Perhaps the easiest way to bring your writing to a wider audience these days is to do it yourself. The longest-running approach has been to start a blog. There are no gatekeepers, and within legal and commonsense limits you can write what you like.
Having your own blog also means that you are less likely to lose your work because a third party owner has changed their priorities and decided to "unpublish" your contributions.
You also tend to have the freedom to format the text however you like —fonts, colours and wrapping text around pictures.
Starting your own blog does, however, have significant downsides. You will almost certainly need what is called your own domain. For instance, if your name is Freda Bloggs, you might buy a web address domain -- like www.fredablogs.com, which you will have to pay for every year.
You will also need a certain amount of technical expertise, especially if you want to monetise it.
You will also have to promote it like crazy without help. Not much, but some -- in order to get the most out of it. Having said that, I don’t do much at all in that direction because I find the idea of self-promotion rather obnoxious.
So what about Substack? Substack is, in essence, a cross between a newsletter and a blog, but all the heavy lifting has been done for you. You could start your own Substack blog right now in about five minutes: https://fredablogs.substade.com.
Monetising it is easy, and Substack provides you with various ways to promote it. For instance, if you leave a comment on someone's article, anyone reading that comment can click on your name and he taken straight to your Substack blog. Substack makes recommending your blog very easy as well.
Regarding the monetisation aspect, I speak from experience. Twenty or so years ago I set up a paid-for newsletter. Although it was successful, I packed it in after a year and gave all my subscribers a pro rata refund. Why? Because dealing with all the admin side of it, like setting up and maintaining a SQL database on my computer, was not how I wanted to spend my time. Substasck does all that for you.
A Substack blog is free to set up, and Substack articles by other people are free by default unless the writer has made them paid for.
Disadvantages? You don't get all the formatting options, and everyone and his dog is on Substack, including some very big names. That means that standing out from the world can be challenging, but not impossible.
Also, the constant introduction of newe features, and the torrent of articles and Notes (Substack’s answer to X), saying how you can get 5,000 subscribers in five minutes is all very waring.
Also, I never quite trust any product or platform where I am, in effect, the product, so I have to keep reminding myself to back up my articles and subscriber lists, and download the backups just in case the rug is pulled from under my feet.
Nevertheless, for the momemnt at least, the advantages outweigh the disadvantages as far as I’m concerned.
If you want to start writing on a regular basis for what will be, hopefully, a growing readership, there is probably no better place to start. Where to start reading Substack? Well, mine of course! Here’s my Digital Education newsletter.