Read and Write with Natasha
This podcast discusses writing life, reviews books, and interviews authors and industry professionals.
Read and Write with Natasha
Thriving as a full-time writer: Solopreneur insights with David Mcilroy
Do you want to build a thriving writing career and monetize your content?
Tune in as David Mcilroy breaks down the exact strategies he used to grow a massive audience on Medium and Substack.
From consistent posting to effective networking, he’s got the blueprint for success—and he’s planning to go full-time by year's end, thanks to his supportive subscriber base.
We dive into the nitty-gritty of paywalls, comparing monetization models on Substack and Medium, and offering tips on when and how to charge for your content. Plus, get the scoop on hosting online courses through Thinkific, Gumroad, and Kajabi to expand your income streams.
David also opens up about his journey through independent publishing and solopreneurship, including how he landed a deal and navigates the ups and downs of going solo.
Whether you’re just starting out or looking to level up, this episode is packed with actionable insights for writers and creators.
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If you enjoy the podcast and want to help keep it going, you can fuel it (and me!) with a cup of coffee at Buy Me a Coffee. Every sip counts—thank you! 💛
I have a big list of draft ideas within Medium and I'll just kind of pick and choose from those which I feel most like writing at the time and then those ideas will sometimes get translated into Substack. So I'll maybe take an idea that I wrote in a shorter Medium piece and then I'll expand it on Substack into something more substantial. I've also started doing like deep dive pieces now on Substack where I'll analyze another writer who's writing for a living and kind of break down exactly how they did it.
Speaker 2:Hi friends, this is Read and Write with Natasha podcast. My name is Natasha Tynes and I'm an author and a journalist. In this channel, I talk about the writing life, review books and interview authors. Hope you enjoy the journey. Hi everyone, and welcome to another episode of Read and Write with Natasha. I'm very happy today to have with me Irish writer and an author, david McCroy, who writes from his home in Northern Ireland, where he lives with his beautiful wife, christine and their two dogs. David has been a solopreneur and an online writer since 2018. He joined Medium and Substack in 2023, gaining 10k following across both platforms in 11 months. His debut novel is the Soul Burned Talisman is due for publication on May 31st 2024. So, david, thank you for joining me today. I'm so happy to have you on the podcast and thank you for accepting my invitation. I've been following your, your amazing work on Substack and I'm a paid subscriber, so I'm really getting a lot of value from your work.
Speaker 1:So thank you for joining me today, david thanks for having me, natasha, I really appreciate it, and thank you for being a paid subscriber to my Substack. I really appreciate it, and thank you for being a paid subscriber to my Substack. I really appreciate that too. Every paid subscriber helps take me one step closer to being able to do Substack full time, so I really appreciate your support.
Speaker 2:Oh, you're welcome, Of course. So, david, this takes me to. I think, the core of this interview, at least for me, is you are living off your writing as a full-time writer, and this is, for me, is a big achievement, since you know, I talk to authors all the time and a number of them they have to get another job or another side hustle in order to make it as a writer, because many of them, the idea of writing full-time is still not sustainable financially. So how did you manage to do it, david?
Speaker 1:So first of all, I should explain that I'm working towards writing full-time and that will probably happen later this year, so I'm not 100% of the way there just yet, but I am 100% self-employed, so writing is probably, at the minute, 50% of my income, and then the other 50% is my online business, which I run from home. So the goal for me is to be fully self-employed in terms of writing by the end of this year or the start of next year, and I can see how that journey is laid out and in steps ahead of me. I know how to get there. So it's just. It's just a matter of time, essentially, from getting to where I am now to to there and I mean, even 50 is huge, and how are you gonna?
Speaker 2:how did you get to 50 and how, how do you think you're going to get to 100%?
Speaker 1:Good question. So the 50% really has been largely through Substack and Medium so far. I started writing on Substack and Medium about June last year. I've been writing online for a few years, but I started on those platforms last year and my following has just grown fairly quickly and steadily and through people like yourself who support me as a paid subscriber on Substack and through my medium earnings as well, through the writing I do there. It's just growing to the point now where it's moving towards the stage where I can write full-time, which is really exciting.
Speaker 1:That's always been the goal for me. I want to be able to not stop working in my other business but be able to have the other business set to one side so it can be its own self-sustaining ecosystem and then I can work on writing over here and just do what I love to do, which is to write. So the steps from here to where I get to the stage where it's 100% is really just growing. Medium and Substack just continuing to get more free subscribers that convert into paid subscribers on Substack and to keep growing my base on Medium until I get to the stage where I get enough coming in from both of those platforms that it completely covers essentially all my bills every month, so that I can then be unlocked and freed up to do what I want to do, which is write full-time so you only started last year and you have a lot of followers.
Speaker 2:And it's not even the number of followers for me because you know it's just a vanity metric for me, it's the engagement. Your engagement on substack is huge. Like you post one line and you have, you know, tons of comments and I post, I don't get as many comments. So what is your secret? And and you've only been doing that for a year how did you get there?
Speaker 1:so I think I was lucky because I came across Substack at just the right time and like notes had only been around for a relatively short time whenever I first arrived and I think I just kind of took what I was already doing on like Twitter and translated that process onto Substack, which just involved posting regularly, posting things I knew would produce engagement and just finding ways to network effectively on a daily basis.
Speaker 1:Substack Notes is great because it's like early days Twitter, where the algorithms haven't suppressed it yet. So whenever you post something and you've got enough followers, it will actually be seen by most of your followers, or seems to be the way at the minute. Whenever I first came on to Substack, I did a lot of following other people in my niche and connecting and reaching out and I think that really helped initially. And now it gave me that base at the start where I could post notes and they would kind of explode periodically and every time they kind of go semi-viral. It brings in a lot of new followers and then it kind of repeats that same cycle. So for anybody who wants to have a bit of success, I guess, on notes, I would say follow people in your niche, don't be afraid to follow them if you see them. Engage with them as much as you can and post regularly, on a daily basis, constantly experiment with what works best and see what your audience likes and kind of just double down on that.
Speaker 2:So you said networking. How do you define networking? Do you like comment, do you, and how often do you? How much time do you spend on on that platform?
Speaker 1:yeah. So, um, as I said, it's kind of similar to twitter. I used to do a lot more networking on twitter not um than I do now. I mean twitter or x, whatever you want to call. It is not what it used to be, but Substack seems to have taken its place a little bit for me anyway. So networking is? It usually involves, as you say, commenting on other people's posts and restacking them if I think they're good, restacking them with a comment, which I think is key because you can share somebody's post. But if you add your own two cents to that at the start, I think it kind of elevates a little bit. Um, it almost. It almost means you kind of claim the post for yourself in a weird sort of way. People kind of see that as your content, even though somebody else's.
Speaker 2:So restacking with notes is really helpful so restacking, just for anyone who's who's listening or watching. Restacking means like reposting, correct?
Speaker 1:yeah, basically yeah, and then commenting on other people's actual articles and on sub stack as well, so actually going into their comments, liking their post and comment and on their, on their content, and again, it's just making yourself visible. Every, every comment you leave on the platform is like a little signpost that points people back towards your profile and it's a really, really good way of just of just growing quickly on a platform so how, how many, let's say, comments or stacks or posts do you post daily or weekly?
Speaker 2:I mean, what is your cadence?
Speaker 1:um, my cadence would probably be. I tried. I don't go for a specific amount at the minute. Notes is very fluid, so I would try to post maybe two or three times a day in terms of notes okay and try to leave a few comments every day.
Speaker 1:I'm subscribed to a ton of newsletters on Substack, a ton of publications, and I get them all in my little explorer, you know the little inbox tray icon, so I'm able to sit down and just scroll through that and then see which titles jump out to me and then leave comments on those. So I would do that on a daily basis as much as I can. And yeah, it's just a matter of showing up and just kind of being there and if you spend a little bit of time on your feed you're going to come across posts and publications that jump out to you and then you can engage with those.
Speaker 2:Hmm, interesting. So how do you convert free subscribers to paid subscribers?
Speaker 1:Yeah. So that's always the biggest challenge I think for any publication owner is trying to convert that small percentage that you need to kind of make Substack a full-time occupation, I think just make the option visible a lot. So in every post I put out there's an upgrade option, an upgrade button people can click if they want to change their their subscription for free to paid. I think it's also about growing your free base as much as you can and you just give yourself a better chance of gaining more paid subscribers if you've got more free and subscribers there. So I work a lot on trying to grow the free base as much as as much, which is a lot of work and it does take time and a lot of experimentation and iteration, but again, you just increase your chance.
Speaker 1:You're probably only going to get 3-4% of your overall free following converting over to paid. Substack says 10%, but I don't think doing that really happens. For the most part, I think you'd be doing very, very well to get five percent of your free subscribers to become paid. And in order to get enough free subscribers, uh, to convert, you just need to have lots of them, I think and and how.
Speaker 2:What do you offer your paid subscribers that I won't get from a free subscription?
Speaker 1:yeah, yeah, so paid subscribers for my publication and get the usual things like full access to every article in my archive, the ability to post comments under paid articles. All my articles go under a paywall. After a certain amount of time I think at the minute it's like six months or maybe a year They'll all drop behind the paywall. So after a point, all of my content is paid. So it's a good idea to be paid to subscribe because you get you get that access like ongoing paid subscribers also get access to my online course and any future courses or any future additions to those courses that I bring out um. So it's a good idea.
Speaker 1:A good idea to be part of those because the courses themselves can be minimum around 50 pounds, possibly up to 100 pounds but you get that for free as part of my paid tier and if you are a founding, founding member or a sustaining member, as I call it, um, which is basically more than a normal paid tier and you also get um access to an online coffee chat, kind of like what we're doing now, and kind of a coaching call. So anybody who wants to chat to me directly about how to grow their sub stack or their solo business or their writing career. Get access to that as well, and you can. You can choose to pay anything above the the paid tier, as much as you like for that oh, wow, that's.
Speaker 2:This is brilliant. I'm gonna steal this. So so like for me, I think, is when do you decide to activate the paid membership, in terms of, like how I need five paid subscribers to start activating the paywall, or when, when do you make that switch? I mean, there's always this like I add something like if you want to support this, be a paid subscriber, but I don't have a paywall. You know anyone can access it. When do you put the paywall, and you mentioned something about six months. Does this happen automatically? Is there a setting that you activate? Or how, like, when did you make the switch and when were you courageous enough to actually put things behind the wall?
Speaker 1:so that's for the, the first part, first there. Um, so the setting isn't automatic. You have to go into your your settings in your dashboard and you can set that like a week. It can be like a week for everything was behind the paywall, or it can be a year or however long you want, or it can be never, and that's something that's worthwhile doing it, because it just means you kind of, if you do want to have that added value for your paid, your paid members, you can just switch that on at any point okay and in terms of when to turn on the paywall, some people say you should wait till you have a certain number of free subscribers before you do that.
Speaker 1:I'm in the camp where you just do it right at the start and you just constantly, you always think what are you going to create for your paid members, essentially from the start. So you kind of treat every subscriber, whether they're free or paid, as a paid subscriber in terms of the value that you offer. But I think you always want to be thinking how can I add that little bit of extra value for my paid subscribers? They're going to get not just the icing on the cake, but the cherry on top as well. So my advice would be, if you're worrying about when to turn the paywall on, just just turn it on and start creating content.
Speaker 2:It's just for your paid members what if you only have one paid member? You know, is it? I mean, because when you start you're going to start with one or two Do you actually say, start from the start? Okay, so now you know, I have a lot of free members but few paid members. And part of me was like is it when do you put a lot of effort for a few paid members, or when do you decide that that's for me? Let's say, I only have one paid member that's a good point in that case.
Speaker 1:I mean, it's it's up to you. You could wait till you have maybe like 100 free subscribers before you turn it on. But I think it depends on your, like, rate of growth. So let's say you have 50 free subscribers but it took you like six months to get to that point. I think at that point you would need to maybe give it a bit more time. But if you gained 50 free subscribers after like a week, then you could start to think about turning your paid tier on a bit sooner. I think I maybe turned mine on whenever I had 150, maybe free subscribers, so it wasn't right from the start. But no, sorry, that's wrong. I think I had 50 free subscribers when I turned mine on and I got my first paid member, and whenever I had fewer than 100 free subscribers. So yeah, I think if you've only got one subscriber, then wait a little bit until you turn it on. But if you've got maybe 50 to 100, um, at that point think about switching on your paywall okay, so I turned on my paywall.
Speaker 2:I have over 200 free subscribers and I have I mean, I have one paid subscribers and I have around 200 free subscribers I turn the pay wall. I I have. I just finished writing an article on substack. I want to push it. So if I push the paywall, what happens to the free and what happens to the paid? What would be the extra thing the paid get from the article?
Speaker 1:It's up to you. I mean, some people like to paywall their article right from the start, so there may be like a line and then the rest is paywalled. Some people will paywall it closer to the bottom, so they'll maybe give away a lot of free value, but then there's going to be something at the end, like, say, they had five points that they were trying to make. Their fourth and fifth point might be behind the paywall, but the first three might be free.
Speaker 1:So, it just kind of depends what you want to give away. I don't think you can get more paid subscribers without creating more paid content. So if you always just give out free content, you're never going to convert people into being paid. Sometimes you can. Some people do want to pay. Um, they want to pay you just to support you for the sake of being yeah, yeah, which is fair, but I think most people want to get something in return for what they're going to pay pay you for. So, um, I think you have to always have that in mind, um, and always try to think how can I gradually shift free and into paid subscribers?
Speaker 2:So your strategy is like the end of the article is for paid, or maybe the ability to comment is for paid, or something like this it could be, or I like. Your idea is that you give them access to all your free courses or all your. You just give them an access to your free courses.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so people who subscribe as paid members for both my publications will get an email thanking them for subscribing and then there's a code in the email that lets them take 100% of the price off my online courses. So I think a lot of the time people want the paid content within Substack is more important than the extras. So the extras are just extras, they're things that you can add on that other people can't add on, but a lot of the time it's what is within Substack is more important than anything else. So the more value you can add there and the more people can see how that value can translate into helping them and within sub stack, the better so where do you run your paid courses?
Speaker 2:which platform?
Speaker 1:I used to run it on thinkific and then I'd switched over to gumroad because gumroad's just easier. They take yeah, they take 10 off uh, each of your seals if you're, if you've, if you've got paying products. But in terms of setting things up and getting it going it's just so much quicker on Gumroad. So, yeah, I use it.
Speaker 2:Ah, interesting. Yeah, because I run it on Kajabi. Now I run my courses, so that's you know. It's also another option, Brilliant, okay. So we talked about Substack. You're also active on Medium, and Medium has a different, let's say, strategy or a different way of looking at it, or a different payment model, which is you get paid per the number of visits right, it's not based on subscribers, and I get paid via Medium Not a lot, but I get paid. So do you think you can reach a point where you can make good living off Medium, and where do you stand when it comes to Medium versus Substack?
Speaker 1:Medium is interesting. As you say, it's a different model for how you actually make money. I think with Medium you can do it full time, but it's a different model for how you actually make money. I think with Medium you can do it full time, but it's a small percentage of writers who get to that point. I think Medium works better as a part of an overall writing ecosystem. For me personally, I'm not sure if I would ever get to the point where Medium would be a full-time income stream, but it can be a significant chunk of an overall system. So, um, for me, I would see medium as maybe in future, maybe like a third of my overall income from writing, and then sub stack will be the other two thirds. Um, I mean, maybe the books that I sell further down the line will be a chunk of that as well. But yeah, there are. There are top writers I'm meeting who do make plenty that they can do full-time, but I think for the most part, for most people, it's an income stream of several rather than just one.
Speaker 2:How often do you publish on Medium?
Speaker 1:At the minute every day.
Speaker 2:Every day on Medium and every day on Substack.
Speaker 1:Every day on Medium, and then Substack would be a combination of guest posts, things that I write, and sometimes the content is repurposed from Medium on the Substack and vice versa. So there is an overlap there as well.
Speaker 2:I see, so your main publishing platform is Medium.
Speaker 1:In terms of frequency yeah, Okay, do you use publications? Yep, so I submit to a few different publications and I have my own publications as well, which I'll use from time to time. I actually wrote a piece today about why you shouldn't pursue the biggest publications all the time and that smaller publications are actually almost more effective. But yeah, I would generally always submit to a publication. I wouldn't really publish something that's just my own, because it gives you a bit more of an audience to reach for your writing.
Speaker 2:Ah, interesting. Okay, yeah, it's really good to know your strategy. And so how do you get all of these ideas? What is your idea? Generation machine, like, how does this work? It seems to be very like. What do you call it? Like well-oiled machine. How does it work?
Speaker 1:So for me it's just a matter of, whenever an idea comes to me, of writing it down straight away.
Speaker 1:Um, I have a big list of draft ideas within medium and I'll just kind of pick and choose from those which I feel most like writing at the time, and then those ideas will sometimes get translated into sub stacks. So I'll maybe take an idea that I wrote in a shorter medium piece and then I'll expand it on the substack into something more substantial. I've also started doing like deep dive pieces now on substack, where I'll analyze another writer who's writing for a living and kind of break down exactly how they did it, how they got to that point, which I find really interesting and I think my my audience will find interesting too. But yeah, ideas come to you all the time and sometimes they're great, sometimes they're not, but I think it's a matter of just putting them out there, seeing what works best and doubling down on the ideas your audience seem to like and what they get value from so you're saying you just ideas come to you randomly, like if you're walking the dog in the shower, jogging in the woods, whatever that's when the ideas come to you.
Speaker 2:So you don't sit and like, because I know some creators, like Justin Welch, have he has this time for getting inspired by others where he just sits and he starts like digging for ideas from other posts and then he writes it down For you. You're saying it's more random and then you capture them when they come it can be random.
Speaker 1:There are times when I will, I'll I'll see an idea in somebody else's newsletter. So I again I've described lots of newsletters I'll get through in my inbox every day and I might read, read a line or read a stat and think that's really, really interesting. I want to write about that. I I'll kind of pull that apart a little bit. Or I'll read something on social media. I don't think I have an active uh time set aside where I'll go out hunting for ideas, but when the ideas come to me I'll just jot them down and then I'll expand and take them from that a draft list, as I go along where?
Speaker 2:where do you capture what? What tool do you use to capture your ideas?
Speaker 1:Literally, I'll just open up a Medium story on my phone and just write down the title that I'm going to use for that piece, and then I'll just leave it and I'll come back to you later.
Speaker 2:Okay, so you don't have a capturing system. I use Apple Notes and I just jot the ideas and they come. Your system is just save it in a draft, pretty much.
Speaker 1:I use notes as well, sometimes on my phone, but I find that if I put them on Medium they're just there and then I can just open them up and just start working away whenever I'm ready, interesting?
Speaker 2:Okay, all right, wow. So I want to shift gears a bit and talk about your debut novel, the Soulburned Talisman. So is it a young adult or what's? What's the? If you can tell us a bit about your novel yeah, so yeah, it's a young adult novel.
Speaker 1:Um, it's a fantasy genre and it's inspired by, uh, northern ireland, where I'm from. So, in terms of the landscape, in terms of irish mythology, it all kind of draws from that and it's about three kids who are 13 and they basically are on a school trip in the mountains and they tumble through a portal and find themselves in a different land and they have to try and basically find their way back and navigate this new place they find themselves in. So, um, it's coming out on the 31st of may and which is pretty, pretty soon. And, yeah, I'm just I'm experimenting right now with how to promote it because it's all new to me, like I've written I've written three novels is the first one that's coming out and I'm testing out what works best in terms of getting pre-orders and getting the word out there yeah, I don't think you're gonna have a problem promoting it because you have a big audience.
Speaker 2:Um, and you know, I wish you the best of luck. So how was your publishing journey? Did you self-publish, get a publisher? How did it work for you? So?
Speaker 1:it's interesting. I queried author or query agents. Should I say, uh, in 2022. I spent a few months doing that. I got an agent in September 2022 and my book was on submission for a few months, but then my agent fell ill and she had to step back from the industry and basically wasn't an agent anymore. So I became unrepresented or not represented, sort of around summertime last year. But then I was fortunate enough to connect with an indie publication or an indie publisher in England and he he agreed to take the book on and then we spent the last few months getting it prepared and he's been fantastic at helping me get that sorted. So it's being published with an independent publisher here in the UK, which is which is cool. What's the name? It's called Burden Myers Books.
Speaker 2:So all right, do you think, because you have a big platform that helped you get the publisher good question?
Speaker 1:I would probably say not. It's maybe a factor um for publishers and I think more and more will become more of a factor. But I hope it was based more just on the quality of the story and maybe my ideas for how I was going to market it whenever I was originally chatting to the publisher.
Speaker 2:Okay, so did you approach the publisher or did he approach you?
Speaker 1:I approached him, I came across him online and sent him just a standard query, and then he came back.
Speaker 2:Okay, I see. Would you self-publish now, or would you still go with a publisher? I would like to self-publish now, or would you still go with a publisher?
Speaker 1:I would like to self-publish as well, because I want to see how it all works. I actually have a long-term ambition to set up my own independent publishing house. Further on the line, my wife and I are planning to do that to publish maybe my second novel which is not part of the same series as the one that's going to be published now. So that's something we're gonna we're gonna explore in the next next few months okay, uh, yeah, that so.
Speaker 2:And how? How are you marketing it?
Speaker 1:uh, the book yeah primarily through substax.
Speaker 1:So I have a third publication which is is david michael rey fiction and which is where I'll put everything to do with with the book, and future books are going to be coming out and basically I'm drip feeding information about it. So each, each week I'm releasing a small aspect, um, or a small snippet of the book, like like a chapter or um. I released, like the, the landscape map last week, for instance, or the cover or things like that. Um, or telling the backstory of how, how the book came about and just kind of again constantly giving my audience the chance to pre-order it and just kind of keep, keep it in in in front of them all the time. You probably heard the, the idea that you have to an audience has to see a product seven times before they'll even start to think about buying it. So I'm just trying to get it out there as much as I can and then hope that'll translate into into pre-orders and your publisher is okay with you sharing like a first chapter, or was that?
Speaker 1:uh, yeah he is, he is. Yeah, I I was. I was wasn't sure how it was gonna work, but he said it was fine. So, um, yeah, I'm gonna release the first at least couple of chapters before the book actually comes out.
Speaker 2:Oh, that's, that's a very good idea. See, you're a marketing genius.
Speaker 1:I just borrow things from other people, Natasha, yeah.
Speaker 2:I know what's that book Steal Like an Artist. So, yeah, this, this is fascinating. Ok, I want to talk a bit about your routine. So it seems to me like you're a writing machine, right? So how does your day look like? Do you wake up, start on medium, then move to sub-stack, then move to your fiction work, then I don't know walk the dog? I think people are really fascinated by the idea of a solopreneur and how you structure your day, because you're, you know, the the captain of your ship, the master of your, of your destiny as a solopreneur. So how do you structure your day?
Speaker 1:so I've gone through different versions of this over the last couple of years to try and get it right, and I'll probably never have it totally right. But at the what I do is the morning, from whenever I wake up until lunchtime, is for writing, and then after lunch until dinnertime is for everything else. So I'll get up, I'll have breakfast, make a cup of coffee, I'll write a medium article, I'll prepare or write a sub-stack article, and try and have all of that stuff done by the time I sit down to have lunch, and then after lunch everything else is just for solopreneuring. And what I want to do as well from probably next month onwards, is get back into the routine of writing fiction every morning as well. So I wrote my three novels early in the morning, from like 6 to 8 am, I would sit down and write and then I would do everything else after that. So I'm going to start trying to get myself out of bed earlier again soon to start writing fiction before do everything else.
Speaker 2:So it's gonna be the idea, yeah okay, what is your side business, if you remind me asking you to do an online business?
Speaker 1:yeah, so my side business it's called trek and I this is. This is the logo here, actually okay and it's essentially a local marketing company that promotes in Northern Ireland places to walk and hike and get outdoors in the mountains and then through that we give local businesses like cafes and accommodations and experiences the chance to reach our online audience through our website and use their platform. So it's basically local marketing, essentially Okay.
Speaker 2:All right, I read somewhere I think maybe you published this a few days ago about burnout or stress when you're a solopreneur. And lately recently I've been seeing posts from solopreneurs who are going back to 9 to 5. And they're saying you know, you're glamorizing the solopreneurship, you know and you're you know kind of look down on nine to five existence. That's kind of some of the chatter that's happening. You know I went back to nine to five and you know you can still make it, you can still find a job you like. So where do you think, where are we in terms of the solopreneurs, and is the solopreneur here to stay, or is it just a fad and everyone's eventually going to go back to nine to five?
Speaker 1:I think the best person to ask you about is justin welsh, because he he's like, he's the man when it comes to talking about solopreneurship. But somebody else I think is a great example, um, of how to do it right is eve arnold, who I'm sure you've come across on Medium. Eve's mantra is to do it part-time and not give up your nine to five and not go all in on solopreneurship, just kind of do the both simultaneously, and she's modelled how to do that really, really effectively. I think solopreneurship is here to stay. I think it's going to grow in popularity.
Speaker 1:I think most people don't understand exactly what it is just yet and I've been in situations where I've talked to friends and I said I'm a solopreneur and they're like what the heck is that? And I've had to explain it. But I think, uh, I think, as time goes on, more and more people are going to wake up to this and realize that they can take the skills they've learned and picked up from their, their corporate job or whatever it is they're doing, and translate that into something that they can do for themselves. I would imagine in the next five to ten years, be a lot more solopreneurs about, and I think, if you want to protect yourself from burnout, you have to be really, really careful that you that you don't go all in too soon and you do gradually, step by step, and kind of ease into it. And there is, there is a balance to be struck between working a nine to five job, also being a solopreneur, whether that's in a business or in a writing sense, and again, people like eve arnold are great examples of that is.
Speaker 2:Does she still have her part-time job? If I'm or?
Speaker 1:yeah, she still works um. I think she's maybe register hours um now, but she still goes out and works from nine to whatever time and she writes for two hours in the morning, based on what she says on Medium, anyway.
Speaker 2:So why do you think some solopreneurs are going back to nine to five? What did they do wrong or what happened that they're going back to nine to five?
Speaker 1:I think there is a danger in solopreneurship and self-employment, which which does get glamorized, I guess, as you can say what people do, kind of you know, they're posting pictures of themselves on their lamborghini or on the beach and they're, you know, in bali or something like that and saying how, like they don't, they work like one hour a day or something like that. And, um, other people see that and think, amazing, I'm gonna do that too, I'm gonna make millions, like this guy supposedly has. But a lot of the time they don't realize that there's a lot of either hard work that goes on behind the scenes or those people are just aren't, just aren't telling the truth and it's not really like that, and I think people sometimes do dive in with both feet.
Speaker 1:I've particularly seen a lot of students, like college students, who are leaving their university courses and going all in. That's okay if you 100% understand how it's going to go, but it kind of scares me a little bit seeing students, you know, kind of throwing away their potentially throwing away their education for the sake of something that they've seen, maybe on twitter, and then realizing, realizing pretty soon, that it's not sustainable. And yeah, I think that's a slight problem and there is kind of a toxic element to all, that you'd be very, very careful about it and listen to the right people in the industry, who who will give you real advice and talk about the bad as well as the good. I think if someone's always talking about how amazing it is and never, never sharing any negative stories, that's a bit of a red flag. So I think a lot of people need to just kind of vary who they listen to and try to look for the voices that will offer realism rather than a bit of a fantasy interesting.
Speaker 2:Okay, so who are, do you think, the people that we should listen to and follow? You mentioned justin was ever arnold. Who else?
Speaker 1:yeah, uh, yeah, justin and eve are great. I think, uh, I think tim denning's a good example, who again is on Substack and Medium. There's a lot of them really like again obviously blanking right now, of course, in this moment, but, yeah, a lot of people. You'll find them generally talking about it on Twitter and on Substack and Medium as well. They're not hard to find each other because you can usually follow who they're following on Twitter or Medium, because you usually have a small number of people that they're following and they're the ones who you should probably listen to in general.
Speaker 1:But again, I think the rule always goes if they're not talking about the negative aspect of it, then they're probably not someone you should listen to. If they are talking about the negative aspect in balance with the positive, that's a good person to take advice from from going forward so you mentioned substack and you mentioned twitter.
Speaker 2:You mentioned meaning never. You haven't mentioned linkedin. Where do you stand, like? I mean, justin waltz started on linkedin, for example. What? What's your view of, uh, when it comes to writers on linkedin?
Speaker 1:so last year I spent a lot of time testing different platforms like LinkedIn and YouTube, and I was kind of everywhere for a while. I was probably had like 10 different social media presences simultaneously. It's not a good idea. Linkedin was a big part of that and I did spend a lot of time on it. Linkedin is a good platform in terms of social media for connecting with other people and writing, but it's still social media and you still don't own your audience there in the same way that you own your audience on Substack, and this is what I think sets Substack apart from everything else, even from Medium. You're building the following, but you're also building a subscriber base and you can move that subscriber base anywhere else if you want to in future, if you decide you want to leave Substack with a Patreon or something like that.
Speaker 1:Linkedin is really, really good, but I think it's becoming more and more saturated with the same kind of people here on Twitter who are kind of selling the short-term dream a little bit, but then again I maybe don't know don't know enough about it.
Speaker 1:Haven't spent much time there over the last six months since I discovered Substack pretty much, but I think I think LinkedIn does work well as part of an overall ecosystem. I think if you're on LinkedIn and you have a good following there and you use it regularly, then it's a good. It's a good place for building interest in the other things that you're doing. But I think, like every, like every social media platform, they don't want you to leave the platform, so if you post links anywhere else, they're going to suppress them. So in that sense, their usefulness only goes so far. But linkedin does have its own native mailing list function and where you can, we can start and use that over there and build it up, and you can. You can effectively do everything on linkedin that you do on substack in the same sort of way if you really really want to.
Speaker 2:But yeah, so do you think every author or writer should be on Substack now? I mean, things change, of course. Platforms come and go, but now is it where the cool kids hang out.
Speaker 1:Well, where are they, aren't we, natasha? I would say people have described Substack as like Instagram for writers, which is probably pretty accurate. I do think it's a great platform for writers to be on in terms of building a mailing list platform, a mailing list audience, which I think you can do anything with if you have a mailing list behind you and you can keep growing that and keep nurturing your audience and get to know them really really well. I think you can keep growing that and keep nurturing your audience and get to know them really really well. I think you can effectively do anything. So substack offers that perfect blend at the minute of the social media aspect through notes and then the mailing list aspect and through everything else through publications. So, yeah, I think, in terms of being a writer, substack and medium are fantastic platforms to be on yeah, wow, it's been great.
Speaker 2:So how can people reach you, uh, how can they uh have a website on subs like how how can the audience reach you if they want to get in touch with you?
Speaker 1:yeah, so the best way is just up stack, and that's generally where I am most of the time now. So just type in my name on sub stack and you'll find me there, and I'm also on twitter. I'm on instagram, I'm on linkedin and I on YouTube. I'm still kind of there on everything else. I'm on Medium, but in terms of finding where I'm going to be consistently, substack is probably the best platform right now.
Speaker 2:Any final words for an author who wants to make a living from writing.
Speaker 1:Someone asked me recently. Actually, they saw that I posted on Facebook about my book that was coming out and they messaged me and asked how do I do that as well Like, I have an idea for a book, how do I make it happen and stuff. And I just told them that the main thing they need to do is start building a personal platform as an author, and the best way to do that is to have a mailing list. It's like a broken record when I talk about it, but it really is the best thing you can do. So if you can find a way of building that sustainably without a massive amount of effort and certainly not with a massive amount of expenditure, I think that's the best place to start. So if you're writing your book, keep writing it, stick with it, set aside a couple of hours every day to work on it, but simultaneously also build the platform that you're going to use to sell a book further on the line at the same time.
Speaker 2:Wow, fascinating. Well, david, this has been really fascinating and I'm sure I'm going to like, when I publish it, I'm going to listen to it again and take tons of notes and try to steal all your ideas.
Speaker 1:I'm going to be more successful than you. Yes, please do.
Speaker 2:This was great and you know I will see you on Substack in a few minutes. Thank you so much.
Speaker 1:I really really appreciate you asking me to be on this. It was really really cool to be here, and I think everything you're doing is awesome as well, so just keep going and yeah, yeah, we'll work on Substack together.
Speaker 2:Thank you, and for anyone who's listening or watching, thank you for staying with us and for joining us for another episode of Read and Write with Natasha and until we meet again, thank you for tuning in to Read and Write with Natasha. I'm your host, natasha Tynes. If today's episode inspired you in any way, please take the time to review the podcast. Remember to subscribe and share this podcast with fellow book lovers. Until next time, happy reading, happy writing.
