Have questions about publishing, growing, or going paid on Substack?
The Substack team, and your fellow writers, are here to help!
Today we’re gathering the writer community and members of our Community, Product, and Writer Development teams together in a thread to answer writer questions for an hour.
Seeking inspiring ways to commemorate milestones? Anne Helen Peterson celebrated one year on Substack earlier this week and shared a reflection with her readers.
Wondering when to turn on paid subscriptions? Last week we shared the latest free-to-paid conversion rate benchmarks with writers to help you plan when to launch (see below). Jasmine from our team also walked writers through how to improve their earning potential. You can read the full recap or watch it here.
Drop your questions in the thread and we’ll do our best to supercharge each other.
Our team will be in the thread today from 9 am - 10 am PDT / 12 pm - 1 pm EDT answering questions with you.
I don't expect anyone to be as excited about this as I am, but I finally launched my newsletter (at the worst possible time) late last night right before Substack went offline for scheduled maintenance. Despite my mistake, I woke up to a handful of subscriptions. That by itself is exciting, but the thing that really shocked me is that several were from complete strangers!
Also, just a word of encouragement for anyone who is hesitant to publish. It gets A LOT easier once you press that Publish button for the first time. Don't be like me and delay for months. Just do it and figure out the rest as you go.
I write Synapse which is a newsletter about neuroscience, psychology, and the human experience. I also recently started an MD/PhD program and announced this at the bottom of one of my recent newsletters. A few readers wrote back congratulating and indicating they'd love for me to write about my journey in medical school and grad school. This is something I'm interested in doing but my question is: new Substack or section of my current Substack?
My experience in med school will undoubtedly affect what I'm interested in writing about and my personal identity as a writer (and now future clinician) so integrating into the same Substack makes sense from a "personal branding" perspective. YET at the same time I don't want annoy people who just want to read about Neuroscience with my musings on Med school and medicine more broadly. Advice?
This Saturday, August 21, will mark one year of publishing daily original fiction on Substack. If anyone else out there is publishing daily fiction, let me know. I don't expect a gold watch, but maybe a bumper sticker or a t shirt? How about it, Substack? At least an "attaboy" or a shout out?
We all take pride in our work. But when readership and subscribers count is poor, how can one be sure that it is poor because, say one is not spreading the word to the right people and through the best channels rather than because of one's inability to write well enough to capture the reader's attention?
For the past few weeks I have been sharing other writers in my Substack and it seems to be helping them with new subscribers. In return, they have been sharing mine and I am seeing a little uptick. So feel free to reach out, happy to grow together.
What's the value in asking my readers to like and/or comment on my Substack posts? What's to gain from that engagement outside of the engagement itself? Does my newsletter have a better chance of reaching a wider audience if my readers do this?
I raised my prices on my subscription but when old customers renew their subscription they are charged the old price instead of the new price. Why is this? How can I get renewals at the latest price? We are losing extra money!!
Thank you again Substack for another dope thread! If anyone wants to collaborate with shout outs, my Substack is always open to help you and your newsletter grow!
I write Cole's Climb, about the outdoors and how our experiences there bring clarity to the rest of our lives.
Is there any hard data surrounding emailing new subs directly when they sign onto the news letter? Do people like this? do they find it off-putting? Anyone experiment with welcome emails?
New to Substack with a niche question: has anyone had success growing a readership without a social media presence? Any strategies? (other than rejoining Facebook & Twitter)
Hi Everyone, great to be here. I write Physician Healer and started just im February of this year and am so grateful for this platform to do storytelling and to give mindfulness advice through my life’s traumas, trials and tribulations, in hopes that others know that they are not alone in their journey. It is rare these days, I’ve been told, to find doctors that are actually in the business of healing. Many folks connect with me because I focus on the power of our mind and that if the mind can be recognized and controlled, we can thrive in health, wealth and mindset. I also give tips on what I am doing personally. Happy to see so much creativity here on Substack!!!
Do you have any tips for writing a great "about" section? I've tinkered with mine a bit, but I'm not sure it's as effective as it could be for persuading people to read more.
Thank you to the amazing Substack team. The Thursday get together is really helpful. just a tiny request again for having a pdf within Substack....any news on that?
When it comes to posts with, say, two authors... must the other author have their own substack? Or simply be signed up to make comments on Substack?
(Would like to collaborate with people from my life-outside-Substack... and put them as fellow authors ..but feel awkward pressuring them "create you own Substack, even if you won't use it!")
After five months and close to 50 posts, I've created an index of titles, month pub'd, and each is linked to the piece. I don't really want to have this as my "pinned" opener, as it's not the most colourful post... but I would like it posted right underneath as a permanent piece that makes finding what one is looking for easier.
As someone who writes personal essays and reflections on books and culture, about a variety of things how do I reach a wider audience? Should I put certain keywords in my description—since I’m only allowed 3, which ones should I use?
I am currently writing about geek/nerd culture. Anyone else out there writing about the same thing? I would love to get some inspiration. At the moment I'm writing about programming(my career) and doing some video game and movie reviews. I have no end of topics, just wondering how to gain a following. All ideas are welcome!
Hi, Stacey Keith Eskelin, @ Cappuccino here. I'm a big fan of the Wonkette (all that delicious snark), which uses a "throw some money our way if you like our publication" model. Does that actually work? Because I'd like to do the same thing, if possible. I write four times a week, rely on volunteer money, and that feels right to me. But is it economically viable? Does anyone know?
When I use the Substack search box (the one on the Substack website) and enter my name, nothing shows up. The same when I google my name along with "substack." Is that to be expected for lesser known writers on Substack, or is something amiss? Is it nothing to be concerned about, or is it something to be concerned about and as a consequence I'm in "the orbiting ecstasy of a true paranoia"? (Kidding, sort of.)
There seem to be so many newsletter indexes, and I don't really understand their purpose. Do people use them to find newsletters to try? How do I know which ones I should list on? Are their fees for doing so? I obviously need a lot of help to understand this part of the business.
Could the "sections" navigation bar, which are links to a newsletter's sections that show up on the top left corner of the newsletter's "home" page (https://moviewise.substack.com) also be added to the newsletter's "Archive" page on the top left corner as well (https://moviewise.substack.com/archive)?
What is Substack doing to help our newsletters/articles do better in search, and have there been any discussions with Google as to why our content isn't performing well in search results? Right now when I search for my newsletter name or individual articles, most of the results are on the 3rd or 4th page of Google, with things that aren't exact matches ranking higher. Other newsletters are performing the same.
This is very different from my experience writing on Medium, which tended to rank quite well when doing a search on a title, and in one case for my content ranked even higher than the Washington Post for the topic.
It would help A LOT if our content could rank more highly as it would drive a lot more traffic to our content and then hopefully convert to subscribers.
question, if you're starting out and have amassed a few hundred readers... better to focus on getting a big hit that will go viral or keep to your established format and publishing schedule?
I send out a bunch of newsletters. Most of them are long form written content, and have no deliverability issues. One of them is an assorted links list with links to interesting articles and commentary. The deliverability on that message is a good 15-20% lower than the rest. It is more likely to end up in the spam folder. I'm assuming that more links = more chances of including links to domains that spam filters don't like. Any tips for avoiding this?
How would one grow or reach out to more people when writing about a very niche topic?
I’m a final year medical student and I write about mainly medical student / university student life, as well as general lifestyle advice, concepts in life and anything else that inspires me or is interesting.
I’ve been writing for almost a year now with a newsletter being sent out every week and I seem to be stuck at the 50-70 subscriber region.
I asked a question last week that didn't appear to get answered concerning going paid: I will finally be launching my newsletter shortly, probably right after Labor
Day if not a week before. I already set up my stripe account so people have the option of supporting me if they choose, but I plan to keep everything free for awhile...I also went with six instead of five dollars a month and sixty dollars/year. This seems to be outside the norm...but I would at least like to give people the option to support my work right away, if they choose...but there will be no paywall for awhile. Is this way off so that I might turn people off from subscribing? Thanks,
Just tried Google Site Verification, and I am stumped... I downloaded the code choosing URL prefix property, and it failed. I tried deleting the phrase google-site-verification from the code, and that failed too. Should I wait after entering the code before verifying? Or am I missing something?
Do people find things like a weekly "link drop," in addition to their usual posts, helpful? Do people engage with those or do they mostly look for the main content?
I write The Sharpener—thinking through poetry. I have 22% conversion rate, 35-40% open rate for my free, daily newsletter, and 50-60% open rate for my paid weekly newsletter. I'm looking for ideas to increase both free and paid subscribers, and to convert free subscribers to paid ones. Thoughts?
Hi I am new to "substack" I am here to read other's comments. I have been looking for such a platform all my writing life. Facebook censors the posts especially if they are carefully researched facts. I have to ask, how many posts are too much?
I keep hearing good things about Substack (redunderline? - doesn’t consider itself a legitimate word - or Apple doesn’t it Google doesn’t - hmm? Tech unsavvy me.. too.. two more underlines) from media personalities. I set up my spot here and am slowly easing into what I see as something I’ve long really much wanted - to perhaps butcher the queen's English a bit - and pretty much didn’t even know it most of my writing career … now at three score and four
I would like to have a way of polling readers eg on future content they would be interested in. I've thought that a simple way of doing this would be to have a 'like' button. So I could offer three options, say, and people like/click/or comment on the one they prefer.
Hello, I have more of a structural question I was hoping to get your opinion on for my newsletter For the Love of Nature. My newsletter is monthly and is comprised of 4-5 segments which look at different, though related, things. I was wondering if monthly is too infrequent to realistically build an audience despite its length. I've also toyed with the idea of breaking up the newsletter into two pieces and send it biweekly, though the two newsletters would be different, then. Let me know what your thoughts are!
Sorry I wasn't able to participate at the scheduled time - 4am in New Zealand. I have one small question - is it possible to do subscript and superscript in the text? I can't find a way. Since climate change is one of my topics, it looks a bit funny when I write CO2 or 1.5oC. I usually write them out as words anyway, as my readers are generally non-scientists, but it would be good to be able to do.
I have imported my email list from Constant Contact. However, I have not figured out how to complete the process so that they show up on Substack. I am missing something, but I on't know what! Can someone help?
Hi! One of the founders of Substack here. Excited to be hanging out here!
Thank you all for coming to this week's Office Hours! We'll be back same time, same place next week.
In the meantime, our resources are here for you: https://substack.com/resources
Happy writing,
Katie + Bailey + Chris + Andrew + Hanne + Joyce + Jamil
I don't expect anyone to be as excited about this as I am, but I finally launched my newsletter (at the worst possible time) late last night right before Substack went offline for scheduled maintenance. Despite my mistake, I woke up to a handful of subscriptions. That by itself is exciting, but the thing that really shocked me is that several were from complete strangers!
Also, just a word of encouragement for anyone who is hesitant to publish. It gets A LOT easier once you press that Publish button for the first time. Don't be like me and delay for months. Just do it and figure out the rest as you go.
Side by side pictures would be awesome. Thanks.
I write Synapse which is a newsletter about neuroscience, psychology, and the human experience. I also recently started an MD/PhD program and announced this at the bottom of one of my recent newsletters. A few readers wrote back congratulating and indicating they'd love for me to write about my journey in medical school and grad school. This is something I'm interested in doing but my question is: new Substack or section of my current Substack?
My experience in med school will undoubtedly affect what I'm interested in writing about and my personal identity as a writer (and now future clinician) so integrating into the same Substack makes sense from a "personal branding" perspective. YET at the same time I don't want annoy people who just want to read about Neuroscience with my musings on Med school and medicine more broadly. Advice?
This Saturday, August 21, will mark one year of publishing daily original fiction on Substack. If anyone else out there is publishing daily fiction, let me know. I don't expect a gold watch, but maybe a bumper sticker or a t shirt? How about it, Substack? At least an "attaboy" or a shout out?
Just remember my fellow writers, without promotion something terrible happens, nothing!
We all take pride in our work. But when readership and subscribers count is poor, how can one be sure that it is poor because, say one is not spreading the word to the right people and through the best channels rather than because of one's inability to write well enough to capture the reader's attention?
For the past few weeks I have been sharing other writers in my Substack and it seems to be helping them with new subscribers. In return, they have been sharing mine and I am seeing a little uptick. So feel free to reach out, happy to grow together.
Has anyone observed any relationship between the time one sends a new newsletter and the open rate? Are mornings better than evenings?
Thanks again for hosting these office hours! Something was brought to my attention by fellow Substacker Jackie Dana and it's a bit strange.
When I search for my recent posts individually on Google, I can't get them to show up. For example, I have a post called Beat Up a Warehouse Full of Goons (https://adventuresnack.substack.com/p/beat-up-a-warehouse-full-of-goons) from June. No matter what I search...
> Beat Up a Warehouse Full of Goons
> Beat Up a Warehouse Full of Goons Adventure Snack
> "Beat Up a Warehouse Full of Goons"
...I can't get the individual post page to show up, only my main site and about page, which references it.
My older posts do show up when I search, but not the ones from April of this year to today. I thought Google took a month at most to index a new site?
What's the value in asking my readers to like and/or comment on my Substack posts? What's to gain from that engagement outside of the engagement itself? Does my newsletter have a better chance of reaching a wider audience if my readers do this?
I raised my prices on my subscription but when old customers renew their subscription they are charged the old price instead of the new price. Why is this? How can I get renewals at the latest price? We are losing extra money!!
Thank you again Substack for another dope thread! If anyone wants to collaborate with shout outs, my Substack is always open to help you and your newsletter grow!
I write Cole's Climb, about the outdoors and how our experiences there bring clarity to the rest of our lives.
Is there any hard data surrounding emailing new subs directly when they sign onto the news letter? Do people like this? do they find it off-putting? Anyone experiment with welcome emails?
Hello everyone!
Has anyone found a solution to tackle the issue of email reaching promotions tab?
Some of subscribers have moved the email to primary inbox but still the email reaches the promotions tab.
Would love to see this issue to be fixed!
New to Substack with a niche question: has anyone had success growing a readership without a social media presence? Any strategies? (other than rejoining Facebook & Twitter)
Hi Everyone, great to be here. I write Physician Healer and started just im February of this year and am so grateful for this platform to do storytelling and to give mindfulness advice through my life’s traumas, trials and tribulations, in hopes that others know that they are not alone in their journey. It is rare these days, I’ve been told, to find doctors that are actually in the business of healing. Many folks connect with me because I focus on the power of our mind and that if the mind can be recognized and controlled, we can thrive in health, wealth and mindset. I also give tips on what I am doing personally. Happy to see so much creativity here on Substack!!!
Do you have any tips for writing a great "about" section? I've tinkered with mine a bit, but I'm not sure it's as effective as it could be for persuading people to read more.
Thank you to the amazing Substack team. The Thursday get together is really helpful. just a tiny request again for having a pdf within Substack....any news on that?
When it comes to posts with, say, two authors... must the other author have their own substack? Or simply be signed up to make comments on Substack?
(Would like to collaborate with people from my life-outside-Substack... and put them as fellow authors ..but feel awkward pressuring them "create you own Substack, even if you won't use it!")
Two questions:
1) is there a way to include tables in posts? (I want to use it for a team depth chart, salaries, etc.)
2) is there any way to improve on Google/SEO? My stories barely rank whereas a SI blog that aggregates my info is top two every time.
After five months and close to 50 posts, I've created an index of titles, month pub'd, and each is linked to the piece. I don't really want to have this as my "pinned" opener, as it's not the most colourful post... but I would like it posted right underneath as a permanent piece that makes finding what one is looking for easier.
Is it possible to do this?
As someone who writes personal essays and reflections on books and culture, about a variety of things how do I reach a wider audience? Should I put certain keywords in my description—since I’m only allowed 3, which ones should I use?
I am currently writing about geek/nerd culture. Anyone else out there writing about the same thing? I would love to get some inspiration. At the moment I'm writing about programming(my career) and doing some video game and movie reviews. I have no end of topics, just wondering how to gain a following. All ideas are welcome!
Hi, Stacey Keith Eskelin, @ Cappuccino here. I'm a big fan of the Wonkette (all that delicious snark), which uses a "throw some money our way if you like our publication" model. Does that actually work? Because I'd like to do the same thing, if possible. I write four times a week, rely on volunteer money, and that feels right to me. But is it economically viable? Does anyone know?
When I use the Substack search box (the one on the Substack website) and enter my name, nothing shows up. The same when I google my name along with "substack." Is that to be expected for lesser known writers on Substack, or is something amiss? Is it nothing to be concerned about, or is it something to be concerned about and as a consequence I'm in "the orbiting ecstasy of a true paranoia"? (Kidding, sort of.)
There seem to be so many newsletter indexes, and I don't really understand their purpose. Do people use them to find newsletters to try? How do I know which ones I should list on? Are their fees for doing so? I obviously need a lot of help to understand this part of the business.
Could the "sections" navigation bar, which are links to a newsletter's sections that show up on the top left corner of the newsletter's "home" page (https://moviewise.substack.com) also be added to the newsletter's "Archive" page on the top left corner as well (https://moviewise.substack.com/archive)?
Write and write well, team. When you focus on the words, the sentences take care of themselves :)
What is Substack doing to help our newsletters/articles do better in search, and have there been any discussions with Google as to why our content isn't performing well in search results? Right now when I search for my newsletter name or individual articles, most of the results are on the 3rd or 4th page of Google, with things that aren't exact matches ranking higher. Other newsletters are performing the same.
This is very different from my experience writing on Medium, which tended to rank quite well when doing a search on a title, and in one case for my content ranked even higher than the Washington Post for the topic.
It would help A LOT if our content could rank more highly as it would drive a lot more traffic to our content and then hopefully convert to subscribers.
question, if you're starting out and have amassed a few hundred readers... better to focus on getting a big hit that will go viral or keep to your established format and publishing schedule?
EG aim for the Home Run or try to amass singles?
I send out a bunch of newsletters. Most of them are long form written content, and have no deliverability issues. One of them is an assorted links list with links to interesting articles and commentary. The deliverability on that message is a good 15-20% lower than the rest. It is more likely to end up in the spam folder. I'm assuming that more links = more chances of including links to domains that spam filters don't like. Any tips for avoiding this?
How would one grow or reach out to more people when writing about a very niche topic?
I’m a final year medical student and I write about mainly medical student / university student life, as well as general lifestyle advice, concepts in life and anything else that inspires me or is interesting.
I’ve been writing for almost a year now with a newsletter being sent out every week and I seem to be stuck at the 50-70 subscriber region.
Thank you for all your support! Writer Office Hours has been very helpful.
Hi Bailey,
I asked a question last week that didn't appear to get answered concerning going paid: I will finally be launching my newsletter shortly, probably right after Labor
Day if not a week before. I already set up my stripe account so people have the option of supporting me if they choose, but I plan to keep everything free for awhile...I also went with six instead of five dollars a month and sixty dollars/year. This seems to be outside the norm...but I would at least like to give people the option to support my work right away, if they choose...but there will be no paywall for awhile. Is this way off so that I might turn people off from subscribing? Thanks,
Joan
Just tried Google Site Verification, and I am stumped... I downloaded the code choosing URL prefix property, and it failed. I tried deleting the phrase google-site-verification from the code, and that failed too. Should I wait after entering the code before verifying? Or am I missing something?
Does Substack provide any tools to help us poll/survey our readers?
Do people find things like a weekly "link drop," in addition to their usual posts, helpful? Do people engage with those or do they mostly look for the main content?
I write The Sharpener—thinking through poetry. I have 22% conversion rate, 35-40% open rate for my free, daily newsletter, and 50-60% open rate for my paid weekly newsletter. I'm looking for ideas to increase both free and paid subscribers, and to convert free subscribers to paid ones. Thoughts?
My newsletter can't be found searching your website.
Hi I am new to "substack" I am here to read other's comments. I have been looking for such a platform all my writing life. Facebook censors the posts especially if they are carefully researched facts. I have to ask, how many posts are too much?
Thanx for helping to bring us writer's a great platform! A big place for us to
bloviate! I write "Michael's Newsletter".
I keep hearing good things about Substack (redunderline? - doesn’t consider itself a legitimate word - or Apple doesn’t it Google doesn’t - hmm? Tech unsavvy me.. too.. two more underlines) from media personalities. I set up my spot here and am slowly easing into what I see as something I’ve long really much wanted - to perhaps butcher the queen's English a bit - and pretty much didn’t even know it most of my writing career … now at three score and four
I would like to have a way of polling readers eg on future content they would be interested in. I've thought that a simple way of doing this would be to have a 'like' button. So I could offer three options, say, and people like/click/or comment on the one they prefer.
Looking for a real time mentor. I have immense offering to return us to civility. Freedom is not free
Hello, I have more of a structural question I was hoping to get your opinion on for my newsletter For the Love of Nature. My newsletter is monthly and is comprised of 4-5 segments which look at different, though related, things. I was wondering if monthly is too infrequent to realistically build an audience despite its length. I've also toyed with the idea of breaking up the newsletter into two pieces and send it biweekly, though the two newsletters would be different, then. Let me know what your thoughts are!
Sorry I wasn't able to participate at the scheduled time - 4am in New Zealand. I have one small question - is it possible to do subscript and superscript in the text? I can't find a way. Since climate change is one of my topics, it looks a bit funny when I write CO2 or 1.5oC. I usually write them out as words anyway, as my readers are generally non-scientists, but it would be good to be able to do.
I have imported my email list from Constant Contact. However, I have not figured out how to complete the process so that they show up on Substack. I am missing something, but I on't know what! Can someone help?
Substack emails seem to show up in the Gmail Promotions Tab - any tips on how to avoid this?