#Best substack newsletters archive

What you get: Regular columns from Goldberg, Hayes, David French, and a collection of editors and writers drawn from The Weekly Standard, The Bulwark, and various conservative think tanks. ”įor: Your uncle who rails against Trump but probably won’t vote for Biden. National Review editor Jonah Goldberg and Weekly Standard alum Stephen Hayes founded this conservative newsletter, which they describe as a “center-right Atlantic. Substack’s top earners have tens of thousands of subscribers: “People are ready to take back their mind.” Paying for writers that you trust is a way to take back control,” Best said. “We’ve developed this habit of outsourcing everything we’re reading to our Facebook and Twitter feeds. Substack CEO Chris Best thinks the appetite is great. The question may no longer be whether readers are willing to pay for hyper-focused newsletters, but how many are willing to do so. And some Substack users are beginning to join forces, bundling their subscriptions at a discount, to offer their readers something that resembles a traditional publication (and that, perhaps, can bring together writers across the ideological spectrum). Print veterans like Graydon Carter and Jonah Goldberg have styled their new publications - staffed with editors and funded by investments from private equity - as newsletters. The newsletter trend is bigger than independent journalists. The company raised $15.3 million in funding from Andreessen Horowitz last year, some of which has been used to provide fellowships and sizable advances to writers, and it the company is also considering using the some of the money to provide its users with legal and editorial guidance. But that doesn’t mean Substack hasn’t gotten attention from investors. Like traditional media, publishing platforms have been crushed under the pressure advertisers put on traffic expectations and Substack sees its commitment to remaining ad-free as insurance against venture capitalists looking to bulk up or scrap publishers for parts. Substack collects a 10 percent fee from all subscriptions, which allows it to maintain its one sacred oath: no advertisements. According to the company, more than 100,000 subscribers now pay for at least one newsletter, and the platform’s top users collect hundreds of thousands of dollars in revenue, which, in some cases, amounts to more than they might earn as staff writers at legacy publications. Of all the platforms out there, Substack, launched in 2017, has become the preferred tool for writers striking out on their own. As Facebook, Google, and private equity have laid waste to print media nationwide, these platforms have given rise to a new publishing economy, in which any writer with a dedicated following might be able to make a living. Over the past few years, online-publishing platforms have made it easy for users to charge a subscription fee for newsletters.

#Best substack newsletters archive

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