Writer Julia Kerninon, creator of the Substack 'Sur le Fil' ('On the Wire') in 2025, at her home in Nantes, Brittany, on March 23, 2026. THEOPHILE TROSSAT FOR M LE MAGAZINE DU MONDE
In its March 9 issue, the bi-monthly New York Magazine featured a highly anticipated cover story on New York residents' incomes and lives in the United States' economic capital. Among dozens of anonymized examples, readers learned that, for instance, one psychoanalyst earned $325,000 a year, far more than a doorman ($75,000) or a dog walker ($92,000), but well behind a plastic surgeon ($4 million). Yet one stood out as the biggest surprise in this snapshot of New Yorkers' revenues: the emergence of a particularly lucrative new profession, "Fashion Substacker," in other words, a fashion journalist who publishes their work on Substack, at $275,300 per year.
The fact that one freelance journalist was earning income on par with that of a corporate lawyer was particularly striking. The figure reflects the newsletter platform's growing success among professionals who make a living from writing. Founded in 2017, Substack, which claims to have five million paid subscriptions worldwide, enables authors to publish newsletters that can either be sent out for free or accessed via a monthly subscription, with prices starting at $5/€5.
