All I do is read my essay at my desk to a voice memo on my phone. You can do basic editing in that app. Then I upload it. Feel free to listen to any free pods on my page to get an idea of the sound quality with an iPhone 8 and a 2015 Mac desktop. Could be worse!
That's one of the best things about it, yes. They make everything so simple on here. Audio is becoming more and more popular as a way to consume content, so it's definitely something I want to start exploring sooner rather than later... 😎
i just started my account and have been thinking about offering audio versions of each post behind a paywall! i love that you offer bonus yapping. that sounds so fun
I'm writing as a customer, so if this is just for Substack creators, please direct me to the correct venue.
I think my problem maybe pretty common - I can't afford all the Substack offerings I would like to subscribe to. I wonder if there is any way for creators to join forces to allow subscription to the group. The could be a limit to how many posts one could access from each member of a group. I would prefer not to take advantage of those who allow free subscribers. But I read some for free even though they are very good, but not as good as the 4 or 5 I can afford. I would like to provide support for a number of authors at once even though they would not get as much from me and they could restrict my access (but it would be important for me to be able to choose the postings that would comprise my limit, not have them chosen for me)
A pass sounds great, but I understand Klaus' objections. He makes good points. I would like a way that Substack would not end up like newspapers. There are a whole bunch of good newspapers - some local, some specialized, some general. Nobody can subscribe to all the good ones so the ones that are somewhat favored can hire tech people and assistants and such. And get more popular. We lose the local ones. But still, there is limited money available and the remaining ones get fewer and fewer. I would like a way to design things so that excellence is rewarded, but not all or nothing. So more sources of great writing would remain viable.
Maybe an option to gift a subscription to other members, so somebody who is riding high can gift the content to others who are at lower subscription levels.. ?
I think there are big differences between the offerings which cannot be combined in a pass.
You publish weekly - perfectly fine.
Others publish daily - also fine.
Do you think it is appropriate to combine those in a pass?
I don't think so.
Under Substack Boost you have the fourth topic "Boost recommendations" which might somehow come close to your wishes by offering $20 coupons. I don't like this program, because it's marketing with a water can.
The pass idea degrades Substack to a YouTube copy - the revenue is shared between all contributors based on whatever algorithm.
I think you will not find a lot of successful publishers with large paid subscriber bases who would accept a reduction of their revenues. I appreciate that we have here competition between offerings and not anonymous revenue sharing.
There was talk a little while ago of 'bundles', where you would be able to Subscribe to a set of writers for one price, but I don't think it went any further. It's a shame, because I think it would work, for those writers who wanted to opt into it, and it would allow more writers to get seen and earn some money. Another way it could possibly work is if Substack themselves curated some sort of 'best of' publication, featuring a selection of paid articles each month by different writers for a much more reasonable price. This issue does come up a lot, as there are many people who would love to read things, but of course, can't commit to paying for dozens of Newsletters a month. So I'm sure something will be introdcued eventually that will make more great content a little more accessible... 😎
I'm aware of free trials and the fact that some authors provide some of their posts free. That is very nice. But neither puts me in a position to make a consistent contribution to some creators who I can't afford to subscribe to, and accept the fact that my reduced support means that my access would be limited.
I personally offer 35% off a PAID yearly subscription, as well as 50% off group subscriptions to prevent password sharing…
Along with that, the referral program allows writers to customize the rewards, for example: I offer 3 months FREE (paid content) for your first 3 successful referrals.
Along with FREE LIFETIME MEMBERSHIPS if you are able to refer over just 25 friends!!! #AYNI #Karma 🙏🏼❤️ I encourage you to send your writer of preference a message if chat is enabled… we are all pretty understanding and uplifting in this community to the best of my understanding (:
Love the idea, but again, the experience I have on Medium is terrible. I know you're talking about a new idea here, but it has to be well executed and be very transparent on what articles are included, who this plan is for and why it's better for both the writers, the readers and Substack community as a whole.
I am running one of the bigger German podcasts (over 200 episodes so far) and I figured out that the mix of paid and free drives the paid subscriptions very well.
I don't understand the substack business model, i.e. subscription only revenue stream. Why not allow creators to choose whether or not they want to host ads on their site? Here's how it could work.
1. give creators an opt in or out choice when setting up.
2. when opting in, present creators with a list of advertisers they can select from that might be of interest to their subscribers/readers. For example, an automotive site could carry ads for auto parts and accessories, a gardening site could carry gardening supply ads, a travel site deals on airline tickets etc... you get the idea.
3. allow creators to set a limit of ads per post, and perhaps size and positioning.
4. allow paid subscribers to opt out of receiving ads.
5. Split ad revenue 50/50 between creator and substack providing incentive to carry ads.
Ads don't have to be annoying, but they are when you have no control over them. Targeting ads of specific interest to specific audiences while also providing an opt out choice to both creators and paid subs is one way to increase revenue without alienating anyone involved, including the advertisers.
A key question: How can we distinguish ads from genuine word-of-mouth in articles?
My belief is that ads and sponsorships will always exist on Substack. Therefore, Substack should intervene to enhance the overall user experience. They could potentially monetize by providing a service that connects sponsors and writers.
Even Lenny's podcast on Substack includes sponsored links, which I find acceptable.
I have what amounts to an ad for my favourite charity on some of my SS pages. My site is free and always will be, so I'm effectively a loss-leader as far as SS is concerned. However, if they set it up so people could voluntarily subscribe, with the proceeds forwarded to my charity and a small admin. fee going to SS, they'd make at least a bit of money off my site and my charity would have a small income stream without me having to get involved in managing it, which I don't want to do.
I follow P J Watson on YT. He always has an embedded promotion in his videos, which you can choose to watch or just skip ahead to part two. I find that perfectly acceptable.
Did you not notice the opt out feature? Why would you impose your view on other substack authors that might want to carry ads for specific products related to their site? No one's forcing you to visit their sites. If ads offend you just don't go there.
One other point. Have you ever considered Substack's financial situation?
They're not very forthcoming about it, which to me suggests their business model could use some help, which is what I'm suggesting. I don't want to have to pull up stakes and move my site in a year or two, but that could very well happen if things don't work out as planned.
Anyway, what's the big deal? If you don't like ads just install AdBlock or Ghostery and you'll never see them.
Sure, I have installed abblockens and I rarely use affiliate links. I also don‘t use ad loaded offerings, even with adblockers.
I like the approach to work without ads and that makes Substack different. I am one of the guys who does not monetize his (large) YouTube channels, because I don‘t take money from bad companies.
How do we do a Podcast here on Substack? When I click on the button that says 'learn more' It takes me to my setting page. What are the details? How hard is it? Does it cost me anything? I host a radio show on Blog Talk Radio now, and would be interested in information on how Substack does their blogs.
I'm getting ready to launch some podcast episodes. Thank you guys for making it an easy process. I started a podcast in 2014 and...Let's just say it was considerably more difficult back then.
(possibly) very podcast-ignorant question: host the podcast on Substack (then add it to apple etc) or create it in a third party (like buzzsprout), and add it to my substack (plus apple, spotify, etc)? thanks.
I do the latter (host on Captivate and also post to Substack), but share your curiosity about this, and haven’t found much about it beyond my experience. The only downside I’ve noticed is that my metrics are more difficult to interpret since I have to pull from two sources, which measure differently.
I also publish on Captivate, and am starting to also post the podcast on Substack. How do you embed the audio in your posts? I’m trying to find a workflow that minimises extra work!
I embed the native file in both places. Posting the file both places, along with show notes and such, only takes about 5 minutes a week, but you’re right that it’s still extra complexity.
If you add an Apple Podcasts and Spotify for Podcasters player, any plays on that will be tracked in Captivate (since Substack doesn't currently support more oEmbed features like the Captivate player).
I'd love to hear how other podcasters are doing this. Let's say I send my newsletter to 1000 people. 800 open the email and Substack reports 100 downloads. I add that 100 to my total from Captivate (which is tracking across multiple platforms) and consider that my total downloads. Is that how you measure?
It's best to host your audio files only in one location: a service such as Buzzsprout, Captivate, Libsyn, et al. Then you share the link from the host server to Apple, Spotify as well as anywhere you want to promote downloads, such as via Substack. This is, as people are mentioning here, the only way to assure that you get accurate analytics—you can't simply add numbers from different platforms. And dedicated podcast hosting platforms are always going to give you much more reliable stats than social platforms that are not podcast-specific.
Unless you're using a player that sends analytics back to Captivate, these 100 "downloads" won't be counted. Also, Substack isn't IAB Certified, so they track anything that's over 0 seconds, whereas Captivate (and other IAB Certified podcast hosts) only count downloads when someone listens back for at least 60 seconds, or downloads enough data to their deceive to listen back for at least 60 seconds afterwards.
I haven't added my main podcast to my Substack, but I have been posting audio on here. Now that there's a way to link my audio to Spotify, I may play around with audio on Substack more. Thanks for this perspective!
Every essay post I offer audio versions with bonus yapping for subscribers and they love it!
I definitely need to look into offering some bonus yapping. It's not only great for readers, it seems like it would be good fun to record, too! 😎
All I do is read my essay at my desk to a voice memo on my phone. You can do basic editing in that app. Then I upload it. Feel free to listen to any free pods on my page to get an idea of the sound quality with an iPhone 8 and a 2015 Mac desktop. Could be worse!
That's one of the best things about it, yes. They make everything so simple on here. Audio is becoming more and more popular as a way to consume content, so it's definitely something I want to start exploring sooner rather than later... 😎
Interesting!
i just started my account and have been thinking about offering audio versions of each post behind a paywall! i love that you offer bonus yapping. that sounds so fun
Yeah! Go for it! Great hair btw ✨
I'm writing as a customer, so if this is just for Substack creators, please direct me to the correct venue.
I think my problem maybe pretty common - I can't afford all the Substack offerings I would like to subscribe to. I wonder if there is any way for creators to join forces to allow subscription to the group. The could be a limit to how many posts one could access from each member of a group. I would prefer not to take advantage of those who allow free subscribers. But I read some for free even though they are very good, but not as good as the 4 or 5 I can afford. I would like to provide support for a number of authors at once even though they would not get as much from me and they could restrict my access (but it would be important for me to be able to choose the postings that would comprise my limit, not have them chosen for me)
I love the idea of a Substack pass to all publications
A pass sounds great, but I understand Klaus' objections. He makes good points. I would like a way that Substack would not end up like newspapers. There are a whole bunch of good newspapers - some local, some specialized, some general. Nobody can subscribe to all the good ones so the ones that are somewhat favored can hire tech people and assistants and such. And get more popular. We lose the local ones. But still, there is limited money available and the remaining ones get fewer and fewer. I would like a way to design things so that excellence is rewarded, but not all or nothing. So more sources of great writing would remain viable.
Maybe an option to gift a subscription to other members, so somebody who is riding high can gift the content to others who are at lower subscription levels.. ?
I love it absolutely not, Kate.
I think there are big differences between the offerings which cannot be combined in a pass.
You publish weekly - perfectly fine.
Others publish daily - also fine.
Do you think it is appropriate to combine those in a pass?
I don't think so.
Under Substack Boost you have the fourth topic "Boost recommendations" which might somehow come close to your wishes by offering $20 coupons. I don't like this program, because it's marketing with a water can.
The pass idea degrades Substack to a YouTube copy - the revenue is shared between all contributors based on whatever algorithm.
I think you will not find a lot of successful publishers with large paid subscriber bases who would accept a reduction of their revenues. I appreciate that we have here competition between offerings and not anonymous revenue sharing.
Yes I can’t see it would work and it would have to be opt in
I object to this idea. Substack should not become Medium.
There was talk a little while ago of 'bundles', where you would be able to Subscribe to a set of writers for one price, but I don't think it went any further. It's a shame, because I think it would work, for those writers who wanted to opt into it, and it would allow more writers to get seen and earn some money. Another way it could possibly work is if Substack themselves curated some sort of 'best of' publication, featuring a selection of paid articles each month by different writers for a much more reasonable price. This issue does come up a lot, as there are many people who would love to read things, but of course, can't commit to paying for dozens of Newsletters a month. So I'm sure something will be introdcued eventually that will make more great content a little more accessible... 😎
Have they enabled free trials or courtesy previews to paid posts? I love these features!!!!
I'm aware of free trials and the fact that some authors provide some of their posts free. That is very nice. But neither puts me in a position to make a consistent contribution to some creators who I can't afford to subscribe to, and accept the fact that my reduced support means that my access would be limited.
I personally offer 35% off a PAID yearly subscription, as well as 50% off group subscriptions to prevent password sharing…
Along with that, the referral program allows writers to customize the rewards, for example: I offer 3 months FREE (paid content) for your first 3 successful referrals.
Along with FREE LIFETIME MEMBERSHIPS if you are able to refer over just 25 friends!!! #AYNI #Karma 🙏🏼❤️ I encourage you to send your writer of preference a message if chat is enabled… we are all pretty understanding and uplifting in this community to the best of my understanding (:
Love the idea, but again, the experience I have on Medium is terrible. I know you're talking about a new idea here, but it has to be well executed and be very transparent on what articles are included, who this plan is for and why it's better for both the writers, the readers and Substack community as a whole.
Sorry I didn't see this before. I completely agree. Maybe somebody on Substack is working on it or maybe it's impossible.
Substack is amazing, I've grown a pretty nice following for my newsletter. I thought about starting a Podcast here as well, still thinking about it.
Time to start a podcast
Ok, I will now seriously evaluate how Five Things could offer a podcast that is valuable for its subscribers. ✌🏻
Please earmark the next 50 million bucks for me, ok?
I am running one of the bigger German podcasts (over 200 episodes so far) and I figured out that the mix of paid and free drives the paid subscriptions very well.
The future of YouTube is on Substack. That’s why I start making videos here
Same here. YouTube leaves a lot to be desired.
Exactly
Thank you for this, some great tips.
Here are some more ways to generate income from your socials
https://open.substack.com/pub/raisini/p/unlocking-the-secrets-of-social-media?r=aegif&utm_medium=ios
I don't understand the substack business model, i.e. subscription only revenue stream. Why not allow creators to choose whether or not they want to host ads on their site? Here's how it could work.
1. give creators an opt in or out choice when setting up.
2. when opting in, present creators with a list of advertisers they can select from that might be of interest to their subscribers/readers. For example, an automotive site could carry ads for auto parts and accessories, a gardening site could carry gardening supply ads, a travel site deals on airline tickets etc... you get the idea.
3. allow creators to set a limit of ads per post, and perhaps size and positioning.
4. allow paid subscribers to opt out of receiving ads.
5. Split ad revenue 50/50 between creator and substack providing incentive to carry ads.
Ads don't have to be annoying, but they are when you have no control over them. Targeting ads of specific interest to specific audiences while also providing an opt out choice to both creators and paid subs is one way to increase revenue without alienating anyone involved, including the advertisers.
Absolutely not!
Ads destroy the unique Substack experience.
There are enough places where you can operate with ads.
And I extend my denial explicitly to affiliate links. As soon as I discover such links on an offering I’m done with this.
I explained this viewpoint because there are many folks out there who share this view.
A key question: How can we distinguish ads from genuine word-of-mouth in articles?
My belief is that ads and sponsorships will always exist on Substack. Therefore, Substack should intervene to enhance the overall user experience. They could potentially monetize by providing a service that connects sponsors and writers.
Even Lenny's podcast on Substack includes sponsored links, which I find acceptable.
I have what amounts to an ad for my favourite charity on some of my SS pages. My site is free and always will be, so I'm effectively a loss-leader as far as SS is concerned. However, if they set it up so people could voluntarily subscribe, with the proceeds forwarded to my charity and a small admin. fee going to SS, they'd make at least a bit of money off my site and my charity would have a small income stream without me having to get involved in managing it, which I don't want to do.
yep, not all of us want to go deep to monetize the max we can
I follow P J Watson on YT. He always has an embedded promotion in his videos, which you can choose to watch or just skip ahead to part two. I find that perfectly acceptable.
Totally agree
Did you not notice the opt out feature? Why would you impose your view on other substack authors that might want to carry ads for specific products related to their site? No one's forcing you to visit their sites. If ads offend you just don't go there.
One other point. Have you ever considered Substack's financial situation?
https://techcrunch.com/2023/04/07/3-takeaways-from-substacks-newly-released-financial-results/
https://www.theverge.com/2023/3/28/23660473/substack-retail-investors-revenue-profit
They're not very forthcoming about it, which to me suggests their business model could use some help, which is what I'm suggesting. I don't want to have to pull up stakes and move my site in a year or two, but that could very well happen if things don't work out as planned.
Anyway, what's the big deal? If you don't like ads just install AdBlock or Ghostery and you'll never see them.
Thank you for your thoughts.
Sure, I have installed abblockens and I rarely use affiliate links. I also don‘t use ad loaded offerings, even with adblockers.
I like the approach to work without ads and that makes Substack different. I am one of the guys who does not monetize his (large) YouTube channels, because I don‘t take money from bad companies.
Will Substack survive?
We will see.
But I hope so.
Great comment!
How do we do a Podcast here on Substack? When I click on the button that says 'learn more' It takes me to my setting page. What are the details? How hard is it? Does it cost me anything? I host a radio show on Blog Talk Radio now, and would be interested in information on how Substack does their blogs.
Valerie, on mine there is a tab right at the top, then in that page you can just set it up. It looks pretty easy and sends it out to other hosts too
It is very easy - like writing a post. Just upload additionally your voice file.
I'm getting ready to launch some podcast episodes. Thank you guys for making it an easy process. I started a podcast in 2014 and...Let's just say it was considerably more difficult back then.
I am setting up my conversation studio even now.
(possibly) very podcast-ignorant question: host the podcast on Substack (then add it to apple etc) or create it in a third party (like buzzsprout), and add it to my substack (plus apple, spotify, etc)? thanks.
I do the latter (host on Captivate and also post to Substack), but share your curiosity about this, and haven’t found much about it beyond my experience. The only downside I’ve noticed is that my metrics are more difficult to interpret since I have to pull from two sources, which measure differently.
I also publish on Captivate, and am starting to also post the podcast on Substack. How do you embed the audio in your posts? I’m trying to find a workflow that minimises extra work!
I embed the native file in both places. Posting the file both places, along with show notes and such, only takes about 5 minutes a week, but you’re right that it’s still extra complexity.
If you add an Apple Podcasts and Spotify for Podcasters player, any plays on that will be tracked in Captivate (since Substack doesn't currently support more oEmbed features like the Captivate player).
I'd love to hear how other podcasters are doing this. Let's say I send my newsletter to 1000 people. 800 open the email and Substack reports 100 downloads. I add that 100 to my total from Captivate (which is tracking across multiple platforms) and consider that my total downloads. Is that how you measure?
It's best to host your audio files only in one location: a service such as Buzzsprout, Captivate, Libsyn, et al. Then you share the link from the host server to Apple, Spotify as well as anywhere you want to promote downloads, such as via Substack. This is, as people are mentioning here, the only way to assure that you get accurate analytics—you can't simply add numbers from different platforms. And dedicated podcast hosting platforms are always going to give you much more reliable stats than social platforms that are not podcast-specific.
Unless you're using a player that sends analytics back to Captivate, these 100 "downloads" won't be counted. Also, Substack isn't IAB Certified, so they track anything that's over 0 seconds, whereas Captivate (and other IAB Certified podcast hosts) only count downloads when someone listens back for at least 60 seconds, or downloads enough data to their deceive to listen back for at least 60 seconds afterwards.
Thanks. That's a good insight about the metrics.
I am available on all platforms. But the use on Apple, Spotify etc is marginal.
On Substack I have generated 120k downloads in 11 month so far.
“The truth will always have a market.” - Jean Shepherd
now for Substack to pay Lex Fridman $100 million dollars to make his podcast a Substack exclusive
That would be amazing.
I haven't added my main podcast to my Substack, but I have been posting audio on here. Now that there's a way to link my audio to Spotify, I may play around with audio on Substack more. Thanks for this perspective!