Substack for authors: interview with Emma Rowley
Emma Rowley
I had such a great response to my previous interview with author Eleanor Anstruther about Substack, that I thought readers might find a chat with Emma Rowley, who works for Substack in the UK, helpful too. Especially as it’s a new year and many people will be thinking of joining Substack as part of their plans for 2025.
Emma’s job at Substack is literally helping authors make the most of the platform. She’s also written two psychological thrillers, so she knows what it’s like on the other side of the fence too…
Hi Emma! Please can you introduce yourself and give us a little background on yourself and your work?
I’m Emma Rowley, a Partnerships Associate for Substack in the UK, which means I work with writers, creators, experts and more to help them launch on and make the most of the platform. I also work on the comms side as part of my role.
Before this, I was in journalism for 20 years as a reporter, feature writer and editor – I was most recently deputy editor at Grazia – and have written a lot of books alongside all that, as a ghostwriter and also as an author under my own name, specifically two psychological thrillers.
For readers who aren’t familiar with Substack, please can you give an overview of what the platform is, how it works and what in particular distinguishes it from its closest competitors?
It’s a subscription network where you can share everything from written essays to video, audio and podcasts, all of which can be emailed to a list of subscribers that you own. These posts also live on substack.com and the Substack app. The Substack network runs on paid subscriptions, not ads, which changes everything.
You can opt to keep your content free, if you’d like, but there isn’t an expectation of free content – we believe that great work is valuable and deserves to be rewarded with money. That paid subscription model has always been at the heart of the platform.
What also sets us apart is the community focus – through features such as Chat, which allows you to host group conversations on a topic of your choice directly with your subscribers – and the network effects, which mean that you’re not just relying on your existing audience to find new subscribers.
Nowadays, more than 50% of free subscriptions and 30% of paid-for subscriptions come from within the Subsack ecosystem, which encompasses more than 35 million active subscriptions, of which more than 4 million are paid. That’s via features like Notes, our internal social network which embraces people sharing links to their work, Recommendations and the app, which drive millions of subscriptions across the platform.
How would you describe the Substack community? In what ways does it differ from other social media communities?
Notes I would say is much more writing-focused and also friendlier than other social networks – and, crucially, is designed to help you share your work, rather than penalise you for posting a link to a piece you’ve written. I wouldn’t call Substack itself a social media community – at least in the traditional sense. Social media I see as more where writers can set out their stall in terms of what they do. On Substack, the focus is on that relationship between writer and readers via your Substack, which is intimate.
I particularly loved this Note from a person on Substack, who says: the Substack app is largely keeping what’s good about social media and integrating it with a whole new way of consuming media.
How can a fiction author make use of Substack to help support their writing?
At simplest, use it as a space to keep your community informed of what you’re up to, announcements, and publication dates. But I’ve seen people do everything from share their publication process from proposal to book tour, to serialising a novel on Substack – as have SJ Watson, Luke Jennings and Chuck Palahniuk.
It’s not about getting a huge audience of passive followers – a smaller but engaged subscription base is very powerful. We know subscribers tend to be very supportive of the writers they subscribe to, which translates into everything from presales to bookshop appearances. Some writers use it for education – sharing writing advice and running fiction workshops – while newbie writers are getting discovered. Publishers and agents pay attention to Substack!
But really, you can do whatever you want. Make videos about your inspirations! Start a podcast about your process! There is no single “right” way to use the platform. Personally, I use my Substack to explore many of the topics I’m interested in, not just talk about books or writing – I weave those in in an organic way.
And what advice would you give to a non-fiction author on using Substack?
Much the same. You can also lean into the topic of your work and build a community of interested people around it – take Jonathan Haidt with NYT bestseller The Anxious Generation who took readers along that writing journey via his hugely popular Substack.
You can involve them in your process, canvassing their opinion and feedback. And this is not just about the run-up to publication day – Substack can help your book live far beyond that.
Can you explain the monetisation side of Substack?
If you choose to turn on paid-for subscriptions – in other words, paywall some or all of your content - Substack charges 10% for hosting, support, and services. Then there’s a small fee for our payment processor Stripe.
Do you have any tips on building up your Substack audience quickly?
Tell people what you are doing! Via your socials, but also through our own Notes. Make use of growth features like Recommendations. Write to a regular cadence – weekly is great, but the best rhythm is one that you will stick to.
Also, having a pre-existing following isn’t required to find success on Substack. Though personal followings can certainly help, there are plenty of writers who start their Substack from scratch without much of a public profile. This piece, written by journalist Anna Codrea-Rado, does a great job of detailing her personal journey, and she also includes some other case studies of "homegrown talent" who didn’t start with a huge audience but still found success on the platform. They also included some great tips of their own if you are hoping to build your Substack audience.
What’s your number one tip for an author considering setting up their own Substack?
Make use of Substack’s discovery features to find your community and build your audience. You can find advice on how authors of any type can use Substack here.
What’s the one thing you wish everyone knew about Substack?
That it’s designed to help you grow, so you don’t have to write into the void – or, worse, for SEO! Also – can I have two? - that it’s not just for a certain type of writer.
For instance, it seems obvious to me that all the book bloggers should be on Substack; people are also successfully running book clubs and even book shops on Substack.
Finally, please can you recommend some Substacks that would be useful for writers to follow?
On Substack is full of advice and tips about the platform. As for writers, as well as those mentioned above, just to give a flavour of what people do: Nick Hornby, Elif Shafak, George Saunders, Emma Gannon, Hanif Kureishi, Jojo Moyes, Dame Susan Hill, Marian Keyes, Pandora Sykes, Jon Ronson and Claire Venus.
You can browse who is writing in the fiction and literature categories by exploring the linked leaderboards; downloading the app is also helpful to find people through Notes.
If you haven't already, you can claim your Substack URL via my link, and get started with our launch guide at substack.com/get-started. You can find more resources at: on.substack.com/t/writer-stories and substack.com/going-paid-guide For help with using the product itself, visit support.substack.com
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