Substack has hired comic book writer Nick Spencer as the newsletter company expands its platform beyond journalism into comic books and fiction.

Spencer, who has written for Captain America and Amazing Spider-Man, was hired to offer Substack Pro advance-payment deals to other comic book writers. "We see anything that shows promise as a priority, and fiction is starting to show promise," Substack co-founder Hamish McKenzie told Business Insider.

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According to Insider, the Substack Pro program has mostly been geared towards non-fiction writers and works similarly to how publishers pay their authors; authors are paid an advance well as a percentage of future sales. However, for comic book writers, Substack has constructed a new revenue model.

Spencer's role will be to cut deals with comic creators, which will allow them to hire a small production team and other artists to create their content. According to Mackenzie, creators will own the IP through the Substack model and "because of Substack Pro they get the resources they need upfront."

Substack is a newsletter company that allows writers to publish their own newsletters and collect revenue via subscriptions. The push beyond journalism is part of Substack's growth strategy as it faces more competition from company's like Ghost or social media platforms such as Twitter and Facebook. Branching out into comic books, Substack will now be up against Marvel, DC, independent publishers as well as Patreon, GoComics and Webtoon.

"The top creators are doing well for themselves, but the vast majority of comics creators are really struggling to get by or have day jobs, so the idea of another revenue stream I’m sure is going to be very appealing," said Abraham Riesman, author of True Believer, a biography of comics icon Stan Lee. Reisman also explained that sometimes writers will go to independent publishers for more creative control. "That's great for them, but very often the creative work suffers because -- and here's where Substack comes in -- there's minimal editing," Reisman said.

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Source: Business Insider, via USA Latest News