The formula for Substack success from the example of Heather Cox Richardson
The "Letters from an American" author stopped in Iowa to share her thoughts about U.S. politics but also how she sustains one of the most popular daily newsletters on this platform.
Since you’re reading this on the Substack platform, and I’m part of the Iowa Writers’ Collaborative on Substack, it seems apt for me to offer you the complete list for what it truly takes to become a smash success as a lone digital newsletter publisher in today’s fractured media economy of the endless scroll:
Devote your life to it. Schedule each day around researching and writing your newsletter with gusto.
Yes, talent is involved, along with the timeliness of a topic people care about.
But, really, diligence is the key factor.
I’m not trying to be flip. I’m just relaying the obvious example of the Taylor Swift of substantive Substack newsletters, Heather Cox Richardson.
If you’re unfamiliar with her, Richardson is the Boston College history professor who, on Sept. 15, 2019, launched “Letters from an American.” The 2020 election and extra reading time provided to most of us by pandemic lockdowns helped to catapult Richardson into the top ranks of digital writers.
Of course, it helps that she wasn’t just randomly opining on the events of the day but building on decades of academic expertise. She also already had experimented with cultivating a social media following on Facebook to promote an earlier book.
Her daily Substack audience quickly grew to more than 1 million subscribers.
Her book “Democracy Awakening” followed in 2023.
Richardson is a shining example of how consistency drives reader growth and loyalty. This is underscored by the titles of her newsletter posts: nothing more than today’s date. She doesn’t try to tease or tantalize. It’s a small component of her savvy branding: The low-key post title reaffirms to readers she’s serious about living up to her promise to post daily. It also implies she respects readers because they seek her out for quality, in-depth analysis that doesn’t lean on the crutch of a catchy headline (such as the feeble specimen you read at the top of this post).
I’m dwelling on Richardson because this month I heard her engage in a keynote conversation with friend and longtime opinion columnist Rekha Basu in front of about 700 people at the Meadows Events & Conference Center in Altoona—a record crowd for the Interfaith Alliance of Iowa’s annual awards celebration and fundraiser. Richardson found a natural forum in front of a progressive nonprofit dedicated to defending democracy from extremism and promoting a notion of religious freedom that doesn’t weaponize it against individual rights.
As a longtime writer, journalist, and researcher myself, it was fascinating to hear Richardson summarize the process behind her newsletter:
She begins her day with about 90 minutes of browsing social media and major national and metro news sites.
She starts writing only after dinner. It takes six to nine hours for her to complete a post, which means she tends to finish in the wee hours.
Every writer needs a good editor, and Richardson was adamant that this includes her. “I don’t know the difference between the G20 and the G7,” she said. “I have to look it up every single time.” She also “can’t put in a comma to save my life.” So she relies on two editors:
A former advertiser living on the south side of Chicago helps Richardson shape the content.
A “brilliant copy editor” wrangles the commas and other pesky punctuation and doublechecks facts.
Basically, Richardson has recreated her own miniature version of the tried and true structure of a newsroom with its layers of quality control to produce a polished product on tight deadline. It’s not the same as the robust metro newsrooms of yore that offered this rigor on weekends and holidays, but it’s what passes for sustainable editorial production in the Substack era.
Richardson’s release valve is the occasional placeholder post. For instance, on June 8, in the wake of her trip to Iowa, she posted a 63-word note featuring a scenic photo from her husband at their home in Maine.
In her Iowa conversation, Richardson emphasized that she’s a historian, not a journalist, which means she’s more focused on “the contrast between image and reality in American politics.”
Historians, she explained, try to look past the events of the day to address “how and why societies change.”
This is why she utterly ignored the most recent party primaries among presidential candidates. That fleeting horse race slogging through a swamp of campaign cash and personal attacks doesn’t factor into the broader historical arc she seeks.
I heard Jon Stewart this week make a similar characterization on “The Town” podcast about the difference between his early work on “The Daily Show” and the deeper dives into root causes of issues he attempted with his Apple TV+ series, “The Problem.”
Typical daily comedy or commentary focuses on the weather, but Stewart reached a place in his career where he wanted to talk about the climate.
Similarly, Richardson spends much of her day browsing headlines obsessed with incremental change in political weather, but what she’s looking for are the larger trends in the cultural climate that historians will still care about generations from now.
As she put it, she’s always “imagining what’s written 150 years from now about today.”
“Just to be clear here,” Richardson told her Iowa audience, “I am a prophet of the past, not of the future.”
In a media environment obsessed with the minutiae of the present and inundated by false prophets of the future, one more diligent prophet of the past is very much welcome.
The only prophecy of the future Richardson needs is her promise to readers to always post tomorrow.
The Iowa Writers’ Collaborative roster
The Iowa Writers Collaborative has grown to include more than 50 members and a Letters From Iowans column. Each member is an independent columnist who shares two things in common: They have made a living as writers and are interested in the state of Iowa. Subscribe to the main account for a convenient way to be notified each Sunday about most posts by most members. You can support individual members according to your unique interests by becoming a paid subscriber to any newsletter. We are also proud to be affiliated with Iowa Capital Dispatch, where some of our content is regularly republished.
I've subscribed for years.. she's very good.. and worth the $50.. per year.. I also subscribe to HUBBELL a CA Lawyer.... Andy Borowitz.. satire.. and Garrison Keillor..