A few days ago, I shared with you that I had completed the full draft of LET ME BE YOUR GHOST and was looking for some beta readers to give feedback on the current draft.

The outpouring has been enormous — thank you! — and I’ve been busy sending out the draft and also beginning to work on some of the notes that have started coming in.

This is one of the many reasons why serializing your fiction on Substack is helpful. Getting feedback from early readers is essential, and having a way to bring your readers together and share some behind-the-scenes helps to deepen your relationship with your people.

So thank you — I’m excited for you to read what I’ve been creating for you.

And if you missed the first call but still want to apply? I’ll be sending out the draft on a rolling basis in the next few days before I close the form. Feel free to apply below:

apply to be a beta reader

🍵 let’s catch up over tea: taking a bit of a break

I took several days off this week to get away from my desk. I went to museums, hiked above the marine layer to get some sunshine (rare in San Francisco), and have been teaching and taking lots of yoga classes at my local studio.

When I finish big milestones (like a draft edit or finalizing a manuscript!) I like to get some new inputs and take some time to rest and reset. As writers, I think it’s important to consider what’s feeding you, what’s bringing your words to life.

So something to meditate on this week: what’s something new or interesting you can experience to help your work feel more layered? Or what kind of fun can you weave into your day that will make things feel fresh?

💌 what I’m watching, reading, and creating

creating

• ✍️ What should you actually charge? (we built you a rate calculator) at CozyJobs — you can find the rate calculator here. If you’re a freelancer, deciding what to charge is a huge part of the strategy when it comes to deciding what types of clients to work with. Our rate calculator not only helps you determine what you should charge, but it also surfaces jobs at that rate.

• From First Draft to Final Polish: Editing Your Book Like a Pro with ProWritingAid over at Make Writing Your Job. I ran a self-editing workshop in collaboration with ProWritingAid, and if you’ve got a draft of a novel or memoir you’re editing, I think you’ll find this workshop useful!

  ✍️ Make Writing Your Job

  📚 From First Draft to Final Polish: Edit Your Book Like a Pro with ProWritingAid [Workshop]

  This email is sponsored by ProWritingAid. I only partner with tools I actually use…

  Listen now

  9 days ago · 3 likes · Amy Suto

• The Forever Freelancer with Author Satta Sarmah Hightower at Make Writing Your Job. This conversation with 7-figure freelancer Satta Sarmah Hightower was filled with great, actionable advice. Satta is a former journalist, and her new book The Forever Freelancer is a great roadmap for building a sustainable career.

  ✍️ Make Writing Your Job

  ✍️ The Forever Freelancer with Author Satta Sarmah Hightower

  Satta Sarmah Hightower is a journalist-turned-content marketer who has been a full-time freelancer since 2014, when a second layoff pushed her into self-employment by accident. Through her consultancy, Talented Tenth Media, she’s spent more than a decade writing and building content for brands like Adobe, Microsoft, Google, Morgan Stanley, and Capital One — after starting ou…

  Listen now

  10 days ago · 16 likes · 2 comments · Amy Suto and Satta Sarmah Hightower

reading

• The Magic Tricks I Use to Get My Way by Courtney Cho. “Under enough pressure, appetite finds the sides of your fingers.” Courtney is one of the best writers on Substack — especially if you read manifestation/spirituality content. Even if you don’t, I find the depth of her research and the beauty of some of her prose to be incredible — even as she delivers it in a “girly pop” kinda way. Her voice always feels refreshing in my inbox.

Read more

It’s a Wednesday, and I’m biking through the sunny wetlands of Reno with family, stopping for a beautiful breakfast bowl before finishing our ride. The marshland birds fly over the shimmering water with towering weeds, the Tahoe mountains in the background.

Then, after an afternoon of cooking corn on the cob and lunch on the grill, I sit outside in the shade to get some writing time for my new novel, let me be your ghost.

The progress has been steady. I’ve been writing chunks of the book on calm afternoons just like these, an iced green tea sweating on a side table while I write away. And — most recently! — I’ve just completed the full first draft and have been doing an edit pass as I’ve been queuing up chapters.

Here’s how it’s been going so far:

🍵 let’s catch up over tea: the writing process for my new (serialized!) romantic thriller novel

I’ve been working on this current version of let me be your ghost since early May of this year, although the concept itself was adapted from a screenplay I wrote back when I worked in Hollywood. It’s very different now, in ways I think make the story more interesting (you can read chapters 1-4 for free to judge for yourself!)

Every novel seems to have its own writing process, and let me be your ghost as a draft came together in a much more seamless way when I figured out some major story engines. These engines were notably lacking in previous drafts, which is why I kept writing flashbacks previously (gratuitous flashbacks is a sure sign of author in distress!)

Story structure is what determines if rewrites will take you months or years, and I’m so grateful to have basically been put through “story structure bootcamp” during my past experience of being a TV writer.

I taught a class on this for Founding Members about how to use TV structure to improve your romance novel’s pacing, and I’ve used all of these tricks in the outlining and preparation of let me be your ghost so far:

In terms of draft progress, since I recently finished writing the entire draft, I’ve been doing revisions on earlier chapters ahead of scheduling them. I’m a few chapters ahead of what’s hitting your inbox each week, which has been ~ so important ~ for building some more cushion for me to strengthen story components.

I’m also going to be diving back into more of the week-to-week marketing of each chapter, and will share what’s moving the needle there soon.

Thanks to everyone who has been reading and also sharing feedback on the draft so far! I’ve been enjoying reading your emails and I’m glad you’re digging the story so far :)

💌 what I’m watching, reading, and creating

• creating: we just launched our free quizzes on CozyJobs, and our Cosmic Career Quiz has been described as “scarily accurate” and has even been endorsed by a professional astrologer!

  • I also got really into astrocartography during my time as a digital nomad, and if you’re curious where the luckiest place in the world are for you to find success across many aspects of your life, I think you’ll dig this quiz also.

• creating: I’ve been using ProWritingAid to help me edit some of my novel, and it’s given me some really interesting notes to work with during this process. if you’re a paid subscriber of Make Writing Your Job, ProWritingAid is giving our subscribers 20% off if you missed the announcement!

Read more

For those of who you haven’t seen yet, Substack is rolling out an AI detector for posts, partnering with Pangram.

The Substack Post

Against Claudefishing

It’s getting harder to tell what’s real on the internet…

Read more

a month ago · 6336 likes · 1402 comments · Chris Best

While I’m supportive of cutting down on low-quality “slop” (both human- and AI-generated) across platforms, I have to say this is a major hit for Substack as it’s ignited a witchhunt across the platform — because Pangram’s AI detector is faulty most of the time.

I know this because I ran some quick tests: stuff I’d written by hand in a coffeeshop was flagged as AI generated, whereas something I had Claude write for me as a test ended up being analyzed as 100% human-written when it was in fact 100% AI generated.

I was honestly shocked how wrong the detector was within the first 5 tests I ran on it! And this is coming from a company who says their error rate is insignificant.

Also — love this video breakdown on it:

So what feels like a good problem to solve — let’s cut down on slop on feeds! — is “solved” instead with shaming of people who are perceived use AI tools (even if they didn’t!), and the discourse around this has heated up as more people are finding out that these AI detection tools (and particularly Pangram’s tool embedded in Substack) aren’t accurate. Not by a long shot, as other writers are pointing out.

I wish the platform wasn’t feeding into the moral panic about AI (to be clear, as a San Francisco-based author I am not anti-AI), and instead focusing on lifting up good quality publications — independent of what tools writers and publishers choose to use.

An easy way to do this? Substack could continue to see what publications people are reading and paying for, and continue to incentivize top performing publications just like they do with their bestseller leaderboards, and their rising leaderboards (especially the new publications category, to help bring discovery to new writers!)

I’d be curious of your thoughts if you want to share in the comments:

Leave a comment

💡 you’re invited to the 10x Your Freelancing virtual summit hosted by solidgigs on August 25-27!

I’m speaking at the virtual 10x Your Freelancing Summit about how to AI-proof your freelancing career! You can RSVP to hear me and other amazing speakers talk on August 25-27.

Solidgigs, Preston Lee, and the whole team over there are awesome, and I know this is going to be an epic few days of talks and virtual Q&As and evenets.

Lots of cool stuff, check out the full listing of events below:

👋 come to the summit!

🍵 let’s catch up over tea: serializing memoirs on substack, preparing for your book launch

If you didn’t catch my interviews on Make Writing Your Job this week, you can catch up below!

The below chats are especially relevant if you’re curious about serializing your memoir on Substack or if you’re gearing up for a book launch of your own:

✍️ Make Writing Your Job

✍️ How to Serialize Your Memoir on Substack with Author Jessy Easton

Jessy Easton is a writer from the Mojave Desert of California, now living in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina, whose essays have appeared in numerous literary journals and earned nominations for the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net award. She’s the author of…

Listen now

a month ago · 25 likes · 3 comments · Amy Suto and Jessy Easton

✍️ Make Writing Your Job

✍️ How to Launch Your Book This Fall with PR Expert Haley Raymond

Haley Raymond is a PR and communications consultant who helps entrepreneurs, creatives, and small business owners get press without a big-agency budget. She started out as a magazine editor before cutting her teeth at two PR agencies in Belfast, where she ran campaigns for local and global brands — including a Belgian microbrewery launch that landed coverage on CNN…

Listen now

a month ago · 22 likes · 2 comments · Amy Suto and Haley Raymond

Do you have a book coming out that you’d like to share with our 44,000+ email subscribers at Make Writing Your Job? I’ve just created a guest application form below if you’d like to be considered for an upcoming interview. As a heads up, I’m prioritizing fiction authors for the next round of interviews!

✍️ apply to be a guest

Read more

There’s a piece that’s going around — The End of Reading is Here in The Atlantic — and it reminds me of the clickbait-y Buzzfeed headlines of years past.

It’s a piece that’s been widely spread and commented on, but in it the writer argues that America is becoming “postliterate.”

The core claim isn’t that people can’t decode words, but that sustained, deep reading — and with it the capacity for comprehension, synthesis, and critical thinking — is collapsing.

And yes some of the stats look bad (fewer than half of adults read any book in 2022 and daily reading-for-pleasure fell from 28% in 2004 to 16% in 2023) — fiction sales have actually surged in recent years, and there’s more fervor around book clubs and the art of reading than ever before (see: Dua Lipa’s partnership with the famed Portuguese bookstore Livraria Lello for her banned library selections.)

It’s also ironic that The End of Reading is Here is an 8,500-word article lamenting that no one reads long things.

People love to say “it’s the end of the world as we know it” but you know what? I feel fine.

💡 TODAY: Pilot to Page: Writing Your Romance Novel Using TV Storytelling Techniques

I learned so much about story structure from my time in Hollywood — and I’m bringing this class to you as well here on Substack Live!

✍️ Join me for my upcoming class, From Pilot to Page: Writing Your Romance Novel Using TV Storytelling Techniques today

This is the class I taught at the Love Potion Library bookstore here in SF, and I draw from my experience as a TV writer and share the story and structure tips that help me write my romance novels!

✨ This class is on Substack Live today, July 19th at 1:30pm PT for paid subscribers of my Substack Sutoscience only. The replay will only be available for Founding Members so be sure to RSVP below if you want to tune in live!

💡 RSVP here!

See you in class 👋

💡 also — come to the 10x Your Freelancing virtual summit hosted by solidgigs on August 25-27!

I’m speaking at the virtual 10x Your Freelancing Summit about how to AI-proof your freelancing career! You can RSVP to hear me and other amazing speakers talk on August 25-27.

Solidgigs, Preston Lee, and the whole team over there are awesome, and I know this is going to be an epic few days of talks and virtual Q&As and evenets.

Lots of cool stuff, check out the full listing of events below:

👋 come to the summit!

✍️ watch the replay: Breaking the Starving Artist Myth: What Shakespeare Knew About Business [Free Class]

I gave this lecture live as part of an in-person lecture series here in the Bay Area, and it was sold out with over 80+ tickets purchased.

Why? It’s because we’re all curious why “starving artist” has become such a cultural norm — especially because the great artists remembered by history were often not starving!

But the starving artist myth has been perpetuated by gatekeepers and institutions that want to keep us from reaching our potential — and often profit from the disenfranchisement of writers and creatives.

This is the basis of my bestselling book Write for Money and Power, which has sold thousands of copies and helped writers take control of their destinies and focus on the creative work they’re excited to do.

If you missed attending this class live, you can watch the replay below:

✍️ Make Writing Your Job

✍️ Breaking the Starving Artist Myth: What Shakespeare Knew About Business [Free Class]

I gave this lecture live as part of an in-person lecture series here in the Bay Area, and it was sold out with over 80+ tickets purchased…

Listen now

a month ago · 3 likes · 5 comments · Amy Suto

🍵 let’s catch up over tea: making your reader worry in fiction

I heard a great piece of fiction writing advice the other day:

great fiction makes the reader worry.

Emotional attachment in fiction is challenging to pull off, but I’ve seen that when I’m worried about my favorite characters in a book, I know my sleep schedule is about to be wrecked.

I think this is better fiction writing advice compared to just “make it hard for your characters!” because it speaks to the reader’s emotional involvement — which is hard to do because making readers care means you’ve crafted characters they love.

💌 I’m reading…

• It’s so vulnerable to talk about money as a writer, and I’m impressed by ’s breakdown of how she spent $44,000+ on her book launch. Book launches are expensive (even for those authors who are traditionally published!) and most people just don’t talk about this! She also shared a cool resource for getting ARC readers/readers who leave Amazon reviews through Hidden Gems.

• ’s incredible memoir, THE ONE WHO LEAVES, which she serialized on Substack. She depicts what it was like to grow up in a Mojave desert in a meth lab, and her writing is propulsive and so visual. I’m honored to be interviewing Jessy on Substack Live this Tuesday at 1pm PT to talk about how to serialize memoir on Substack — RSVP with this link to be notified when we go live!

• wrote a great piece on how to Petsit Your Way Around the World. When I was a digital nomad, I met lots of women who used petsitting as a way to get free accommodation while traveling, and Stephanie’s guide is really actionable on how to do this. Highly recommend checking it out if you’re curious about traveling for free!

Read more

I’ve been in your inbox this week reminiscing about my recent wedding, sharing the latest chapter of my San Francisco romantic thriller following a memoir ghostwriter who gets in too deep with her billionaire client, and reminding you that our “writer’s group for Substack” AKA our monthly Substack Lab is happening later today for Founding Members of 💡 Sutoscience :)

I also gave a sold-out lecture as part of the Bay Area’s Big Brain Lecture Series — thanks to Emily, the Big Brain team, and the Gold Palm Oakland for hosting me! 🙏 And I appreciate everyone who showed up — it was great busting the starving artist myth with you.

If you missed the talk but want to check it out, I’m giving it again here on on Substack Live, details below!

✍️ Breaking the Starving Artist Myth: What William Shakespeare Knew About Business (Live Class!)

✍️ The starving artist myth was a lie to keep you broke and trapped.

Learn how artists and writers like Michelangelo and Shakespeare created like artists and built their careers like entrepreneurs — and how you can make the modern day creator economy work for you while staying connected to the heart of your writing.

👇 RSVP to attend this lecture live this Wednesday, July 15th at noon PT or be sure to subscribe to my Substack ✍️ Make Writing Your Job to get the copy of the replay!

This is the lecture I recently gave in-person at a Bay Area lecture series (mentioned above!), based on the concepts of my bestselling book Write for Money and Power. I’ll leave some space for Q&A at the end as well!

✍️ RSVP to attend for free!

See you there!

💡 Another Upcoming Class I’m Teaching: Pilot to Page: Writing Your Romance Novel Using TV Storytelling Techniques

I learned so much about story structure from my time in Hollywood — and I’m bringing this class to you as well here on Substack Live!

✍️ Join me for my upcoming class, From Pilot to Page: Writing Your Romance Novel Using TV Storytelling Techniques

This is the class I taught at the Love Potion Library bookstore here in SF, and I draw from my experience as a TV writer and share the story and structure tips that help me write my romance novels!

✨ This class is on Substack next Sunday, July 19th at 1:30pm PT for paid subscribers of my Substack Sutoscience only. The replay will only be available for Founding Members so be sure to RSVP below if you want to tune in live!

💡 RSVP here!

See you in class 👋

🍵 let’s catch up over tea: the benefits of putting yourself out there as a creative

In the past year, I’ve really put my foot on the gas of “being out in the world.”

As an introvert and homebody, it’s easy for me to be a bit of a hermit and spend my days writing and reading at home rather than putting myself out there.

But every time I do something bold (and a little uncomfortable) like giving a talk to a room full of people or doing a 12-hour book launch, I find that the payoff is huge.

I get to connect with other creatives, share my ideas, and grow as a person.

Life, truly, is only lived outside of our comfort zone.

So what’s one thing you can do to live outside of your comfort zone this week?

Leave a comment

💌 I’m reading…

• Justin Welsh’s great essay on how having fun is the new competitive advantage. I’ve found this to be so deeply true. If you’re doing something that’s fun, you’ll work harder and be better at it than other people because it’s play to you. So how can you do something that feels like play instead of work?

Read more

Since I wrote to you last, I’ve been ~ out in the world ~ doing things like teaching a romance novel writing workshop at San Francisco’s The Love Potion Library — one of the only romance bookstores in the city!

(I’ll be teaching this class for 💡 Sutoscience Founding Members over Zoom, so keep an eye out for that invite!)

If you’re based in San Francisco, I’d also love to invite you to the lecture I’m teaching on July 9th in Oakland with this great organization Big Brain. They bring together incredible minds to teach interesting topics in beautiful spaces, and my talk is going to be all about the topics in my book Write for Money and Power.

I may be giving away free signed copies of my book if time permits, so hope to see you there!

💡 RSVP here

Oh and also — I just got married!

I’ve been out for the past few weeks for my wedding and honeymoon with and it’s been lovely and magical and everything we hoped for.

Because of that I’ve been a bit MIA online as I took time to be present with friends and family, but you can watch a snapshot of my honeymoon below :)

🍵 let’s catch up over tea

🫖 tea I’m drinking today: nettle tea. It’s very earthy but really great for you!

✍️ a creative resource I want you to check out: the monthly Substack Lab writer’s group has been one of my favorite things to host. We’ve got such a wide array of Substackers in our community doing great things, and I love how supportive everyone is of each others’ work. It’s a really special group, and if it feels right I’d love for you to join us!

🌁 how it’s been going so far publishing fiction on Substack: I’ve been having so much fun, and it’s been cool to see the momentum so far. I will be honest that I haven’t set aside as much time for marketing as I should, but in the meantime you can read the current chapters here!

💌 I’m reading…

…how new graduates are getting advice to study philosophy if they want to be relevant in the AI era.

Read more

If you’ve been here for a minute, you’ll know that I’ve been publishing a weekly creator news series on Sundays.

But I’ve decided to move back to my previous sunday tea series instead — essentially, a conversation with you over tea about writing, behind-the-scenes of my creative process, and other topics and resources I think you’ll find useful in your writing and creating journey.

I’m placing part of this sunday tea series under the paywall because it takes a bit of time to curate, and I want to say thank you to the paid subscribers that help make it possible to spend so much time crafting resources and articles for you here at 💡 Sutoscience. 🙏 Thank you!

🍵 let’s catch up over tea: get paid to write for other substacks, welcome to my journey publishing fiction on substack

🫖 tea I’m drinking today: ginger + lemon tea. I’ve been freezing ice cube trays of juiced ginger and lemon that I juice myself and make in big batches. It’s been a nice way to have daily fresh ginger and lemon tea with out having to juice and brew it from scratch every morning!

✍️ a creative resource I want you to check out: there’s been an embarrassment of riches on the ✍️ Make Writing Your Job writing job board which I curate alongside my partner Kyle and our team. There’s been several standout jobs this week I just wanted to flag:

• first, there are lots of Substacks hiring culture writers + other types of writers at $30-$70/hour. I’ve said this before and will say it again — Substack is the new form of media! It’s a business model that makes so much sense, which is why we’re starting to see an uptick in people hiring writers/editors specifically for their Substacks. These opps are great to apply to if you are still figuring out your own Substack and want to gain some experience writing for others and get paid for it.

• second, if you’re a big fan of the podcasts s-town and this american life, then there’s a story producer job for six-figures (it’s a 1099 role) on friday’s job board along with 30+ other opps we’ve curated for you I think you’ll dig. I spent a lot of time working in the podcast space and it still has a special place in my heart.

🌁 how it’s been going so far publishing fiction on Substack: so if you haven’t been seeing my posts on 💡 Sutoscience recently — I’m publishing my romantic thriller series! you can check out the update posts and read the first chapter of let me be your ghost below:

Publishing fiction on Substack has been something I’ve wanted to sink my teeth into in a deeper way, especially as I’ve helped clients do the same.

Here are some of the things I’ve learned so far:

Read more