Out of office - On Substack

This March, while on a two-week creative break to finish editing her new novel, Emma Gannon left paid subscriptions rolling on her Substack, The Hyphen by Emma Gannon. Not a single subscriber canceled. “My readers were super-understanding. I felt so supported,” the author and podcaster says. “To me, the Hyphen subscription model is a creative support model, not just a content transaction.” Like other independent publishers on Substack, Emma sets her own schedule. Part of creating your dream job, and making it a profitable business, means you aren’t tied to corporate policies and contracts. But it also requires knowing when and how to give yourself time off, since stepping away is essential to the creative process. “So often, the best ideas come to writers and creators when they are not being productive,” says Mason Currey, who researches and writes about creative routines and rituals in Subtle Maneuvers. For Iris Murdoch, it was looking out the window, for Ali Smith, wandering around t

This March, while on a two-week creative break to finish editing her new novel, Emma Gannon left paid subscriptions rolling on her Substack, The Hyphen by Emma Gannon. Not a single subscriber canceled. “My readers were super-understanding. I felt so supported,” the author and podcaster says. “To me, the Hyphen subscription model is a creative support model, not just a content transaction.” Like other independent publishers on Substack, Emma sets her own schedule. Part of creating your dream job, and making it a profitable business, means you aren’t tied to corporate policies and contracts. But