Write Personal Essays Substack Subscribers Will Pay to Read

We often write the way that workshop or that MFA program taught us to, but Substack is a different world. We have to adapt what we write to match the platform and the ways readers encounter our work. 

This workshop shows you how to write personal essays subscribers will pay to read.

What we’ll cover:

  • The 6 steps to turning classic personal essay into a Substack post subscribers will pay to read

  • Exactly how to implement those steps in your next post

What qualifies me to teach this workshop?

(You should ask this of everyone you work with!)

The guidance I give you is based directly on the advice Substack gave me. No marketing tricks. No gimmicks. 

I also share with you my experience as 

  • the creator of two bestselling, featured Substack publications (Writers at Work with Sarah Fay and Cured: The Memoir); 
  • an author at HarperCollins; 
  • a member of Substack’s Product Lab; 
  • a former advisory editor at The Paris Review; and 
  • a creative writing professor at Northwestern University.


No one else has the relationship with Substack that I do and specializes in the unique nature of the platform, how it can be used to earn an income, and how it complements traditional publishing and all aspects of a writer’s career.

For more, visit www.sarahfay.org and follow me on Instagram @sarahfayauthor (though IG is mostly my cats, who get tens of thousands of views).