But paychecks aren't guaranteed, notes NYU journalism professor Meredith Broussard. By one estimate, nearly 30,000 media jobs have been cut in 2020. People are glued to their phones like never before, and the pandemic has slammed the media industry. And that's like something that, like, you can't really pitch to a site that is looking to get a lot of clicks through an algorithm.ĪLLYN: Substack is a three-year-old company but has reached new heights this year. HELENA FITZGERALD: The one-sentence pitch I have for it is that it's like long, weird essays about love. Now she's getting a sizable chunk of her income from her newsletter called 'Griefbacon.' Helena Fitzgerald, a New York freelance writer, had almost given up on newsletter writing until she found Substack. And so the way to fix that is to have a better business model where that's not true.ĪLLYN: Email newsletters are nothing new, but Best says Substack is different because it lets independent writers make money that is, if they can convert readers into paid subscribers. San Francisco-based Substack co-founder Chris Best says part of his pitch to writers is this - sick of publishing clickbait in hopes of becoming the next viral hit on Facebook or Twitter? Join Substack.ĬHRIS BEST: The platforms we're spending all of our time on incentivize that stuff and make that stuff easy and give it fuel.

NEWTON: All I have to do is find a few thousand people that'll pay me 10 bucks a month or a hundred bucks a year, and I'll have one of the best jobs in journalism.ĪLLYN: Newton enjoins legions of other writers who are ditching jobs at established publications like Rolling Stone, The New Republic and Vox to join what's become known as the Substackerati. It offered him the added perks of a health care subsidy and a legal defense fund. Like, all you have to do is do good work and attract customers.ĪLLYN: Substack gave Newton a website and slick email tools. This fall, he quit his staff job to launch a Substack newsletter.ĬASEY NEWTON: And all of a sudden, this thing comes along where it's like, imagine never having to ask your boss for a raise again. He's become something of a Silicon Valley institution - required reading for industry insiders.

As NPR's Bobby Allyn reports, it offers writers a way to get paid without relying on bosses or the whims of Facebook to distribute their stories.īOBBY ALLYN, BYLINE: For the past seven years, journalist Casey Newton has covered the tech world for the website The Verge. And that is part of the reason why a newsletter startup called Substack is having a moment. It has put thousands of journalists out of work.

The news industry, like so many others, has been hammered by the pandemic. Some high-profile journalists have left full-time jobs at major publications to give it a go at the buzzy newsletter. The San Francisco startup has doubled its writers since the pandemic started.

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