For those who like writing online, the blogging platform of choice continues to evolve.
Long ago there was Blogger, which is where I started and continue to reside. In 2003 along came WordPress, which is still the gold standard for many, and in 2013 the slightly snazzier Medium. The latest name making waves is Substack, founded in 2017, which has been picking up more and more top writers of late. I have no intention of jumping ship, let's make that clear at the start, but I thought I'd take a closer look at who's doing what, where and why.
Substack is a 'subscription platform', the idea being that as a reader you sign up to read what your favourite content producers have written. Subscription isn't necessarily obligatory, anyone can see a list of what's been written, but the advantage of signing up is that everything gets emailed to you. A lot of people don't like the hassle of having to check a website to see if anything new has appeared so much prefer it when each post arrives passively and perfectly formatted in their inbox, every single time. I have no intention of emailing my blogposts, let's make that clear too, but I understand why and how it increases readership and engagement.
Substack posts are officially known as 'newsletters' and tend to be the result of considerable behind the scenes effort rather than a scant observation dashed off in minutes. If you're going to email your words to people it makes sense for it to arrive with a satisfying thud rather than as an annoying stream of micro-interruptions. Some newsletters can therefore be of considerable heft, equivalent to a full-on journalistic investigation, a scholarly treatise or well-argued opinion piece. I have no intention of restricting myself to major essays, let's also make that clear, although most of my posts would fit the medium well.
Substack specifically enables and encourages monetisation of content. Authors can decide to make subscribing to their newsletter free or paid, and to vary this from post to post as they choose. It's even possible to introduce your paywall part-way through a post so that non-subscribers are left tantalisingly adrift, wondering what goodies are hidden in the half they can't read. I have no intention of charging you to read what I write, let's also make very clear, although for a number of content producers it can be an invaluable form of income.
The techbros behind Substack take a 10% cut, obviously, because they need to make money too. They also set a minimum subscription price for all paid-for participants, currently set at $5 a month, with the option for a less expensive annual subscription of say $50 instead. Subscribing to a Substack provider is thus not cheap, and signing up to three or four can be a considerable financial outlay. A lot of people are happy to pay to support good content, thereby enabling the writer to create it in the first place, and for everyone else there's the free option with the unpaywalled stuff. I'm aware that a lot of readers would throw money at me if I asked, which is the humbling consequence of a 22-year-old reputation, but let's make it clear that's not on the table either.
Anyway I thought it'd be useful and informative to highlight some really good Substacks, in case you're interested in subscribing, because you never know when a really good read will widen your worldview. Don't let the pricetags put you off enjoying the free version. I'm also open to your suggestions to add to the list, because often the biggest barrier to embracing excellent writing is discovering it exists in the first place.
London journalism London Centric: A freelance investigative mission edited by Jim Waterson, who previously worked at the Guardian as media editor and before that was political editor of BuzzFeed. Recent deep dives include who's behind the ice cream vans on London Bridge, the intractabilities of bike theft and how damaging the TfL cyberattack was. This is the sort of stuff the capital's news-portals ought to be delivering rather than focusing on clickbait froth. [£5.96 p/m, £59.63 p/y] London Spy: Another pair of freelance journalists with an approximately weekly digest of London-based news, plus a list of media posts you might have missed, plus one meaty investigative story you won't already have read about elsewhere. Recent targets include Lutfur Rahman's management style, mapping bike theft and rogue bouncers at Heaven. [£5 p/m, £40 p/y] On London: Dave Hill's longstanding non-populist analysis of all thing political and socio-political, here bundled into convenient Substack form. Only the Tuesday and Friday newsletters fall behind the paywall. [£5 p/m, £50 p/y] The London Minute: A daily digest of nuggety news you might have missed. The Londoner: Manchester's Mill Media dangle their feet into all things London [not a Substack but very similar] [they haven't turned on the paywall yet]
Arts and culture Londonist Time Machine: Thrice weekly missives from Londonist's Editor-at-Large Matt Brown, often in exceptional detail, looking back at events and locations across the city. Has recently explored "the oldest place in London", the Holbein Gate and the closure of Smithfield and Billingsgate markets. Longstanding features include gadabout animal menageries and colouring in the John Rocque map one panel at a time. [£5 p/m, £45 p/y] The London Culture Edit: An escapee from the Evening Standard offers "a weekly curated selection of London’s cultural offerings". [£6 p/m, £60 p/y] Wooden City: Isaac Rangaswami writes about everyday public and commercial places with unusual staying power, every other week. [£3.50 p/m, £35 p/y]
Geeky expertise Odds and Ends of History: Over 5000 subscribers have signed up to see James O'Malley break down the big issues, often from the technical side of policy-making, and it's more interesting than I've made it sound. [£5 p/m, £50 p/y] The Newsletter of (Not Quite) Everything: Jonn Elledge opines on the nerdy and inherently infrastructural, often with a transport or cartographic bent. Subscribers get the full Wednesday newsletter and everyone else gets nibbles and castoffs to tempt them to sign up properly. [£4 p/m, £40 p/y] Modernism in Metro-Land: Suburban architecture in all its finest postwar forms [free, or $8 p/m, $80 p/y] Municipal Dreams: Council housing, town hall architecture and new towns, that kind of thing [all free!] Grindrod: Sporadic musings on suburbia and modernism from the author of Concretopia [free, or £8 p/m, £80 p/y]
Comedians Love, The Airport: John Finnemore has perfected the art of leaving non-subscribers dangling midway through his weekly quirkfest. [£6 p/m, £60 p/y] Richard Herring: Richard's been blogging daily at Warming Up for over 20 years, and this is identical content but with scripted extras. [£5 p/m, £50 p/y]
Personally I find an inbox of pinging emails quite annoying so prefer to read these via RSS, at least as far as the "sign up to read more" paywall indicator. Also I haven't paid to subscribe to any of these, I get sufficient value out of the free versions and can't persuade myself that the extra spiel is worth £40+ a year. Also I confess I have started my own Substack but only as a holding page with a single post and no intention to add any more, so if you're one of the seven people who've signed up you are genuinely wasting your time. But perhaps Substack is for you, and perhaps you might/could/should check it out.
