Sections are separate newsletters or podcasts that are managed within your main publication. In this guide, we walk you through how to add and edit sections to your Substack.
1. How does someone subscribe to a particular "Section?"
2. I subscribed to a Section and then created and sent a post under that Section, but, as a subscriber, I did not receive an email. I tried this multiple times. Can you please advise.
Hey Jasmine, I'm seeing a lot of comments about this and it's exactly the reason I read this post in the first place. It would really make a big difference, so please do consider adding this feature some time soon. Thanks!
To anyone wondering, I found a temporary solution to avoid clutter: change the date of your publication to an old one, and then it will be shown at the bottom of your "new" list.
+5 on being able to hide things from the homepage. I wish podcasts, for example, wouldn't all show up there since there's already a separate tab for those.
You are so so so close to a truly fantastic interface, Substack!!!
How do we add a button at the bottom of a post that allows readers to sign up for only that section. Let's say I'm writing about Southern Toads and Existential Crises, I may not want to cross the streams, so to speak. Any way to do this by creating specific invites for only certain sections? I thought that was the whole point.
I use sections to have a bilingual Substack on my publication https://www.upgradespace.io It would be great, if I could a) have the section displayed as a section in the header, but b) have not all the German versions of the article in my main (English) Substack publication. Questions: a) is this possible, b) if not, could you make it possible? Thanks and kind regards, Thomas
Not really... I basically just made a new section on my substack and then published the german articles in the new section and the english articles in the main section... it was okayish, but not perfect... meanwhile I stopped doing it, cause a lot of browsers have the capability to translate pages anyway...
+1 on this. The fact that only subscribers can manage their section subscriptions is a big problem for me, and prevents me from importing subscribers from another mailing list onto Substack. Pleaaaase change this and allow us to add subscribers to a specific section.
It looks like the answer is no. You can connect each section to only 1 Stripe acct. So apparently you control it at the post level, choosing whether the post is free or paywalled. It seems clunky and I am still experimenting.
I don't see however how to filter each post according to its Section, the RSS feed doesn't seem to contain any metadata to achieve this.
Could you please consider including this? It's important to be able to separate Sections in certain scenarios.
(Another option would be to accept Tags on the Posts and pass that as metadata too though Tags are not currently supported in Posts, only the main Publication)
How about adding a Key Words Section so readers can find all articles on one topic?
It would act like a Table of Contents and help discover an article they already read. Right now, it's time consuming to find one specific article.
Prior to publishing, in the Section with the checkbox for Twitter, add key word Categories. Each new publication would also post on the main page as the newest article.
Then the landing page could still display the current and most popular articles, and also contain the Categories on a side margin.
This way, we can see our own topics and realize our own volume. For example, I could could probably add "The Rebel Patient on Twitter" and "The Rebel Patient Takes Action" Newsletters. But I can't easily categorize my articles.
The system could even prompt me to consider a new Newsletter after I have 50 articles in one "section".
I don't need, nor do my readers necessarily want to receive multiple emails. Adding Sections would be much simpler.
A great feature would be also readers having the ability & flexibility to buy sections individually as some readers might want just 1 section or a few out of 3-5 that writers have ... so section(s) pricing option besides charging for the publication overall. Thank you!
Suppose, if some subscribers want to subscribe to only a section of the publication and not the whole publication, how to enable that and adjust the pricing? For e.g, if I have two sections in my publication, and together they cost $7. But if someone wants to subscribe to one section at a time, they pay $5 for one section instead of $7 for the whole publication. Can I do that?
**It would be great to have header and footer customizable at the section level.**
My use case: I'm currently publishing daily posts with a companion digest. I want to add a links to switch from daily post to digest and vice versa with customize test whether a reader is receiving the daily or digest version.
@Substack team, I have a question on this: "Your subscribers can also opt in or out of receiving emails for each section on their account page".
If I create a newsletter section called "New" and I check "Sign up new subscribers by default" and "Copy your email list", how can I user sign up only to the "New" section?
As far as I can understand, the user can only do it if he opts out for the section at "https://yourdomain.substack.com/account", and then opts in again from the same page.
Hi! I'm trying to understand this. The system seems to indicate that I can make this a separate newsletter WITHIN my newsletter, but I'd love for that to be a separate mailing list. I don't understand where they'd sign up for this and if there's a separate administration section with stats and such.
How do I add subscribers from a different mailing list to a single section? I have an external website where I gather opt-in emails for my local astronomy club and want to import them into the relevant section on my substack. However I don't see a way to import emails without adding them to all of my sections. If this isn't a feature yet, it should be!
Hi, I'm having a problem in adding existing posts to new sections. I've followed the suggestions above but when I press 'edit post' I don't receive a drop down menu. Any advice?
“ Your publication homepage will display a feed of all posts, including those published to specific sections. ”
Can you give the option to hide section posts from the main homepage and just keep it within the section?
Hi, thanks for the feedback! This is a good point, and we'll keep it in mind for the next update to sections.
So sorry for the slow update, everyone. But this feature is finally here!
You can go to "Sections" in settings, click "Edit," and check "Hide posts from homepage." Let us know if it works!
Hi Jasmine. Two quick questions:
1. How does someone subscribe to a particular "Section?"
2. I subscribed to a Section and then created and sent a post under that Section, but, as a subscriber, I did not receive an email. I tried this multiple times. Can you please advise.
Thanks!
Tom
Yay! I'm going to try it out now.
Hi, is there any update on this? I would like to hide posts from one section so that they don't appear in the main feed as well.
It's been more than a year. Will you allow us us to hide section posts from the main homepage any time soon? Is it on your roadmap?
Hey Jasmine, I'm seeing a lot of comments about this and it's exactly the reason I read this post in the first place. It would really make a big difference, so please do consider adding this feature some time soon. Thanks!
To anyone wondering, I found a temporary solution to avoid clutter: change the date of your publication to an old one, and then it will be shown at the bottom of your "new" list.
No update on it, I ended up deleting my podcasts as those short 2-3 min audios will creating clusters in the home page.
Hi Jasmine, is there any update? I'd like to do this too.
she replied https://on.substack.com/p/a-guide-to-publication-sections/comment/14094284
+1
Hi Is there a update on this ?
She replied, March 30 https://on.substack.com/p/a-guide-to-publication-sections/comment/14094284
So sorry for the slow update, everyone. But this feature is finally here!
You can go to "Sections" in settings, click "Edit," and check "Hide posts from homepage." Let us know if it works!
This is better than AI
+5 on being able to hide things from the homepage. I wish podcasts, for example, wouldn't all show up there since there's already a separate tab for those.
You are so so so close to a truly fantastic interface, Substack!!!
That would be really great!
This is need of an hour... Please add this.
This would be great, Substack please make this possible as our newsletter wants to give a very personalized experience to the subscribers.
would be really great ...
How do we add a button at the bottom of a post that allows readers to sign up for only that section. Let's say I'm writing about Southern Toads and Existential Crises, I may not want to cross the streams, so to speak. Any way to do this by creating specific invites for only certain sections? I thought that was the whole point.
I'd like this, too.
I use sections to have a bilingual Substack on my publication https://www.upgradespace.io It would be great, if I could a) have the section displayed as a section in the header, but b) have not all the German versions of the article in my main (English) Substack publication. Questions: a) is this possible, b) if not, could you make it possible? Thanks and kind regards, Thomas
I found your Substack under a different name (today is October 31st, 2023). Did you find a way to work out the bilingual option?
Not really... I basically just made a new section on my substack and then published the german articles in the new section and the english articles in the main section... it was okayish, but not perfect... meanwhile I stopped doing it, cause a lot of browsers have the capability to translate pages anyway...
Her is her update/fix answer: https://on.substack.com/p/a-guide-to-publication-sections/comment/14094284
I'm desperate to work out how to add subscribers to a single section only – anyone know how to do this? Thanks.
+1 on this. The fact that only subscribers can manage their section subscriptions is a big problem for me, and prevents me from importing subscribers from another mailing list onto Substack. Pleaaaase change this and allow us to add subscribers to a specific section.
I want to import subscribers to a specific section of my Substack account.
Any help on how to do this?
+1, it is so badly needed!
Can each section have a unique paid subscription? I am thinking of moving my newsletters... Any help would be awesome.
I am wondering the same thing. Any news on this?
It looks like you can't. Pay vs free is done at the post level.
It looks like the answer is no. You can connect each section to only 1 Stripe acct. So apparently you control it at the post level, choosing whether the post is free or paywalled. It seems clunky and I am still experimenting.
I see there is an RSS feed associated with the publication (https://domain.substack.com/feed).
I don't see however how to filter each post according to its Section, the RSS feed doesn't seem to contain any metadata to achieve this.
Could you please consider including this? It's important to be able to separate Sections in certain scenarios.
(Another option would be to accept Tags on the Posts and pass that as metadata too though Tags are not currently supported in Posts, only the main Publication)
How about adding a Key Words Section so readers can find all articles on one topic?
It would act like a Table of Contents and help discover an article they already read. Right now, it's time consuming to find one specific article.
Prior to publishing, in the Section with the checkbox for Twitter, add key word Categories. Each new publication would also post on the main page as the newest article.
Then the landing page could still display the current and most popular articles, and also contain the Categories on a side margin.
This way, we can see our own topics and realize our own volume. For example, I could could probably add "The Rebel Patient on Twitter" and "The Rebel Patient Takes Action" Newsletters. But I can't easily categorize my articles.
The system could even prompt me to consider a new Newsletter after I have 50 articles in one "section".
I don't need, nor do my readers necessarily want to receive multiple emails. Adding Sections would be much simpler.
Thank you for considering my input.
A great feature would be also readers having the ability & flexibility to buy sections individually as some readers might want just 1 section or a few out of 3-5 that writers have ... so section(s) pricing option besides charging for the publication overall. Thank you!
Yes! So much more user friendly.
Suppose, if some subscribers want to subscribe to only a section of the publication and not the whole publication, how to enable that and adjust the pricing? For e.g, if I have two sections in my publication, and together they cost $7. But if someone wants to subscribe to one section at a time, they pay $5 for one section instead of $7 for the whole publication. Can I do that?
I can't believe this was never answered!! I need to know as well.
No, but great idea.
Elena already mentioned it in her comment, https://on.substack.com/p/a-guide-to-publication-sections/comment/11266015, but I'll repeat it for visibility:
**It would be great to have header and footer customizable at the section level.**
My use case: I'm currently publishing daily posts with a companion digest. I want to add a links to switch from daily post to digest and vice versa with customize test whether a reader is receiving the daily or digest version.
Thanks!
@Substack team, I have a question on this: "Your subscribers can also opt in or out of receiving emails for each section on their account page".
If I create a newsletter section called "New" and I check "Sign up new subscribers by default" and "Copy your email list", how can I user sign up only to the "New" section?
As far as I can understand, the user can only do it if he opts out for the section at "https://yourdomain.substack.com/account", and then opts in again from the same page.
They can control what emails they get from the unsubscribe link too. It’s much easier.
Hi! I'm trying to understand this. The system seems to indicate that I can make this a separate newsletter WITHIN my newsletter, but I'd love for that to be a separate mailing list. I don't understand where they'd sign up for this and if there's a separate administration section with stats and such.
Can you also include an automatic 'related stories' section in every newsletter that is mailed out to the subscribers?
How do I add subscribers from a different mailing list to a single section? I have an external website where I gather opt-in emails for my local astronomy club and want to import them into the relevant section on my substack. However I don't see a way to import emails without adding them to all of my sections. If this isn't a feature yet, it should be!
Hi, I'm having a problem in adding existing posts to new sections. I've followed the suggestions above but when I press 'edit post' I don't receive a drop down menu. Any advice?
same