And we're back! Today's newsletter is brought to you by Chris.

The gritty reality for Substack’s middle class — simonowens.substack.com

Substack seems like such a great deal for journalists. A direct relationship with your paying audience, without the headaches that come from writing for a parent media brand? Marry that with the potential to make some serious money and the added legitimacy of more creators getting on board and you have a winning pitch for many people.

But of course it isn't quite like that, as Simon Owns explains: "Star journalists generate six figure revenue within weeks after launching on Substack, but that's not the reality for most writers." He highlights the issue of a lack of resource to A/B test in addition to the lack of a safety net in other areas as key barriers to joining the big leagues.

That doesn't even factor in the lack of support you have from a wider team. Owens' conclusion - it's worth pursuing a career on Substack, but only if you're very sure of your time, worth, and resources.

Meet some of the local journalists writing the first paid newsletters at Facebook — www.niemanlab.org

Well, if Substack doesn't float your boat, maybe Facebook will. This piece from Nieman Lab takes a look at some of the first batch of journalists who are making a go of Facebook's new paid-for local newsletter options.

Lessons from Gazeta Wyborcza’s 250K strong subscription business — wan-ifra.org

Poland’s Gazeta Wyborcza is now the largest newspaper in central Europe, with a 250,000 strong digital-only subscription business. The key lesson in this write-up on WAN-IFRA is the changes the paper made to its onboarding process, which was originally turning subscribers off. A great case study in how to tweak subscription offerings.

Andrew Neil poised to quit GB News — www.telegraph.co.uk

Andrew Neil is reportedly not returning to the rolling news channel he helped found. After a humiliating launch and the appointment of polemicists to key slots in an attempt to salvage terrible ratings, GB News is apparently not what Neil had envisaged. Couldn't have happened to a nicer person.

Podcast throwback:

Defector VP of Revenue & Operations Jasper Wang on growing an employee-owned newsbrand — voices.media

In this throwback episode we hear from Jasper Wang about Defector, which was formed after a mass staff exodus from former GO Media property Deadspin. It's a great chat about what Jasper believes is the core of a successful newsroom - writers who fundamentally understand their audience.

Help us cover our costs with a Ko-Fi subscription — ko-fi.com

Ko-Fi contributions have really helped us cover our costs over the last year. We love one-offs, but we've also introduced a monthly subscription option to make it easier for our lovely listeners to contribute regularly. It's just like buying us a virtual coffee but you can hit the 'Monthly' button to make use happy over and over and over. 💛💛💛