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š Hi Reader,
Building a brand-new newsletter on Substack in 2025? Let us know what you think of Substack - reply to me directly on this mail.
When Elvis released the career-defining āHeartbreak Hotelā single in 1956, he wouldn't have imagined a media brand would make its long-standing patrons sing the song verbatim nearly 7 decades later.
When Substack launched the Substack Creator Fund in Jan 2025, their intent was to bring over the Tiktok creator crowd, who might have been shook by the Tiktok ban announcement merely days before.
But what started out as a compelling acquisition effort to position itself as an media outlet where creators could own their audiences, ended up becoming a positioning nightmare for Substack with its existing newsletter creators. The launch post erupted into a flurry of comments from disgruntled long-timers who had supported the platform in its early days, who felt jilted at the altar.
The comment thread under the announcement post lit up like a Christmas tree
Letās break down how newsletter creator sentiment has evolved in the last 6 months - more below:
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Youtube/Tiktok Creators
A win-win thus far. Tiktok creators got an outlet to preserve their audience, and continue reaching out to them on an intimate basis. Substack also threw in all the assurances to keep platform independence, video-centric features (like live video) and fund migration efforts, which has worked well in the light of Tiktok see-sawing in and out of vogue, and X in a state of flux in the last year. And prolific Tiktok and Youtube creators have responded by joining in full-tilt, moving from other platforms like Patreon. Publish Press, the newsletter run by Colin and Samir, ran a recent spotlight on Eric Williams, who recently shifted to Substack.
Existing Substack Creators
Tough love. The growth to monetization path had always been tough for fledgling newsletter creators. Substack wasn't built from the ground up for discovery and growth, compared to other ESPs like Beehiiv. So naturally, existing creators saw this move as a land-grab effort to acquire more consumers, instead of making a concerted effort to make existing writers (intentional about long-form writing) thrive on the platform.
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If you are reading this and you are building your audience on Substack, let me know how has the platform worked for you this far. We would love to know if you are considering migrating to other ESPs and what your choices look like.
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The LetterStack Team
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