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AMA with Substack and Matt Taibbi about a new business model for journalism

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AMA with Substack and Matt Taibbi about a new business model for journalism

#1

Post by internet_jockey »

We’re Chris Best and Hamish McKenzie, the founders of Substack (YC W18), and Matt Taibbi, a journalist and author who has written four best-sellers and is a contributing editor to the Rolling Stone. Substack is a tool that makes it simple for a writer to start a paid newsletter – but we’re also experimenting with other models for online publishing. For instance, Matt is using Substack to serialize a novel called The Business Secrets of Drug Dealing: Adventures of the Unidentified Black Male, which you can see here: https://taibbi.substack.com.

Matt has so far published six chapters in the book. The serial is an experiment for him, too, but even when it’s done he intends to keep publishing his independent work through Substack. We thought it might be interesting to bring Matt into a Hacker News discussion about this model, other things that might be tried, and the state of online publishing generally.

Last time Substack was involved in a discussion here on HN, we got a ton of great feedback (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16326411). We’d love to hear your thoughts about online publishing and how tech can (or cannot) help journalism!

Re: AMA with Substack and Matt Taibbi about a new business model for journalism

#3

Post by MattTaibbi »

masfjo wrote: post #2

As a writer who goes after very powerful people, how does that affect your work in terms of these financiers/banks trying to pressure you or your employers. Are tools like Substack designed to help writers stay independent?

I think that's definitely going to be a major motivation for journalists going forward. The media landscape is becoming more and more rigid and it is becoming harder to challenge certain points through the old networks and newspapers. So having reporters be financially independent would be huge for investigative reporting, which is one of the areas that has been cut the most in the new era of clickbait media.

Another thing -- what Substack is trying to do is to solve a problem that has existed in media forever. Writers of all types have always been compensated in an indirect, convoluted way, by publishers who get some or all of their revenue from ads. This forces writers to address audiences through layers of middlemen who may or may not want to meddle in the material. The Substack model could end both direct and indirect censorship.

Re: AMA with Substack and Matt Taibbi about a new business model for journalism

#5

Post by cjbest »

MattTaibbi wrote: post #3
masfjo wrote: post #2

As a writer who goes after very powerful people, how does that affect your work in terms of these financiers/banks trying to pressure you or your employers. Are tools like Substack designed to help writers stay independent?

I think that's definitely going to be a major motivation for journalists going forward. The media landscape is becoming more and more rigid and it is becoming harder to challenge certain points through the old networks and newspapers. So having reporters be financially independent would be huge for investigative reporting, which is one of the areas that has been cut the most in the new era of clickbait media. Another…

This is definitely part of our motivation for making Substack. When readers pay writers directly, the writers are accountable to those readers, and not e.g. advertisers.

Re: AMA with Substack and Matt Taibbi about a new business model for journalism

#8

Post by cjbest »

masfjo wrote: post #4

Follow up, how does Substack improve on what Patreon is doing?

We think Patreon is awesome. It's a great general purpose tool for supporting creators, and the fact that it is so successful shows that people are willing to pay for stuff they value.

Substack is focused on letting writers start their own publication - top to bottom - with subscriptions as an integral part.

Re: AMA with Substack and Matt Taibbi about a new business model for journalism

#9

Post by MattTaibbi »

atxeastside wrote: post #7

Hi Matt, do you see any potential for serialization to make a comeback by utilizing a platform like Substack?

I hope so. Serialization was such a huge thing for writers once upon a time. In particular it was a medium that encouraged experimentation and allowed writers to be compensated better for unusual work. It's how a lot of American detective writing got its start -- the fast pace of work like Dashiell Hammett's "Continental Ops" stories was built around the immediacy of periodical publishing. If you're writing that kind of prose as a book, it has a different style. The periodical form helped create that unique, suspenseful, fast format. My hope is that in the internet age -- when people are reading more as a whole but maybe reading fewer books -- that a serial web formal will help create a literature for readers of this era, just like magazines like "Black Mask" helped make a literature for the twenties and thirties.

Re: AMA with Substack and Matt Taibbi about a new business model for journalism

#10

Post by MattTaibbi »

whatever2222 wrote: post #6

What has it been like switching from non-fiction to (semi)fiction? How did it change your writing process?

It's completely different and fun. This is kind of an in-between change for me. Oddly enough working with my anonymous partner has been a real help -- my own natural voice is probably wordier and slower on the page, but he has a great natural narrative voice and gets to the point a lot more quickly. So trying to replicate his voice, I think, has made the material different and more fast-paced than I could have done on my own. It's been a blast, the most fun I've had writing in ages.
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