8 Questions for.... Justin Myers

Spotlight on The truth about everything*

Photo by Claudio Schwarz on Unsplash

Justin Myers, also know as The Guyliner, is a journalist and novelist, and writes The truth about everything*, a Substack featured publication. His newsletter is a series of content formats, so he’s writing something different every time. His new novel LEADING MAN is out 9 May and available to preorder.

1. Why Substack?

My newsletter had actually been running for over five years by the time I arrived at Substack. It was a case of finding a suitable platform – I had outgrown Tinyletter, who had made it so easy to build an audience, and then the brilliant Revue closed, so I was kind of homeless. Substack seemed the simplest to use and, by then, lots of other people were heading there too so it felt like I’d be more visible there than anywhere else.

2.     How long did it take you to find your groove?

Not long. I didn't see moving to Substack as launching something new, I already had an audience and had been writing in this format for years. To keep things interesting, though, alongside my regular essays, I introduced new content strands – one week writing about TV, the next rounding up ridiculous celebrity news off the internet, another week writing about Madonna, or critiquing media coverage. I enjoy the variety.

3.     How has it changed you?

Until moving to Substack, my newsletter had been sent out sporadically, whenever I felt inspired. I decided to give writing weekly a go, as I had more time, thanks to having little work on at that moment. I respond well to routine, and I always look forward to the time working on my newsletter, as it feels like it’s just for me. It’s the whole reason I started blogging in the first place, years and years ago; it’s a chance to write whatever you like, and see what lands. 

4.     What mistakes have you made?

Since launching, none I am aware of, though perhaps those who’ve hit the unsubscribe button might disagree. The biggest Substack-related mistake I’ve made happened years before I even joined the platform. When Substack was first launching in the UK, back in 2017 I think, the co-founder Hamish Mackenzie emailed me and asked me to be one of their launch creators. It didn't feel like the right move for me at the time: I was busy writing my first book and my earnings had always come from commissioned pieces in the media – my Guyliner blog was, and remains, free – so I couldn’t quite get my head round the concept of charging people to read a newsletter from me and the hours it would take to make a go of it. I sometimes wonder how rich I might be now if I’d said yes, although Substack took a while to find its feet here, so it may all have been a lot of hard work for nothing, and the sudden flex might have alienated readers. I’ll never know. It did inspire me to create a newsletter, however, but on my own terms, elsewhere.

5.     To pay or not to pay?

I introduced a paid subscriber option when I moved to Substack. Very honestly, 2022 hadn’t been the best year work-wise and some regular sources of income collapsed. I’m still recovering from it financially. I’d never charged readers directly for my work before – despite writing as The Guyliner for well over a decade by then – so I hoped readers would understand, and they did. I gave myself a year to decide whether it was worth carrying on. The ‘pledge your support’ option didn't exist when I went paid, and in a way I wish I’d gauged interest for a while before flicking the switch, for my own curiosity. We’re living in lean times so I don’t like hiding new posts behind paywalls too often, though perhaps that will change. My archive is locked down after a certain period, but there’s still loads of free stuff available; being read, and trusted by readers, is the most important thing to me. I don’t want to get into a situation where I’m overstretching myself to justify charging a subscription, which is why my pricing is comparatively low. I also feel one email a week from me is enough for anybody, but, again, that may change. I check in with myself a lot about how things are going, what I want to do and whether it’s the right decision for me.

6.     What artistic and technical choices have you made?

I had fun coming up with the different formats – stuff that interests me, the kind of writing I like to read elsewhere. It might mean that one week there’s something a reader isn’t particularly interested in – I’m hyper-aware that my Madonna essays aren’t for everyone, although they perform very well – but the great thing is something completely different will be along the following week. I try to make the copy tighter than when I was putting everything on my blog, say, as the email format is especially restrictive and you’re competing with other emails, apps, the internet and whatever else someone can scroll away to on their phone. I use imagery and captioning to hold attention, go easy on the ‘Subscribe/share/upgrade’ buttons because they are annoying and take a reader out of the moment, and I have a few personal ‘style guide’ rules that help the different pieces, as widely differing as their subject matter might be, feel like they belong together and are very much written by me. My voice is in everything; as much I am interested in what other Substackers are doing, I never try to be anyone else.

7.     What’s been the effect on your writing?

Writing what we might politely call ‘non-fiction’ weekly has perhaps made my writing a little freer. I find it hard to judge my own writing as a reader. I like that I don’t do the same kind of thing all the time. I don’t know if it has made any specific impact on my fiction writing, but the more you write, the better you get at it – with notable exceptions, I guess – so it’s certainly not doing me any harm to think as myself rather than whichever characters I am grappling with on the page at that moment.

8.     In it for the long haul?

I have regularly nosed around at other platforms since launching on Substack as I’m not really comfortable with some of the voices they amplify – mentioning no names to avoid encouraging them. I wish they would clean up their act. But I’m here for the moment, and the newsletter will always exist in some form or another.

Thanks to Justin Myers for joining the conversation.

If you’re a fiction writer and would like to answer the 8 questions, please email me.