Getting Paid Without Tap-Dancing for the Algorithm

I want readers to support my writing. I just don't want that support to change why I write.

I’ve been reluctant to turn on a paid option of this newsletter for a long time. Not because I don’t deserve to be paid for my work—I do. Writers do. Especially writers who’ve watched every stable ladder to a middle-class life—the critic, the journalist, the academic, even the corporate PR route—self-combust.

My reluctance is not philosophical or related to my stance on capitalism. I grew up too poor for such luxurious beliefs. It is based mostly on experience.

Before taking my last couple day jobs, I had a robust freelance writing career. I published pieces for places like The New Yorker, New York Times, Atlantic, The Paris Review, and The Fader, which I had to double-check still exists (it does).

My run was cool. Getting my name in these places opened up doors and made me feel, for a while, like I was building the writing life I had always imagined. But I could only keep at it for so long.

There was weird identity bullshit happening—which I wrote a novel about. The pay was also basura (big names like to pay with clout) and trying to start a family was difficult when my finances depended on editors deciding to look at my invoice.

But another, not-so-insignificant reason I left the game is because I started feeling less like a writer and more like a content monkey. I found myself pitching things not because I felt compelled to write them, but because I thought I should—to maintain my standing in the rat race; to remain “visible.”

This is part of the freelancing grind, of course. Plenty of writers are well-suited to it, and create good work. But I learned something crucial: I’m not cut out to be one of them. I enjoy writing less when the first question I ask is: What does the market want me to write? Rather than: What do I want to write?

So, I stepped away. I took a string of staff jobs at publications and nonprofits and arranged a life in which the writing I do outside of my 9-to-5 doesn’t have to pay the mortgage or feed my kids. A life in which whatever I write and publish is something I write only because I really want to.

Joining Substack, from the beginning, was meant to be part of this goal.

I laid out the vision in my first post, three years ago. This space reminded me of the Blogspot days; when people riffed on whatever interested them and there wasn’t pressure to package thoughts into definitive takes or attach them to controversies that had “erupted” five minutes earlier. It was the kind of place where people wandered, obsessed, and dwelled. And after years of pitching ideas, making a case, and shifting it to match an editor’s or publication’s taste, I realized I stopped dwelling on the page as much, and I missed it.

Over nearly 70 entries now, the subjects I’ve touched on have evolved as I have evolved. I’ve written about navigating the publishing industry without money or connections, the journey of publishing my well-received first novel with a big press, raising kids while trying to write another one, and occasionally, literary culture-war arguments I have something to add to, or I get dragged into.

Lately, I’ve been writing more often. Not because I have a content calendar, but because ideas have been arriving.

I’m deep into another pass on my second novel, and the little essays and experiments have been useful detours. Sometimes they pull on thoughts that are thematically connected to my novel, but don’t really belong inside it. Sometimes they’re experiences with my kids I can’t stop thinking about. And sometimes I’m just following a question down the page and figuring out what I think at the end.

It’s fun! And I get to send it out to other people who see themselves in it, or perhaps have been thinking about similar things and they share it and we discuss it and that feels good.

This is still one of the few places online that feels intellectually stimulating and worthwhile. Of course, that doesn’t change the fact that this place has also started to lean into the tactics all social platforms eventually lean into: short-form video, metrics, gamification, rankings, incessant notifications. It’s become, in many ways, another place pressuring you to do more and share more. Which, of course, is a pressure writers feel everywhere now.

We’re expected to make The Work, but also the “content” that supports The Work: The reels, the clips, the slideshows, the livestreams and videos, the hot takes, and behind-the-scenes glimpses. I do it, too. Sometimes it makes sense and I enjoy it, and other times I feel this ick afterward—an ick I’ve been trying to avoid my whole career.

My fear of this ick is a big reason I never turned on a paid option in the past. I know plenty of people who have built smart, sustainable streams of income here without losing their souls, and I applaud those who get it how they can in an industry constantly finding new ways to fall apart.

I just couldn’t figure out how to do it.

About a year or so ago, I asked a few longtime subscribers what they thought about me turning on a paid plan. They were all supportive. The only problem was that I couldn’t figure out what “perks” I would offer. What could justify people’s hard-earned money? More importantly, what could I reasonably promise as a father of two little kids, a husband, a full-time employee, and a guy trying to write a second novel at the crack of dawn?

Every answer I came up with was unsatisfactory. Every answer made the newsletter instantly feel less like the little playground it’s always felt like, and more like another obligation I might come to resent. So I left paid turned off.

And yet, over time, more subscribers came, nearly 4,000 now, and a nice little chunk have pledged to pay for this newsletter. Each time one of these pledges come in, I’m surprised and humbled. I’ve not asked or promised anything. Someone out there had simply read the work and decided it was worth supporting. Lately, these vows have made me wonder whether I’m overthinking all of this.

The truth is, I do put effort into these essays. I think about topics over time. I write them slowly. I edit ruthlessly. I re-read and print them out. I like them to read like they’re off the cuff, but writing something tight and conversational requires more work than just allowing your every meandering thought to spill onto the page.

So, I’ve arrived at something like a compromise. Starting today, paid subscriptions to Dwell are available.

Every new post I write will still remain free. I want anyone who finds these essays useful to read them.

Paid subscribers will get access to older posts in the archive.

At a slightly higher tier, I’ll hold quarterly Zoom conversations—office-hours style—where people can ask questions about writing, publishing, balancing parenting and artistic ambition, or whatever else they believe I might be qualified to discuss. I receive a steady stream of emails from writers asking for advice or help navigating the industry and I always try to respond to because I received a ton of mentorship myself. But it becomes harder each year. A quarterly group conversation feels like a way to offer that access while putting some reasonable boundaries around my time.

So there you have it, the package, available here.

What I won’t do is promise more content, or write exclusive essays, or pretend like I have a premium level of wisdom free readers can’t access. Yes, I would love your support, and would appreciate it, but I must guard myself.

I don’t want to reach a point where I’m thinking of the next thing to write and asking: What do my paid subscribers want from me this week to make their money feel worthwhile? I want to stay where I’ve been operating for a while now, and only ask myself: What have I been unable to stop thinking about?

Peace,
Andrew