The Reverse Paywall
Or How to Make Money Without Strangling the Monster That Makes You Worth Reading
Let’s start with the lie every writer whispers into their own skull:
“If I lock my best work behind a paywall, people will pay to see the gold.”
You sweet summer child idiot. There is no gold yet.
There is only you, polishing the same dull coin and hoping the light hits it right.
Most writers treat Substack like a drawbridge. “Pay to cross.”
Meanwhile, the castle behind them is empty. Maybe a mouse. Maybe two.
Here’s the real strategy, scraped down to bone:
Give away your masterpieces.
Sell the parts of you that twitch.
The Iron Rule of the Free Tier
Your free posts should not be tidy or clever or politely valuable.
They should feel like you snapped something in half to write them.
If your free work doesn’t scare you, it won’t seduce anyone else.
Don’t save your brilliance for paying readers. Brilliance kept in captivity dies within a week. It turns pale. It loses teeth. It starts quoting productivity newsletters.
You want growth? You want strangers emailing you at midnight saying “What the hell did you just do to me?”
Then open the damn cage.
Let the free posts drag mud across the floor. Let them embarrass you a little. Let them be the reason your relatives ask if you’re okay. Bonus if it’s your wife. Or husband. I don’t judge.
Just remember this.
A locked post can’t travel.
A locked post can’t haunt anyone.
A locked post is a scream in a soundproof room.
Free Tier Mindset:
I will give so much that they feel like they owe me their loyalty and heartbeat.
The Iron Rule of the Paid Tier
So what do they buy, then, if the jewels are scattered in the street?
They buy the basement.
They buy the quiet voice.
The specificity you don’t want indexed by Google.
The paid tier is not where the writing goes.
It’s where you go.
Your anxieties. Your rituals. Your contradictions. The parts of you that would make your therapist pause, lower their notebook, and say, “Do you want to talk about that?”
That’s what readers pay for.
Not brilliance.
Not insight.
Not “value.”
Access.
To the wound behind the work.
Free post: the performance.
Paid post: the pulse.
Free post: the sermon.
Paid post: the sin.
Paid Tier Mindset:
You want in? Fine. Shut the door behind you. We’re not doing masks down here.
The 3-to-1 Ratio
This looks like math, but it’s a ritual.
Free Post 1: “Who is this?”
Free Post 2: “Why am I thinking about this hours later?”
Free Post 3: “Why does this writer know things about me I didn’t say out loud?”
Paid Post: “Fine. I’ll follow you into the dark.”
You’re not converting readers.
You’re cultivating accomplices.
This Is The End
A paywall isn’t a barrier.
It’s a dare.
Amateurs lock up their best writing because they fear being copied.
But nobody copies the writer whose sentences feel alive enough to bite.
Professionals release their best work into the street because they know what truly sells is not the brilliance—
—it’s the breach.
Give away the masterpieces.
Sell the moments where the mask slips and the reader sees something raw enough that they glance behind them, just to be sure they’re alone.
A subscription shouldn’t feel like support.
It should feel like the reader whispering:
“I shouldn’t be here. But I’m staying.”