10 Tips For Launching A Wine Substack

What I've learned about using Substack and about whether it can be profitable

There has been a fairly consistent uptick in wine-related Substacks in the three years since I moved here. Not an avalanche. But more than the drips of a leaky faucet. Some of the new wine Substacks come from folks who have never written before. Others are refugees from the blogosphere. Some are established wine writers who gained fame in newspaper dailies and wine magazines.

A number of them have reached out to me looking for advice. They have been interested in the mechanics, yes, but all of them asked about making money writing about wine on Substack. Everyone wanted to know if it was possible. How hard is it to do? Is it worth it?

Maybe.

What follows is a sort of guide—a guide to publishing on Substack with the aim of augmenting your income or, if you are particularly fantastic, making a living.

STEP 1: Know What You Are Going To Write About.
Before you jump into any publishing effort, know what you are going to deliver. If you can figure this out, you can figure out (roughly) what kind of readership you can expect. The narrower your focus, the smaller the potential readership.

This Substack focuses on the business, culture, and media surrounding wine. It appeals largely to the trade. That makes my potential audience much smaller than someone writing about wine education or American wines or California wines or even just Champagne.

STEP 2: Building Your Substack
If you have ever used WordPress, you shouldn’t have any problem building your wine Subtack. In fact, they have made it pretty simple. Part of that simplicity is a relative lack of design choices and a focus on providing content and explanations for readers.

Take your time and build out your Substack using every tool they give you. This includes the “About” page. Too many substacks leave this option nearly empty. Don’t. Give your potential readers everything they need to know about what they are about to get if they subscribe to your Substack. Who are you? Why should you be read? What are your bonafides? Put it all in the About Page.

STEP 3: Pricing Your Subscriptions
Substack gives you a wide array of options for pricing your wine Substack: Free, Monthly, Annually, and Forever Pricing. You can also arrange to allow folks to give gift subscriptions. You can offer discounts for a period. It’s up to you.

Unless you come with a built-in audience that is accustomed to paying for your work, you probably want to offer a Free subscription option. Even if you do have a large readership that you know is willing to pay for your work, you’ll probably still want to offer a free option. It is through free options that many paying subscribers begin their relationship with you.

4. STEP 4: Make It Worth Their While
If you are going to seek paid subscriptions, you need to make it worth the paying subscribers while. On the flip side, this means that you will leave free subscribers hopefully knowing there is more and that they can pay for it.

Generally, paying subscribers get access to all your posts, podcasts or video recordings—whatever it is you offer—while free subscribers only get half or a third or a quarter of what you published. In my case, free subscribers get access to a third of all my published posts and paid subscribers get everything. However, free subscribers get a taste of all my posts, though a paywall hides the entirety of the article. In this way, my free subscribers get a good hint at what they are missing. It’s not a bad strategy.

But whatever strategy you choose, make sure your paid subscribers get it all and that they know you are working on their behalf. They will be your evangelists. They will interact with you and they have given you their trust as well as their money. Make it worth their while.