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.)
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
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.
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?
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!
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?
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 ;)
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?
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?
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?
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?
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!
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?
How would you summarise the most successful paid newsletters? Examples: Person started from a big free mailing list, and convinced X% to $ubscribe. Person with a big non-newsletter following (e.g., big YouTube account, Twitter fame, etc.) started a newsletter from scratch, and a bunch of people immediately followed them to this new media. Or ___?
Do you have plans to increase how many kinds of links can auto-expand? I'm thinking about Instagram posts, Facebook Twitter videos with screenshots, etc.
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?
Just want to thank you guys for making something amazing!
What other features are in the works for building more interactive communities? (The threads thing is really cool)
Just a quick HELLO to all the fellow substackists! Loving it here so far. Great platform.
How will you continue to balance customization & new features with the desire to keep things simple and streamlined?
I'd use Substack if I could customize my landing page. Is that on the roadmap?
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
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.
What does SEO look like for established publications? Are they seeing any traffic from search engines?
How do most paid newsletters grow their subscribers?
Can the Substack team recommend a source for optimizing search discovery for newsletters?
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?
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!
What genre/type/niche of newsletter do you believe is underserved?
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?
Any progress with the facebook-like feed?
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 ;)
Can you explain how the “internet points” work?
This threads feature is cool! Would you consider removing the tacking pixel from the thread emails?
I’ll bite - what’s the future of Substack? Where do you see it all going? What’s next?
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?
Thinking about using substack with the Hausa language. Any data or thoughts on Nigeria, or Africa as a whole?
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?
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?
Chris! Want to do an interview?
Need ability to launch and manage multiple newsletters from one substance account
Need cross promotion capability to partner with other newsletters to grow base
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?
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?
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!
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?
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?
How would you summarise the most successful paid newsletters? Examples: Person started from a big free mailing list, and convinced X% to $ubscribe. Person with a big non-newsletter following (e.g., big YouTube account, Twitter fame, etc.) started a newsletter from scratch, and a bunch of people immediately followed them to this new media. Or ___?
Do you have plans to increase how many kinds of links can auto-expand? I'm thinking about Instagram posts, Facebook Twitter videos with screenshots, etc.