Finding Your Niche | Gift Shop Grand Opening!

Monthly Newsletter | 9 Months

Winston Malone

Apr 18

XPress members - keep an eye out for the upcoming paid-only post. ~ WM

Hey there, Storyletter Fam

I hope you had a great month. As always, a lot of stuff is happening over here at Storyletter XPress Publishing LLC (that’s right, we officially changed our company name!).

Honestly, I struggled with how to set the tone for this month’s newsletter. I wrote a version of this that was much more morose, but those feelings passed and it didn’t feel right to post what I had already internally processed. I guess what it boiled down to was dealing with expectations. Expectations of the unknowns when starting a new business; in my case a publishing company. There have been hurdles in trying to market to too broad of an audience, an audience likely oversaturated with what The Storyletter is providing.

Fiction newsletters are popping up everywhere on Substack, and what’s more, there are many alternatives to Substack that have either been around for awhile, or are emerging competitors. Which is great, but it has given me some pause. What do I really want to do here on Substack with The Storyletter? What are some unique possibilities that are achievable? Hopefully I can answer those questions as we dive into this month’s topic.

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No One Reads

In the age of TikTok, IG Reels and having access to literally any video on YouTube, my fellow Substack writers will understand what I mean when I say, “no one reads.”

I say no one, but what it comes down to is a very narrow group of people. I’m relatively confident in this statement since after 9 months of publishing short fiction and poetry for free on Substack (not to mention the 7 years of publishing online prior), and subsequently blasting it on 8 social media sites, the engagement rate from those sites is few and far between. And I’m not disparaging the wonderful subs here, once people convert over to Substack and they become a reader, their engagement rate is much, much higher. Which makes sense, those are the people that wanted to follow the content.

There’s a Pew research study from 2021 that indicates that a whopping 23% of adults didn’t read one book that year, and another group of stats from Tonerbuzz.com that shows that 14% of adults in America (32 million people) can’t read at all. That’s nearly 4/10 people in the United States that will likely never get near a fictional story published on the internet.

For those that do read (the other 6/10 people), think about how this has a sort of reverse-compounding effect when it comes to particular interests, reasons for reading, and accessibility factors. I’d wager that most reading is either non-fiction, religious or hobby-related, and even that fiction is more along the lines of Detective or Romance novels. Who doesn’t love a good detective love triangle?

The market starts to narrow for each genre and sub-genre until you get to the very specific niches that become almost impossible to market in the mainstream. That doesn’t take into account how people are reading, whether they are accessing the story on a phone, tablet, e-reader, computer, audio, or a physical book.

But is this a bad thing? No, not really. It just means that you have to find your readers. Which, for Substackers, are people that are willing to read on a screen, read periodically on a schedule or no schedule at all, read one specific genre or a range of genres (both options may turn off potential subscribers), and be willing to overlook disparities in quality control. That’s a lot to ask from someone who has every other avenue of entertainment at their fingertips already.

For a better breakdown on this, check out Elle Griffin’s post “No one will read your book”. I highly recommend it.

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Finding a Niche in a Saturated Market

If you’re wondering if I have all the answers, the quick answer is no. But the least I can do is present you with a set of questions that I will answer to give you an idea of how I’m growing on Substack, which may help someone looking for techniques or inspiration.

Who is your audience? Open-minded fiction readers and writers. I have a general idea of the type of fiction that I like, which is anything that skirts the fantastical and other-worldly. I think I’d be doing a disservice to The Storyletter if I limited it to only one genre, so I’ve chosen to take on everything speculative. The issue here is that it makes it difficult to generate excitement, or any tangible anticipation for the next story if the reader has no idea what’s coming. Maybe that adds to the mystery of it all? I’m not sure yet.
What are you posting? The Storyletter publishes any speculative short fiction or poetry that falls within our guidelines. I personally try not to curse, and would like to provide fiction that isn’t full of it. I don’t have anything against cursing, but from a marketing standpoint, I feel like it is easier to forego the extreme language to have access to a larger audience.
When will you post? I try to post on specific days of the week to provide some sense of consistency. If for some reason I post on a wrong day, it is because I’m playing catch up. As of right now, it is as follows:
1. Monday - Storyletter Thoughts (twice a month)
2. Tuesday - Storyletter Read Aloud Podcast (when available)
3. Wednesday - Serial fiction
4. Thursday - N/A
5. Friday - Poetry
6. Saturday - Short stories + Flash fiction
7. Sunday - N/A + Random extras
8. Newsletter comes out on the 18th of every month
9. XPress post follows shortly after the newsletter
Where do you share it? Like I said before, I post on almost every social media site available. Royal Road is great for serial fiction. LinkedIn is pretty awesome for business stuff and newsletters. IG is my go-to for posting book covers. Twitter kind of works for accessing large groups of writers quickly. Minds is one of my favorites for community engagement. Wordpress, Wattpad, and Reddit are a few others that come to mind, although I haven’t tapped into them as best as I could.
How should you engage? This is the big question for me. I’ve been wondering this since I started. I’m a shy person and don’t like being put on the spot, so the YouTube/TikTok thing is the last thing I want to do, even though those platforms are where most of the engagement seems to be. I did do something new this month; I hosted the very first Storyletter Thoughts in order to figure out more about my readers and it turned out to be an awesome discussion. I will continue that moving forward with a new topic every other Monday.

Not sure if that helped anyone, but it’s been on my mind for awhile. I think the best method for growth is to stay patient and keep doing your best to create engaging content. Over time your efforts will bear fruit and you will reap the rewards, whatever that may be for you. Substack has been a revolutionary tool for returning control over how writers share their work and engage with their audience. I am very excited to see where this platform takes us.

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I’d like to continue this discussion over in the XPress post, so consider becoming an XPress member for a lot a great perks, but most importantly to join the Storyletter community!

Gift Shop Now Open!

I’m so very excited to unveil the new merch store called The Storyletter Gift Shop.

We have a very limited selection at the moment, but that is by design. I’ve received test products of each of the three items listed and I think they are great so far. My personal favorite is the Stormfallen framed poster. More products are expected to drop in the coming months! What are you most excited to pick up? What would you like to see?

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Update to XPress

Moving forward I’ve decided that serial fiction will be placed behind the paywall for XPress members only. I think leaving the first two chapters free will be something that is necessary, but then the remaining chapters will be for paying members.

The Storyletter continues to evolve and get better each month! If you have more suggestions, come join the growing community of readers and writers to make your voice heard! We’d love to have you in our private Discord.

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