How I made $15.85 on Substack in 30 Days and You Can Too.

It's said you can make a living writing on Substack. I'm doubtful.

It’s been 30 days here on Substack after where switching from Ghost and I think that so far it’s been working. I liked Ghost and I believe that they are in some ways better - but you’re on your own with Ghost. There’s no way to meet others and that’s what is great here. I have already enjoyed a few writers here and read more and more everyday.

Photo by Josh Appel on Unsplash | This is a more reasonable expectation of earnings

Anyhoo..The numbers speak for themselves:

The numbers are not over the top by any stretch, but I am calling an income of any kind from my writing a win. I found 23 subscribers over the course of the month so for my very first month I am happy with the results.

Am I a Substack guru yet? No. Not even close. In fact, I don’t think I want to be one. I just want to write and have fun. Would it be great to have an income of six-figures?

Sure.

I doubt it will happen though.

These claims of making a living from writing a newsletter by having just 1000 paid subscribers seem over the top. Assuming I need to have 10,000 total subscribers¹to get there - this all seems rather - well impossible.

I have almost doubled my subscriber count. I started with about 25 or so. So let’s for the sake of argument say I managed to get one new subscriber to my newsletter daily

That’s 365 subscribers per year. The math works out to 27 years from now, if I want to “make a living” writing with this newsletter.

This does not sound possible. At all.

The first thing to consider is my age: 27 years from now I will be 86. 86! I may not even be here at that age. And even if I do make it - I wonder if I will be ABLE to write.

In short, there’s a deadline here. It could be literal.

Then you have to figure inflation. I’m not in charge of the Fed and math is hard but I am going to guess that things will cost more in 27 years. The 5k a month number that gets bandied about here seems even more out of reach because by then the tariffs will have ruined everything and we’ll need six figures a day to survive.

Barbie will be expensive by then, that’s for sure - even if we can afford two of them (don’t forget about Ken!)

I don’t think this is at all possible. There’s many factors at play here : the age, the money - all of it. This is my mission impossible.

But.

There’s always a but.

I’m going to try. I mean heck, why not? This is my 251st post here.

Two Hundred and Fifty-One!

Back on the first day of school or so:

Kindergarten Boot Camp

I wrote about how she was ready to start school.

And then the next day I wrote something else, and then I figured if I had two days in a row then I may try again for a third…and now I am at day 251 days of writing since early September

Assuming the fifteen bucks or so I made is the total to date (it is) and it takes me an hour to write this because I never paid attention in typing class (both are true) I have made five cents an hour writing this year to date.

That’s it. You’ve read it here first folks : I am a paid an published writer!

I am so excited! I make a nickel an hour. Five cents!

How I Made all The Money

I have two sources for this wild and crazy ride:

1. Subscriptions. All friends and family. They got the family rate at two bucks a month so that’s six dollars a month.

2. Amazon. I get a small percentage if you click a link I place here and there. When you click it and then you buy something I get a small percentage. Last month somebody bought a Roomba. I got 9 bucks and change.

That brings us to the princely sum of $15.85.

Not much, but it’s a start.

Now, the next question I have is: If I ask the universe to bring me all the monies, how long would it take for me to actually make the five grand a month that seems to be the number tossed around here.?

1 year?

2 Years?

TWENTY-SEVEN YEARS!!??

I read here that this writer was interviewed by the folks at Substack recently and in the interview stated that she has 1800 free subscribers and something like 38 paid. I mean almost 40x5 = $200 a month. That’s great! But it’s a far cry from 5 grand.

All these gurus on here seem to make it seem so easy. Just find your niche, they say. Oh, wait - don’t find your niche - be everything to everyone.

If you buy their money machine masterclass it will all work out - just $497.00 for a limited time!

Time? That I’ve got.

I don’t have the $497.00 so I guess I will just keep writing.

Here’s to 27 more great years.

PS> I would love to hear from anybody that’s actually making money here legitimately and how they got there. It would be great to hear how you went about it.

1. this assumes a ten percent paid to free ratio, which is really, really high. I’m gonna need more like 100,000 subscribers which is unthinkable when I’m sitting at 54.