Substack puzzles me. After two and a half years, I’m not sure I understand its user interface (UI) or its algorithms any more than I did when I first joined. Overall, my Substack experiences have been bittersweet.

For nearly a decade, Substack has provided a venue for writers and other creatives to earn some revenue while publishing their work online. The question is how many writers and others have succeeded in earning any real income at all? Meanwhile, there are writers like myself who haven’t monetized our accounts. Why not?

In my case, I’m not interested at this stage of my life in earning mythical megabucks. I simply want people to read and enjoy my posts—free of charge. Monetizing my posts or selected posts would just add unnecessary pressure for me to crank out a story or poem on a regular basis to justify monetizing. I prefer not to succumb to such pressure and would rather devote some days to peaceful daydreaming.

When I published my novel, The Writer of Unwritten Books, and The Prisoner & Other Stories, my collection of selected short stories late last year, I thought Substack might help me sell more books. I figured downloading or buying the eBook or paperback editions would be a better deal than expecting subscribers to fork out five or six bucks a month.

In that regard, my Substack experience has been a disappointment, as it was on other social media. Despite positive reviews of my novel and the single review of my short story collection, total paperback and eBook sales for both books is only a few dozen. Would have sales been better with a small indie publisher or using an aggregator instead of Amazon’s KDP? Who knows?

Another thing that puzzles me about Substack is the vast and growing number of Substackers (and possibly bots) who don’t post anything at all. Perhaps they’re just curious about what others post.

Despite my reservations about Substack, I’m thankful for those subscribers and followers who bother to read and comment about what I post. I think of some of you as friends. If it weren’t for you, I’d revert to my original practice of shunning social media entirely and submitting my stories and poems to literary journals and other publications. Meanwhile, I’ll continue to post my poems, stories, and thoughts—free for all who wish to read them.