The RESULTS are in!
Explore why readers don't upgrade, what feels too pricey, why they unsubscribe and more ...
As a reciprocal act of generosity and goodwill to all who took and shared this survey, the survey results below were free for the first 48 hours to the entire Substack community.
To gain access to the data and get the full analysis below, along with the forthcoming posts in this series, please join The Editing Spectrum as a paid member today.
Also, hi! If you don't know me, I'm Amanda Hinton, a longtime editorial strategist who helps writers refine their message, draw out their voice and effectively deliver their work while also prioritizing their well-being.
For the last few weeks, our readers have been reaching out to the broader Substack community and inviting everyone to take a survey.
The Shaping the Future of Online Writing Survey ran from June 14 to July 6 and gathered information from 416 respondents.
Before I put my editorial strategist hat on and dig through some of the biggest questions from the survey, I first want to paint a portrait of who we’re hearing from in the survey. Then we’ll explore what we’re doing on Substack, how we feel about money and how we relate with some aspects of the reader-creator relationship.
Who took this survey
Most respondents (52%) are between the ages of 35 and 54, while another 29.3% are between the ages of 55 and 74. The rest of y’all were between 16 and 34 or older than 75. And the majority of respondents (51%) have been on Substack for less than a year. Most everyone lives in the United States (63.8%) with a tip of the hat to 11.8% in the United Kingdom and 5.3% in Canada.
When it comes to genders, respondents identify overwhelmingly as female (73.7%); 20.5% identify as male; and the rest of respondents identified as genderqueer, non-binary or “other.”
Most respondents (75.2%) have either graduated from college, completed some graduate work or completed graduate school. Fifty-four percent of respondents have children, while the rest said they had none.
When asked “What are you primarily on Substack for?” here’s how respondents chimed in.
» Quick analysis: This makes me pretty excited because it means that 63% of respondents are invested in Substack as readers. That gives us a solid ground for looking at reader-specific behaviors, which was the primary, very aspirational goal for this survey.