Interview with Rachel Macaulay from "The Links"
After a week of side effects,1 I’m back, with an interview of Rachel Macaulay from The Links.2
Tell us a little about yourself.
I live in Edinburgh, in Scotland, and I worked as an engineering consultant for years before pivoting to the penniless writer industry. I write both fiction and non-fiction, and love both equally.
How would you describe your newsletter?
I call it ‘a soap opera, in an email’. It’s 3 ‘episodes’ a week of fiction, each ~750 words long, so they can be read in less than 5 minutes. It tells the story of a group of people living in a tenement (apartment block, if you’re not familiar with that word) in Edinburgh. It’s supposed to be light entertainment—I’m not trying to be too literary or too serious (although I do tackle serious subjects). I feel like our inboxes can be pretty drab places, with bills and shipping notifications and things to do, so The Links is a counterpoint to that.
Why did you decide to publish on Substack?
I’ve been writing for a while, but I don’t have much of a ‘profile’ (related: I’m unenthusiastic about both social media and networking), and it seemed like an accessible way to build an audience for my work. I have a small child, so my writing time is limited, and doing short pieces of writing to a schedule seemed doable. I wasn’t aware, when I started, of anyone else publishing fiction on Substack, so I was curious to see if it would work—I had an inkling it would, since serialised fiction has a long and (pardon the pun) storied history.
What has your experience with your newsletter been like?
It’s been great. I’ve really enjoyed writing in this format—it’s structured and constrained, which forces me to get to the point. I think it’s made me a better writer. I’ve loved interacting with readers in real time, and seeing those readers share it with their friends and followers has been a great vote of confidence.
What have you liked most about your experience on Substack?
The ease of use, and the ability to reach readers directly, without having to pass through the gatekeepers of traditional publishing. Interacting with readers—I’ve had some great, thoughtful questions.
What have you liked least about your Substack experience?
The whole Substack Pro thing is frustrating—I’d only just got everything up and running when writers I respect started to leave the platform, and I wondered if I’d made a mistake. But there are other writers I respect who’ve decided to stay with Substack, and I respect their positions. I think I’ll wrestle with it properly if/when I start doing paid subscriptions. I also find the Substack frontpage a bit useless—I’d like them to include a fiction category, for a start, and to be able to add your own newsletter to a category rather than it being curated by the Substack team (what’s that about them not having an editorial stance?).
How have you let people know about your newsletter?
I’ve had a bit of a scattergun approach—I’ve told friends about it, used Twitter and Instagram, placed paid classified ads (in Ann Friedman’s newsletter), linked to it from my other writing, joined Facebook groups for people with relevant interests, asked other newsletters to feature it etc etc. It’s been interesting finding out what’s worth the effort and what isn’t (placing a classified is still my biggest single source of subscribers, but Twitter and Instagram have brought a steady drip of new people).
Is there a post in your newsletter that you consider most memorable, and if so, why?
I’m hoping it’s one I haven’t posted it yet. I’ve just finished writing the last few posts of Season 1, and they’re pretty juicy, imho—I’m looking forward to publishing them. Other than that, it’d be publishing the first post, and knowing that people were reading it, and not immediately unsubscribing!
What do you hope for your newsletter in the foreseeable future?
I’m less interested—for now—in paid subscriptions than in growing my subscriber list. I recognise that reading fiction in an email won’t be for everybody, but my gut feeling is that there are lots of readers out there who’d love it, and I want to reach them. I’m starting to write Season 2, so I hope I can keep these stories going in a way that people engage with and enjoy.
Is there anything you'd like to add?
Subscribe to The Links! And also, if you’re a writer with any interest in publishing fiction on Substack, know that there is an audience and an appetite for it. There’s a scrappy little bunch of us publishing fiction on Substack right now, and I’d love to see our numbers grow.
Side effects are worth it. If you can, get vaccinated. Also, it was truly only three days of side effects, plus four days of feeling vaguely off due to the prior three days.
"I’d like... to be able to add your own newsletter to a category rather than it being curated by the Substack team (what’s that about them not having an editorial stance?)"
"When the gods wish to punish us, they merely answer our prayers." Self-published books on Amazon had the ability to self-categorize, but it led to all kinds of nonsense of people mis-categorizing their books to get a high ranking in a less competitive category. So this is not a tenable idea, sadly, if one wishes categories to actually mean something.
And getting rid of the front page altogether to avoid even the slightest hint of "editorializing" as you accusingly put it seems overkill for a very reasonable policy, considering the alternatives. The front page is not part of one's actual publication anyways - it's for all intensive purpose an external advert.