If I can succeed on Substack, so can you

Lessons I've picked up from my 17-year career as a professional writer that extend from journalism to Substack and have helped me to become a 'bestseller'.

It’s 2008, I’ve just completed my English degree and I’m living in Hackney, working in a pub. Laid out on the bar is a selection of newspapers, including a local Hackney paper I write for, and the chef is out of the kitchen, sat on a bar stool, reading it.

He looks up at me: you’re not a bad writer, you know.

I know this chef. We share friends. We didn’t …