by Anne R. Allen This week I’ve been hit hard by signs that publishing industry bloggers are disappearing into the Substack world of “become a paid …
Bloggers Are Still Important to the Publishing World, but They’re Disappearing
I read the above post today and wondered, “are blogs dissipating into SubStack? As a person who uses both platforms but loves my nearly decade blog far more than SS I’m interested in other bloggers takes. I did try to comment on this blog post but wasn’t able to.
Thoughts?
I don’t know what to do now, Kate. I love blogging. I love my little band of stalwarts.
I’m not going anywhere, personally, and I only need my own little community of friends to make this feel worthwhile to me.
~David
that’s good to hear, David; I’ve found my home. I like the people in it 🙂
Me too David, I love the community feel of what I think of as my creative home here on WP
I think it also helps [me] that I’m not trying to sell anything – blogging is a creative and social pursuit for me, nothing more.
I’m the same David. I simply love to write and create. Years ago I used to feel a sort of self pressure to make some sort of income from writing because it takes up so much time – but I gave that up – if I want extra income I will get a second job. Writing photography poetry – it’s all for the joy of my soul and to create beautiful filters for the way I see and share in this world. I will publish a few books but frankly I am not great at marketing. My creative life more than pays me back in terms of energy and happiness
Me too John and that’s why I will always have a home and garden here on WP
that’s a relief; we don’t want to lose you —
Oh I’m not going anywhere John and neither will you – for ages yet – just downloaded a book called “your brain on art” we creative types will be the long lived super humans with extraordinary brains …maybe 😁
great !!
I think it’s important to distinguish between types of bloggers. The author of that post is the kind who seems to be commercial, or something along those lines….the early version of influencers, before social media blew that market up exponentially.
I can’t really comment on that type because I’ve never been one. My stuff has always been personal, and without any well-defined strategy or analysis of what to post about. It started 19 years ago when blogs were big because they were a platform for personal expression, which found community in others doing the same.
Social media mostly killed that whole movement, but I still hang on here because it was never FOR others…it was always for me, and I was just fortunate to have found others along the way (though by now, there are almost none left).
Substack has some good stuff, but I’m turned off by the get-paid angle, which makes it feel a little like Medium (which I hated). Also, though, I’ve found most of the stuff on my feed is by an entirely younger generation who I can’t relate much to because I’m 20 years beyond their stage of life.
I know there’s plenty of people in a similar generation to me, but it’s too much work trying to find them through a platform that feels like social media for writers.
I still favour WordPress, though am barely active on it anymore… barely active anywhere, actually. (Just in a strange stage of life, I guess.)
Well said, I write for my sake rather than for others as well
I always enjoy your writing Yacoob and hope you’ll be able to return to sharing more soon. Substack has a massive amount of writers that create content and information driven writing – I don’t usually engage with any of it but sometimes something stands out that is worth reading in that space
I think bloggers just want to be read. They will post where readers want to read. Thats all I want to say. And I like WP.
I love WP too Selma and I agree – bloggers are writers and writers write to be read
I wrote on Medium for a long time. Selma Writes. “Behind the paywall” as they say on Medium, for people who want to read and compensate writers. Had/have? a decent following. But it overwhelms. So now I’m mostly a reader with a yearly rotating subscription. I like WP. Have never tried SS but I “assume” it’s like Medium. So I say, no thanks to SS. I follow a handful of peers but I’m not active. All the best to you Kate.
I love WP. And enjoy the people I’ve come to know here and look forward to reading them. I do get some political articles emailed from reporters that have been around for years, but that’s it. WP is like home for me. 💙🤗
I’m the same Elle and I can’t see a time when I will ever bot be here
I’m not on SS and I’m really enjoying WP despite the ups and downs on the platform.
I use both platforms for different reasons but WP still feels like home
finally got a chance to comment on this. great food for thought Kate.
I sense that the monetization of blogging has turned the medium into something else. Mind you, it’s still “creative” but it’s veered towards the performative – as has all social media. It’s not my place to say whether that’s a good or a bad thing. But it has altered the dynamic. There are more aspects to this than just the performative one but I think that’s as good as any to start. People have been drowned in the performative that even something that looks and feels of simple living seems performative. Mike
Hi Mike I agree. There is so much churn and explanation, steps and advice and really annoying noise at every level. Everyone seems to have a podcast but I stick to the ones that I love that continue to provide real stories. Everyone seems to have an opinion but I prefer the ones creating from unique perspectives, who offer presence and experience not performance and an endless array of thought bubbles – the notes feature which I use sparingly on subs stack is like Twitter or Threads but occasionally people offer something insightful.
And yet we persist to humm and sing and write and paint despite the avalanche because I believe that more than ever authenticity and connection is available.
I love reading the everyday musings and stories of people like yourself, I think they are becoming even more valuable. I love my favourite poets and people here on WordPress and it’s like turning onto a country road after a busy highway to come to my blog and my reader here. I wind down the window and smell some fresh air.
Blogging is vital but only where it’s authentic and driven by real humans – the wheel will swing back hard to the blogging world I think – if it is even turning away now – I’ve heard that blogging is irrelevant since I began a decade ago. I was told again recently at the writers festival that it was irrelevant by a professor for lanaguage and literacy (or something or other)
Generalisations are just that. Our personal experience trumps it all.
totally agree Kate. it is a pleasure to read how you view our beautifully mundane world. i like to call it “mystic realism” if a term exists. but it shows that we don’t have to go far from our reality to see artistic beauty. we just have to curate it a moderate bit and give it the best “lighting”. I think that every medium can do that but blogging moreso can be a real litmus test of a person’s soul.
and as for the professor at the writing festival….technical people will always be technical. when faced with such overload I am reminded of the good-natured economist paul krugman who offered this piece of wisdom back in 1998 :
https://michaeljosephwilliams646.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/krug-2.png
😂😂😂
Oh that’s hilarious and I had a fax machine so I know exactly how useful and long lived they were 😂
I started SS recently. I don’t love it but I’m trying to hang in there. I’m not getting rid of my blog here.
I’m the same LaShelle. I write mostly poetry here and wanted to write in a different way and although I know I don’t need to move to do that I thought it was worth exploring – it’s certainly different but I’m slowly building consistency in a newsletter – one day I might even have a decades worth of writing on there like I do here that’s the aim – but I will never leave here either – we’ll never say never but it’s not something I’m thinking of right now, I love the community