Here’s Where More Journalists Are Hanging Out

In the last 48 hours I’ve had at least four alerts of journalists doing the same thing. Ping. Another has joined. And another one has joined. What is it, you might ask? The answer is Substack, the newsletter publishing platform.

Writing newsletters ain’t anything new but there appears to be a new breed of journalists choosing to go down this route. Many writers are jumping into this field because the traditional publishing model isn’t working for them anymore. Maybe there’s fewer opportunities to cover what they’d like to be writing about. Perhaps they view publishing a newsletter as an additional revenue stream, with some asking subscribers for a reasonable £5 a month to read their words. It may well be early days for some of them but they might turn into a strong side hustle or equate to a decent salary.

It’s another place you can get a glimpse into a journalist’s life (if you want to). You might gain more of an affinity or glimpse into their lifestyle which might make them easier to pitch to. Maybe they might cover what they’re working on at the moment (like moi, sometimes), or there could be an opportunity for you or your client’s brand to be featured in the newsletter as some may be landing in the inbox of your exact target audience. It might be impossible to subscribe to all of them (time-wise or money-wise), but perhaps there’s certain writers in your sector, or some you feel more naturally associated with, that you may wish to follow.

Also, it’s always another great way to build relationships with journalists. “Oh, I read your newsletter on and xxxx” etc might catch their attention and make them feel slightly more inclined to respond.

Here’s a few journalists on Substack that have caught my eye recently:

• Kate Spicer

• Tiffanie Darke

• Caroline Criado Perez (starts from £5 a month)

• Flic Bowden-Smith

• Farrah Storr (from £6 a month)