The Free Content Dilemma

And why I'm going paid

I started my Substack back in September 2021. It was at a moment when I was going through a difficult time in my career, finding it increasingly hard to make ends meet as a single income (parent) household, in an industry which is not particularly well-known for rewarding its creatives just the celebrity authors.

Substack gave me the opportunity to offer something back, to write craft essays, to express opinions that I had spent the last 25-plus years writing (and being paid for) by newspapers. I knew that I could reap financial rewards from a paid newsletter, yet it didn’t feel quite right to me to ask for money in return for my words. How odd considering that exchange – money in return for words – is how I have paid my bills since I was eighteen years old and started working as a reporter on my local evening paper.

I remember, after a few months, having a zoom chat with

Farrah @Substack

and her telling me that the content I was producing was valuable, both to readers and potentially me if I turned on my paid subscribers.

And still I couldn’t do it. Even though I was struggling at the time to pay those very same bills, I couldn’t ask people for their hard-earned money in return for my words.

At around the same time, when things were so tight for me, when I wasn’t earning thanks to an industry that had over-commissioned in covid, when I wasn’t in receipt of a paltry child maintenance anymore (and wouldn’t be for two years), I decided that the best way forward was to offer my services to those less fortunate for free. Because, there is always someone less fortunate.

I committed to taking on one mentee a month, giving them an hour of my time one-to-one over zoom each week for four weeks, and then introducing them to the rest of the group of mentees I had collected. Each month I would hold a group zoom where I would bring along an author, an agent, or an editor, to speak to them about the publishing world and give them the opportunity to ask questions. The only stipulation to apply was that writers had to be of a working class background – the same kind of background I came from because I knew what it meant to people like us to have a champion, to have a guide, something that I had never had myself.

It was a wonderful experience, and I think in total I had twelve or thirteen mentees in my group, they even produced their own anthology which I distributed to agents and editors.

I still struggled financially through all of that, I was writing and then I opened my pop-up bookshop too, trying desperately to find a way to pay the bills through my words and still I couldn’t (or rather wouldn’t) turn on paid subscriptions.

Why? Is it a female thing do you think? Is it only women of my generation who struggle with this? Do we feel awkward talking about money, or fearful that it seems ‘full of ourselves’ to acknowledge the full value of our experience and what we do? I notice that younger women are more than happy to ask for money when they’re offering a lot less. I’m really curious to know what you think.

But I did realise in that time that if I wasn’t going to understand and value my time then I couldn’t expect anyone else to.

And then another thought occurred to me, many of the people I was offering my services to belonged to double-income households while here was I, a single parent, struggling, with not very much at all. When I did go paid on Substack in December 2023, offering my monthly creative writing meet ups, only one of those people that I had supported signed up to support me in return. It was a tough wake-up call.

The point wasn’t money, it had been an absolute joy to be able to offer something back, and I had loved watching all they achieved as a result of having that bit of hand-holding and access to people in the industry they might not have met otherwise.

It is hard asking people for money, and one of the reasons that I think I find it so hard is because I can’t afford to subscribe to half the newsletters I enjoy on here, and for that reason, apart from the monthly zoom, I’ve tried to keep everything free and open for everyone to read because I tend to assume everyone lives as I do as a writer, pretty much hand to mouth. Most of the writers I know have other jobs or partners that contribute to their household bills, I don’t, my words are my thing, they always have been.

My resistance to going all paid might be nice in theory for others, but in practice it means I suffer, it means I see friends who have paywalled everything making a real income from their words, and so it has forced me to realise, if you don’t ask, you don’t get, right?

No-one else would go to work and do their job for free, why do we expect writers to, especially on a forum like Substack where we are all here because we supposedly value good writing?

In the beginning I needed Farrah to tell me that I was producing good content, but I know I am now, I also know that because in the first three months of the year I was picked as a Substack Featured Publication twice – something I am really proud of, something other substackers only dream of. Here’s the sticker I got:

The first advice I give to anyone considering starting a substack is go paid from the beginning, whack on the paywall, know your worth. And yet why is it so difficult for me to take my own advice? How do you expect other people to know your worth if you don’t remind them of it?

Plus, if I don’t turn on that paywall the reality is that I’ll eventually just have to get a different job and then I won’t be writing at all which will be a shame after three decades — you see, reader support really does make a difference. I’m trying really hard to hold on and hold my nerve in an industry which has chewed and spat out so many other brilliant writers.

And so, I am going to turn on that paywall, I will still post the occasional public essay, but for now, everything is going paid. I hope this explains why, and I hope that many of you will follow me behind the paywall and continue to enjoy what I write. But, those bills don’t pay themselves, right? This tween that I’m raising needs pocket money for her high-end cosmetics, right? (On the subject, how come I have one moisturiser/cleanser/mascara and she needs ten?)

Currently about a quarter of my paid subscribers are comped by me, and if you seriously – seriously – can’t afford a few pounds a month (and you’re in a single income household like me) but would still like to receive my words then email me and I’ll comp you too, but I would like to think that those who have enjoyed my writing will understand why I need to turn on that paywall.

We women need to get better at asking for money, so there’s only one thing for me to do – lead by example.

Supporting my writing costs hardly anything — an annual subscription is 37% cheaper than a monthly one. It’s the equivalent of buying me a coffee each month. I need to remind myself it’s really not much to ask. Plus, I must give a huge thank you to those who have been supporting me with a paid membership — it is so much appreciated as I hope you know.

And so it just remains for me to say, press the upgrade button below to support my work, because as I’ve hopefully explained, I’d be ever so grateful.