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 this thread to answer writer questions for an hour.
Drop your questions in the thread and we’ll do our best to share knowledge and tips.
Looking for inspiration on how to grow your email list? Caroline Chambers turned a rejected cookbook proposal into a thriving reader-supported Substack, and Gergely Orosz brought his blog for engineers to Substack, growing it significantly in the first month.
Seeking creative ways to promote your Substack on social media? David Hundeyin created a video teasing an upcoming post on West Africa Weekly.
Want to discover great writing on Substack? Substack profiles just got a refresh! Profiles display the publications you write, as well as the Substacks you read and a feed of posts you’ve written. Readers and writers are in control: You can edit your profile information at any time to select which publications you want to appear on your profile.
Our team will be answering questions in the thread from 9 a.m.–10 a.m. PDT / noon–1 p.m. EDT today.
Next week, we’ll host our monthly Shoutout Thread, designed to help writers discover and share great writing on Substack. Stop by to share what you’ve been reading and inspired by recently.
Next week is my personal favorite Thursday of the month, Shoutout Thread. Come share what you're writing and discover more great writing on Substack. Don't miss it: https://lu.ma/shoutout
Talk soon,
Katie + Bailey + Jasmine + Rose + Kelsa + Kevin + Becca + Linda + Sergey + Alex + Ashley
A want to thank the Substack team for their efforts to make a great product. I have noticed with a delight that the post editor has improved, sharing popup is now much cooler, author's page is gorgeous. I'm leaving the thread and wish you a great day (although in Sofia is already a night). 👋
Hey all! Hope that everyone's having a great week and thank you to the Substack team for hosting these - they're incredibly helpful! We wanted to share Citizen Scholar here with the group in case anyone's interested in collaborating or subscribing. We're a team of writers that launched ~3 weeks ago with a simple mission in mind: to bring together a community of readers who value the study & discussion of important ideas that shed light on the past, present and potentially, our future. More precisely, we're interested in ideas that can enrich and improve our daily and civic lives (always with a positive & inclusive tone). We cover a book or a significant text/work every Friday morning (hits your inbox at 6am ET) discussing its key ideas and implications for our readers. As we mentioned, we launched in early September and we've seen a great response with ~300 subscribers so far! We would love to have anyone join us that enjoys reading & lessons from history, politics, psychology, classical literature & business. We hope to have anyone join us from this amazing community and we would welcome any relevant collaboration opportunities - thank you!
Hey Substack community, I write one fun, thought-provoking poem every week at hellouniverse.substack.com - do subscribe!
I recently did my first cross promotion post! It's an easy process, but do keep in mind, that if you're adding a co-author to your post, both of you should be in sync at the time of publication, as they have to approve their mention as co-author, and you are unable to press "publish" till they approve the request.
Really wish substack had made it possible to do this asynchronously - where you put their name in, and they get a request for it, but it doesn't stop you from publishing.
Thank you all for sharing your questions in Office Hours today! Bring your kudos to our Shoutout Thread next Thursday, and we'll have another Office Hours the following week.
My question is on deciding whether to switch away from anonymous writing. Currently I write with my first name only but am thinking about putting a name and face at some point. Anyone have any experience or guidance on this? Thanks!
I'm interested in cross-promotions and would like to connect with other writers!
In the latest edition of my newsletter, I talk about The Creativity faucet for generating new ideas, A man surviving with Iron Lungs, A climate-induced Hungry Island and Landscapes created using a photocopier!
Has anyone experimented with audio posts? Wondering if this would increase subs for those that rather be read to (ie. Audible). Also, would audio posts live better on a weekly podcast or as stand alone audio on a post? Thanks all!
Thanks again substack for hosting this. As always, I am down to cross promote and help other writers grow. Feel free to hit me up, you all rock! https://youtopianjourney.substack.com/
Just published my second post own Substack today, great to be here.
I have a question about the removal of the Google Site Verification section in Settings – does this mean that Substack is taking some action on their end to make 'stacks more discoverable to search engines? Be really interested to find out more about the SEO angle as Substack grows...
I'd love to connect with any animal welfare advocates on Substack. Anyone with a publication dedicated to education and welfare around animals, I'd love to shout out (and hope you'd do the same for me :)
I started a substack focusing on the negative stigmas surrounding pit bulls, but will be focusing on animal welfare more generally as well.
Hey all! Anyone else have issues with embedding YouTube? The Substack instructions say that the embed should just appear after pasting in the link, but it never seems to happen...
My newsletter (https://swimpruf.substack.com/) recently became a year old and I started getting some unsubscribe notices, several of which said, "Billing Failed." I assume this is due to an expired credit card tied to the subscriber's account. How do others deal with this successfully? Do you reach out to the person and notify them, in case they didn't realize his/her card expired?
Absolutely love the experience on Substack so far (6 months and counting). Looking forward to the Substack Reader and poll functionality. The only longer-term question mark I have is the inability to raise prices (with inflation). But so far, I haven't been too concerned about that.
What does it take to become listed in the relatively short list of publications related to your tag? If the bar is extremely high, at least Substack could consider listing as an addendum the like-minded columns alphabetically—increasing our profiles and letting readers decide.
Hi all! I'm Sarah -- I write a weekly 'stack about children's books, raising readers, and how to build a culture of reading in your home: https://canweread.substack.com/about
I took the tip from Caroline Chambers about running a discount and did that this week to super disappointing results. Has anyone else experimented/had success with discounts? I'd love to hear about it.
Also, always up for collaboration with other bookish/reader-ly newsletters, or 'stacks about or adjacent to kid-related topics. I haven't yet found anyone writing about children's books or especially for people with little readers in their lives but have done collabs with other 'stacks about books and reading, which has been fun.
I just read that it's #InternationalPodcastDay so anyone with a podcast as part of their newsletter has a good reason to tweet about it today using the hashtag, along with a link to your newsletter/podcast. Maybe you'll pick up a few new subscribers?
Hi all, I write a weekly newsletter called Womaning in India. I highlight one gender bias every week through stories of real women of India who I interview during the week. (http://womaning.substack.com)
The response to my newsletter has been very encouraging. I have nearly 1500 subscribers and my top post has over 10000 views. I'm thinking of going paid now, but not sure what it is I can offer to paid subscribers that free subscribers don't get. I absolutely intend to keep the free version going every Friday as before.
I have posted about this before and got some great suggestions - looking for more of those. Also, open to any collaborations with like-minded writers here.
Are there tutorials available to assist me in designing a pictorial banner for my blog, or maybe some kind of graphic? My blog is entitled "Admiral's Log", so some nautical theme, with a patriotic sub-theme, as I am very patriotic- would be what I am looking for. Any help would be so appreciated, and thank you for these most helpful and productive sessions, through which I have met new friends and been introduced to most interesting new blogs I would have never heard of had it not been for these sessions. My blog is: jimgeorge.substack.com; all welcome. Thanks, Jim
I am highly suspicious that the paid vs. unpaid subscription ratios provided by Substack aren't accurate. Anyone else get that idea? My open percentage is usually > 30%, yet my paid percentage is less than 1%.
Hi! My substack is Life Mostly Full - http://www.lifemostlyfull.com/ - which focuses on philosophical and practical approaches to an overburdened and overstuffed modern life.
My biggest challenge is finding my audience. They're out there, as I have a nice core of loyal readers, but finding more seems to be hit and miss.
The most success I've found is finding communities that are related to specific articles I write and sharing them there in response to people asking similar questions to what I'm answering, For example, I recently wrote an article on what the scientific literature has to say about improving sleep habits - https://www.lifemostlyfull.com/p/what-to-do-when-sleep-fails-you - and I intentionally Googled for people who were struggling with a sudden, severe lack of sleep and shared it with them in the threads they created.
The catch is that this is a lot of labor per new reader. It seems to attract very loyal ones, but it's time-intensive.
Are there good ways to suggest to your current readers that they share your columns with others? Does that work well?
I’ve been enjoying Substack and am talking to a group of established columnists, and authors, about a collaborative series. Chris Best’s comments about allowing disinformation from writers has caused them to revolt. Help! We do not need another source of disinformation. Supporting Substack was a way of leaving content off Facebook for that very reason.
Snipe rejected me saying I will have too many disgruntled subscribers asking for money back. I don’t know how they figured that, but is there another way to receive payments?
I recently learned a weekly design newsletter I follow (not on substack, it's been running for a few years already) created an index of his archive for subscribers to browse within the categories he posts about weekly. Does substack have such an option, or can it be added? It would create a way for subscribers to discover very specific content. I would personally highly appreciate such a feature.
I write on the internet's effects on society and politics, both in Substack and as a professor. Another colleague of mine is an economist of higher education. We believe that Substack represents an innovation in the information market, especially as a way for people to fund their information creation.
We would like to do a study on Substack to see what the Substack information market looks like. We *could* just scrape the information from the website, but would much prefer to cooperate with Substack in the endeavor, since we believe it likely that we will discover things Substack would like to know. Whom should we speak to about such potential cooperation? You can email me directly at cyberprof@pm.me, if you prefer.
My substack, lazybones.substack.com is a month old. It's for people who know they should be more active but just can't get motivated to exercise. So far I only have 50 subscribers and, although the open rate is good, there are few shares. I like the title "lazybones" because it's short and easy to remember but I'm wondering if my subscribers would feel that they'd be insulting their friends by forwarding it to them. Would I get more shares with a title like, "Exercise for people who hate to exercise.substack.com"?
Does substack have any plans to release an app? Do any other writers have any suggestions for keeping notes on the go? I often have ideas hit me at the most random times and places. I've used Notion for this because the mobile app syncs back to my desktop app, so I can fairly easily import into substack when needed....anyone else have any techniques that help them capture ideas when they're not somewhere they can sit down and write?
I didn't get to ask my legal question last week due to a schedule conflict. May I ask it now? A large organization accused me of lying on Facebook group and told me to take down the "lie" in intimidating language. I started my Substack to discuss it, but I was afraid of repercussions. The "lie" was not even specified. Because I was afraid of what they might do, I told my readers to stop leaving comments attacking them. And that did solve the problem but I lost my engagement. So I'd like to know what an org with big lawyers could actually do to me.
It seems that Mr Zuckerberg doesn't want people on FB to leave his platform and links to Substack writing aren't seen by most of the people who see other FB posts. Anyone know anything about this apparent policy and if there is any way around it?
I am trying to enable the subscription. It takes me to stripe, I've created the account, but when I sign in it takes back to substack and subscritions are not enabled. What am I doing wrong?
I want to ensure email sign-ups that they can become subscribers without revealing their identity to me. Can I point them to a substack page? Several have clicked through to "subscribe" then paused. Help me close the deal. Thank you.
I haven't published yet, and I want to change the title and subject of my newsletter. I can't find a place to do that. Somebody please tell me. I won't write and post until I change the name. Help!
I missed last week's Office Hours (the usual juggle). A question re using the Google Search Console: one of you very wonderfully guided me through the whole process, and now I can see a great dashboard of analytic information - thank you! Google sent me a note about a "New Coverage Issue" basically "Indexed, though blocked by robots.txt". Is this a significant problem or can I ignore it? If significant, how do I fix it?
Fun (at least we didn't go down like all the FB properties yesterday....)
Thank you all for being here for this week's Office Hours!
Our resources are here for you: https://substack.com/resources
Next week is my personal favorite Thursday of the month, Shoutout Thread. Come share what you're writing and discover more great writing on Substack. Don't miss it: https://lu.ma/shoutout
Talk soon,
Katie + Bailey + Jasmine + Rose + Kelsa + Kevin + Becca + Linda + Sergey + Alex + Ashley
A want to thank the Substack team for their efforts to make a great product. I have noticed with a delight that the post editor has improved, sharing popup is now much cooler, author's page is gorgeous. I'm leaving the thread and wish you a great day (although in Sofia is already a night). 👋
Hey all! Hope that everyone's having a great week and thank you to the Substack team for hosting these - they're incredibly helpful! We wanted to share Citizen Scholar here with the group in case anyone's interested in collaborating or subscribing. We're a team of writers that launched ~3 weeks ago with a simple mission in mind: to bring together a community of readers who value the study & discussion of important ideas that shed light on the past, present and potentially, our future. More precisely, we're interested in ideas that can enrich and improve our daily and civic lives (always with a positive & inclusive tone). We cover a book or a significant text/work every Friday morning (hits your inbox at 6am ET) discussing its key ideas and implications for our readers. As we mentioned, we launched in early September and we've seen a great response with ~300 subscribers so far! We would love to have anyone join us that enjoys reading & lessons from history, politics, psychology, classical literature & business. We hope to have anyone join us from this amazing community and we would welcome any relevant collaboration opportunities - thank you!
Hey Substack community, I write one fun, thought-provoking poem every week at hellouniverse.substack.com - do subscribe!
I recently did my first cross promotion post! It's an easy process, but do keep in mind, that if you're adding a co-author to your post, both of you should be in sync at the time of publication, as they have to approve their mention as co-author, and you are unable to press "publish" till they approve the request.
Really wish substack had made it possible to do this asynchronously - where you put their name in, and they get a request for it, but it doesn't stop you from publishing.
Thank you all for sharing your questions in Office Hours today! Bring your kudos to our Shoutout Thread next Thursday, and we'll have another Office Hours the following week.
I’ve been writing a weekly newsletter for about a month now and have reached over 100 subscribers! 🎉
Built entirely from scratch - with my first name only and new Twitter account starting with 0 followers:
https://healthandwealth.substack.com/p/100subscribers
My question is on deciding whether to switch away from anonymous writing. Currently I write with my first name only but am thinking about putting a name and face at some point. Anyone have any experience or guidance on this? Thanks!
Hey folks!
I write 10+1 Things (https://rishikesh.substack.com/) where I share 11 interesting stories finely handpicked by me!
I'm interested in cross-promotions and would like to connect with other writers!
In the latest edition of my newsletter, I talk about The Creativity faucet for generating new ideas, A man surviving with Iron Lungs, A climate-induced Hungry Island and Landscapes created using a photocopier!
Read More: https://rishikesh.substack.com/p/creativity-hungry-island-xerox
Has anyone experimented with audio posts? Wondering if this would increase subs for those that rather be read to (ie. Audible). Also, would audio posts live better on a weekly podcast or as stand alone audio on a post? Thanks all!
I would like to create an audio post with more than one audio file. Is that possible?
does anyone have any creative ways to market your newsletter?
Thanks again substack for hosting this. As always, I am down to cross promote and help other writers grow. Feel free to hit me up, you all rock! https://youtopianjourney.substack.com/
Hey all,
Just published my second post own Substack today, great to be here.
I have a question about the removal of the Google Site Verification section in Settings – does this mean that Substack is taking some action on their end to make 'stacks more discoverable to search engines? Be really interested to find out more about the SEO angle as Substack grows...
Thanks!
If you (or anyone you know) writes about aviation and/or music, I'd love to connect and talk about guest posting.
I'd love to connect with any animal welfare advocates on Substack. Anyone with a publication dedicated to education and welfare around animals, I'd love to shout out (and hope you'd do the same for me :)
I started a substack focusing on the negative stigmas surrounding pit bulls, but will be focusing on animal welfare more generally as well.
is it possible to restrict images embedded in our newsletters from being downloaded?
Hey all! Anyone else have issues with embedding YouTube? The Substack instructions say that the embed should just appear after pasting in the link, but it never seems to happen...
In any case, I write about books and news and things as a historian, and I just wrote about Amazon's new Astro robot if anyone is interested :) https://samuelklee.substack.com/p/hey-astro-meet-tocqueville-and-francis
My newsletter (https://swimpruf.substack.com/) recently became a year old and I started getting some unsubscribe notices, several of which said, "Billing Failed." I assume this is due to an expired credit card tied to the subscriber's account. How do others deal with this successfully? Do you reach out to the person and notify them, in case they didn't realize his/her card expired?
Absolutely love the experience on Substack so far (6 months and counting). Looking forward to the Substack Reader and poll functionality. The only longer-term question mark I have is the inability to raise prices (with inflation). But so far, I haven't been too concerned about that.
What does it take to become listed in the relatively short list of publications related to your tag? If the bar is extremely high, at least Substack could consider listing as an addendum the like-minded columns alphabetically—increasing our profiles and letting readers decide.
Here we go!
Hi all! I'm Sarah -- I write a weekly 'stack about children's books, raising readers, and how to build a culture of reading in your home: https://canweread.substack.com/about
I took the tip from Caroline Chambers about running a discount and did that this week to super disappointing results. Has anyone else experimented/had success with discounts? I'd love to hear about it.
Also, always up for collaboration with other bookish/reader-ly newsletters, or 'stacks about or adjacent to kid-related topics. I haven't yet found anyone writing about children's books or especially for people with little readers in their lives but have done collabs with other 'stacks about books and reading, which has been fun.
Hi there, who should we speak to about getting our novels published on sub stack?
I just read that it's #InternationalPodcastDay so anyone with a podcast as part of their newsletter has a good reason to tweet about it today using the hashtag, along with a link to your newsletter/podcast. Maybe you'll pick up a few new subscribers?
Hi all, I write a weekly newsletter called Womaning in India. I highlight one gender bias every week through stories of real women of India who I interview during the week. (http://womaning.substack.com)
The response to my newsletter has been very encouraging. I have nearly 1500 subscribers and my top post has over 10000 views. I'm thinking of going paid now, but not sure what it is I can offer to paid subscribers that free subscribers don't get. I absolutely intend to keep the free version going every Friday as before.
I have posted about this before and got some great suggestions - looking for more of those. Also, open to any collaborations with like-minded writers here.
Are there tutorials available to assist me in designing a pictorial banner for my blog, or maybe some kind of graphic? My blog is entitled "Admiral's Log", so some nautical theme, with a patriotic sub-theme, as I am very patriotic- would be what I am looking for. Any help would be so appreciated, and thank you for these most helpful and productive sessions, through which I have met new friends and been introduced to most interesting new blogs I would have never heard of had it not been for these sessions. My blog is: jimgeorge.substack.com; all welcome. Thanks, Jim
I am highly suspicious that the paid vs. unpaid subscription ratios provided by Substack aren't accurate. Anyone else get that idea? My open percentage is usually > 30%, yet my paid percentage is less than 1%.
Good morning from NY! Is there any way to create an email and send it to my free subs without it showing up on the homepage of my newsletter?
Any ideas on how to start a category for screenwriters??
Since it's so difficult to get your work out there. I'm not sure what it could look like. Maybe an audience of others screenwriters.
Hi! My substack is Life Mostly Full - http://www.lifemostlyfull.com/ - which focuses on philosophical and practical approaches to an overburdened and overstuffed modern life.
My biggest challenge is finding my audience. They're out there, as I have a nice core of loyal readers, but finding more seems to be hit and miss.
The most success I've found is finding communities that are related to specific articles I write and sharing them there in response to people asking similar questions to what I'm answering, For example, I recently wrote an article on what the scientific literature has to say about improving sleep habits - https://www.lifemostlyfull.com/p/what-to-do-when-sleep-fails-you - and I intentionally Googled for people who were struggling with a sudden, severe lack of sleep and shared it with them in the threads they created.
The catch is that this is a lot of labor per new reader. It seems to attract very loyal ones, but it's time-intensive.
Are there good ways to suggest to your current readers that they share your columns with others? Does that work well?
Does anyone send out their substack to subs who don't open it? If so, how did it go?
I’ve been enjoying Substack and am talking to a group of established columnists, and authors, about a collaborative series. Chris Best’s comments about allowing disinformation from writers has caused them to revolt. Help! We do not need another source of disinformation. Supporting Substack was a way of leaving content off Facebook for that very reason.
Hi Substack team,
I have couple questions:
1. Is there a way to send reminders to people who have not yet opened the newsletter?
2. I read a lot about how referral programs help grow a newsletter audience. Is there a way within Substack I can do this?
3. If I run Facebook / Google ads, can I create a landing page other than the welcome / about / post page?
Snipe rejected me saying I will have too many disgruntled subscribers asking for money back. I don’t know how they figured that, but is there another way to receive payments?
I recently learned a weekly design newsletter I follow (not on substack, it's been running for a few years already) created an index of his archive for subscribers to browse within the categories he posts about weekly. Does substack have such an option, or can it be added? It would create a way for subscribers to discover very specific content. I would personally highly appreciate such a feature.
I write on the internet's effects on society and politics, both in Substack and as a professor. Another colleague of mine is an economist of higher education. We believe that Substack represents an innovation in the information market, especially as a way for people to fund their information creation.
We would like to do a study on Substack to see what the Substack information market looks like. We *could* just scrape the information from the website, but would much prefer to cooperate with Substack in the endeavor, since we believe it likely that we will discover things Substack would like to know. Whom should we speak to about such potential cooperation? You can email me directly at cyberprof@pm.me, if you prefer.
Can't be here today. Would love a link to sending an invitation email. Is there a template? Many thanks.
My substack, lazybones.substack.com is a month old. It's for people who know they should be more active but just can't get motivated to exercise. So far I only have 50 subscribers and, although the open rate is good, there are few shares. I like the title "lazybones" because it's short and easy to remember but I'm wondering if my subscribers would feel that they'd be insulting their friends by forwarding it to them. Would I get more shares with a title like, "Exercise for people who hate to exercise.substack.com"?
Substack will you create a tool for giveaways/referrals to help our newsletters grow? I don't want to use a third party APP.
Does substack have any plans to release an app? Do any other writers have any suggestions for keeping notes on the go? I often have ideas hit me at the most random times and places. I've used Notion for this because the mobile app syncs back to my desktop app, so I can fairly easily import into substack when needed....anyone else have any techniques that help them capture ideas when they're not somewhere they can sit down and write?
I didn't get to ask my legal question last week due to a schedule conflict. May I ask it now? A large organization accused me of lying on Facebook group and told me to take down the "lie" in intimidating language. I started my Substack to discuss it, but I was afraid of repercussions. The "lie" was not even specified. Because I was afraid of what they might do, I told my readers to stop leaving comments attacking them. And that did solve the problem but I lost my engagement. So I'd like to know what an org with big lawyers could actually do to me.
It seems that Mr Zuckerberg doesn't want people on FB to leave his platform and links to Substack writing aren't seen by most of the people who see other FB posts. Anyone know anything about this apparent policy and if there is any way around it?
What do you guys think, is it better to send out issues twice or once a week?
I am trying to enable the subscription. It takes me to stripe, I've created the account, but when I sign in it takes back to substack and subscritions are not enabled. What am I doing wrong?
I am lost on howto publish anything on substack + how does substack work. U need email contacts to get started?
I want to ensure email sign-ups that they can become subscribers without revealing their identity to me. Can I point them to a substack page? Several have clicked through to "subscribe" then paused. Help me close the deal. Thank you.
I haven't published yet, and I want to change the title and subject of my newsletter. I can't find a place to do that. Somebody please tell me. I won't write and post until I change the name. Help!
So all my views disappeared. Where'd they go, any way to retrieve?
I missed last week's Office Hours (the usual juggle). A question re using the Google Search Console: one of you very wonderfully guided me through the whole process, and now I can see a great dashboard of analytic information - thank you! Google sent me a note about a "New Coverage Issue" basically "Indexed, though blocked by robots.txt". Is this a significant problem or can I ignore it? If significant, how do I fix it?
Fun (at least we didn't go down like all the FB properties yesterday....)
George
If we are moving a newsletter from another platform how do we import our email list?
where do I find information on how much Substack takes/charges writers on the platform?