Great writers of the past just wrote, despite having to deal with larger issues like war, civil rights, poverty, and societal pressures.
Thanks to the people who have lived before me and who fought for my rights, and the fact that I have a stable job, words should be flying out of me easily and onto the page. Right?
Wrong.
The most challenging thing that modern writers face nowadays is how to build an audience so that someone reads their work. On top of the lovely labor of writing, we need to nurture a following. I get it, but…
Edgar Allan Poe, Jane Austen, or Octavia Butler didn’t have to worry about whether or not creating a Substack or Medium account would gain them readers. They have bigger fish to fry and lots of stories to write. They didn’t worry about readership (or did they). They toiled away writing.
You might ask why I’m suddenly writing about this.
Some writer friends of mine have jumped onto Substack in the hopes that it will motivate them to write and build an audience at the same time. That wasn’t a bad idea, and boy, how the platform made it easy to read their works directly from my email.
So the other night, I set up a Substack account. Like, properly set it up. I wrote the email campaigns, the About Me, and even posted my very first note. No official post, though. I have a record of 2 subscribers (for now).
And then, I realized that I already have a blog over here on Squarespace. What would happen here if I started posting on Substack? My momentum got debilitated by the thought of how I can keep up with a Substack when I can’t even keep up with my blog in the first place.
Am I overthinking it?
“Why don’t you just post the same content on both?”
Well, as someone who is sort of versed in digital marketing, I’m worried about duplicate content and how that would negatively impact my SEO.
So it got me thinking, what should I post on my blog that’s relevant and proper here, and what should I post on my Substack (which encourages its users to find a niche)?
I write a lot about writing on my blog, but I want to start including personal essays, excerpts from works-in-progress, and illustrations. I want my blog to be a place where I can just write about whatever I want, be more casual, and less concerned about being professional.
Here’s my workaround.
If I want to post similar content on both, I would need to differentiate some of the details. So, you’ll get a little taste from the Substack, but the juicier details will be on my blog. My blog is canon, but there will still be some good stuff on Substack! That way, I can still have both, and I get to do some linking strategies. (I just need to remember to set up canonical tags.)
I don’t want to stretch myself thin just to keep up with both platforms, but I still want to expand my avenues for writing and audience building.
God, this is the way I think at work. This is literally what I do for a living now – managing websites and strategizing on how to drive traffic. It’s fun work, but I may be working too much.
What does this mean for the blog?
My blog will be the main source of updates and stories! I’ll keep writing about being creative and my writing process, and I’ll post some illustrations here and there. I will also start posting personal essays and creative non-fiction, with the potential inclusion of short fiction and excerpts from my novel-in-progress.
Also, I recently polished my website on the backend, removed content clutter, renamed my blog (for the nth time, and so it can jive with the Substack), and changed the pink to a nice sky blue. The last one has been long overdue!
What does this mean for the Substack?
My niche is going to be the struggles of a self-identifying writer while having a day job (there are many of us out here). I’ll likely talk about product management or being a paid web geek while I write on the side. And if I’m feeling very cheeky, expect weird essays about my personal life that’ll make you wonder if they’re real or not. You’ll never know! They’re going to be tamer versions on Substack, since the juicier details are available on my blog.
Ultimately, I just hope people read and enjoy my writing, and I just want to keep writing. Maybe we’ll build an audience along the way.