Today, we’re introducing new ways to discover writers on our homepage, as well as the beta version of Substack Reader, a new way to keep up with your newsletters.
I look forward to trying the reader. Sometimes the emails get lost in the sea of other messages coming in.
I do have some questions about the "discover" feature. I think this is an improvement from the previous iteration of hyper-focusing on "top" posts and writers. Many of them don't really need the help to be "discovered" any longer. When I looked at the lists for all writers in each category I saw a lot of newsletters I've never seen before - that's great!
But how do newsletters get categorized? What if they don't neatly fit in the categories you've chosen? The Discover page doesn't have a search box, and when logged in I had to click on the "Write on Substack" button to find it. What is the search box searching? I typed humor and got zero results. Science - zero results (https://substack.com/discover/science). Culture, books, nature - no results for anything. As a librarian I have high expectations for findability when I'm presented with a search box.
The categories chosen leave some big gaps, too. I suggest adding Science, Humor, Travel, and Music for starters. There are probably others that would help folks find great content.
My newsletter covers a variety of topics, and I've been posting weekly for over two years. While I don't have a huge readership, it would be nice to see it pop up in searches. I'm allowed three tags in my settings, and those seem not to have any meaning at all. It's unclear how any of this works - some transparency on that so writers can either add meaningful tags or do something else to increase the chances of fitting a category would be helpful. As somebody else mentioned, a keyword search would be welcome - especially for finding posts on specific topics.
I know this is coming across grouchy, and I really like change when there are good improvements. There's so much potential here.
Using categories is a great idea, but some additional categories would help, or maybe "Art & Entertainment" could include humor, fashion, movies, music etc. It would be great to allow writers who write about different topics to choose the category they want per post.
Hi, new to Substack. when I try to subscribe to a newsletter and choose the 'none' option, it doesn't let me proceed and it says I'm already on the free plan. but then this newsletter doesn't show up on my account list of subscriptions. how does this work?
Oh, that’s a dangerous feature though for newsletter writers. I would not be happy to see that really, tbh; that would lock writers in Substack as a platform, as opposed to needing Substack to prove their worth over time.
I think that fear of getting locked into Substack would discourage writers from using the platform. Right now a huge draw of Substack is that writers could move if they wanted to do so, but because Substack is so valuable with its other features, no way I am moving right now and I’m happy to use it.
Agreed. It gets overwhelming to see all the newsletter emails in my inbox, and I've resorted to relegating them to folders using Gmail's label feature .. but if Substack offers the "reader", it would make sense that we could turn off email updates and clean out our inboxes a bit better.
Why is my page not found when using your search key? I have platforms I want to recruit from, places I cannot post an email address but can mention "You can read more of my stuff at Substack." Those people will come to substack and use the search function to find me. Any reason they cannot?
How does one actually find NEW writers? If I click on Discover and let's say, the 'Culture' tag, it's always those very same names and newsletters that come up first - and they were launched months or even years ago.
And there is no any indicators of an algorithm there, like most popular, best paid or such - it just seems to be random.
So how does it work? I just launched my stuff - how will people find it here on the site?
Hi team Substack, this is a great idea. It would be nice if the "Discover" section of the Reader included "Find writers I follow on Twitter". It seems like a natural place to expose it, rather than its current location in your Substack account settings (which itself is harder to reach via manual clicks). What do you think?
Following up on my first comment about how great this is, something that would be great to see over time is more filtering options. Right now I think everything is sorted by “Top” - what if I say “I want culture newsletter with less than 500 subs, or top free in business, or those with greater than 1k but less than 10k in literary” that could be cool.
Also interesting would be keyword searching, which I didn’t see - if I want to search for all newsletters and filter the same way above related to “korea” or “book reviews”, that could be awesome as well.
I would appreciate a reader resource to search within posted comments to Richardson's letter. I run across some commenter and then can't find their post or my dialogue with them. Some sort of CTRL-F would really help. Also, when I go to view a like to my comment it is really difficult to see their response within a stream. Thanks.
It would be great if Substack had a page where the most recently published post from any writer would be listed on top as a link in the way that posts appear in the "Archive" section: picture, tittle, subtitle, author and category. This way visitors to " https://lightnovelshub.com/ " could see a live feed of the latest publications, and in that way discover a new newsletter.
Thank you for providing this opportunity. I was a columnist for The Des Moines Register in the 1980s and left for other endeavors. It’s been rewarding to get back to column writing in this format. With one week under my belt, I’m pleasantly surprised by readership growth.
I look forward to trying the reader. Sometimes the emails get lost in the sea of other messages coming in.
I do have some questions about the "discover" feature. I think this is an improvement from the previous iteration of hyper-focusing on "top" posts and writers. Many of them don't really need the help to be "discovered" any longer. When I looked at the lists for all writers in each category I saw a lot of newsletters I've never seen before - that's great!
But how do newsletters get categorized? What if they don't neatly fit in the categories you've chosen? The Discover page doesn't have a search box, and when logged in I had to click on the "Write on Substack" button to find it. What is the search box searching? I typed humor and got zero results. Science - zero results (https://substack.com/discover/science). Culture, books, nature - no results for anything. As a librarian I have high expectations for findability when I'm presented with a search box.
The categories chosen leave some big gaps, too. I suggest adding Science, Humor, Travel, and Music for starters. There are probably others that would help folks find great content.
My newsletter covers a variety of topics, and I've been posting weekly for over two years. While I don't have a huge readership, it would be nice to see it pop up in searches. I'm allowed three tags in my settings, and those seem not to have any meaning at all. It's unclear how any of this works - some transparency on that so writers can either add meaningful tags or do something else to increase the chances of fitting a category would be helpful. As somebody else mentioned, a keyword search would be welcome - especially for finding posts on specific topics.
I know this is coming across grouchy, and I really like change when there are good improvements. There's so much potential here.
Using categories is a great idea, but some additional categories would help, or maybe "Art & Entertainment" could include humor, fashion, movies, music etc. It would be great to allow writers who write about different topics to choose the category they want per post.
Yes, more categories please. Search still doesn’t pick up post based on either title or categories (3 selected)
Hi, new to Substack. when I try to subscribe to a newsletter and choose the 'none' option, it doesn't let me proceed and it says I'm already on the free plan. but then this newsletter doesn't show up on my account list of subscriptions. how does this work?
How are "top" newsletters selected for each category? What is the basis of the ranking?
💥 goes the 🧨.
What category do "music" newsletters fit into? I'm surprised it's not it's own category.
Is it possible to subscribe to newsletters to read in the Reader without them showing up in my email inbox?
Oh, that’s a dangerous feature though for newsletter writers. I would not be happy to see that really, tbh; that would lock writers in Substack as a platform, as opposed to needing Substack to prove their worth over time.
I think that fear of getting locked into Substack would discourage writers from using the platform. Right now a huge draw of Substack is that writers could move if they wanted to do so, but because Substack is so valuable with its other features, no way I am moving right now and I’m happy to use it.
thanks for saying what i was thinking.
Agreed. It gets overwhelming to see all the newsletter emails in my inbox, and I've resorted to relegating them to folders using Gmail's label feature .. but if Substack offers the "reader", it would make sense that we could turn off email updates and clean out our inboxes a bit better.
Nice features. But what if someone's work doesn't fit neatly into categories, or *these* categories. Any plans to expand them?
Why is my page not found when using your search key? I have platforms I want to recruit from, places I cannot post an email address but can mention "You can read more of my stuff at Substack." Those people will come to substack and use the search function to find me. Any reason they cannot?
I'm having the same issue and can't find any help.
I am wondering the same. Search function doesn’t seem to work
Hi, a newbie here.
How does one actually find NEW writers? If I click on Discover and let's say, the 'Culture' tag, it's always those very same names and newsletters that come up first - and they were launched months or even years ago.
And there is no any indicators of an algorithm there, like most popular, best paid or such - it just seems to be random.
So how does it work? I just launched my stuff - how will people find it here on the site?
Good question. Would help if one of the categories in Discover would be ‘New’
Hi team Substack, this is a great idea. It would be nice if the "Discover" section of the Reader included "Find writers I follow on Twitter". It seems like a natural place to expose it, rather than its current location in your Substack account settings (which itself is harder to reach via manual clicks). What do you think?
Thanks, but I'll stick with https://upstract.com for _real_ news.
the opposite of real news.
+1 for Upstract — Love it!
Also check https://unfeeder.com/ for actual news.
Following up on my first comment about how great this is, something that would be great to see over time is more filtering options. Right now I think everything is sorted by “Top” - what if I say “I want culture newsletter with less than 500 subs, or top free in business, or those with greater than 1k but less than 10k in literary” that could be cool.
Also interesting would be keyword searching, which I didn’t see - if I want to search for all newsletters and filter the same way above related to “korea” or “book reviews”, that could be awesome as well.
Just thoughts - thank you again!
I would appreciate a reader resource to search within posted comments to Richardson's letter. I run across some commenter and then can't find their post or my dialogue with them. Some sort of CTRL-F would really help. Also, when I go to view a like to my comment it is really difficult to see their response within a stream. Thanks.
I listened to your audio explanation of audio news letters. You said go to on.substack.com and click on survey to participate? I can't see it.
where do i sign up for your survey on audio? I want to participate.
It would be great if Substack had a page where the most recently published post from any writer would be listed on top as a link in the way that posts appear in the "Archive" section: picture, tittle, subtitle, author and category. This way visitors to " https://lightnovelshub.com/ " could see a live feed of the latest publications, and in that way discover a new newsletter.
Thank you for providing this opportunity. I was a columnist for The Des Moines Register in the 1980s and left for other endeavors. It’s been rewarding to get back to column writing in this format. With one week under my belt, I’m pleasantly surprised by readership growth.
Here’s a recap of my first anniversary … https://okobojiwriters.substack.com/p/recap-and-sht-richard-says