Hello! The Substack team will be in this discussion thread for the next hour or so. Curious about the future of Substack? Want to know what we think about the state of the media? Dying to know the perfect tea brand? Try us!
(If you have featured-related questions, check out our last thread. For support-related questions, email support@substack.com.)
Thanks! I think going deeper on the threads things feels really interesting.
What if subscribers could start their own threads? What if you could start private conversations here? What if you had a rich profile, so I could click on your face here and find your newsletter? Etc.
Honestly this is a hard thing that we will do our best at. I think the keys are:
- Never lose sight of the product as a whole
- Always listen to users
- Don't always do what users say
Put another way: when people say how they feel about the product, they are always right. When people say exactly what to build, they are only sometimes right.
I think all that makes sense. As a writer/publisher, there are features here and there that I'd like to add, but overall value the very careful approach to feature building and the straightforward interface. The one thing that wouldn't affect the nature of the product, but would enhance the writer/publisher experience that I'd love to see would be an iOS/mobile app editor. But again, appreciate the way you all have gone about everything so far. Keep it up!
Love what you all are doing. Thank you! Question on a way to implement feedback into unsubscribes? I don’t want to reach out any annoy someone, but would be great if they could elect to provide some quick feedback as to why they unsubscribes
In fact it's half there now. We collect the feedback, but it only goes in the "unsubscribe notification" emails, so if you have those turned off you don't see them. We should really put them in the dashboard.
In the email that I send to people that unsusbcribe (which you can customize in settings) I ask people to reply and tell me why. A bunch of people have and its interesting.
Do you have privacy minded features in your plans? I know things about my subscribers' reading habits, I'm not comfortable knowing. It would be great if I could just turn off tracking, or ask only for aggregated numbers.
I asked for this a few hours earlier on the enhancements thread. After reading the Mike Davidson post on email tracking by the Superhuman email client I’d really like to be able to assure subscribers that they’re not being tracked in any way whatsoever.
Been finding terminology a bit tricky when promoting my newsletter. If subscribers are people who pay to subscribe, what do we call people who subscribe but don’t pay to subscribe?
Gliders for freebies and sliders or those that pay. After all you slide your card through an eftpos machine (or wave it in front, so perhaps 'wavers' would do instead of sliders
Yeah, it’s a tricky one, because for a lot of people, the very concept of paying for newsletters is new and alien. Getting the message across clearly is vital, especially when converting existing … subscribers.
If the paying subscribers don't get extra content, you could call them "supporters"? "Patrons"? Or call them "subscribers" and the others "freeloaders"? ;)
“Free subscribers”. This has the flexibility of supporting various plan subscribers in the future, such as “monthly subscribers” (this might be what you name your existing subscribers) and those that pay for the full year, “annual subscribers”.
Hey! (This live discussion thread a great idea btw) I'm a brand new Substack user and would love any advice for how to grow your subscribers/viewers. I've posted a few times and will continue to post now that I've gotten a hang of it, but would love any expert advice as I get up and running. Thanks!
Hey Jess, and welcome! This is the advice we give in our FAQ:
"The first and most important thing is to start writing. Nothing more reliably earns you readers than consistently writing good stuff and publishing it regularly. But, you should also announce your newsletter on all your social media channels and post links to each new post there too. Note: When you announce your newsletter on social media, first link people to your homepage: your.substack.com. That way, you’ll get more signups than if you merely link to a story. Consider using your personal email to email people from your address book. Ask readers to share your newsletter with friends. And then... keep writing."
got mine down pat, was just looking for your educated opinion. Perhaps a pet project of a genre you would like to see more of? I'm fascinated by Flow State right now. I never imagined I'd love a newsletter about BGM.
For me personally? I'd love to see substacks that cover my neighborhood, my city, issues for expat New Zealanders, the sports teams I follow, climate solutions, and Bojack Horseman.
My newsletter (https://commonlodge.substack.com/) is a platform for written debates. I'd love to organize debates between substack authors. Is there a way to find/discover substack newsletters that have particular point of view or topic focus?
Andrew - what is your newsletter (I don't see a way to find it by clicking on your name)? Common Lodge - Would be happy to try participating in this in the marketing space. My newsletter- marketingbs.substack.com
I built a quick prototype of this and it was super compelling (I thought.)
I think the trick here is to do it in a way that is good for readers and authors, and isn't just another addictive algorithmic feed. I think it's possible!
Don't be afraid of a news feed - the concept is fantastic: bite-sized teasers of content so you can decide whether to click through or not / automatically seeing when folks you follow post something new; no funky preference engine/algorithm, just a straight alert feed). In responsible hands, it's a terrific tool. I trust Hamish and Chris to get it right and not be evil. :)
As a spanish-speaking writer, I sometimes find it hard por people to understand the first welcome/sign-up post. Any chance of adding personalization feature in the near future?
Support for easy payments in Argentina would also be great ;)
Understood and thanks for the reply! What I meant was: could I, as a user, remove the tracking pixel from the community threads emails for my publication? (Assuming I don't care about the open rates.)
We believe that the Substack model – people paying to subscribe to the writers they most trust – will be very common in the future. We hope to have a strong network of readers who value trusted media experiences, and writers making money from providing those trusted experiences. If we have a large number of readers and writers in a network like that, we can help everyone do some cool things (along the lines of cross-promotions, bundling, discovery, teaming up, etc). Lots of possibilities!
The future of Substack is exciting. This is only the very beginning.
What was Substack's initial strategy for seeding the network with users? Did you send personal invites to certain users you wanted to be the first to start newsletters, or did you send press-releases to spread the word in a more "if I build it they will come" manner?
It started off by me talking to all my writers friends and all their friends, and then all their friends. I was friends with Bill Bishop already, and he agreed to be our first publisher. Because of him, we got a lot of interest from people who had newsletters about China and foreign affairs. Pretty quickly, Kelly Dwyer, who was an intro from a friend of a friend, started The Second Arrangement (tsa.substack.com) and lots of smart basketball people started paying attention. Then, Daniel Mallory Ortberg switched from TinyLetter to Substack, and his wide circle of fans were suddenly familiar with Substack. Each new writer brought us greater awareness, and then all of that was accelerated by some good press in NiemanLab and the WSJ in the early days.
For the first few months, we were in invitation-only beta and there was no ability to start a free newsletter. After we got more established, we decided to open it up to anyone and let people start newsletters even without paid subscriptions. More great writers followed, bringing many more readers, bringing more press, bringing more writers, more readers... And we still do a lot of manual outreach.
Thank you for this reply, Hamish! I certainly do know a LOT of amazing writers, but I think a lot of improvements need to be made on the UX and leadership transparency fronts before I could confidently recommend Substack. The type of amazing writers I know are mostly women, people of color, and the otherwise underprivileged who typically fall through the cracks of the old-world publishing industry that prioritizes white male contributors with personal wealth. The writers I know are more easily harmed by poor managerial decision-making, as they are not as economically resilient as their privileged counterparts. Once Substack grows up a bit, in its functionality and attitude toward working with minorities, I would be so happy to recommend it. It would be great if there were any sort of referral incentives for current writers, which could also help fix your diversity problem.
Hello, Is there a way for authors to promote their content inside the substack ecosystem (e.g. if you subscribe to this newsletter, you might like this one...)?
DOes your vision include substack being a really interesting tribe and maybe even a job network - not intentionally, but if you know you have super curious readers and writers it seems like a wonderful way to network
I’m new and have had my free publication for just a few weeks. So far so good! But as the platform grows are there plans to help with promotion of new newsletters? Since the company makes money as we do, it would be in the interest of both to help with promotion. Just a thought. Especially as some of us are much more skilled at writing as opposed to gaining subscribers if we did not have a previous audience.
Hi! Great stuff you have going here (says the tire-kicker, lol). I'd like to know if different "levels" of support/subscription are something Substack will be able to support? Goes along with needing to publish more than one newsletter...not sure how that would work, either. Do you have any writers with multiple Substack publications?
Better get it done now while people still care about Substack, since a lot of us have stopped visiting your site since you only shill the same 10-15 newsletter that don't appeal to the majority of your visitors.
Feature request: Mailchimp allows links to be embedded in the headers (Preamble). This is a handy feature for links to websites or a sign-up link. Would it be possible to make the Preamble a customized header box instead of an image?
I subscribe to Heather Cox Richardson, Robert Hubbell, and the Contrarian. I wonder if it would be possible to offer package deals where a consumer could pick a number of people to subscribe to for a specific price. We could all go broke subscribing to individual newsletters. We all need to have access to accurate and truthful information.
The stats for viewers of my last post are 30% more than usual. I'd like to be very happy about this but it's weird. Has there been a blip on Substack's end or could it be that the fourth word in the first sentence is "naked" and people think they're going to get something juicy? Has anyone else experienced this?
SIN IMPORTAR NUESTRA SITUACION DE POBRESA DE LOS GOVERNANTES TRADICIONALES QUE LASTIMAN ALA JENTE MAS UMILDES Y VULNERABLES SIEMPRE EXISTE ESPERANZA ES MÁS QUE UNA ACTITUD MENTAL POSITIVA.ES UNA MIRADA. CONFIADA QUE NOS PERMITE VER MAS ALLA DE REALIDAD VISIBLE.LA FUENTE DE LA VERDADERA ESPERANZA. ES JESUCRISTO
is there any way to unsubscribe from "free updates" -- there doesn't seem to be a way to do that either via the e-mails or anywhere on the dashboard. That is really annoying!
I'm starting to get some obviously spam emails signing up (like sdfsdfsdf@gmail.com) - any way to prevent this? I guess I can just go into the subscribers list and delete as needed.
When the devil are you going to bring back the real time section where you show new newsletter posting both free and paid? Or institute an actual freaking search option so you can actually freaking FIND new newsletters to financially support and subscribe too?
The remove of the real time posting of updates every time a page posted a new newsletter article, did wonders to kill any interest I had in Substack. What good is it if you can't find new newsletters to explore? Especially since the front page only has the same freaking 10-15 newsletters and most of which are paid only, and NO WAY TO FILTER THEM OUT/OFF SAID FRONT PAGE IN HOPES YOU GUYS MIGHT GET A FREAKING CLUE AS TO WHAT PEOPLE MIGHT BE INTERESTED IN READING OR TO PUT NEW PAGES ON THE FRONT PAGE INSTEAD OF THE SAME 10-15!!!!! Hell, the paywall feature alone doesn't even allow you to hate read something and at least have the quasi-pleasure of telling said 10-15 off in terms of "your ideas suck and you should feel ashamed" sort of back and forth hate reading/interaction of newsletter mailing lists of old, which further makes your decision to annoint said 10-15 (who you picked via an algorhthym you never explained as to how THOSE pages got picked over all others) pay wall only newsletters the only ones being pushed hard by your website.
And it's a problem that could at least be mitigated if, instead of wasting money replacing your logo, you gave us a freaing SEARCH ENGINE or even a freaking heavily detailed index on every topic you could want a newsletter on to follow!
In short, you made Substack less desirable to support let alone explore. When the devil are you going to fix that problem?
And why haven't you brought back the real time posting update page? That did FAR FAR FAR FAR FAR better to promotin peoples work than you shilling the same freaking 10-15 newsletters on the front page (which again, are paywalled off and you guys not giving visitors a way to let you know that you have zero interest in them no matter how hard you freaking shill the same 10-15 pages, you insist must be the only ones that the website will promote......
What is the process that Substack takes when it believes someone has broken its terms of use, especially this section: "Is harmful, fraudulent, deceptive, threatening, harassing, defamatory, obscene, or otherwise objectionable." Of course, you cannot overdefine this section because that gives you no leeway. Is there any built-in court of appeal? Or it is an instantaneous ban and block? Thanks!
So you know, the reason I ask is because during my newspaper career, I've had on the rare occasion been critical of someone in the community, only to get some heat from my publisher. A fair and transparent process is crucial, in my mind.
We don't generally instaban, except for clear cut spammers (who we are ruthless with.)
We want to be widely tolerant of diverse content, and we think broadly you are responsible for what you write - we're not your editor or anything. That said, please don't start threatening people :)
We like "patronage" model, we just don't think it should be the *only* model. It's also OK to say "this costs money, so if you want it please pay for it."
Having ways to pay more is a good idea but would need to find a way to add it while keeping things simple.
Hey there! I don’t know why but some newsletters I’ve subscribed to and my own (I made a test) are falling into the Promotions tab on Gmail, not the Primary tab. This is not happening to all newsletters though, some I’m receiving right in the Primary tab. Any thoughts?
Thanks everyone for your comments and questions! We're leaving the thread now, but we'll do this again soon. Cheers.
Hamish, is it true that you love Bigelow tea more than anything in the world?
That is not true. I do not love Bigelow more than anything in the world. For example, I prefer dying of thirst to Bigelow.
Just want to thank you guys for making something amazing!
Awww, thanks!
What other features are in the works for building more interactive communities? (The threads thing is really cool)
Well, Chris Best is obsessed about getting gifs in these threads...
Confirmed
Thanks! I think going deeper on the threads things feels really interesting.
What if subscribers could start their own threads? What if you could start private conversations here? What if you had a rich profile, so I could click on your face here and find your newsletter? Etc.
You have any ideas?
Being able to quickly import threads / thread comments into newsletters could be cool
Yeah I like this. "Highlights from the comments"
This sounds incredibly burdensome for professional writers, and more like something for the people who throw their words away for free on Reddit.
Just a quick HELLO to all the fellow substackists! Loving it here so far. Great platform.
HELLO
ALSO HELLO
How will you continue to balance customization & new features with the desire to keep things simple and streamlined?
Honestly this is a hard thing that we will do our best at. I think the keys are:
- Never lose sight of the product as a whole
- Always listen to users
- Don't always do what users say
Put another way: when people say how they feel about the product, they are always right. When people say exactly what to build, they are only sometimes right.
I think all that makes sense. As a writer/publisher, there are features here and there that I'd like to add, but overall value the very careful approach to feature building and the straightforward interface. The one thing that wouldn't affect the nature of the product, but would enhance the writer/publisher experience that I'd love to see would be an iOS/mobile app editor. But again, appreciate the way you all have gone about everything so far. Keep it up!
I totally agree that would be awesome.
The reason we don't have that is more of a "we have 2 developers and have to prioritize" thing, I do think it's a good idea.
We will make Chris Best make all the hard decisions and subsequently take all the heat for inevitably pissing everyone off.
Oof
I'd use Substack if I could customize my landing page. Is that on the roadmap?
Ooh I'd love to have you on Substack.
What would you want to do on the landing page?
We could very well do that at some point. It's not in our short-term plans.
Love what you all are doing. Thank you! Question on a way to implement feedback into unsubscribes? I don’t want to reach out any annoy someone, but would be great if they could elect to provide some quick feedback as to why they unsubscribes
Yes this is a good idea.
In fact it's half there now. We collect the feedback, but it only goes in the "unsubscribe notification" emails, so if you have those turned off you don't see them. We should really put them in the dashboard.
Thanks. Subscribe to Austin.substack.com for more great ideas.
😂
In the email that I send to people that unsusbcribe (which you can customize in settings) I ask people to reply and tell me why. A bunch of people have and its interesting.
it's
Do you have privacy minded features in your plans? I know things about my subscribers' reading habits, I'm not comfortable knowing. It would be great if I could just turn off tracking, or ask only for aggregated numbers.
We don't have firm plans yet but this sort of feedback is very useful in helping to develop those plans. Thank you for it.
I asked for this a few hours earlier on the enhancements thread. After reading the Mike Davidson post on email tracking by the Superhuman email client I’d really like to be able to assure subscribers that they’re not being tracked in any way whatsoever.
Seconded. I just found the thing that lets you see how many times people open the newsletter and I feel like a creep.
What does SEO look like for established publications? Are they seeing any traffic from search engines?
How do most paid newsletters grow their subscribers?
Lots of ways, but here's a big one: By doing good free posts. See https://on.substack.com/p/why-free-posts-pay-avoiding-a-tempting
Focusing on growing your audience overall (even people reading for free) is usually a good first thing to focus on.
Can the Substack team recommend a source for optimizing search discovery for newsletters?
One day, it might be Substack! For now, the leaderboards on substack.com and this very basic search tool may be of interest: https://substack.com/search
Been finding terminology a bit tricky when promoting my newsletter. If subscribers are people who pay to subscribe, what do we call people who subscribe but don’t pay to subscribe?
We've been calling them "free signups" or "people on the free list"
I totally buy that this is a bit confusing, but we haven't been able to come up with an alternative that we like better.
We've thought about making it "members" which some people love and some hate. It's hard to have a good verb for it.
What about freebies being “subscribers” and paid being “paid subscribers” or “members”
This is basically what I have done without even being intentional about it. I prefer paid subscribers to members.
Gliders for freebies and sliders or those that pay. After all you slide your card through an eftpos machine (or wave it in front, so perhaps 'wavers' would do instead of sliders
Yeah, it’s a tricky one, because for a lot of people, the very concept of paying for newsletters is new and alien. Getting the message across clearly is vital, especially when converting existing … subscribers.
“If you are already a BLANK, you can pay to become a BLANK.” It’s a tricky one.
I call mine "free subscribers" and "premium subscribers".
Hadn’t thought of that, good call.
If the paying subscribers don't get extra content, you could call them "supporters"? "Patrons"? Or call them "subscribers" and the others "freeloaders"? ;)
Haha I like "Freeloaders"
“Free subscribers”. This has the flexibility of supporting various plan subscribers in the future, such as “monthly subscribers” (this might be what you name your existing subscribers) and those that pay for the full year, “annual subscribers”.
I also brought this up before and would like to see clearer terminology.
Hey! (This live discussion thread a great idea btw) I'm a brand new Substack user and would love any advice for how to grow your subscribers/viewers. I've posted a few times and will continue to post now that I've gotten a hang of it, but would love any expert advice as I get up and running. Thanks!
Hey Jess, and welcome! This is the advice we give in our FAQ:
"The first and most important thing is to start writing. Nothing more reliably earns you readers than consistently writing good stuff and publishing it regularly. But, you should also announce your newsletter on all your social media channels and post links to each new post there too. Note: When you announce your newsletter on social media, first link people to your homepage: your.substack.com. That way, you’ll get more signups than if you merely link to a story. Consider using your personal email to email people from your address book. Ask readers to share your newsletter with friends. And then... keep writing."
And here's a growth masterclass from Judd Legum, publisher of Popular.info: https://on.substack.com/p/a-growth-masterclass-with-judd-legum
What genre/type/niche of newsletter do you believe is underserved?
We think there are millions of niches that are underserved. Picking one is tough. Go with whatever you care most about.
got mine down pat, was just looking for your educated opinion. Perhaps a pet project of a genre you would like to see more of? I'm fascinated by Flow State right now. I never imagined I'd love a newsletter about BGM.
Yo I love Flow State! https://flowstate.substack.com/
For me personally? I'd love to see substacks that cover my neighborhood, my city, issues for expat New Zealanders, the sports teams I follow, climate solutions, and Bojack Horseman.
My newsletter (https://commonlodge.substack.com/) is a platform for written debates. I'd love to organize debates between substack authors. Is there a way to find/discover substack newsletters that have particular point of view or topic focus?
Love this idea! We don't have sophisticated tools for that yet, but this might help in the meantime: https://substack.com/search
Great, thanks!
Happy to debate anyone in Marketing / Influencer Marketing / Growth
Andrew - what is your newsletter (I don't see a way to find it by clicking on your name)? Common Lodge - Would be happy to try participating in this in the marketing space. My newsletter- marketingbs.substack.com
https://influenceweekly.substack.com
Hello Edward, Please reach out at jackson@commonlodge.org.
Hello Andrew! Please reach out at jackson@commonlodge.org. If you have a debate idea, let me know, I'd love to organize it.
Any progress with the facebook-like feed?
I built a quick prototype of this and it was super compelling (I thought.)
I think the trick here is to do it in a way that is good for readers and authors, and isn't just another addictive algorithmic feed. I think it's possible!
This scares me.
Don't be afraid of a news feed - the concept is fantastic: bite-sized teasers of content so you can decide whether to click through or not / automatically seeing when folks you follow post something new; no funky preference engine/algorithm, just a straight alert feed). In responsible hands, it's a terrific tool. I trust Hamish and Chris to get it right and not be evil. :)
Happy to help you test a beta :)
As a spanish-speaking writer, I sometimes find it hard por people to understand the first welcome/sign-up post. Any chance of adding personalization feature in the near future?
Support for easy payments in Argentina would also be great ;)
Thanks for the feedback. We're too early to do internationalization, but hopefully one day.
Letting us customize our Sign Up message would be enough!
This is disappointing :(
Can you explain how the “internet points” work?
This threads feature is cool! Would you consider removing the tacking pixel from the thread emails?
Understood and thanks for the reply! What I meant was: could I, as a user, remove the tracking pixel from the community threads emails for my publication? (Assuming I don't care about the open rates.)
I saw a few other comments in the thread about reader privacy. It’d be great to see more features in this space. Thanks for considering this!
I’ll bite - what’s the future of Substack? Where do you see it all going? What’s next?
Actually, we didn't prepare for this question...
We believe that the Substack model – people paying to subscribe to the writers they most trust – will be very common in the future. We hope to have a strong network of readers who value trusted media experiences, and writers making money from providing those trusted experiences. If we have a large number of readers and writers in a network like that, we can help everyone do some cool things (along the lines of cross-promotions, bundling, discovery, teaming up, etc). Lots of possibilities!
The future of Substack is exciting. This is only the very beginning.
What was Substack's initial strategy for seeding the network with users? Did you send personal invites to certain users you wanted to be the first to start newsletters, or did you send press-releases to spread the word in a more "if I build it they will come" manner?
It started off by me talking to all my writers friends and all their friends, and then all their friends. I was friends with Bill Bishop already, and he agreed to be our first publisher. Because of him, we got a lot of interest from people who had newsletters about China and foreign affairs. Pretty quickly, Kelly Dwyer, who was an intro from a friend of a friend, started The Second Arrangement (tsa.substack.com) and lots of smart basketball people started paying attention. Then, Daniel Mallory Ortberg switched from TinyLetter to Substack, and his wide circle of fans were suddenly familiar with Substack. Each new writer brought us greater awareness, and then all of that was accelerated by some good press in NiemanLab and the WSJ in the early days.
For the first few months, we were in invitation-only beta and there was no ability to start a free newsletter. After we got more established, we decided to open it up to anyone and let people start newsletters even without paid subscriptions. More great writers followed, bringing many more readers, bringing more press, bringing more writers, more readers... And we still do a lot of manual outreach.
Know any good writers who should be on Substack?
Don't forget the random inbounds who you thought were joker's. 😜
new phone who dis
Thank you for this reply, Hamish! I certainly do know a LOT of amazing writers, but I think a lot of improvements need to be made on the UX and leadership transparency fronts before I could confidently recommend Substack. The type of amazing writers I know are mostly women, people of color, and the otherwise underprivileged who typically fall through the cracks of the old-world publishing industry that prioritizes white male contributors with personal wealth. The writers I know are more easily harmed by poor managerial decision-making, as they are not as economically resilient as their privileged counterparts. Once Substack grows up a bit, in its functionality and attitude toward working with minorities, I would be so happy to recommend it. It would be great if there were any sort of referral incentives for current writers, which could also help fix your diversity problem.
Thinking about using substack with the Hausa language. Any data or thoughts on Nigeria, or Africa as a whole?
That's cool! We don't have useful data on that front, I'm afraid.
Hello, Is there a way for authors to promote their content inside the substack ecosystem (e.g. if you subscribe to this newsletter, you might like this one...)?
DOes your vision include substack being a really interesting tribe and maybe even a job network - not intentionally, but if you know you have super curious readers and writers it seems like a wonderful way to network
Our vision is not as specific as that, but the future of Substack could possibly encompass such a thing.
I’m new and have had my free publication for just a few weeks. So far so good! But as the platform grows are there plans to help with promotion of new newsletters? Since the company makes money as we do, it would be in the interest of both to help with promotion. Just a thought. Especially as some of us are much more skilled at writing as opposed to gaining subscribers if we did not have a previous audience.
Yes, we definitely have plans along these lines. Thanks, and welcome to Substack!
Hi! Great stuff you have going here (says the tire-kicker, lol). I'd like to know if different "levels" of support/subscription are something Substack will be able to support? Goes along with needing to publish more than one newsletter...not sure how that would work, either. Do you have any writers with multiple Substack publications?
A payment method like Paypal or Tipalti? Stripe isn’t available in many countries, including mine.
Will you break the homepage into categories and allow for filtering?
We're thinking about something like this for the future. We're still in the early days.
Better get it done now while people still care about Substack, since a lot of us have stopped visiting your site since you only shill the same 10-15 newsletter that don't appeal to the majority of your visitors.
Chris! Want to do an interview?
I also requested to interview Chris and would still like to.
Need ability to launch and manage multiple newsletters from one substance account
Need cross promotion capability to partner with other newsletters to grow base
Hi Eric – thanks for the succession of suggestions. Please note that this thread isn't about features. We did a thread like that recently: https://on.substack.com/p/what-would-you-love-to-see-in-substack/comments
Need better editor and api integration with WordPress
Feature request: Mailchimp allows links to be embedded in the headers (Preamble). This is a handy feature for links to websites or a sign-up link. Would it be possible to make the Preamble a customized header box instead of an image?
Moving this comment to the feature thread. Also -- oh dear lord no, I commented on this thread and am now receiving an email update for new comments.
Haha don't worry it will only send the first few.
We're gonna fix that soon and make it a bit more sane. For now just hit "Mute" in the email.
I subscribe to Heather Cox Richardson, Robert Hubbell, and the Contrarian. I wonder if it would be possible to offer package deals where a consumer could pick a number of people to subscribe to for a specific price. We could all go broke subscribing to individual newsletters. We all need to have access to accurate and truthful information.
I don't know what my emial is for substack that I am using -- is it felice@betterafter50.com
The stats for viewers of my last post are 30% more than usual. I'd like to be very happy about this but it's weird. Has there been a blip on Substack's end or could it be that the fourth word in the first sentence is "naked" and people think they're going to get something juicy? Has anyone else experienced this?
SIN IMPORTAR NUESTRA SITUACION DE POBRESA DE LOS GOVERNANTES TRADICIONALES QUE LASTIMAN ALA JENTE MAS UMILDES Y VULNERABLES SIEMPRE EXISTE ESPERANZA ES MÁS QUE UNA ACTITUD MENTAL POSITIVA.ES UNA MIRADA. CONFIADA QUE NOS PERMITE VER MAS ALLA DE REALIDAD VISIBLE.LA FUENTE DE LA VERDADERA ESPERANZA. ES JESUCRISTO
Please help as I am new to Substack.
Hi, I worked on my News Letter for 3 days, I pushed the publish button and I seem to have lost everything as there is nothing in my Dashboard.
is there any way to unsubscribe from "free updates" -- there doesn't seem to be a way to do that either via the e-mails or anywhere on the dashboard. That is really annoying!
I'm starting to get some obviously spam emails signing up (like sdfsdfsdf@gmail.com) - any way to prevent this? I guess I can just go into the subscribers list and delete as needed.
How can I convince my little audience (about 100 readers), made mainly of relatives and friends, to pay for my newsletter?
You know what I think-plug the good bottom feeders. Let the ones with the least shine on occasion
Is there an easy way to repost to Medium? Could you guys add a button that just does that with all the right 301 redirects and such?
When the devil are you going to bring back the real time section where you show new newsletter posting both free and paid? Or institute an actual freaking search option so you can actually freaking FIND new newsletters to financially support and subscribe too?
The remove of the real time posting of updates every time a page posted a new newsletter article, did wonders to kill any interest I had in Substack. What good is it if you can't find new newsletters to explore? Especially since the front page only has the same freaking 10-15 newsletters and most of which are paid only, and NO WAY TO FILTER THEM OUT/OFF SAID FRONT PAGE IN HOPES YOU GUYS MIGHT GET A FREAKING CLUE AS TO WHAT PEOPLE MIGHT BE INTERESTED IN READING OR TO PUT NEW PAGES ON THE FRONT PAGE INSTEAD OF THE SAME 10-15!!!!! Hell, the paywall feature alone doesn't even allow you to hate read something and at least have the quasi-pleasure of telling said 10-15 off in terms of "your ideas suck and you should feel ashamed" sort of back and forth hate reading/interaction of newsletter mailing lists of old, which further makes your decision to annoint said 10-15 (who you picked via an algorhthym you never explained as to how THOSE pages got picked over all others) pay wall only newsletters the only ones being pushed hard by your website.
And it's a problem that could at least be mitigated if, instead of wasting money replacing your logo, you gave us a freaing SEARCH ENGINE or even a freaking heavily detailed index on every topic you could want a newsletter on to follow!
In short, you made Substack less desirable to support let alone explore. When the devil are you going to fix that problem?
This is a really basic first step on search, but you might find it helpful: https://substack.com/search
And why haven't you brought back the real time posting update page? That did FAR FAR FAR FAR FAR better to promotin peoples work than you shilling the same freaking 10-15 newsletters on the front page (which again, are paywalled off and you guys not giving visitors a way to let you know that you have zero interest in them no matter how hard you freaking shill the same 10-15 pages, you insist must be the only ones that the website will promote......
LOUD NOISES
Someone seems, um, "passionate" about real-time updates.
More discovery options would be welcome, sure. Is screaming about it the way to get them? Perhaps not.
What is the median subscriber count for Substack users?
What is the process that Substack takes when it believes someone has broken its terms of use, especially this section: "Is harmful, fraudulent, deceptive, threatening, harassing, defamatory, obscene, or otherwise objectionable." Of course, you cannot overdefine this section because that gives you no leeway. Is there any built-in court of appeal? Or it is an instantaneous ban and block? Thanks!
So you know, the reason I ask is because during my newspaper career, I've had on the rare occasion been critical of someone in the community, only to get some heat from my publisher. A fair and transparent process is crucial, in my mind.
We don't generally instaban, except for clear cut spammers (who we are ruthless with.)
We want to be widely tolerant of diverse content, and we think broadly you are responsible for what you write - we're not your editor or anything. That said, please don't start threatening people :)
Ha ha, oooh no, not interested in THAT process for growing subscribers.
What are your thoughts on a free newsletter, then option to pay if people want to support? Kind of like patreon but way better because it’s substack?
- I think I was the first to do this (probably not) but do you see that being a worth while strategy?
Also, what about doing a minimum cost (say $5/mo) but alllwing people to pay more if they want?
I think this works well for some people.
We like "patronage" model, we just don't think it should be the *only* model. It's also OK to say "this costs money, so if you want it please pay for it."
Having ways to pay more is a good idea but would need to find a way to add it while keeping things simple.
Also in particular: if you want to have business/group subscriptions, having a chunk of the value behind the paywall really helps.
In that model everyone can read everything and people who can/want to lay
This is the model Tim Carmody is using for Amazon Chronicles to good effect (he's on hiatus for now): https://amazonchronicles.substack.com/
Dang it... wasn’t first
*pay
Hey there! I don’t know why but some newsletters I’ve subscribed to and my own (I made a test) are falling into the Promotions tab on Gmail, not the Primary tab. This is not happening to all newsletters though, some I’m receiving right in the Primary tab. Any thoughts?