On Montlake is moving to a new home

The best part? You don't really need to do anything.

Early next month, On Montlake will celebrate its third anniversary.

As we enter Year 4, I’m making a change that reflects On Montlake’s growth, though it shouldn’t impact your reading experience.

Next week, I will begin the process of moving On Montlake to Ghost, an open-source publishing platform. After much careful thought, I’ve decided now is the time to migrate from Substack and grow the On Montlake brand as a more standalone entity. There are other considerations, too, not the least of which is cost savings and a more dynamic, customizable website.

I’ll get into that in a bit. The most important thing to know for now: no action is required from you to continue receiving my stories via email newsletter, nor to continue reading them on the web (beyond logging into your new member account, which will be created for you. It’s super easy. I’ll explain that later, too). I’ll simply be using different tools to make the product.

Ghost has an excellent migration service that effectively picks up my Substack operation and drops it cleanly into the Ghost system. No opt-in is required, and you don’t need to cancel anything. Like Substack, Ghost uses Stripe to process payments, so the transition should be seamless for paid subscribers (called “members” in the Ghost ecosystem). It should even look the same on your credit card statement.

The short version: if you were on my free email list before, you’ll be on my free email list still. If you’re already a paid subscriber, you will still be a paid subscriber, with the same payment information and renewal date as before.

I’ve communicated with other publishers who made the switch to Ghost with little to no trouble, but it’s always possible there could be a hiccup or two along the way. So if you encounter any issues post-migration — i.e. you’re a paid subscriber but stop receiving emails or can’t login after the switch, etc. — please contact me at onmontlakeuw@gmail.com, and I will take care of you. (If you want, go ahead and add that email to your contacts list now to head off any possibility of the newsletter landing in your promotions tab.)

There are a few other matters to address, including a new benefit for paid subscribers that I hope will adequately replace Substack’s chat function. And I will send another email after the switch, welcoming everybody to the new platform and ensuring the newsletter lands in your inboxes. I will send a corresponding email from my Substack account the same day to alert you that the migration is complete.

(If you’ve been considering a paid subscription, there’s no need to wait. Any and all pre-migration subscriptions will port over.)

Why move?

When I launched On Montlake in March 2023, Substack was a no-brainer for its turn-key qualities: I was up and running six days after The Athletic laid me off. Substack makes it very simple for a veteran writer with an established subscriber base to start publishing almost immediately with few technical obstacles and a simple, intuitive content-management system.

Plus, I knew of many writers both inside and outside sports media who found success on the platform. In the world of independent publishing, Substack was (and is) as mainstream as it gets. There was value in being able to tell people “I’m on Substack now,” as opposed to building an independent web presence from scratch. Many readers already subscribed to one Substack newsletter or another, which lowered the barrier for entry to sign up for mine. The recommendation and referral system also helped in the early days.

Nearly three years later, On Montlake maintains a paid subscriber base of more than 2,200, and the Substack network effect has become more or less negligible. This alone wouldn’t be reason to change platforms, if not for the 10 percent fee Substack collects on all subscription revenue. Rather than collect an earnings-based fee, Ghost charges a flat annual fee for its services based on publication size. Simple number-crunching suggests five-figure annual savings. Considering how little benefit a (niche) site like mine now derives from Substack’s network recommendations, that’s too much money to continue leaving on the table. Big Ten travel ain’t cheap, and so forth.

There are broader considerations. With three years of production behind it, the On Montlake brand has become a recognizable part of the UW media community, and I want it to be more than “Christian’s Substack.” Ghost’s platform allows for a more dynamic web presence — I’m excited for you to see the new site, even if you still read via email — with separate, standalone pages and a cleaner design (and better search-engine optimization, to the extent that it still matters). It feels like a better fit for a business, rather than simply a place to do my job. Three years ago, all I wanted was the latter.

Substack was a great place to get started. Ghost feels right for what On Montlake has become.

What about chat?

A paid subscription to On Montlake now grants access to a Discord server for those interested. If you’re unfamiliar, Discord is a (free) app (you can use it in your web browser, too) that effectively functions as a forum or message board. In this instance, I’m using it to replace Substack’s chat feature, an idea cribbed from other Substack-to-Ghost migrations. A relatively small number of subscribers utilized the Substack chat, anyway, but there were enough folks active that I wanted to offer some version of it — a better one, I think — as we transition to a new platform. At least for now, I view the Discord server as more of a perk than a feature, but I’m looking forward to interacting with you there.

If you’re not interested, no sweat. If you are interested, reply to this email and I’ll send you a single-use invite link with simple instructions.

If you’re a paid subscriber and decide at any other time that you’d like to join the chat, reply to any future newsletter or email me at onmontlakeuw@gmail.com. Sorry if that’s a bit of a hassle. I’d prefer a seamless, on-platform chat option, but there is going to be some give and take between platforms.

Is there a Ghost app, like Substack?

There is not — apologies to subscribers who prefer reading my stories that way. I’ve chosen a web theme, though, that I think looks great on mobile, and the overwhelming majority of readers — as in 95 percent or so — access my stories via email.

What about comments?

Your old comments won’t port over, but Ghost offers a comments section, just like Substack. Paid subscribers will be able to comment on every story I publish going forward. As part of the migration, every subscriber (free and paid) will have a Ghost member profile created for them, just like you had on Substack.

All you need to do is visit On Montlake’s website (the onmontlake.com domain will point to the new site once the migration is complete) and login with the same email you used to subscribe to On Montlake on Substack. Ghost’s password-less system will send a login link and a six-digit code to that email address, and you can use either to login and comment. Emailed newsletters will include a link to comment, too.

The process is the same for paid subscribers simply wishing to read stories on the web, rather than in their email inbox: visit the site (once the migration is done), click “login,” enter your email address and click the login link (or enter the code) you receive.

As part of the migration, the website should be populated with every story I’ve published since launching On Montlake.

A note about the podcast

For continuity and simplicity purposes, Say Who, Say Pod will still be hosted on Substack, though that shouldn’t really impact your listening habits. The show remains free and available for all, and is of course available on YouTube and all major podcast platforms.

Subscribers still will receive a newsletter via email for each new episode, like always, with a brief description, embedded YouTube video and a link to the episode page on Substack (though the number of folks who listen in their browser is relatively small). Those newsletters, like all others, will come from my new Ghost site.

This might change some day, but Ghost doesn’t offer native podcast hosting and Substack has been a fine engine for distributing the show (besides that, it’s free). You shouldn’t notice any interruption to your listening experience, regardless of platform, and no action is required on your end. (I’m going to leave my Substack page up for a good while after the transition, just to ensure everything came over properly, but will no longer publish anything besides the podcast, and will only publish the podcast on the web.)

In sum

This is a lot of information, I know, but you shouldn’t notice much difference on your end: the newsletter will look a little different, the website will look better and those interested in joining the chat will need a third-party app (just like you did with Substack), but your subscription will port over and my stories should arrive in your inbox all the same.

Thanks for your support, and for following me on this journey. I remember a former colleague asking shortly after I went independent if it felt like I was running a business, or like I was just writing somewhere else now. I told him I didn’t feel like a business owner quite yet.

Thanks to all of you, that’s changed, and I’m excited for what the On Montlake community can become.

— Christian Caple, On Montlake

Questions? Email me at onmontlakeuw@gmail.com.