Mills, you are doing an amazing job at juggling business, user-experience, creative drive, and your own generous heart for the human beings on this platform. I feel it, and I know others do, too. Thanks for letting John grill you on this stuff. It really means a lot to hear you explain what you care about and how it intersects with Substack's long-term goals.
This was a great interview, but I have to admit I kept on looking at the books behind you and I kept thinking that cute little gold Dalek on the shelf would start saying something.
As a reader, I really want better discovery, for fiction in particular, because I DO want to find new writers from time to time, which I don't get, at all, from the avalanche of same old, same old, on Notes. (Something that isn't sci-fi or fantasy or flash fiction. Seriously! 😂)
Totally agree that recommendation lists when subbing to a Substack is a useless way to discover anything, click 'no' every single time.
Great interview! I have many thoughts on it but I think what sticks with me, and stuck with me, throughout and it has 100% nothing to do with fiction writing or the state of fiction on Substack as a whole is this sense of fear (and sadness) but inevitability of how far removed you and I and all of use will become from the giants that are Mills (and others) who work at Substack when they achieve their ultimate goal of bringing MORE of us to Substack.
I truly cherish the time that I am being seen and able to be far less than seven degrees of separation from someone like Mills who I can feel carries the heart and soul of Substack not just on his sleeve but on his brain (hat?) and in the words he speaks.
Thanks for an awesome interview and now, if you'll excuse me, I must unpack all of this. Also, on a personal note, John, I saw your mention of me (and Miguel) on the microfiction front and you asked the question: Why aren't they recording themselves reading their microfiction? I have an answer for you. But it's a lengthy one that I fully intend, now that the question has been asked so publicly, to answer sooner rather than later...
Hey @Erica Drayton I wasn’t trying to call you on the carpet or anything like that. It’s just that this does feel like a great opportunity for you guys to use features that already exist to get better visibility for your publications and for all people who write microfiction.
As to your comments about this not being about fiction, I couldn’t disagree more. The entire thing was about the design decisions that they make which impact fiction and the choices that they could make to improve the fiction ecosystem. Mills isn’t a novelist and as far as I know doesn’t write fiction. So, obviously, I’m not going to engage with him on a discussion like that, but I do hope to do interviews like that with people who are writers in the future.
This interview was a response to the interview that Chris Best conducted with Mills and Jasmine. I was building off of what was covered there and following up with MIlls to ask for more information about the responses he gave to Chris.
John, I really love your idea of fiction writers recording themselves reading their work. I don’t read much fiction on Substack, but I do listen to many of the posts from writers that I am subscribed to. There’s always a little bit of disappointment when I hit that Play button and, it’s either paywalled which is fine, or it just doesn’t do anything. I know it does take an extra bit of effort, but I’d be curious to know if other people agree. Ooo and I listen to fiction novels all the time so it’s not that I don’t enjoy the genre. I also love that screen share idea for Substack, it was super fun to see your guys’ desks on Notes last year!
Audio is a rapidly growing area. Amazon is cleaning up through its Audible division. Spotify has recently announced that they have found audio books to be more profitable than music. Substack has the potential to join their numbers.
I'm curious to understand why you think micro and flash fiction writers should consider adding their own audio readings. What's the value add, what's the return on investment?
Most writers are pretty bad at reading their own work (yes, that's a sweeping statement, but I'll stand by it). The New Yorker recently shifted from professional narrators to having authors reading, and my disappointment is endless. Often, I now revert to reading, because the narration is so poor, dull, or otherwise distracting.
On Substack, Ben is the exception, of course, but he's a deep well of talent.
Yes, of course. Not everyone is well suited to do this, but I don't believe anyone has even tried. I am nowhere near as good on video as Mills, but that didn't stop me from making a video. I did it because I wanted to find out more about how he was thinking about fiction. To me, that was more important than my discomfort with appearing on video. That being said, I actually really, really enjoyed making the video and I've already learned so much about video editing. My next video is going to be a lot better.
Obviously, I can't guarantee results, but I believe that at least some of the micro fiction authors may gain extra visibility and that it will help their discovery. That's why I believe it's worth trying. We're talking about 100 to 500 words (I think that's how these communities define micro fiction). It might take a few takes, but it's much easier to read 500 words well than it is to read 5000 words well.
Will it be on par with a professional narrator? Of course not, but that doesn't mean it has zero value either. There are people who are willing to listen to less than professionally produced content. I am around 56% deaf. I have to wear hearing aides all the time. It sucks, but it also has the benefit that I always have a Bluetooth speaker in my ear. You would be amazed at how many moments throughout your day are suitable for listening to audio content. I regularly plow through 15-20 Substack articles a day (and some of them are 40 minute listens) just while I'm out running errands, walking the dog, or waiting for a kid to get out of some appointment. Audio is a largely untapped field, but I believe it's one that is full of potential.
So, why should these micro fiction authors try to add their work to short form video (and by extension audio (because you can still listen to the audio even if your phone is turned off and you're not actually watching the video)? Because there are some people for whom audio works better. It's lowering the bar and removing friction. Making it easier for a potential listener makes it easier to be discovered and potentially create a new fan.
Actually, quite a few fiction writers are doing this, not 100 percent of the time, and not widespread, because there's auto audio, and I assume time and inclination constraints.
BTW - I'm visually impaired, half blind, so auto audio was THE most exciting feature added to Substack in my time here. Although listening vs reading are very different experiences, so sometimes I do both.
Sorry to hear about your visual impairment. That's rough. And, yes, there are several authors who do offer this, but I still wish it were more widespread. The AI voice does in a pinch, but nothing beats human narration.
I'm not sure if you have an iPhone or not, but there's an app called Eleven Labs that may be of interest to you. It may be on Android as well. I'm not sure. They offer AI voices that are remarkably lifelike and actually handle most emotions very well. I'm routinely surprised at how good they are. It will read articles for you if you copy/paste them into the app or share a link to where the article can be found. It may be of use to you.
I still read Substack and books as well. The main reason I enjoy easy access to audio is that it allows me to read SO MUCH MORE than I otherwise would. When I was restricting myself to actually reading all of the Substacks to which I'm subscribed I had a hard time keeping up with 9 subscriptions. Now, I can manage 40 and stay relatively on top of them all.
Wow, had never heard of it, thanks for the suggestion, I've downloaded for Android, looking forward to trying that out. I've tried some on my laptop, but they were pretty rubbish, so I hadn't thought of looking for apps for my phone.
Same, same, about keeping on top of reading, not only Substacks, everything!
Even the NYTs has belatedly added auto audio to nearly half it's daily articles, which is a huge shift for them. It's a few notches up from the quality of the auto audio on Substack, it's quite good.
There are several default voices on the Eleven Labs app, but recently they added voices that have been trained off of the work of now-departed celebrities: Sir Laurence Olivier (reads too fast for me), James Dean (kind of mumbles some of his words) and Burt Reynolds (whose voice and cadence are perfect for my tastes). I’m happy that it’s available on Android. I wasn’t sure if it was. I think you’re really going to like it.
Fantastic to hear all the great things that could be coming in the future. Love to hear the backend of things, love it!!!!
Can’t wait to see where Substack goes. Would love to be able to use a drip like Convertkit as well as some of their other features, and some of the other things you guys mentioned. Great job on the interviewing and I appreciate all those behind Substack.
Finally got to watch this episode (1.5 hours, whew! 😅) and this was a masterclass in product management. So cool! I learned a lot. (I work as a PM in my day job)
Great interview John! Makes me excited for Substack's future. I don't read my stories on video/audio, because I'm not a native english speaker, and I'm extremely self-conscious about my accent 😭 Also they're really short, it wouldn't make much sense to do them one by one.
That's fair. There are legitimate reasons why some people shouldn't or don't want to do this and that's fine, but I do think there's an opportunity there for people who are willing to do so.
Oh 100%. I think narrating your stories is a great way to thrive here. If you look at EJ Trask or Sean Thomas Mcdonell, they often hire narrators for their flash fiction pieces and it's awesome!
Have quite a few responses I was thinking of while listening, let's see how many I remembered. But first I liked this interview and after a three day or so period of being too busy to keep up with my subscriptions this was the first thing I got to. Also as a hat wearer I support wearing hats to things like interviews.
-The reason I haven't done audio or video on my substack is because I simply haven't wanted to. And I like how much on substack can be ignored through non-participation. I briefly tried audio for my serial but didn't get to the posting stage because it was too much creative work for something purely for someone else, and it turned out the specific person I was thinking of wouldn't have even used it. Not writing it off entirely but some of us do just want to do prose.
-Also hi, I'm a person experimenting with the form of fiction on substack where my fighting game style serial lets people vote on which character's story to do next and the archives let you browse the different stories like a buffet where you pick and choose rather than read linearly. Nothing epistolary but it does rely on substack features, like using hidden pages to simulate video game unlocks.
-Continually surprised at how Dracula Daily is not a frequent talking point in fiction on substack talks. I know most of the conversation around it was not on substack, but it brought a ton of attention and definitely showed people were willing to be sent letters from their good friend Jonathan Harker and discuss them while waiting for the next instead of looking ahead on Project Gutenberg.
-Bad cop Stacky immediately strikes me as a demonic soul eating gremlin similar to the DuoLingo Owl. But on a serious note I do feel that prompt events don't always work well for serial writers because it involves adding more to an already tight writing workload. Though it is fun when there's time.
-The mention of sharing someone's feed reminds me of the long lost reverse follow feed, where you saw what the people subscribed to you posted. Kind of miss that. Was it ever stated why it got removed? If it was I don't remember it. To encourage actually following people?
William, you’re right. You do have a ton of great thoughts.
Regarding audio/video, if it doesn’t work for you, it doesn’t work for you. At least you have tried it and made that determination. I don’t think many authors have.
I hope that you’ll drop by the chat and share your experiences with running the Choose Your Ending type story that you’ve been working with.
Dracula Daily is a great example, but the reason I don’t think it’s held up as a great example during conversations like this is because it’s a very well known story. Literally a classic. If you or I shared an epistolatory letter like that I don’t think we’d experience anywhere close to the same degree of success as fictional Jonathan Harker.
I love your take on Bad Stacky and you are right about additional workload. It’s a very valid criticism and we’ll find out whether there is a demand for these types of activities. If no one participates then we’ll have definitive proof on your side. I think you might be right, but we’ll see. Hopefully, you can give us at least a couple hundred words sharing your take on the story.
I believe Mills said that people just weren’t using the feature and that’s why it was discontinued.
Oh I certainly hope you get participation for the Buddy Stack, it's a fun idea and there are plenty of short fiction and short serial writers who don't have the same long term commitments as a psycho like me who's been doing the same serial for like two years now.
I'd like to take part but due to how busy my life is I'm struggling just to get the serial in shape for this month and extra time might be better invested in building up a buffer. Also thanks for sharing the mention of why the reverse follow was dropped, makes sense, just missed the actual mention of it.
Mills, you are doing an amazing job at juggling business, user-experience, creative drive, and your own generous heart for the human beings on this platform. I feel it, and I know others do, too. Thanks for letting John grill you on this stuff. It really means a lot to hear you explain what you care about and how it intersects with Substack's long-term goals.
I'm a Mills Baker fan. (The hat's nice, too. 😂)
This was a great interview, but I have to admit I kept on looking at the books behind you and I kept thinking that cute little gold Dalek on the shelf would start saying something.
Technical difficulties aside, this was a good first episode of a podcast.
Mills did a good job of describing how to make fiction more prevalent on Substack.
I got a kick out of my fiction friends who got mentions. SEReid, Erica, Scoot, and Miguel.
I’m glad you enjoyed it. It was a lot of fun.
This was a great interview. I think it's one of the best I've seen of anyone at Substack talking inside baseball.
Mills you say you aren't brave but you are definitely brave for doing these interviews!
I imagine Mills likes being interviewed standing up because it enhances his world class active listening skills.
It’s making me want to start conducting interviews standing up, but I’m too fat. Ain’t nobody wants to see that.
I do like the idea. It does have a more dynamic look to it.
I love how candid Mills Baker is. Great interview, guys.
Yes, I was really surprised at how willing he was to share information as well. It was very refreshing.
As a reader, I really want better discovery, for fiction in particular, because I DO want to find new writers from time to time, which I don't get, at all, from the avalanche of same old, same old, on Notes. (Something that isn't sci-fi or fantasy or flash fiction. Seriously! 😂)
Totally agree that recommendation lists when subbing to a Substack is a useless way to discover anything, click 'no' every single time.
Something that isn’t sci-fi…
Shut your mouth! I’m joking.
Great interview! I have many thoughts on it but I think what sticks with me, and stuck with me, throughout and it has 100% nothing to do with fiction writing or the state of fiction on Substack as a whole is this sense of fear (and sadness) but inevitability of how far removed you and I and all of use will become from the giants that are Mills (and others) who work at Substack when they achieve their ultimate goal of bringing MORE of us to Substack.
I truly cherish the time that I am being seen and able to be far less than seven degrees of separation from someone like Mills who I can feel carries the heart and soul of Substack not just on his sleeve but on his brain (hat?) and in the words he speaks.
Thanks for an awesome interview and now, if you'll excuse me, I must unpack all of this. Also, on a personal note, John, I saw your mention of me (and Miguel) on the microfiction front and you asked the question: Why aren't they recording themselves reading their microfiction? I have an answer for you. But it's a lengthy one that I fully intend, now that the question has been asked so publicly, to answer sooner rather than later...
Hey @Erica Drayton I wasn’t trying to call you on the carpet or anything like that. It’s just that this does feel like a great opportunity for you guys to use features that already exist to get better visibility for your publications and for all people who write microfiction.
As to your comments about this not being about fiction, I couldn’t disagree more. The entire thing was about the design decisions that they make which impact fiction and the choices that they could make to improve the fiction ecosystem. Mills isn’t a novelist and as far as I know doesn’t write fiction. So, obviously, I’m not going to engage with him on a discussion like that, but I do hope to do interviews like that with people who are writers in the future.
This interview was a response to the interview that Chris Best conducted with Mills and Jasmine. I was building off of what was covered there and following up with MIlls to ask for more information about the responses he gave to Chris.
Cool listening to two writers I admire having an interesting conversation.
It’s great to hear from you, d. w. Thanks for the kind words. Hope you’re doing well.
John, I really love your idea of fiction writers recording themselves reading their work. I don’t read much fiction on Substack, but I do listen to many of the posts from writers that I am subscribed to. There’s always a little bit of disappointment when I hit that Play button and, it’s either paywalled which is fine, or it just doesn’t do anything. I know it does take an extra bit of effort, but I’d be curious to know if other people agree. Ooo and I listen to fiction novels all the time so it’s not that I don’t enjoy the genre. I also love that screen share idea for Substack, it was super fun to see your guys’ desks on Notes last year!
Audio is a rapidly growing area. Amazon is cleaning up through its Audible division. Spotify has recently announced that they have found audio books to be more profitable than music. Substack has the potential to join their numbers.
Yeah, I think so, too. I’ve even grown accustomed to the default robot voice that reads some posts. 😅
I listened to an article this morning (on the iOS app) and I think the voice has just been upgraded. It sounds smoother.
I'm curious to understand why you think micro and flash fiction writers should consider adding their own audio readings. What's the value add, what's the return on investment?
Most writers are pretty bad at reading their own work (yes, that's a sweeping statement, but I'll stand by it). The New Yorker recently shifted from professional narrators to having authors reading, and my disappointment is endless. Often, I now revert to reading, because the narration is so poor, dull, or otherwise distracting.
On Substack, Ben is the exception, of course, but he's a deep well of talent.
Yes, of course. Not everyone is well suited to do this, but I don't believe anyone has even tried. I am nowhere near as good on video as Mills, but that didn't stop me from making a video. I did it because I wanted to find out more about how he was thinking about fiction. To me, that was more important than my discomfort with appearing on video. That being said, I actually really, really enjoyed making the video and I've already learned so much about video editing. My next video is going to be a lot better.
Obviously, I can't guarantee results, but I believe that at least some of the micro fiction authors may gain extra visibility and that it will help their discovery. That's why I believe it's worth trying. We're talking about 100 to 500 words (I think that's how these communities define micro fiction). It might take a few takes, but it's much easier to read 500 words well than it is to read 5000 words well.
Will it be on par with a professional narrator? Of course not, but that doesn't mean it has zero value either. There are people who are willing to listen to less than professionally produced content. I am around 56% deaf. I have to wear hearing aides all the time. It sucks, but it also has the benefit that I always have a Bluetooth speaker in my ear. You would be amazed at how many moments throughout your day are suitable for listening to audio content. I regularly plow through 15-20 Substack articles a day (and some of them are 40 minute listens) just while I'm out running errands, walking the dog, or waiting for a kid to get out of some appointment. Audio is a largely untapped field, but I believe it's one that is full of potential.
So, why should these micro fiction authors try to add their work to short form video (and by extension audio (because you can still listen to the audio even if your phone is turned off and you're not actually watching the video)? Because there are some people for whom audio works better. It's lowering the bar and removing friction. Making it easier for a potential listener makes it easier to be discovered and potentially create a new fan.
Actually, quite a few fiction writers are doing this, not 100 percent of the time, and not widespread, because there's auto audio, and I assume time and inclination constraints.
BTW - I'm visually impaired, half blind, so auto audio was THE most exciting feature added to Substack in my time here. Although listening vs reading are very different experiences, so sometimes I do both.
Sorry to hear about your visual impairment. That's rough. And, yes, there are several authors who do offer this, but I still wish it were more widespread. The AI voice does in a pinch, but nothing beats human narration.
I'm not sure if you have an iPhone or not, but there's an app called Eleven Labs that may be of interest to you. It may be on Android as well. I'm not sure. They offer AI voices that are remarkably lifelike and actually handle most emotions very well. I'm routinely surprised at how good they are. It will read articles for you if you copy/paste them into the app or share a link to where the article can be found. It may be of use to you.
I still read Substack and books as well. The main reason I enjoy easy access to audio is that it allows me to read SO MUCH MORE than I otherwise would. When I was restricting myself to actually reading all of the Substacks to which I'm subscribed I had a hard time keeping up with 9 subscriptions. Now, I can manage 40 and stay relatively on top of them all.
Wow, had never heard of it, thanks for the suggestion, I've downloaded for Android, looking forward to trying that out. I've tried some on my laptop, but they were pretty rubbish, so I hadn't thought of looking for apps for my phone.
Same, same, about keeping on top of reading, not only Substacks, everything!
Even the NYTs has belatedly added auto audio to nearly half it's daily articles, which is a huge shift for them. It's a few notches up from the quality of the auto audio on Substack, it's quite good.
There are several default voices on the Eleven Labs app, but recently they added voices that have been trained off of the work of now-departed celebrities: Sir Laurence Olivier (reads too fast for me), James Dean (kind of mumbles some of his words) and Burt Reynolds (whose voice and cadence are perfect for my tastes). I’m happy that it’s available on Android. I wasn’t sure if it was. I think you’re really going to like it.
I'll stick with defaults. 😁
Dead or alive celebrity voices give me the creeps.
I can't imagine a world in which I'd want Burt Reynolds reading to me. 😂
They still haven’t fixed your ac yet?
Fantastic to hear all the great things that could be coming in the future. Love to hear the backend of things, love it!!!!
Can’t wait to see where Substack goes. Would love to be able to use a drip like Convertkit as well as some of their other features, and some of the other things you guys mentioned. Great job on the interviewing and I appreciate all those behind Substack.
Thanks for re-sharing the post. I’m glad you enjoyed the interview. It really was a lot of information and I found it so interesting.
Finally got to watch this episode (1.5 hours, whew! 😅) and this was a masterclass in product management. So cool! I learned a lot. (I work as a PM in my day job)
Great interview John! Makes me excited for Substack's future. I don't read my stories on video/audio, because I'm not a native english speaker, and I'm extremely self-conscious about my accent 😭 Also they're really short, it wouldn't make much sense to do them one by one.
That's fair. There are legitimate reasons why some people shouldn't or don't want to do this and that's fine, but I do think there's an opportunity there for people who are willing to do so.
Oh 100%. I think narrating your stories is a great way to thrive here. If you look at EJ Trask or Sean Thomas Mcdonell, they often hire narrators for their flash fiction pieces and it's awesome!
Have quite a few responses I was thinking of while listening, let's see how many I remembered. But first I liked this interview and after a three day or so period of being too busy to keep up with my subscriptions this was the first thing I got to. Also as a hat wearer I support wearing hats to things like interviews.
-The reason I haven't done audio or video on my substack is because I simply haven't wanted to. And I like how much on substack can be ignored through non-participation. I briefly tried audio for my serial but didn't get to the posting stage because it was too much creative work for something purely for someone else, and it turned out the specific person I was thinking of wouldn't have even used it. Not writing it off entirely but some of us do just want to do prose.
-Also hi, I'm a person experimenting with the form of fiction on substack where my fighting game style serial lets people vote on which character's story to do next and the archives let you browse the different stories like a buffet where you pick and choose rather than read linearly. Nothing epistolary but it does rely on substack features, like using hidden pages to simulate video game unlocks.
-Continually surprised at how Dracula Daily is not a frequent talking point in fiction on substack talks. I know most of the conversation around it was not on substack, but it brought a ton of attention and definitely showed people were willing to be sent letters from their good friend Jonathan Harker and discuss them while waiting for the next instead of looking ahead on Project Gutenberg.
-Bad cop Stacky immediately strikes me as a demonic soul eating gremlin similar to the DuoLingo Owl. But on a serious note I do feel that prompt events don't always work well for serial writers because it involves adding more to an already tight writing workload. Though it is fun when there's time.
-The mention of sharing someone's feed reminds me of the long lost reverse follow feed, where you saw what the people subscribed to you posted. Kind of miss that. Was it ever stated why it got removed? If it was I don't remember it. To encourage actually following people?
William, you’re right. You do have a ton of great thoughts.
Regarding audio/video, if it doesn’t work for you, it doesn’t work for you. At least you have tried it and made that determination. I don’t think many authors have.
I hope that you’ll drop by the chat and share your experiences with running the Choose Your Ending type story that you’ve been working with.
Dracula Daily is a great example, but the reason I don’t think it’s held up as a great example during conversations like this is because it’s a very well known story. Literally a classic. If you or I shared an epistolatory letter like that I don’t think we’d experience anywhere close to the same degree of success as fictional Jonathan Harker.
I love your take on Bad Stacky and you are right about additional workload. It’s a very valid criticism and we’ll find out whether there is a demand for these types of activities. If no one participates then we’ll have definitive proof on your side. I think you might be right, but we’ll see. Hopefully, you can give us at least a couple hundred words sharing your take on the story.
I believe Mills said that people just weren’t using the feature and that’s why it was discontinued.
Oh I certainly hope you get participation for the Buddy Stack, it's a fun idea and there are plenty of short fiction and short serial writers who don't have the same long term commitments as a psycho like me who's been doing the same serial for like two years now.
I'd like to take part but due to how busy my life is I'm struggling just to get the serial in shape for this month and extra time might be better invested in building up a buffer. Also thanks for sharing the mention of why the reverse follow was dropped, makes sense, just missed the actual mention of it.
No problem, man. I’m always happy to answer random questions or help if I can. Sorry to hear about your schedule. Hope things calm down for you.
Oddly, the ever changing leaderboards are based on the number of restacks for a specific post. It's a shallow metric.