Introducing Substack Study Hall: Advice from top creators on getting started, going paid, and more
Rachel Karten, Laurel Pantin, and Brandon Kyle Goodman joined us for our first Study Hall event in L.A.
Last week, we hosted our inaugural Substack Study Hall, a new education series for publishers to share strategies, swap ideas, and connect. Our first event brought Los Angeles writers and creators together for hotseat interviews and a Q&A with our product team.
The participants
is a social media consultant who writes , a newsletter covering social media strategy and resources. is a stylist, creative director, and brand strategist and a former magazine editor and fashion director. She writes , a lifestyle and fashion newsletter. is a writer, performer, and host who writes Messy Mondays, a newsletter with a focus on identity, sex, and relationships.Each of them joined our head of lifestyle,
, onstage to discuss getting started, going paid, making the most of live video, and more.Getting started on Substack
Brandon said Substack doesn’t demand perfection to be successful or to build community: “I really like that it doesn’t have to be high-production. I think in some other spaces, things have to really look perfect. I’m here imperfectly, so I’m gonna see what works, throw some shit at the wall. If it doesn’t work, great. If it does, beautiful.”
Rachel recommends faking it till you make it: “Act like a writer before you’re a writer. Really hold yourself to standards and a consistent schedule.”
Laurel emphasized removing any friction that prevents consistent publishing: “Just start it. Don’t worry about a logo, don’t worry about everything being perfect. If you start feeling like ‘I can never do it because every time I write one, I have to do X, Y, and Z, all this legwork,’ then stop doing that legwork. Like, whatever it takes. If you want to do this, just make it easy for yourself to stay consistent.”
Key takeaway:
Consistency beats perfection every time: All three creators advise that showing up regularly with authentic content will build stronger communities than waiting to create something more polished.
Going paid & pricing strategy
Rachel recommends starting simple with paid offerings: “There’s a temptation when you go paid to feel like you need to offer a lot, when really, just one clear, valuable send can be enough for people. You can always add on more paid perks, but you can’t take them away. And so I think that’s something that I would think about when you’re going paid: what can I promise to offer that is so valuable and that I know I can deliver on?”
Brandon shares a trick they learned from
: “Sometimes she just paywalls, like, the last paragraph. You don’t have to paywall the whole thing, because at that point, people just want to support you. And I found that to actually be a better model in general.” Their own editorial schedule makes good use of this strategy: “The livestreams on Monday nights are for everyone. And then there’s an additional post on Friday that has, like, a mini-podcast, and that is behind the paywall. But still in that post there’s a bunch of free shit. So it’s just a little extra.”And Rachel reminded creators of a useful truism: know your audience. In Rachel’s case, she realized that many of her subscribers could expense her newsletter as professional development, and built her pricing strategy around this insight. “I knew because social managers would be subscribing that they could ask their boss for this to be an educational stipend. So I wrote a template that they could use to ask their boss if they could expense it. That has been huge. I see people in that doc to this day, years later.”
This led Rachel to price her newsletter at $8 a month instead of the usual $5, knowing some companies would cover the cost. She also created a $150 founding-member tier, titled “If your company’s paying for this, this tier is for you.”
Key takeaways:
Start simple with your paid offerings. You don’t have to offer subscribers multiple perks; focus on easy-to-understand offerings that you can consistently deliver.
Partial paywalls can work better than all-or-nothing approaches. Try paywalling just the last section of a post, or offering “a little extra” for paid subscribers.
Think strategically about who’s actually paying for your newsletter. Consider whether your content serves a professional need that companies might cover, and don’t be afraid to price higher if you’re providing business value that organizations will invest in.
Going Live
Brandon started going live once a week because it offered a low-production way to engage with their community consistently. “Can I be really honest? I was posting [on Substack] twice a week. I was writing on a TV show. I was writing my next book, writing a stage show . . . you know, the well was kind of dry. And so when Live video was introduced, it was like, ‘Oh, I can just talk to people. I don’t have to edit anything. Y’all make the clips for me. Love this.’”
Scheduling in advance and promoting across social media is a consistent part of their Live show workflow:
“I post on Instagram stories. I promote on the [Substack] app. I’ll also add the poster at the bottom of the newsletters, like: this is happening next week or in two weeks, and then I schedule my live video and I invite the [guest].”
They publish their recordings immediately after going live, “so that if people are coming late, it’s already up.” Then they add a write-up or context when they have more time, usually an hour or two later.
Laurel also described keeping Live video simple and not overthinking the process: “I love a styling video. I love to talk through why the proportion of this works with this, and how it can also work with a flip-flop or it can work with a heel. I love to talk through that reasoning. I don’t write a script for myself. I’m just standing in my living room talking.”
She treats her Live shows with guests like a coffee chat. “One of the things I miss about living in New York is [how] you would just bump into someone on your way to work, and you’d be like, ‘Oh, let’s go grab a coffee.’ And you have a 30-minute micro-hang, and you get through everything in those 30 minutes. So I set a timer for myself, because I love to talk . . . we just get on and talk about whatever.”
Brandon brings their chat into the mix, too. In a livestream over Memorial Day, they and
pulled tarot cards. “In the chat we were like, tell us what this one means. And so people were engaged in that way, looking it up for us, telling us what our futures were. That was a really fun moment.”Key takeaways:
Embrace simplicity with Live shows: Both Brandon and Laurel discovered that going live made connecting with their subscribers easier, not harder—there’s no editing, scripting, or post-production work required.
Follow best practices: Schedule your Live show through the app, promote it on social media, and post your recording right away so that anyone who clicks the notification that you’re live can see your video (even if it’s over).
Promoting on social media
Rachel uses social media apps like Instagram and X to demonstrate her thinking and give people a taste of what’s in her newsletter: “When I promote my newsletter on social media, I don’t just post the link to it and say, ‘Read today’s newsletter.’ I really try to take a nugget from that week’s newsletter and break it out in a social-first way. Finding ways to translate what you’ve written about into other platforms in a way that’s not just asking people to click over has been really helpful.”
One of her biggest growth days came from an X thread about Reformation’s viral influencer strategy—a topic she’d originally covered in a paid newsletter. “That led to articles in Business Insider and Morning Brew. Just because I posted on Twitter, I never posted the link, and it was one of my biggest free-subscriber growth days because people are like, oh, I like the way she’s thinking here. I’m gonna go find her newsletter on Substack."
Brandon describes Substack as the platform where they build community with their audience. They treat other social media as a way to invite people into that community space: “The reason I joined Substack was because I wanted to create an ecosystem for my brand, and I wanted a place that people could come and communicate with each other. So Substack feels like a really great foundational space for all the other things that I’m doing, because you can’t really talk to me on the podcast. So I do promote [Substack] on the podcast, I’ll promote it on Instagram, and then I’ll funnel everything to Substack.”
Key takeaway:
External social media promotion works best when it introduces your audience to what’s happening on Substack, invites them to follow you, and encourages them to go deeper. Use social media as an opportunity to showcase your insights, perspective, and the conversations you’re having on Substack. The goal is to give people a window into the community you’re creating, rather than just asking them to subscribe.
These interviews were lightly edited for length and clarity. For more in-depth insights and the full origin stories behind these publications, watch our complete Study Hall interviews with Brandon Kyle Goodman, Laurel Pantin, and Rachel Karten.
Bonus: Substack team Q&A
The Substack product team was on-site at Study Hall L.A. to answer audience questions about Live shows, Notes strategy, and what’s coming next. Here’s some of what was covered:
What’s the sweet spot for live video length?
Quality over quantity, always. In a subscription model, you should defer to what serves your content best. If you have 3 minutes of reaction to breaking news, go live for 3 minutes—your audience will love that you're concise. If you want to do a 12-hour stream with rotating guests, do that. Unlike platforms that depend on ad-revenue, there is no benefit on Substack to stretching content just to keep people around. The best thing you can do is create content that makes people think "this was really good and I want to subscribe or pay for it."
Is there ever going to be a feature that helps connect publishers to potential collaborators?
Live video collaborations are a powerful driver of growth and we are exploring ways to suggest collaborations within the app. Be on the lookout for updates in the near future.
What’s the best strategy for using Notes?
Focus on establishing yourself as an interesting, compelling person rather than just promoting your latest content. The creators who’ve grown most through Notes often share other people’s work that they genuinely like, adding their own commentary. This builds relationships with other creators, exposes you to their audiences, and shows the feed algorithm that your engagement drives subscriptions.
What’s the recommended pricing for subscriptions?
For most creators with an audience paying out of pocket or following for personal interest $5 to $6 per month is the sweet spot. This is accessible for individual subscribers while still meaningful revenue. If your audience is following for professional reasons and can justify the subscription as a professional expense, we recommend $10 or more per month.
How can I get my community chat more engaged?
Start by making chats open to all subscribers, not just paid ones. Create events around your chats—live discussions during award shows, sporting events, or breaking news. Consider inviting other creators to join your chat, which can bring their audience over too. Make it feel like a destination or must-attend event rather than just setting it up and waiting to see if people engage. You can embed chat links directly in newsletters and promote specific discussion threads to drive participation.
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