Rushdie will initially submit articles on topics he is interested in, such as French New Wave films and music. He will also write a short novel, which will be sent as a series via Substack, he says in interviews with The New York Times and The Guardian.
Substack is very popular among journalists, but the company behind the platform has recently been trying to attract fiction writers as well.
Salman Rushdie is arguably the most famous sign on the podium: he won the Booker Prize with his children at midnight in 1981 and became famous when his book The Satanic Verses led to a fatwa from Ayatollah Khomeini in Iran. He is of British Indian descent and has been living in the US for twenty years now.
“Experience Crazy Things”
Rushdie wants to “try new things” in this “crazy year and a half”. He wants to widely try out his newsletters, and is considering asking readers for feedback.
In addition to a deal with Substack, for which he gets “less money” than an ordinary book, he also has a regular book deal with publisher Random House.
Substack invests in the book
At the beginning of this year, Substack had about 250,000 paying subscribers and was valued at $650 million (€548 million). Some journalists and other writers earn thousands to hundreds of thousands of dollars to publish on the platform. In return, Substack asks for 10 percent of every euro earned through a subscription.
However, the choices Substack makes when investing in the book have been criticized by the company. For example, the company purchased the discussion platform Letter, which, among other things, will link journalists with anti-transgender ideas. Then many writers left the podium.
