How I run The Hyphen on Substack
pulling back the curtain even more & sharing some behind-the-scenes stuff including financial and editorial
This Substack you’re reading now, The Hyphen, accidentally turned into a 6-figure business last year. I genuinely do mean ‘accidental’ because when I migrated my newsletter from Mailchimp to Substack back in early 2022, it was just a fun experiment. I had other income streams. I don’t believe in ‘forcing’ a creative project to earn you money — I think it makes the creative project shrivel up and die when too much pressure is put on it. If I’d gone ‘aha—starting a Substack will change my life!’ then it would have been full of truly awful choices and a bad bad vibe. Same with my books, I’ve never expected my books to make me rich. (That’s a whole other post.) I am obviously thrilled that Substack has turned into a job and steady new income stream for me — a way to centre my writing and be paid for it. I’m learning the whole time as my page and the platform evolves. Prior to Substack, I wrote a weekly newsletter for free, for years.
Like many other working Online Writer Millennials/Gen X, I have lived through so many platforms. Wordpress. Tumblr. Vine. TinyLetter. Medium. I’ve tried them all like a curious chef. I have picked up my tools (and words and ideas) like Dick Whittington and found new Internet homes over and over again. I really want to down tools here for a while. I like it here and I like you!
I also can’t help but feel immense gratitude. After writing and traditionally publishing six books — which were all pretty painful to birth for their own unique reasons — it’s a joy to be able to directly write for my readers and receive payment for my work and expertise. It feels freeing, wonderful and just right. Artists/writers have always tried to be paid fairly and own their work. Even Taylor Swift herself had to figure out a way to no longer be screwed over by people wanting to take her IP/money/art/brand. An artist owning their work — it feels revolutionary in a world that wants you to feel grateful for crumbs.
Mostly I’ve been learning on the job, which has been so exciting to me. I closed down my podcast Ctrl Alt Delete in January 2022 even though it was still doing very well, I was bored with the format and needed a big change. Six years was a very good innings though, the longest job I’ve ever had! My job, as a writer/creative person, is to keep things interesting — and Substack has certainly allowed me a place to learn and play again.
In August last year, I wrote the post “How I make 6 figures on Substack.” Since then, I’ve learned even more. Below, I’ve outlined some things I’ve learned over the past six months. Financial, editorial, how I maintain the business side of things etc. Hope you enjoy these pointers, I’ve tried to pull back the curtain as much as possible for you and will be in the comment section today responding directly to any and all queries. Ask me anything!