Why I'm Writing on Substack
I’ve been a professional writer — and made a great living with words — for 40 years.
For the last 18 years of that run, I’ve been doing this: Working in financial publishing — picking stocks, chronicling big trends, and taking the super-complex stuff Wall Street would rather not have you know, and “decoding” it into plain English so regular investors can participate … and win.
And the 22 years before that taught me what I needed to know to be successful here: I spent that stretch as a journalist … a reporter … during the heyday of the U.S. newspaper industry.
The great work I got to do there included interviews with Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, then-General Electric CEO John F. “Neutron Jack” Welch, former U.S. President Richard M. Nixon, author and super-investor Jim Rogers, helicopter industry (and buyout specialist) Stanley Hiller Jr., smartphone pioneer Mark Weiser, scores of top Wall Street money managers and analysts … and much, more.
And I loved it.
It was an era of wide-open opportunity, and as corny as it sounds, every day was a new adventure … and an education.
I worked my sources on Wall Street, gleaned secrets from managers of “Old Money,” interviewed a CEO on his Gulfstream jet as he traveled between cities, and spent time (and worked stories) in New York City, the oil belt in Texas, Hollywood, Silicon Valley, Tokyo, Beijing and Shanghai. I chronicled leveraged buyouts, the savings-and-loan crisis, the demise of iconic companies, the birth of new industries, murder-for-hire trials, police manhunts and more. I attempted an obstacle course behind the wheel of a tractor-trailer “double” in Pennsylvania, stood inside a (down-for-maintenance) steel-mill blast furnace in Baltimore and was granted behind-the-scenes looks at TV show pilots, biotech breakthroughs and the birth of the smartphone industry.
Yeah, I had the “newspaper bug” — and had it bad.
And I was in good company. There was another (much-higher-profile) compatriot with this same affliction — a mega-billionaire whose experiences give us a lens into where the world was, where it’s going, and the importance of adaptability.
I’m talking about Berkshire Hathaway Inc. (BRK.A, BRK.B) CEO Warren Buffett.
The “Newspaper Addict”
The “Oracle of Omaha” bought the Buffalo News in 1977, and added massively to his media empire in the decades that followed.
Including that Buffalo daily, Buffett ended up owning 30 dailies – including papers in Tulsa, Oklahoma and his hometown of Omaha – and dozens of weeklies, too. As late as 2012, he described himself as a newspaper “addict,” and said he was looking to buy even more.
By 2018 — a year that saw U.S. newspaper circulation skid to its lowest level since 1940 — Buffett admitted the industry’s continued decline had him flummoxed. In 2019 – in the face of plummeting readership, and freefalls in circulation/advertising revenue – Buffett told a Bloomberg News interviewer that most newspapers were “toast.”
In early 2020, Buffett agreed to sell his newspaper “empire” to Lee Enterprises for $140 million. He sold them for less than he paid: The Buffalo News cost him $36 million; and in 2010 he’d dropped $344 million to snag 28 of the papers that helped comprise the Berkshire Media Group.
(It’s only fair to point out that Buffett loaned Lee $576 million – at 9% interest – to make the deal work … so in true “Oracle” fashion, he made money even as he cashed out.)
Since my newspaper career didn’t start until 1984, Buffett was seven years ahead of me in his move into the newspaper business (In my defense, I was still a high-schooler when he snapped up the Buffalo paper in 1977, though I did serve as the co-editor in chief of the Bellarion during my senior year in 1979).
But I was 15 years ahead of the billionaire in hitting the newspaper-biz emergency exit — you know, getting out. Buffett surrendered in 2020; but I spotted the whirring buzzsaw newspapers were heading for in 2005 and punched out.
I’m not sharing this “Bill & Buffet” saga to gloat (well, okay, maybe a little) … but rather because it’s a great table-setter for “Bill’s Business Case for Substack.”
And, I promise, you fellow Substackers will be all-in relating to this.
Internet — Rhymes With “Threat”
My professional development and “fun” (and Warren Buffett’s entertaining media returns) were powered by the massive profit margins publishers consistently generated during those halcyon days of “newspapering.” The best companies rivaled such hefty-margin businesses as software and biotech.
Back in those “salad days” of media, you see, most newspapers were monopolies in their own markets.
Buffett often described them as unregulated toll bridges — meaning you could boost ad rates when and as much as you want — without losing market share to a rival.
In fact, newspapers, magazines and media ventures like TV and radio stations were “moat-protected.” Unless you could shell out millions for a printing press and distribution system (or the studio and transmitter for TV and radio stations), you couldn’t play.
That monopolistic “moat” was both good and bad.
It was good because it gave media players the cash to hire a staff of professionally trained folks like me. And we reporters viewed ourselves as “agents” of the reader. We served as society’s “watchdogs” — keeping tabs on government, law enforcement and business — meaning we were a kind of public trust.
That moat was bad because it concentrated power among a few media monopolies.
Then along came the Internet, which essentially made it possible for anyone to be a “publisher” or a “broadcaster.”
That was the “buzzsaw” I mentioned … the one that wiped out many of my former employers … led to a lot of my fellow “watchdogs” losing their jobs.
And it yanked the media rug out from under guys like Buffett.
Fortunately for me, I saw that buzzsaw coming. I saw the changing landscape and was ready when it happened.
Way back in 1995, I was covering Eastman Kodak Co. (KODK) for a Gannett-owned newspaper about 75 miles northeast of Warren’s Buffalo News. I was also finishing my MBA at the Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT) – and decided to do an independent study thesis on “digital newspapers.”
That bit of “crystal-ball gazing” — looking at what was to come for newspaper publishing in the new age of the Internet — was enlightening … and sobering. I foresaw the looming changes. And I understood how this new era could offer up big new revenue opportunities, or epitaph-creating threats — depending how newspapers responded.
By 2005, I saw firsthand that my beloved industry hadn’t responded. Indeed, like a combat plane on a mission in enemy airspace, the industry was taking heavy flak from the Internet threat.
So I jumped from newspapers to newsletters.
But Buffett hung tough – for another 15 years – before he finally bailed on newspapers himself.
Why Substack Is Publishing’s “Next Act”
Fast-forward to 2024, and (with apologies to Yogi Berra), it’s “déjà vu all over again.”
This time around, it’s my beloved newsletter industry that’s taking flak. But instead of the Internet in general, the threats are from “platforms” that make it easier than ever to build a following.
Think about it: As a writer, if you can provide insight, a bit of entertainment, and add value to people’s lives, you can connect with readers on a personal level — building a following … and a real business along with it.
Best of all: You can be proud of the “stuff” you’re creating and make a nice living from your work.
Indeed, Substack understands that better than any publishing platform/app/community I’ve seen, like its team shared in this September 2023 update:
Ultimately, we want the Substack app to be an aspirational place.
In it, you see what others are reading and writing, and you will always have something fun, insightful, or thought-provoking to dive into. Some parts of the internet make people dumber, pettier, and angrier, but a subscription-based network rewards curiosity, nuance, and trust.
Aspirational. Insightful. Fun. As a guy who’s been making his living with words for four decades, I’m down with that.
That’s why I’ve launched Stock Picker’s Corner (SPC) on Substack: It understands that a business built to last focuses on the reader.
There’s once again a “moat” – but one that’s protective and nurturing (not monopolistic) in focus and function. This moat surrounds the Substack “community,” one that has 3 million paying subscribers. I used the word “protective” on purpose – this one keeps the “good stuff” inside, with readers voting on what they find valuable through opening emails, interacting in chats and becoming paid subscribers.
For writers like me, Substack has removed the hassle of setting up a website, the (gouging) cost of an e-mail list manager, the clunkiness of bolting on a payments processor … not to mention all the other teeth-clenching minutiae that keeps a writer like me from focusing on what really matters — coming up with great ideas … writing about them … and sharing them with you.
And those benefits continue after the “starting” phase — and extend to the “growing” part.
Substack has a strategy for community-building — one where the “network effect” will help you grow exponentially for years and years.
Folks who know me well will tell you that I’m a straight shooter. So I’ll be straight in saying that earning a living as a writer isn’t easy — as I know first-hand from my newspaper days. If you’re in the writing trenches now, you understand the importance of “the work” — and how tough that can be.
But as the Tom Hanks character in the baseball flick “League of Their Own” profoundly tells us: “It’s the hard that makes it great.”
As a guy who’s been making his living with words for four decades, I’m proud to say that I’ve hit the “great” bullseye a number of times. But I also know I’ve got one or two shots left at finding “great” again.
I want to do meaningful work, to share the lessons I’ve learned in my stock-picking career (lessons you won’t find in any book), and to have my “stuff” help investors find their way.
I chose to do that — all of that — here.
For you, the reader, my goal is to simplify investing, to help you tune out the distracting (and potentially ruinous) “noise,” and to boost the confidence for your wealth-building journey — something that’s a lot easier to do in a community of like-minded people.
I’m proud of the work already done here. And there’s more to come … I’m just getting started.
See you next time;
Love it Bill. Hope you are well!