot of work for each one. (This doesn't seem to hurt some writers but some of those are insanely prolific and write both long AND often.)
60,000 seems about right if you assume 2% are paid and you net around $5 per paid sub per month. However, that's a low paid rate. At 4%, you'd bring in $12,000/month, which is good. My paid subscribers are tiny in number but then I have made no effort to restrict my material.
My goal is get out the message of material progress and how we can keep it going. I think my Substack is more effective at doing that than writing Letters to the Editor.
I do not really care whether a subscription is free or paid.
The key question to ask is: which vertical do you serve? You’re only competing with the top 1% of Substack writers if you target the exact same niche. The more specific your audience, the easier it becomes to attract a critical mass of readers because you’re fishing in a much less crowded pond.
Additionally, if you’re targeting a B2B audience, the willingness to pay is significantly higher. There are still plenty of untapped opportunities—think "The Hustle" for dentists or "Doomberg" with an exclusive focus on Asia.
Also, you’re not limited to readers who already use Substack. You can promote your newsletter wherever your audience spends time online. Substack is merely the backend that handles the technicalities.
Yes, that is true, but my guess is that those facts do not violate the overall Power Law distribution. Listing out two Substacks that are at the top of the Power Law distribution does not disprove that there is a Power Law distribution.
I'm not trying to disprove the Power Law distribution. Quite the contrary. It's Power Laws all the way down. The biggest winners you see on the surface make it easy to assume all the outsized rewards are there. But that visibility is deceptive. It blinds you to the niches where power law dynamics are playing out as well. The deeper you go, the more you uncover overlooked opportunities, where competition is lower, but the potential for asymmetric wins is just as strong.
I would agree with all that there are plenty of niches available on Substack, but that does not mean that an individual writer can fill them.
Realistically, writers only have the expertise to choose from a few domains. I, for example, cannot do some research and decide that writing about dentistry is a great opportunity to grow a Substack following, as it would take me years to acquire the expertise to learn about the topic.
I think most Substack writers write about:
1) What they are interested in, or
2) Their occupation and hope to grow a following.
Plus, readers still have limited time for reading (the key constraint), so the niches are in competition with each other for readers. If I subscribe to 5 Substack columns on dentistry, I have less time for reading about other subjects.
I would agree with you that if you have an interest and an expertise in a skill or occupation that does not have many Substack columns, you have a much better chance of acquiring a critical mass of paid subscribers.
It's a little sad when I get a new subscriber and I'm told they also subscribe to 250 other substacks. (I think 900+ is the highest number I've seen.) Are they really going to read my blog more than extremely occasionally?
I’d strongly disagree that limited reading time is the key constraint. The real constraint is relevance. If you target your audience super specifically and provide unique value, they will prioritize your content over alternatives. It’s not about squeezing into an existing reading schedule. It’s about being valuable enough that your audience makes time for you.
As for topic selection, of course, you need to stay within reasonable boundaries of your expertise to keep the workload manageable. But predicting which niche will be profitable is close to impossible. Twenty years ago, no one would have believed watching people play video games was compelling content. Yet today, some streamers make millions. The same principle applies to writing: the key isn’t just picking a niche, but owning it by delivering something others can’t.
The more precisely you define and serve your audience, the less you compete for “reading time” and the more you become the go-to source for a specific group.
You are not thinking at a high enough level.
The key word in your comment is "prioritize."
Prioritization is only necessary when something is limited. In this case, what is limited is reading time.
If readers had unlimited reading time, then there would be no reason for them to prioritize based on relevence. Readers would just read every article regardless of how relevant or uniquely valuable the Substack is.
The reason why readers focus on a "go-to source" is because they have limited reading time.
Time is the ultimate scarce resource.
The second key constraint is money, which is why there are far more free subscriptions than paid subscriptions.
You prove my point. A "go-to source" is shaped by the niche and the reader. If time, not attention and preference, dictated choice, we’d all read the same newspaper. But we don’t.
To make a reliable income of substack you have to be already successful in another domain,for now at least. Maybe that changes in the future
I agree that the power law is likely to apply to Substack. I came here with essentially zero followers from other forums, since I was busy with a full time job and didn't do much with social media (and avoided Twitter). I expect I will never have many subscribers unless (a) I get some strong recommendations from high-subscriber writers; (b) my forthcoming book is surprisingly successful; (c) I become well known for some other reason.
Since I write for a work group blog, I am able to write for my own only occasionally. I don't seem to lose subscribers by posting only once or twice a month but presumably would gain more if I did. Another possible problem is that I seem unable to write short posts, which means a lot of work for each one. (This doesn't seem to hurt some writers but some of those are insanely prolific and write both long AND often.)
60,000 seems about right if you assume 2% are paid and you net around $5 per paid sub per month. However, that's a low paid rate. At 4%, you'd bring in $12,000/month, which is good. My paid subscribers are tiny in number but then I have made no effort to restrict my material.
Without free rider readers becoming paid subscribers, the considerable efforts of authors is little more than Letters to the Editor.
If your goal is to earn money, maybe.
My goal is get out the message of material progress and how we can keep it going. I think my Substack is more effective at doing that than writing Letters to the Editor.
I do not really care whether a subscription is free or paid.