> On a per-deal basis, we could never really do better than break-even. A Substack advance was effectively an interest-free loan that would never be paid back if a publication failed.
They made a ton of money on Matt Yglesias's advance. His advance was ~$250k, and he brought in two or three times that in revenue (the terms of his deal were: he gets 250k upfront, they get his first year's revenue). I'm not aware of any other writers who've published their numbers, but Greenwald, Sullivan and Taibbi all have a TON of subscribers.
Scott Alexander didn't give a number, but reported the advance was less than he would have made if he just did the default system, as of March 2022[0].
He also points out that Taibbi says "Every one of the Substack Pro writers I know would have made more money not taking the advance", which obviously includes Taibbi himself.
They made a ton of money on Matt Yglesias's advance. His advance was ~$250k, and he brought in two or three times that in revenue (the terms of his deal were: he gets 250k upfront, they get his first year's revenue). I'm not aware of any other writers who've published their numbers, but Greenwald, Sullivan and Taibbi all have a TON of subscribers.