FAQ: Can You Reuse Substack Posts When You Write A Book?

A guest post by lawyer and book coach Ruth Bullivant

This was the closest image I could find to reduce/ reuse/ recycle! Photo by Gary Chan on Unsplash

Can You Reuse Substack Posts When You Write A Book? This question came up on a forum of Author Accelerator Certified Coaches. Ruth Bullivant graciously agreed to share the research she has done on this subject and also agreed to let me re-post it here.

Ruth is a UK lawyer, qualified editor, and an Author Accelerator Certified Book Coach. She undertakes legal reviews of publishing contracts, explaining them in plain English so a writer can grasp the upsides and the downsides of entering into a contract with a publisher. You can visit her at www.ruthbullivant.com.

Lawyerly disclaimer from Ruth: The Substack contracts are drawn under Californian law, and I am a UK solicitor, not a member of the CA bar. This is a general summary that is intended to help anyone reading it navigate the issue of an author’s rights in their own work on Substack with some clarity.

Lawyerly disclaimer from Jennie: I am not a lawyer and this is not legal advice. Here is Ruth’s post:

---

Does posting on Substack impact your ability to use the same material in your book if you get an agent or publisher?

An agent told a writer recently that if she wanted to publish a nonfiction book that incorporated her Substack posts, she would have to alter the content significantly. A publisher, she said, would regard the posts as “previously published” material and that would render them unusable in a future book.

This came as a horrible shock to the writer who had drafted a great book proposal but got stuck when they started to write the sample chapters. They were using the discipline of writing regular posts on Substack in order to build up confidence in their voice and to use the posts as material for their eventual book.

Writing on Substack, they found, was fun. It helped them release their inhibitions because they felt they were talking directly to the people who needed to read their book. The posts helped to overcome their self-doubt, which had almost overpowered them when they sat down to write the sample chapters of the book. On hearing they would not be able to use the posts as content, they were devastated. It seemed like they’d been wasting their time and energy.

It wasn’t a waste of their time. The agent may have expressed an individual publisher's preference, but other publishers are likely to make up their own minds after weighing up the commerciality of the book and the writer’s circumstances.

Publisher Preference

There are writers who might find themselves having just that discussion with a potential publisher.

On the one hand, if someone has an enormous and highly engaged following on Substack, and by enormous, I mean 70,000+ followers, and that following is made up of all of the people who might have one day bought the published book if they had not read the posts first, then you could understand a publisher getting nervous about reissuing the content.

On the other hand, a publisher might be attracted by a writer who is savvy enough to know their market and to gain valuable experience, and even feedback, in writing directly for them. The writer has demonstrated they are more than capable of shouldering the marketing burden that falls on most traditionally published authors.

And what about this re-publishing scenario from a legal perspective?

As a matter of law, Substack does not hinder a writer from publishing their posts elsewhere.

The Legal Position

Substack's Publisher Agreement sets out the legal terms that govern the relationship between the Writer ("Creator") and Substack; the Publisher Agreement hooks in the Terms of Use of the platform.

Both documents are explicit on the Creator's copyright: "First and foremost, you own what you create." So, when you post on Substack, you retain copyright in your work.

Then you, as Creator, look at the terms on which you licensed publication by Substack of your work. A Creator grants a Limited License to Substack to "to display, perform, and distribute" and to "translate, modify, reproduce" Posts, "royalty-free, perpetual, irrevocable, and worldwide."

Crucially, the license is "non-exclusive." That means the Creator is free to engage in publishing arrangements with other publishers using the same content.

As if all that isn't enough to argue that Substack has no ownership rights in a Creator's post, they go so far as to disclaim responsibility for content: completely undermining the possibility that Substack might require a Post's content to be changed before publishing elsewhere. "We aren’t liable,” they say, “for any errors or omissions in any Post and you hereby release us from any damages or loss you might suffer in connection with a Post."

Tips for writing forward with Substack

Let’s assume you are a writer with a great idea for a book and a relatively small following on Substack. The idea of using Substack to get into the swing of writing your book, by writing short posts to your ideal readership every week or so, is one that appeals because you sense it will help you grow in confidence.

Decide on your short-term goal: is it to find your voice? Is it to generate material for chapters that you intend to re-use? Is it to find out what topics resonate with your subscribers? Write down your goal somewhere you can find it again and check your progress every so often.

Start with a mindset of exploration, creativity, and fun. If it was hard to write the sample chapters after working on your book proposal, it’s going be just as hard to write them on Substack.

Take baby steps. Don’t try to Write Chapter One. Let aspects of the book come to mind: what issue appeals to you right now?

Imagine, or picture a real potential reader of your book. What would they most like to hear about, in this moment?

If you have written an Annotated Table of Contents, glance over it, and jot down an informal list of writing prompts on topics that appeal to you. The aim is to rekindle your interest in your book, not to come up with a rigid content plan.

One of my own clients lost confidence in his voice after writing a splendid proposal right up to the sample chapters. It wasn’t the book idea he had lost confidence in, but he could not get comfortable with the way he wanted to write it. He is now recovering his sense of purpose, and therefore his voice, on Substack by writing directly to his audience about the things he knows they are interested in.

---