Why I'm Writing on Substack
Welcome to the new age of publishing ...
I’ve been a professional writer — and made a great living with words — for more than 40 years.
For the last 19 years of that run, I’ve been doing this: Working in financial publishing — picking stocks … making predictions … chronicling big trends … and taking the super-complex stuff Wall Street dishes (and would rather you didn’t understand) and “decoding” it into plain English so regular investors can participate … and win.
And the 22 years before that? I spent that stretch as a journalist … a reporter … during the heyday of the U.S. newspaper industry. Reporters get to operate behind the curtain. And it taught me everything I needed to know to be successful here.
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, interviewed a CEO on his Gulfstream jet as he traveled between cities, gleaned the wealth secrets from the managers of “Old Money,” spent time (and worked stories) in New York City, the oil belt in Texas, Hollywood, Silicon Valley, Tokyo, Beijing and Shanghai. I chronicled leveraged-buyout battles, the savings-and-loan crisis, the demise of iconic companies and the birth of new industries. I covered murder-for-hire trials and police manhunts. I helped send a guy to prison for pension hijinks and covered several espionage investigations. As part of a trucking story, I tried to wheel a tractor-trailer “double” around an obstacle course in Pennsylvania. I 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.
The meaningful work I got to do also included interviews with Amazon.com Inc. AMZN 0.00%↑ founder Jeff Bezos, then-General Electric GE 0.00%↑ 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.
Yeah, I loved being a reporter.
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 he 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 feeling 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; 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 at Maryland’s Bel Air High School in 1979).
While Warren got into newspapers ahead of me, I was 15 years ahead of the billionaire in punching the “eject” button — you know, getting out. Way back in 2005, I realized newspapers were in big trouble — careening down a long chute with a buzzsaw at the bottom and no place to exit. So I hit the emergency exit and made the jump to stock picking, analysis and financial publishing.
Buffett didn’t wave the white flag until 2020.
I’m not sharing this “Bill & Buffet” saga to gloat (okay, I admit it … maybe a little) - I’m sharing it because it’s a great table-setter for “Bill’s Business Case for Substack.”
And … I promise … readers and my fellow Substackers will be all-in relating to this.
The Web - Where Net Rhymes with Threat
My professional development and globetrotting-reporter “fun” (and 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 enjoyed 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 wanted — without the worry of 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 … and that ended up with 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 0.00%↑ 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 mean, I could look over the horizon and see 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.
That brings me back to my “Great Epiphany of 2005” — when I saw firsthand that my beloved industry hadn’t responded. Indeed, like a Flying Fortress on a mission in enemy airspace, newspapers were taking heavy flak from the Internet threat. The engines were on fire and they were trailing smoke.
So I bailed out of the newspaper biz — and parachuted into newsletters.
But Buffett hung tough – for another 15 years – before he finally bailed on newspapers himself.
Why Substack Is Publishing’s “Next Act”
The newsletter business was really great to me. Starting in 2007, I helped launch and build a company that eventually reached a quarter-billion dollars in revenue. And I had my own newsletter, with tens of thousands of paying subscribers — which I ran for more than a decade.
But nothing exists in a vacuum. Once again I saw what was coming. Once again I pulled the ripcord. Once again (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 “ack-ack” hits are from platforms that make it easier than ever to build a following.
There are a number of those platforms to choose from. And I looked them all over — carefully — before deciding that Substack was home.
Substack, I believe, is the New King of this New Era.
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. That means you can build 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.
That’s why I’ve co-founded Stock Picker’s Corner (SPC) here on Substack: It understands that a business built to last focuses on the reader.
Indeed, Substack sees that reality better than any publishing platform/app/community I’ve seen.
Just look at what the Substack 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.
Creating Greatness
There’s once again a “moat” – but one that’s nurturing and protective (but 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 moat keeps the “good stuff” inside.
Readers “vote” on what’s valuable by opening emails, “re-stacking” stories, writing notes and becoming paid subscribers.
For writers like me, Substack has removed:
The hassle of setting up a website.
The (gouging) cost of e-mail list management.
The clunkiness of bolting on a payments processor.
And all the 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.
Those benefits continue after the “startup” 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 — and some have followed me here — will tell you that I’m a straight shooter. So I’ll shoot 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 … how hard … that sometimes feels.
But as the Tom Hanks character in the baseball flick “League of Their Own” wisely tells us: “It’s the hard that makes it great.”
I’m proud to say that I’ve hit the “great” bullseye many 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” transform investors from Wealth Killers into Wealth Builders.
This plays to my strengths — and my professional experience — since I believe that if you find the right storylines, you’ll find the right stocks.
I chose to do all of that — here — on Substack.
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 good at sensing change … at major shifts. This shift from traditional newsletters to the “New Era of Substack” gives me a great new forum to work in.
But the real benefits will be to you.
And as a guy who has cared deeply about his audience for the last 40 years — first as a journalist focused on everyday folks and then as a financial writer focused on everyday investors — that’s an outcome I’m proud to work for.
See you next time;
I’m happy you’re here Bill! I’ve always loved your writing and enjoyed working with you many years ago!
As a former newspaper man myself, let me say helluva post! You’re helping me to become a better investor, Bill. I appreciate you. Glad you’ve found a new home on Substack.