Newsletters are the new blogs

And a few tips on how to make the most of Substack.

Until Google killed it off, not a day went by without me logging into my Google Reader account where I’d subscribed to the RSS feeds of dozens of blogs. There’s something about a well-written blog entry I really love. It’s not about a writer trying to create a piece for a publication’s specific audience, but rather one person sharing musings and anecdotes that are deeply relevant to themselves in the hopes that they’ll also resonate with others. Though I’ve stumbled across a few brilliant articles published on sites like Medium or sites operating as digital magazines, it feels like there’s such a heavy demand for a constant stream of content everywhere that most of what I find out there reads like fluff designed to fill space. Or worse, thinly-veiled advertorial just trying to sell me a product because the author was paid to promote it. What blogs did best, in my opinion, was rallying an audience around a single writer's voice. I want to read longer posts from people I find interesting, even if their updates don’t follow any sort of consistent topic or theme.

Blogs are still around, and a few authors have been consistently blogging all this time, but sadly a lot of my favorites died off in the great social media shift that kicked off with Facebook, Twitter, and the idea that content should be designed for consumption on a small screen while someone is bored during the ninety seconds they have to wait in line at the grocery store. Fortunately for me, the blog is making a major comeback, but the branding and delivery mechanisms have changed a little bit. I mean, what is a newsletter if not a blog? I’m loving the fact that newsletters are popping up all over the place now, and that I can follow one person’s quirky niche obsession or get wrapped up in whatever random thing someone has decided to rant or rave about that day.

I don’t spend much time on any of the big social platforms these days, but when I do visit various content aggregators, I’m noticing that Substack newsletters are being linked to a lot more frequently in recent months. My Substack account is starting to feel like my old Google Reader account did, and I get genuinely excited when I see a notification from my Substack app that one of my subscriptions has sent out a new post.

Unfortunately, Substack is also a massive content-hosting platform just like any other, so there’s a lot of noise to sort through if you’re looking for other newsletters worth subscribing to. Here are a few Substack newsletters I’ve really been enjoying, and if you’ve got a favorite, I’d love to see it in the comments.

Lynchline: The Scott Lynch Newsletter

Until recently, Scott Lynch’s inconsistently updated newsletter was mostly paywalled, but he’s recently been sending out posts that are free to everyone. If you’re a fan of The Lies of Locke Lamora and the rest of the Gentleman Bastard series, you’ll want to check this one out. His current 4-part deep dive into the 1994 TV adaptation of Stephen King’s The Stand has been particularly entertaining.

Dirtbags Through the Ages

In her own words, Allison Epstein’s snarky and hilarious newsletter is a chance to “journey through the pages of history to meet the historical weirdos, dirtbags, and iconoclasts whose wacky stories warm [her] heart in one way or another.” A lot of fantasy authors take heavy inspiration from the events of our own history, and Dirtbags Through the Ages is one of those newsletters where every new post gives me ideas for characters and plot arcs.

Colin Meloy's Machine Shop

I am a rabid fan of the band The Decemberists, and Colin's newsletter is the main reason I decided to migrate to Substack in the first place. Unfortunately, most of his posts are behind the paywall, but if you’re a fan of the band and have somehow not realized Colin has a newsletter where he shares unrecorded tracks, stories behind popular songs, tour diaries, and much more, you’re really missing out. To me, this is exactly the kind of content I want to see from a creator I admire, and I happily pay the subscription fee to get his updates.

The Art of Cover Art

This is one of those niche subject newsletters I was talking about. Every post covers some aspect of album cover design, be it design trends or a look at how an artist’s covers have evolved over the years. I don’t particularly care about design theory, but I can’t help but find Rachel Cabitt’s fascination with the medium of album covers contagious. Even better, The Art of Cover Art is entirely free to read.

Sweater Weather

If you’re a writer, do yourself a favor and subscribe to Brandon Taylor’s newsletter. Brandon is a talented author, but it’s his essays on writing craft that have me coming back to this newsletter almost every day as I work my way through the archives, often re-reading his essays to consider how I might apply his thoughts to my own work. I’ll talk about this down below, but Sweater Weather is an excellent example of why this newsletter/blog hybrid format is so much better than the classic newsletter format where the archives are generally lost to anyone who came late to the party.

I have no personal investment in any of these blogs, nor am I trying to promote Substack itself, but these are some of my favorite reads on the internet right now, so I’m guessing some of you might find them worthwhile as well.

Substack is a newsletter/blog hybrid

Most of you are receiving this newsletter as an email delivered to your inbox, but Substack has been steadily evolving into a more robust content-sharing platform with what I’ve grudgingly come to accept as some useful features. I’m not an app for every website person, but the Substack app has found a happy home on my phone. I’ve set my preferences so that I no longer receive emails from the dozen-odd newsletters I subscribe to, instead receiving notifications from the app when something new is posted. For context, I hate phone notifications. I rarely allow apps to intrude on my life with what feels like a constant need to notify me about the most inconsequential of updates, but every week I look forward to newsletters like those I’ve mentioned here already, often saving them for a mid-morning reading break while I prop my feet up on my desk and sip coffee while reading the latest missive from one of my favorite newsletter authors.

The app also makes liking and commenting on posts more seamless. I loathe the don’t forget to like and subscribe culture as much as you probably do, but the truth is that content creators live and die by the algorithm, and what the algorithm likes more than anything else is engagement. If something on the internet has given you even a brief flicker of entertainment, please do click or tap whatever upvote/like/love mechanism is available. Publishing often feels like hurling things into the void, unsure of whether or not anyone is even listening. Likes, comments, Amazon ratings, reviews, and social media shares are how we know that what we’re doing is worth a damn to someone. Every Among the Stacks post has a Like button at both the top and bottom of the email or website page, so if you’d like to see more of things like Whisper of the Wilding Woods or the other short fiction I’ve already shared, the best way to let me know is to tap that button at the end of anything you’ve enjoyed.

One of the other reasons I moved to Substack from a traditional newsletter provider is that it’s very easy for people who’ve only recently discovered the newsletter to go back and comb the archives. This is where Substack really feels more like a blog than a simple newsletter. At any point, you can hit the Among the Stacks archives to catch up on old entries. You can also visit the site to view category-specific archives:

Screenshot of the website header menu.

You can also easily tweak which sections you’d like to receive from me or any other authors you follow. Don’t want to see Whisper of the Wilding Woods updates? Go to Manage Subscriptions, click on Among the Stacks, and untick that section. This way you only get the updates you want.

Like I said above, I’m not trying to sell anyone on Substack itself, but other than the odd dip into r/Fantasy or my highly-curated Instagram feed that’s mostly musicians, boutique guitar accessory companies, surfing, and fly fishing, this is one of the only platforms I visit on a regular basis. I’m recommending these newsletters and Substack because it’s where I’m doing almost all of my online non-fiction reading these days.

I hope one of those newsletters speaks to you as well, and that you have a better idea of how to get a little more value out of this subscription.

Later this week you’ll get Chapter 5 of Whisper, and next week I’ll drop a quick progress report. After that, a behind-the-scenes look at exactly what goes into a novel revision. Until then, I’ll see you Among the Stacks!

-mark