Writing and the Internet have been working hand in hand since the technology was created. I wrote online for the first time as a pre-teen on an early Angelfire website that my friend and I collaborated on, publishing fan-fiction for our favourite book series at the time. Fortunately, the writing tools available have evolved since then!
In this article, I discuss the importance of one tool for writers of all kinds and delve into two options available for getting one started.
Email Lists
An email list is a list of email addresses corresponding to people interested in receiving content from a writer in the form of an email newsletter.
It isn’t necessarily an obvious pick (it wasn’t at first for me) but, of the many tools out there to support writing, an email list should be considered one of the most vital.
In the world of traditional book publishing, having a large, healthy email list of active readers means that a publisher will see a book proposal as a safer business decision. The book could be amazing in its own right but it will seem riskier if the writer can’t demonstrate there are people already interested in engaging with their work.
There are additional benefits to an email list in contrast to social networking platforms. Readers are more likely to reflect on and engage with content if it arrives in an email inbox rather than as a post on Instagram or Facebook. Keeping an email list separate from social media platforms also means that content is delivered directly to subscribers instead of being subject to each platform’s feed algorithms.
There are many tools out there to easily implement an email list. I will go into detail about my experience with two. MailerLite is an inexpensive email marketing platform; Substack is a popular hybrid newsletter publishing and social networking platform.
I began building my own personal email list using MailerLite on the recommendation of a few peers. It was the first email marketing tool I have ever used and it did everything I would hope of this kind of platform:
Drag and drop email templating
Email scheduling and publishing capabilities
Basic analytics reporting that tracks email open rates
Ability to export (and back up) email list subscriber information
Integrations with common tools
In addition to purchasing a monthly MailerLite subscription, I also purchased a custom domain name (GoDaddy) and built a simple website (Carrd) with a subscribe form that integrated directly to MailerLite.
It is a requirement in Canada to accompany each newsletter with a physical mailing address. In order to avoid using my family’s home address, I also purchased a PO box address. This is purely optional.
Initially, the tool seemed to do exactly what I needed it to do, but there were a few pain points as well.
I work on my art and creativity projects primarily on an iPad, and the drag and drop templating feature didn’t work at all on this system. There were workarounds, but I found that using MailerLite’s alternatives made my emails look consistently wonky and my compositions error prone.
I had the skill to easily navigate setting up a simple website at a custom domain with a form that fed into an email marketing tool but, to me, it felt like there were more moving parts than necessary for what I was using. I didn’t need more integrations or automations—I needed to write.
I came across Substack while I was comparing options for replacing MailerLite. I had seen the platform before but truthfully didn’t know much about it. I signed up for an account, began creating my first publication (Substack’s term for combined blog and email list) and ended up migrating my email list to Substack within the week.
Substack works by combining the functionality of a blog, an email list, and a social networking site into one platform. Each time a writer publishes a post, it is emailed to their subscribers and appears on the publication’s blogroll. There is also the option to write “notes”, which appear in other writers’ feeds. This serves as a social networking component.
It is a very well developed platform with a lot of bells and whistles:
Post composition and publishing tools work on my iPad
More advanced reporting on traffic to posts as well as email open rates
Website, subscription form, and email list are built-in, no need for other tools
A way to monetize writing with tiered subscriptions is also built-in
Free for writers to use
I kept my PO box and custom domain name (both optional) to continue using with Substack, but was able to quickly ditch the old website and contact form.
There are a few struggles with using this tool too. Substack’s beauty is in its simplicity, but it comes at the cost of flexibility.
Theme options are limited, so every Substack publication looks generally the same.
There are also limited ways to monetize writing beyond the tiered subscription model, where those that pay expect more and deeper content. An alternative for readers might be to pay per article instead. The platform is free for writers to use and charges 10% of subscription fees to paying readers, which is probably why the tiered subscription model is so rigidly enforced.
Substack also does not support many (maybe any?) integrations with other tools such as third-party website builders. This means that, for example, writers cannot have their own websites where their posts can be displayed outside of Substack.
Conclusion
For my current goals, Substack proved to be a better fit than MailerLite. It combined the separate tools I was using previously into a single interface, minimizing tech headaches so I could focus on creating content instead.
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