More To The Story

I saw a Notes thread on Substack recently that someone had shared an article, commenting that it was the saddest thing she had read on Substack that day. It had a lot of comments, so I clicked to read out of clarity and then curiosity. Clarity, because at first I didn’t get what was so sad about the article. Then curiosity, because as soon as I figured it out, I wanted to see what others had said. Maybe you already guessed that this thread was one long b***h-fest. The comments were all writers bemoaning that Substack has been infiltrated by what they called "Linked-In self promotion content," complaining that all they want to do is write and not try to figure out how to hack the system for growth. I have thoughts. In this episode: - why selling & self-promotion doesn’t have to be icky- how to make selling & self-promotion not icky- why anyone with writing they think can help (or teach, or entertain, or comfort) others should actually want to share it- why self-promotion isn’t selling out (unless you d