Back in December, my friend Sharon Hurley Hall and I began discussing our plans to leave Substack and where we wanted to go. We had both built strong followings in Substack and enjoyed the many social features that helped us reach more folks interested in growing their digital communications and social justice work. Sharon’s Anti-Racism newsletter had reached over 5,000 subscribers and the roots of change newsletter had just expanded to include podcasting and videos with digital comms tips.

It was not a guarantee that we would still grow if we left Substack or even have the same features, but we knew we didn’t want to be publishing on a platform that is too focused on profit at the expense of our society. Ultimately, she chose Beehiiv and I chose Ghost. These are our experiences with leaving Substack for independent publishing.

Why We Left Substack

The short answer is: because Nazis. We didn’t want our newsletter income being used to promote and platform Nazis, and we were pretty sure our subscribers wouldn’t want that either, so it was a no-brainer.

When Substack began platforming Nazis, we spoke out with fellow writers in a joint letter to the…