At the end of 2024, I disappeared for a period of time into the interior of India. Smartphones are ubiquitous there. People are hungry to better themselves, and almost all the local businesses are run from a mobile phone linked to WhatsApp and a Facebook page.
57% of the total employed population in India is self-employed, which amounts to approximately 285 million people using smartphones and pimping off megacorps platforms.
So, I thought I would give it a go and see how hard it would be to operate a publishing project from my phone.
I returned to Europe in early 2025 and decided to try out Substack.
I jumped in, exported the disengaged subscribers from Kit, imported them into Substack, and then started posting.
I loved the ease of it: tapping away on my phone (I write everything in IA Writer using markdown), then clicking ‘post’ to publish.
What’s not to like?
90% of my site traffic is by people on a mobile device. Design aesthetics are not as important as they might be for businesses that primarily get desktop traffic.
As a publisher, I want my readers to be able to read my words easily and without distraction. In the beginning, Substack was perfect for this.
So there I am with an instant newsletter of 9000+ free subscribers. Over time, due in part to my own efforts and Substack’s so-called network effect, that number has grown to over 15,000.
Not that bad for a lazy arse publisher who made his first post on 13th May 2024.
Then, I decided I had had enough and made my last post on 22nd December 2024.
7 months and 9 days after my first post.
I had over 250 paid subscribers and was officially a bestseller, with bestseller status and the associated preferential treatment.
Now, here’s the thing. When I looked at the stats of where the people who upgraded to paid came from, 90% were from my efforts. Hardly any of them were due to the networked effect.
Substack found me lots of free subscribers, but not all subscribers are equal. This was the equivalent of filling my list with tyre kickers.
But things had started getting a little out of control.
I couldn’t organise the content in the way I wanted to, even using sections, custom-built Maps of Content pages, etc.
Plus, Substack has become more and more like a social network.
Lots of distraction. Lots busyness. Lots of noise.
It was not a place of calm.
Something essential in my niche and to my subscribers.
I left partly due to feedback from paid subscribers who found it confusing, becoming very noisy and distracting, and whispers from ‘out there’.
I also discussed this a while back with Paul from Practicing The Write Stuff. I don’t know him, and we’ve only chatted a couple of times.
So, a bit of humble pie eating on my behalf, as I have previously bigged up Substack on here and elsewhere. No more. In fact, I now see it as a digital cage and something to be avoided at all costs.
Remember those 250+ paid subscribers? How did I move them off Substack and onto WordPress?
Oh boy, what a fucking nightmare.
Over the seven months, I offered my subscription at different prices.
Anyone below a certain amount just got a pro-rated refund. The monthly subs got cancelled, and I slowly went through the remaining 200 paid subscribers and manually cancelled their recurring billing.
Everyone was told what was happening, and my subscribers’ resounding ‘thank gawd for that’ was pretty much their response. Quite a few stated that they were fed up being pushed other people’s content.
They also didn’t like the coercion of recurring billing (nor do I), and they didn’t like Substack’s confusion and how busy it had become.
I am building the new website and will relaunch it in March 2025.
Everyone’s sub is being extended until the end of 2025, after which they can decide whether to renew.
I have to say that I did this Substack test for two reasons.
- How easy would it be to try and emulate what’s going on in India, and run a publishing business from my phone.
- Clarify how I wanted to structure the newsletter. Many of my ideas worked, and many didn’t.
Was it worth it? Yes, definitely as a minimum viable product test. I am a lot clearer on how I want to teach the citizens in my world.
I should really have left three months in. Migrating people out would have been less hassle, and there would have been fewer posts to migrate over. Still, it has been a great learning experience.
And fortunately, my delightful citizens (customers) are very patient and forgiving.
Takeaway: NOT ALL SUBSCRIBERS ARE EQUAL!
My tech stack
- WordPress (CMS)
- Generatepress (wordpress theme)
- Paid Membership Pro (membership plugin)
- Kit (for email)
- WPX (awesome web hosting)