Short circuiting the Substack burnout cycle

Hi friends,

It seems like the Substack backlash is growing every day. @Jane Friedman has an excellent take about the good and the bad of Substack that’s worth reading.

This isn’t the first, last, or even latest, but it does speak to something I’ve seen on Substack a lot; the burnout cycle. While this graphic says The High-Achiever Burnout Cycle, it might as well say The Substack Burnout Cycle.

It seems like writers have a six-month burn rate where they come in excited, start to build, grind, and finally burn out. I’ve watched this cycle happen 2x now since I’ve been studying it hardcore for a little over a year.

Of course it’s really happening constantly as people come onto the platform randomly. There is an almost daily crest and trough of it, but I’ve witnessed it with people I came up with 2x, starting in February 2023 cresting in June, and then burning out in August. Then, a new crop of people starting in August, peaking in December, and burning out in February/March.

Even if people bounce back once, they burn out again, and harder, until they are consumed in bitterness fueled by exhaustion, and break the wheel. Every cycle gets more vicious as more and more people pile on, even if they are in the minority. Since more and more people burnout every day, often leaving the platform in protest, the vocal minority grows even if the majority of people are widely happy with the platform as a whole.

The main thing Jane’s article reminded me of is that newsletters have rarely ever been self-monetizing. They have historically been things we built to monetize other things; books, courses, etc.

Knowing this, we would go into launch mode when something was coming out, but otherwise, our lives weren’t filled with constant thoughts of how to make sure our paid subscriber count kept going up.

We could even say “I just had a launch, and now I’m going to disappear for a couple of weeks” without worrying the universe would implode while we were gone.

I’ll admit, recently I’ve been pulling my punches, a bit scared that somebody will cancel their membership, and I never felt that way before, even when the same amount of money was on the line. I don’t like it. I feel like I’m on stage at all times and that people feel they should have constant access to me, even though nobody has ever said as much and y’all are lovely and supportive in every way.

That’s not to say the launch cycle is much better. You are constantly either living in abundance or poverty, with the next launch always determining your mood. I’ve lived in the other model, and I like both for different reasons.

The fact that we have so many different ways for people to support our work and find what they need is kind of cool, like saying “It’s okay if you don’t want my subscription buddy, I’ll have a book soon, or a conference, or some other way for you to get at me if you like my stuff”.

That part’s cool. I dig that, and I dig subscriptions because you can plan better for the future. There is a power in having recurring revenue coming in, but not if you’re beholden to it. If you can’t walk away, or approach it with joy, then that makes it little more than a bad job, and (usually) not a particularly well-paying one. It also means you are in constant launch mode, worrying only that the “line goes up” and reducing people to little more than a $20 bill, which is about the worst thing you can do to feel good about your author business.

Admittedly, when the revenue line does go up, it feels pretty great. Unfortunately, when the line goes down or stays flat, which it does often, we consider it a moral failing. This is a nonsense correlation brought on by capitalism that wants to equate moral good with money. I’ve talked ad nauseam about this topic, so instead of regurgitating my feelings, I’ll leave it to who comments on my original post about this topic.

It also means all of the “goodness” of a publication is about how much money it makes. This flaw was beautifully stated by on the same post.

I love Substack in many ways, but it seems like every move they are making is about increasing their valuation, not their actual value. For instance, while DMs might be nice for some people, almost everyones I talk to thinks it is at best a net neutral improvement, whereas we’ve been asking for better newsletter functionality for years now and, aside from audio and video functionality, haven’t seen much of anything on that front.

The things they are adding seem tailor made to make us feel like we must appear and perform every minute of the day, too, which is also a function of subscriptions in general, as you’re constantly worrying about bringing in new subscribers and watching existing subscribers cancel their subscriptions.

Previously, launches could be bad, books could be bad, products could be bad, but that could be separated from the overall quality of the rest of our business. Now, it feels like everything is wrapped up in the strength of one stream of income.

So, I just want to tell you right here, stop. Quit it.

Additionally, while it’s great to have focus, it’s better to have intention beyond money.

What do I mean by that? Well, I have quite a large number of subscribers by many metrics, and I’ve made a considerable amount of money…

…but the money is in service of creating new things and the audience is in service of doing cool things.

I own a conference now, and a publication I care about that you’re reading now, and a publishing company, and a training academy, among other things. I get to bring new voices into my publication that other people can enjoy. I wrote a comic with one of my favorite humans and one of the top writers on the planet, and I’m starting a podcast with another one and a company with a third and work closely with a fourth.

Everyone I meet now inspires me more than the last, but the last thing the audience brought me was money. Mainly, what they afforded me was access, and that access allowed me to make cool things with cool people, and center other people in the narrative of my story that I felt deserving. Then, it allowed me to turn it right back to them and give more impactful work to the people in my audience.

It brought me a deeper connection with people who inspire me and allowed me to inspire more people.

To me, this is everything. We each have a finite number of collaborations we can do in a year, and I want mine to be as impactful as possible. I only have a finite number of launches every year, and I want those to be as impactful as possible.

If I do that, more people will be more deeply impacted by the work that moves them. Therefore, audience growth is in service of making those as impactful as possible.

Over 18,000 people open at least one email from me a week. That more than attend most conventions in this country. That is why I care about audience growth, not so I get a higher number…but because I can impact more humans with the message I want to tell.

Money for money’s sake is a terrible way to exist.

My intention every day is to meet cool people, co-mingle the smartest people I know, and allow good things to happen. I am big on “planned serendipity” and that is only possible by having an audience.

The bigger my audience, the more power that network has, and the more power I have to help my friends and people I respect do cool projects and live their best life. I think about Brandon Sanderson’s $41 million dollar Kickstarter, and it started with him dropping a surprise link into his massive Reddit community and allowing it to spider out from there.

Yes, he stoked the flames, but mainly his audience carried the message, and let me tell you those books are weird. They are so weird and I love them so much. He was allowed to get weird with it and make lifechanging money because he had an audience for his work already.

Money is a byproduct of having an audience, and money is nice, but what I want is the freedom that having a larger audience provides, and the opportunities that come with that.

People who I have always admired and was inspired by are now part of my network. They are now excited to work with me on projects, and it’s incredible. That is the power of having an audience. I am in service to that feeling. This kind of work is supposed to set you free, not yoke you down.

However, it is hard and it’s hard to see that through the hard work. Even when this work is easy it is hard, and it is rarely ever easy.

Living in capitalism is bad for your mental health. Art is a way to improve your mental health. Combining capitalism with your art links the thing you do to improve your mental health directly with the thing destroying it.

What’s the solution here beyond improving your mindset? It’s probably diversifying your income streams beyond Substack into other areas, like Kickstarter, conventions, consulting, courses, etc. The more income streams you have working, the more stable you will feel. I’ve been doing this a long time and I’ve never had the same income stream perform for me the same in back-to-back years. It’s only been from the diversity of my income that I’ve been able to keep my income consistent for the past several years. We are all looking for a magic bullet, but there are really only bullets, and each one can hurt as much as help.

There’s one question I think we should ask when we see so many shiny objects coming at us at once.

Will I do it, though?

Every single time you see something come along, the #1 way to know if it will help you move forward or burn you out is whether you will do it. If it’s a perfect stategy but you won’t do it…then it’s actually just a terrible distraction.

If it’s awkward and clunky, but you’ll actually do it without burning out…then you should do it.

…ooooh, did you notice how I added something there?

…without burning out.

Burning out means a lot of things, but what I mean by it is whether the effort you expend will more than replenish itself before your energy depletes.

That might be monetary, social, mental, or just about anything. You can train yourself to do more, or different things, but right now, this minute, you might not have space for a thing, and need to create some, or not.

There are so many things that I want to do, but will never do, so I either hire for those things, plan how to make space for them, or move on from them. It literally doesn’t matter if it’s the greatest idea in the world, if you don’t have space, can’t make space, or don’t want to make space for it, you should just move on for it.

Productivity is really about doing less things that move you along more than it is doing things faster. Once you know what’s for you, this whole game gets way easier.

It’s messy, sloppy, and can get contentious when you literally put a price on your soul. That’s why I wrote a book called How to Build Your Creative Career. What you might not know is the subtitle of that book is …without selling your soul.

I have been doing this exact work for a long time. It is the work of a lifetime and even then it’s almost impossible. Not the best way to end an essay, but that just speaks to the mess of it all. It helps to be gentle with yourself and give a lot of grace to everyone as they try to work through it. I know that’s what I’m gonna do.

How did you like that one?

• Have you seen this same cycle happening?

• Or are you in it yourself?

• Do you feel it coming on?

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