When British gossip columnist Rob Shuter was working as a publicist for Kate Spade in the early 2000s, his client would purchase the latest issue of Vogue or Vanity Fair at the airport when they traveled. As Spade giggled in her first-class seat, Shuter asked what could possibly be so funny in the magazine.
The late designer let him in on her secret: She had tucked an issue of the National Enquirer inside the more highbrow glossy.
Two decades later, Shuter is using his Substack, Naughty but Nice, to capitalize on the eternal appetite for the sort of outrageously lowbrow material once only found in the pages of gossip rags like the Enquirer.
Naughty but Nice began about a year ago as a way for Shuter to market his new novel, It Started With a Whisper. It seems the move paid off. Not only did the book briefly become one of Amazon’s top 200 bestsellers, but he now has some 7,000 unpaid and paid subscribers, plus a deal for two more novels.