How Substack became the new book tour

It’s hard enough to publish a book, but getting people to buy it is an entirely different battle. As new platforms reshape how readers gather and interact online, authors are finding that sometimes platforms built to showcase writing can also double as powerful engines for discovery.

The most high-profile example so far might be Girls creator Lena Dunham, who bolstered the traditional press tour for her new memoir Famesick with interviews and features on the newsletter platform Substack.

In an interview with Arielle Swedback for her On Substack newsletter (which is published, of course, on Substack), Dunham made the case in blunt terms: “Someone I trust told me that, in book sales at least, every single Substack follower is the equivalent of many more Instagram or X followers … While I don’t have the actual numbers, that feels anecdotally true to me. There’s an appreciation of the written word that suffuses this whole place.”

While promoting her memoir, Dunham did interviews with a range of the platform’s newsletters, from Emilia Petrarca’s Shop Rat, which has 32,000 subscribers, to Emily Sundberg’s Feed Me, with more than 150,000 readers. To Dunham’s point, many of these newsletters are built around tightly defined audiences that tend to be more engaged than those on broader social platforms.

“It’s been really interesting to see how committed certain audiences are. I love that a newsletter with more followers but a less engaged audience doesn’t have the same value as someone with a tiny but rabid fan base,” Dunham added.

And while Dunham may be the latest high-profile convert, she’s hardly alone.

“Ten years ago the publishing industry’s center of gravity was the bookstore and the New York Times list,” Andrea Barzvi, an agent and president of Empire Literary, tells Fast Company. “Today, discovery has been outsourced to algorithms. And the publisher relies more heavily than ever on social media—whether it’s the author’s own platform, or the mere power of social media.”

Social media’s influence on book sales takes many forms, including the wildly popular TikTok community BookTok, which has driven major sales for titles like The Song of Achilles, It Ends With Us, and The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo. But while those platforms often depend on algorithmic luck, Substack offers something more direct: a line of communication between author and reader.

Jenn Lueke, author of Don’t Think About Dinner, says Substack offers a rare level of reliability. “I know my subscribers will actually see my posts,” she says, noting that the consistency makes readers more likely to try her recipes and follow her guides.

For Lueke, Substack became a tool for building her own community, one that followed her work before the book even reached the market. “I think someone who enjoys reading a newsletter might be more likely to enjoy reading a book,” she says. “My strategy was to utilize all social platforms I had to promote the book in different ways, with my Substack home being the center of it all.”

Some experts say Substack’s rise fits into a longer arc in publishing, one shaped by the early wave of self-publishing tools like Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing and Smashwords in the late aughts. Those platforms opened the door for self-published authors, but didn’t solve the marketing problem.

“That lack of support required self-published authors to be resourceful,” says Kris Austin, CEO of the self-publishing platform Draft2Digital. “Major publishing houses have taken note of indie authors’ business savvy and their ability to create fervent fanbases who are eager to purchase. This has led to traditional publishers moving away from status quo marketing spend, like print advertising, and leaning into newer opportunities.”

Those opportunities now extend well beyond Substack, giving authors multiple ways to cultivate an audience before a book even hits shelves.

“Press tours are decentralized now,” says Bookshop.org CEO Andy Hunter. “Individual creators can have a much bigger impact than old-school media.”

Dunham’s approach reflects that shift, and judging by early sales figures, it’s already paying off in a big way.