In response to PJ, yes and no.
Substack does provide a good avenue for serializing fiction, but, as much as I like it, only a small fraction of the total reading public is there. From what I can tell, the same is true of Wattpad and other serial platforms. So some readers like receiving fiction that way, but others may not. At best, there isn't enough evidence to judge.
Dickens was writing when books were expensive, and writers could reach a different audience through serialization. Books, particularly indie books, are relatively inexpensive, at least in their ebook iterations. As readers begin to realize that serials can be more expensive than just buying ebooks, their interest declines. That's one reason that Kindle Vella failed so hard--it wasn't a good deal.
Free serials and shorts, of course, are a better deal, but are paid subs on a place like Substack more economical than purchases? Substack is a pay by month or year operation, rather than a pay by episode system, so there's a good chance it can be less expensive than Vella was. But whether it's cheaper than buying ebooks depends on how much the same author would charge for ebooks and how often the author releases new titles. Using a $50 per year subscription as an example (even though some people charge a lot more), if a relatively new author charged $2.99 per ebook, that author would have to produce almost 17 books per year to make the Substack subscription an economical alternative to purchasing books. That's almost a book and a half a month, or about the rate at which Timothy produces, so it's possible, but for a slower writer, it would be tough. A writer selling for $4.99 would have an easier time, needing to only produce about ten books in a year to have readers reach the break-even point. That's still a lot for many writers.
The economics are clearer on the writer's side. Writers get 80% of the subscription income they generate on Substack, so our hypothetical author would make $40 in the first scenario, compared to $35.58 or so in ebook royalties. In the second scenario, the writer would make even less on royalties ($34.91).
So that all seems like a good deal for writers--but the situation is actually more complicated than that. Even getting free subscriptions is like pulling teeth, and getting paid is even more difficult. I'm by no means a huge seller, but I made approximately 58 times more on ebook sales (not counting paperback sales or KU pages read) in October than I made on Substack subscriptions during the month of October. This is after spending a huge number of hours starting on March 1 or so on Substack, building community in various ways. Sure, I spent a fair amount on AMS ads to get those sales, but if we value my time at any reasonable figure, I probably spent more on Substack in terms of total resources.
Even though Substack is a subscription-oriented venue, I earned more from Substackers buying my books than I did from subscriptions.
Could I be atypical? Yes, I could. But I know a lot of people whose story is similar, except that they have fewer sales on other venues. Even some of the gurus are saying that if you have a thousand subs, of which three are paid, you're doing well. Speaking of which, the people who make the most money on Substack are nonfiction writers who provide a service for authors. (Sound familiar?), as well as celebrities of various sorts, including bestselling authors. Joe Average Indie, on the other hand, is typically not doing that.
Don't get me wrong. Substack is great for community. It's far superior to the how-much-money-can-we-make-selling-advertising type social media. It doesn't require a cash investment and can act as a substitute for mailing list and website for authors on a budget. It can also produce supplemental income, though maybe not a whole lot.
What it doesn't do is prove that there are a huge number of readers clamoring for serialized fiction, particularly not as an alternative to book buying. It does appeal to readers who are looking for a unique selection of material, a lot of which they can't find elsewhere. It also appeals to the fans of celebrities who are there. But it doesn't yet have a large audience of people willing to pay for serialized fiction. And those that are willing may have relatively low budgets, so they aren't going to be subscribing to that many authors. The same readers might buy ebooks from a more varied range of people.
Books will in many cases be cheaper than serialized fiction (in contrast to the Dickens era pricing). Even were that not the case, readers who weren't anti-Amazon could get a better deal from KU. Yeah, it's $144.88 a year, but for less than three paid subs on Substack, a reader could have access to the work of thousands of authors, rather than just three. You can see where I'm going with that.
None of that means that people shouldn't serialize. It just means that it's not necessarily an avenue to success.
