Dear Readers — Please note this missive has escaped the custody of Substack and is now broadcast free and directly from DHowell.com. Welcome to the direly indie, handcrafted, artisanal, small-batch, farm-to-table version of the Daedalus Howell Arts & Media Newsletter™. Same guy, fewer overlords.

Escape from Substack

“Books are a commodity,” wrote Joseph McAleer in Popular Reading and Publishing in Britain, 1914–1950. A tidy observation, though he couldn’t have foreseen how thoroughly writing itself would become content, late capitalism’s term for one’s creative product—especially in an era when AI can spit out prose like a PEZ dispenser.

How do we monetize writing in this environment? I used to think the answer was to valorize writing in printed form the way music has been, er, vinylized, as a fetish format. So: books, but fancier. But then vinyl’s comeback hasn’t meaningfully helped musicians so much as it’s helped record sales and record companies. A resurgence of the medium does not equal a resurgence of the artist.

The vinyl numbers are fascinating. From 2001—when Napster imploded (thanks, Lars) and foreshadowed our current streaming dystopia—vinyl sales were negligible. Now, 2025 is expected to see $2.4 billion in vinyl sales, a full $1 billion over last year’s numbers.

Likewise, the total revenue for book sales last year was $32.5 billion (up 4.1% from 2023). These figures would suggest the creative industries are thriving, yet the money paid to any individual creator behind these staggering numbers is paltry for all but a few. Traditionally published authors can expect 7.5% royalty from paperback sales after earning out their $2,000 advance, which most won’t. And that’s if you’re “lucky” enough to be picked up by one of the Big Five.

So the fix? My current bet is on subscribers—people and patrons who choose the artist over the algorithm. Real readers who value original work are the saviors in a market that discounts and depresses writers and indie artists at every turn.

Part of my impulse to rethink all this is pragmatic. The numbers game is real. I am outnumbered—by AI, by algorithms, by the sheer number of miles between me and the so-called “center of the action.” Not to mention the creeping numerical time bomb of my advancing age. I’m a one-man brand with finite bandwidth and infinite competition.

I’m not trying to become a darling of the art world or Hollywood. I’m trying to be the darling of my world. Because I’m too indie, too wily, and frankly too Gen X to join any club that would have someone like me as a member. Or Groucho, for that matter. As Pee-wee Herman put it: “I’m a loner, Dottie, a rebel.”

This is partly why I resist growth loops, network effects, and “user acquisition funnels”—the polite terminology for how platforms use people to generate new users. So who’s using who?

Last August I wrote about Substack’s evolving identity crisis, how its new video offering points to it becoming TikTok for grown-ups. Even co-founder Hamish McKenzie declared that Substack is now a social network where people can “post a haiku or share a beautiful image.” Which is remarkably generous, given the platform’s tolerance of Nazis. Puck’s recently published “Substack Entrapment Theory” only clarified my own thoughts on the matter. It was time to leave.

I pulled the ripcord, migrated subscribers, and relaunched my own self-hosted newsletter emanating from DHowell.com—open source, autonomous—my pirate radio station of the self. And no haikus, Hamish.

As longtime readers know, newsletters and I have a long relationship. I write a weekly newsletter for the North Bay Bohemian and Pacific Sun as part of my day job, directing thousands of readers to the Weeklys mothership. But now I also want to direct you here… 

And since you’re already here… 

A quick note about your paid subscription:

Paid subscriptions have officially moved from Substack to my own business under my own name. You will no longer be charged by Substack but rather by me—via Stripe, the same secure credit/debit processor used by basically every subscription based enterprise.

I’ve also discounted your rates to $4.95 per month and $49.95 for annual subscribers. Apart from the unavoidable processing fees, your contribution now goes directly to me (and not to Substack, which closed a $100 million Series C in July—I think they’ll be just fine).

My upper-middlebrow pieces on art and media, autofiction genre mashups, artsploitation films—are inherently boutique and personal. That you’re here at all, is remarkable to me and why this platform matters: it lets me create at the scale and caliber I want, then share it directly with people like you who enjoy an occasional stroll into the labyrinth…

Thank you for sticking with me through the platform change. Creative independence doesn’t come with a lot of guarantees, but it does come with you, and that’s the part that actually matters.