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Sarah Miller's avatar

Also, your "about this newsletter" pinned post is a masterclass in concise writing and newsletter marketing. I literally just printed it off so I can study it and adapt my own. (Again, thank you!)

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Books on GIF's avatar

I was just about to post about this. I’m doing the same thing. Really great advice. Thanks!

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Jessica DeFino's avatar

Aw thank you!!

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Ashley Holstrom's avatar

SAME. I mean, I don’t have a printer, so it’s all screenshots. But same vibe.

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Gayla Gray's avatar

I so agree with you. I have lots of projects for this summer when I have more time and this is on the top of my list.

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Sarah Miller's avatar

I completely redid mine last week. I’m happier with the shorter explanation, I think.

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Gayla Gray's avatar

Do I hear a little "maybe not quite yet" in your response? lol It has been long enough since I subscribed to you that I don't remember what your "old" explanation said. But I like your new one a lot.

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Sarah Miller's avatar

Maybe. I did it because of a somewhat nasty comment left on that page. (The person had a point, but continued on with other comments in an aggressive way.) So it’s likely my ambivalence is more about the motivation behind the change and less about the change itself.

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Gayla Gray's avatar

:( I'm so sorry.

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Igor Ranc's avatar

What a great post! I especially liked the idea of writing shorter posts... never really thought about it. Maybe even title it "We all need a break," thanks for inspiration!

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Sarah Miller's avatar

The idea that we all need a brain break -- yes! It's so refreshing to hear that people respond to this. I regularly work on shorter posts....but somehow they balloon, so I'm going to refocus and apply this lesson as I work on my newsletter today. Thanks, Jessica!

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Gayla Gray's avatar

I am like you Sarah, I start out trying to make it a short post and it turns into something that is entirely too long.

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JEANETTE LEBLANC's avatar

I swear, if i could finish a draft at under 2k words these days I would run around telling everyone. I think i felt constrained to 2200 characters on IG for so long that once I started writing on Substack my muse went "okay, now we're ready to play'.

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Truth W. Hawk's avatar

The most helpful writer interview Substack has published, yet!

So many helpful tips and approaches I agree with and have observed myself (not publishing at the same time as everyone else, no deadline pressure on yourself, experimenting with and mixing up formats).

Thank you for sharing your mature sense of self-awareness and offering helpful gems of advice to fellow Substackers.

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Hannah Ray's avatar

Great to hear!

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Jessica DeFino's avatar

Ah that's such great feedback, thank you!

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Truth W. Hawk's avatar

You are welcome. And well-deserved.

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The West's Awake's avatar

9,000 free subscribers from 1 tweet thread. Damn, that's good.

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Jessica DeFino's avatar

I am still in shock, lol.

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Anne Byrn's avatar

Super helpful, Jessica, thank you! I write about cooking and baking and have gotten pretty heavy in my March content because of the war in Ukraine. I’ve created something fresh, new, and weird for next week and you just gave me the confidence to do it! 🤣

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Jessica DeFino's avatar

YES, I think we all need to get weird more often!!

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Anne Byrn's avatar

Agree. Wrote a poem about King Cake in Jan. That’s what I love about Substack. You don’t have editors hovering over asking if you’re sure you want to do that. Yes, I really do. 😂

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Bernard Hickey's avatar

Fantastic tips Jessica. Thankyou. Especially the ones making it easy for new arrivals to landing and profile pages to work out what you're about and then convert into fans. One question: do you open up your bi-weekly piece for paid subscribers to free subscribers later on?

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Jessica DeFino's avatar

Thank you! I opened up all my paid posts to free subscribers once, when I ran a New Year's sale on subscriptions — I just kept them open for the weekend sale, then locked them back up on Monday. I've thought about unlocking past issues permanently, but right now it doesn't feel necessary...

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Bernard Hickey's avatar

Thanks Jessica. Interesting. I'm increasingly opening up my 'exclusive' stuff to allow paid subscribers to share the ones they like to their friends. Has been a useful source of new paid subscribers. But it did make me feel uncomfortable about 'giving away' the best stuff, and also 'taking liberties' with stuff paid subscribers paid for. One thing I've done to ease the pain is to ask permission of subscribers, especially on my more 'public interest' posts. They often love it and share. But I leave a gap of a day or two to ensure the paid subscribers still get the 'special feel' of seeing it first. I'm hoping having the archive more open will also generate more long-tail out-of-the-blue subscribers. Nga mihi nui Bernard

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Bailey Richardson's avatar

We have a new “early access” feature (which allows writers to schedule when a paid post should become open to everyone). Maybe that could be a good tool here ?

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Jessica DeFino's avatar

Oooh interesting! Might have to try that

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Victoria Klein (VK)'s avatar

Instantly subscribed to her newsletter - a much needed one!! Plus, this interview was very insightful. I've tried to stick to a consistent publishing schedule to "gain trust", but some times, it can be very hard to maintain (and ironic when I actually want to write MORE). Glad to know I'm not the only one.

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E. Jean Carroll's avatar

Sucked up every word! Dazzled! Giddy! And am now a devotee of Jessica DeFino!!

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Jessica DeFino's avatar

E. Jean! Stop!!! You are the ONLY reason I bought ELLE Magazine every month for years and years!

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E. Jean Carroll's avatar

Get

Out

Of

Here,

Jessica!

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JEANETTE LEBLANC's avatar

this is like some beautiful kind of matchmaking, and I"m here for it.

(wishing Substack had comment gifs, because i'm sure there's a good popcorn one somewhere that would be perfect for how I feel watching this interaction).

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Alison Acheson's avatar

It's so good to read your words about not needing a scheduled time to post--it's validating! I try for a 7-10 posts/month and when they come, they come... Likewise your words about length. Thank you!

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Troy Arrandale's avatar

i find with my fiction newsletter it takes longer and is completely h predictable due to my drafting and editing process. the length of my stories (and sections inside longer stories/novellas) are completely unpredictable too and the longer ones take longer. (and now even longer as i'm studying for my bachelors lol in compassionate referral marketing, a completely different business than fiction writing altogether.) So this was very validating!

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Family Scripts's avatar

This is all super high value stuff! The Unpublishable was one of the first substack newsletters I subscribed to on my personal account and I love it!

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Ravi Rajan's avatar

Thanks Jessica for giving such wonderful insights.My takeaway is one line "Give your best content for free and eventually some readers would pay for it".I am going to surely implement it in my newsletter thehiddenhistory.substack.com.

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Ómós's avatar

Really insightful. I’m always looking for creative ways of growing our reach and this was spot on! Thank you!

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Giulia Scarpaleggia's avatar

Super inspiring interview!

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ric leczel's avatar

Whether beauty, graphic novels, fiction, food , music, art, history, Substack really does have it all. I love stumbling on platforms like this because, as a dude, I'm not into beauty products, per se, but the whole dismantling thing is very attractive. It parallels the mood of the country, distrustful and highly suspicious of traditional institutions, and said institutions just not progressing

Well done

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