51–60 of 63 posts
It's like back in the day, when a bunch of Victorian (?) novels were published by chapter in newspapers.
I’ve heard le compte de montecristeau was published like that. Mangas are still published like this (in jump) I believe?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
How do you know it’s a paid ad by Substack? I’m perfectly willing to believe that, but the simpler explanation seems to be that it’s an ad for the author’s book.
On the net your default assumption for someone promoting something is that its paid. Its not always true but its far more often the case than not.
It's like back in the day, when a bunch of Victorian (?) novels were published by chapter in newspapers.
I'm not a Christian, and don't agree with everything, therein, but the book is a great treatise on general decorum and a thoughtful approach to basic morality.
That is exactly how it was written.
I'm pretty sure The Martian, by Andy Weir, was written that way, as well.
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> A real (financial) pull of publishing a book via a monthly, paid newsletter is the higher revenue per customer. A customer won’t pay more than, say, $40 for a book. But they’ll more likely pay ~$120 by paying $10/month for a year. See also how Steven Sinofsky is publishing his book series Hardcore Software on Substack with the option to pay up to $300/year to get a final, printable PDF edition of the series once fi…
Is anyone else surprised that Sinofsky, who must have made - at a minimum - tens of millions of dollars at MS, feels the need to charge at all - let alone $300 for a pdf - for his memoirs. It’s almost as though he doesn’t want people to read them.
lol. Bill Gates' book on climate change is selling for $14 (Kindle version) https://www.amazon.com/How-Avoid-Climate-Disaster-Breakthrou...
I can understand charging for hard copy, but why does someone worth 100B feel the need to charge for digital version of his book on the most important topic of today, climate change? Even if 100,000 people buy it, that is what, 1.4M? Bill must make more than that in the time it takes for him to drink his morning coffee?
That said, it is his book, he can do whatever he wants with it. He was kind enough to make the PDF available for free for college kids, for a while... https://www.gatesnotes.com/Energy/How-to-Avoid-a-Climate-Dis...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Is anyone else surprised that Sinofsky, who must have made - at a minimum - tens of millions of dollars at MS, feels the need to charge at all - let alone $300 for a pdf - for his memoirs. It’s almost as though he doesn’t want people to read them.
feels the need to charge at all lol. Bill Gates' book on climate change is selling for $14 (Kindle version) https://www.amazon.com/How-Avoid-Climate-Disaster-Breakthrou... I can understand charging for hard copy, but why does someone worth 100B feel the need to charge for digital version of his book on the most important topic of today, climate change? Even if 100,000 people buy it, that is what, 1.4M? Bill must make…
I guess that Sinofsky thinks he has a very niche audience who can well afford $300 so they he might as well get them to pay.
Very interesting article, but that first line about Walter White didn't really do a good job in setting the correct tone for the article. That being said, the book he plans on releasing in installments about music looks good.
Walter White is the new Che Guevara. Now everyone thinks about Walter White when they feel a bit rebellious.
I'm surprised that substack shows up so often on HN. It doesn't support syntax highlighting, tables, Latex, and has no widgets for data or interactive visualizations. Perfect for lots of audiences who want long-form writing, but HN?
Piece neglects an extremely important point. Ted says he has tens of thousands of subscribers, which I assume puts him into the top 20 newsletters, or close anyway. On internet platforms a minority of creators reap outsized rewards and subscriptions are highly concentrated. He moved to a platform after decades of traditional publishing which got him the position he is in. It's like Taylor Swift starting her own recor…
You are correct. It's not a valid comparison. Publishers help promote the author. Substack does no promotion.
I'm surprised that substack shows up so often on HN. It doesn't support syntax highlighting, tables, Latex, and has no widgets for data or interactive visualizations. Perfect for lots of audiences who want long-form writing, but HN?
As a reader, I like substack. It promotes a healthy diversity in opinions unlike the increasingly ban-happy established social media and puts some power back into the writer's hands, at the cost of shattering the "For Free!" illusions of free beer social media.
What I just wish they do is realize how goddamn fucking aweful their rock-slow website is, how astonishingly user-hostile and actively infuriating it is to use.