Have questions about publishing, growing, or going paid on Substack?
The Substack team, and your fellow writers, are here to help!
Each week on Thursdays, we’ll gather the writer community and members of our Community, Product, and Writer Development teams together in a thread like this one to answer writer questions for an hour.
How might you get your first 10 subscribers? Or grow to 10,000 subscribers? Some inspiration: In a thoughtful recent post Ali Abouelatta breaks down how they grew their Substack publication to 10,000 subscribers.
Wondering how to structure a going paid launch? To get started, check out our Going Paid guide. Your fellow writers in this thread will have tips, too!
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 PST / 12 pm - 1 pm EST answering questions with you.
Hi. It would be nice to be able to control what content a Free Subscriber sees when viewing a Paid post. If you added a tool to the editing toolbar that allowed us to place a marker in the post that controlled the point at which the content was "hidden" to Free Subscribers, that would be great. Sometimes we want to place a video teaser, an image or a paragraph or two to entice a Free Subscriber to upgrade. Right now there is not way to do that.
The "Stats" page has a "emails" sub-section that shows a list of emails and their individual stats.
Two things:
1) It would be great here if you could click on the top of a column and have it sort in ascending or descending order by that column.. So for example, see which emails got the higher open rate, or signups, etc
2) It would be great if you added a column for "paid signups" per email, rather than just have the free signups stats.
Some free subs that want to go paid are confused because when they click the "subscribe" button, they see the page that says "enter your email" and no other options. They figure they are already subbing, so they don't want to enter their email again, and leave confused.
It's because they aren't logged-in Substack on that particular browser or device.
There should be a clear way for them to figure this out from that page. Maybe some link or button on that page "if you are already a subscriber and want to log-in/upgrade your membership, click here".
I'm sure a better wording exist, but the problem is real that a certain % of logged-out readers will be confused and just can't find the paid options or even know they need to log back in.
Do you recommend pruning subscribers from your list who never open your emails, or haven't in a long time, in order to maintain your open rate? If so, what are best practices for doing this on Substack?
I have a high open rate but a relatively small subscriber count - while the former is certainly nice, do you have any tips for getting more subscribers? I'd be definitely ok with the open rate going down if it meant a higher reach.
Hello! I'm just here say hello and learn about what other writers are doing with their Substacks. I've been writing on Substack of just over a year, sending out a weekly newsletter analyzing the biggest policy developments (foreign and domestic policy) in India. It's been a great experience so far, and always looking to learn how I can grow the newsletter and provide more value to the readership. Thanks so much for doing these weekly office hours!
I write about startups, tech, and history which is relevant today. I have faced one issue: Some emails reach the primary folder while some reach the promotion folder - hence the open rates stagger a lot. How to solve this?
Additionally, are there any tools to interact with readers through polls in the newsletter?
Here's one that will make everybody happy: Crypto needs its own category.
It's taking over at least 3 others (tech, finance, business), and there's relatively little overlap between readers in crypto and those categories (ie. It is truly its own separate thing).
I know you don't want category sprawl, but the downsides are bigger to keeping it spread all around other categories than giving it its own (and crypto readers and writers will love knowing where to go to find it and see rankings).
I would love to hear subscriber growth case studies (and tips) from writers who share more personal work that doesn't necessarily fit into a clearly defined (or booming) niche like tech or politics, e.g. "Tiny Revolutions" type newsletters. Thank you!
I'd really love more resources guides for things on the business side of Substack that is shown to work for marketing, PR, click open the email, leave a comment, get more subscribers, shift them to paid. It seems the individuals are in a guessing game while the successful and established ones have figured out things that work and could help others. Just as an example, many put a photo at the top of the email before the text-- have they seen that makes people read more? What email subject lines work best to get people to open? What length of email is ideal for someone to read and absorb? What style of PR/marketing wording speaks to people who dont know substack? I have a lot of these type of questions and I assume Substack has seen the backend numbers from the big newsletters and could share with us. Thanks!
How would you define the niche for my newsletter, White Noise (www.whitenoise.email)? Currently I describe it as "A weekly missive in which I write about books, behavior, and the brain." Would love any input!
Thoughts on how to deal with an institutional subscription? I have a library interested in purchasing a subscription, but I am not sure how to go about it.
Big SEO question. With almost 100k subscribers, and daily content going back to 2019, if you google my name (Bill Murphy Jr.), you only get the home page for Understandably.com, and no individual posts. (There are 300+ posts, some with tons of engagement). I should rank for a lot of things, I think. Am I doing something wrong in terms of SEO? Is there a way to fix this?
I am hoping to go paid June 1, and really am wondering about it. Thinking $6/month. It's a site about writing (I've just left teaching in an MFA program for 14 too long years...) But am not sure whether to have a sliding scale--so many apprenticing writers are so broke! Or... various scenarios in my head. I have just over 70 signed up for free since April 21 when I started.
The question I've had is: Is there a way to email my subscribers through Substack without publishing a post? Sometimes I just have an announcement or something, but it's not really content for a post.
Is there a trick to encouraging comments on the newsletter? I brought my list over my mailchimp and most of my readers are used to that sort of static format. If they have a comment, they respons to the email and me directly -- so there's no community engagement. Does anyone have suggestions on how I can let people know that they can heart and comment on posts now?
Also, do they need a substack account in order to comment on the post?
Almost all my content goes to my entire free subscriber base of nearly 100k. However, the default in posts for me is “This post is only for paid subscribers." Let's just say that's ... um, a smaller group. Can I change the default setting (for the inevitable time I’ll forget) to: "This post is for Everyone?”
I would love to see updated/expanded information in the "Resources for Writers" section -- I have read every link multiple times and while I've absorbed the lessons from each as best I can, I find myself wanting more examples. Newsletters vary so much depending on the writer, the topic, the audience -- you name it and there's someone out there doing something different than the next person. I think Substack does a good job of trying to share the work of this community, especially in weekly emails to writers, but updating resources to offer variety once in awhile would go a long way to keeping things fresh for those of us who have been here for more than year, who publish consistently and are always looking for new ideas.
Is there a way to change the amount of money subscribers pay per month? Was wondering if there’s an option to put subscriptions on tiers the way Patreon does?
Hi Bailey, I have a question about paid subscription tiers. I have some subscribers who have already paid for an annual subscription, but they've asked if there's way to upgrade to the Founder level. It's made me think I'd like to offer something value-added at the Founder level and promote an upgrade for already-paid annual members. How would that work -- it seems the only way paid subscribers can upgrade is to go into their account settings? Or am I missing something? Thanks!
Thank you for the Ali Abouelatta post (and link) - I've been writing on Substack for a year now and (like Ali) always on the look out for new ideas to get new subscribers (free and paid). Although I prefer to be writing all the time, I get that I have to work hard at the promotion / awareness-raising aspect...
In the Dashboard, in the Subscribers section. When I want to filter the Subscriber list to send a targeted email to a subset of Subscribers and I need to have more than one filter, it would be very helpful to have the option to choose between "AND", "OR" and "NOT". The standard Boolean Logic operators.
For example: If I want to filter to create a list of "Paid" and "Founding" subscribers, I would need the filter to be "Where Subscription Type is Paid OR Subscription Type is Founding". With only the option of "AND", the filter produces no results. As it is, I have to send two emails out, filtering once for "Paid" and then separately for "Founding".
I realize that in more complex filtering situations, you would need to also provide for nesting of filters but, this kind of basic boolean logic in filtering would be much more useful.
I have a few specific questions so I’ll add them here separately!
I’ve thought of splitting my daily newsletter into 5 weekly newsletters (more focused themes, people can sign up for some, or all). Q: On the Account page, is there a way we could include the description of each Section on that page? Right now I think it’s just the name, so I think I'd have to make the name itself describe what it’s about.
How are categories assigned to the various Substacks? Is it based off of chosen keywords or is there some poor soul who has to review every single Substack and decide how best to categorize it?
My traffic is about 90% from Facebook and then 10% Twitter -- miniscule from the emails -- so why isn't Substack more helpful with Facebook to get new subscribers? I only see Substack use twitter and encourage us to use it too for growing an audience, but I don't see it as a way to get new subscribers or readers. Is there a reason Substack focuses on Twitter over Facebook? I'd love to get away from both but I haven't found a way to do that yet.
Beginner here. Do people ever use Substack for shorter posts? I want to be able to share brief reflections on things. Or is this platform more for Medium-type posts/articles?
I write about geopolitics, business and media - i know Substack is creating/fostering lists of writers to recommend if you already read someone’s newsletter - any tips ?
Hi, I'd really like to email an email list with an _invite_ to my substack publication. In other words, I'd like to opt them in, not out by auto-subscribing them. How do I email a list of folks with an invite to my substack publication short of creating a separate list on another service like Mailchimp or something? Or am I missing something obvious in the setup tools?
love every thing in writing magazine and thing honest working for good lies I hate lie through editing love seeing my work on shelve helping infotech and many more not an expert but learning isn't a crime true true go to school though online school book shelves truth truth truth on 100 truth
It may be because I'm a beginner, but I am thoroughly confused about several aspects of Substack. I don't even understand if the idea is to email the newsletters myself or through Substack, or to email them at all. I also seem to have managed to register twice, and without a password; afterwards when I was asked to sign in and indicated I didn't have one, I was told more than once that Substack would email me a link to create a password, but that never happened. After I posted installment #1, I posted #2 and #3, but those two seem to have vanished. It seems to me that IF Substack is a serious enterprise, it should have a live Help desk, whether by phone or email-chat. And finally: Is anybody in charge of Substack's spell-checker? I'm asking because every time I type the word Substack in this query, it is flagged.
I need no reward no recognition or no fame no name. I have more than everything that I need.
I want to write about the path to resolution and how the entire human species just needs to be in order and harmony just like all other species before the same.
That can only happen by understanding and the infinite power of aspirations and evaluation power of thoughts give every individual liberty and free will to understand as he wants to .
The reality of the form and the formless existing together is the same for all of us.
Instead of getting divided we need to unite and understand that either we all will live happily or we all will get annihilated as a species together by damaging the ecosystem.
The body is not the complete us and with out the body also we are not complete. Need some people with intelligent questions who are better with words to spread this all around knowledge holistically adding up all sciences learnt till now.
Is anyone else experiencing a glitch where your current draft and all previous draft histories appear blank? This has happened to me twice now and I've switched to Google Docs for my drafts as a workaround.
I’m a member of a group of four people that wants to create a new Substack publication. It’s a progressive non-hierarchical cooperative venture and we feel strongly that one person should not be listed as the “master” above others. We would like to set up an LLC so that any funds go to the coop, not to one person. Do we have to set up one person as the “owner”? Can we set up the LLC as the “owner”?
What is your response to the NY Times article that just came out about Substack? Are we to understand that Substack's policy is to allow anyone on it? Including someone who has been banned from FB or twitter?
My newsletter Wine Wanderings has both paid and free subscribers (6 months running now. )What has been the experience of those who have converted to all paid? How did they approach it? What was the conversion rate?
Hi everyone, I'm looking to interview writers about their experience creating and managing email newsletters as part of a UX project. Any help or insight you could provide would be greatly appreciated!
Thank you everyone for these great questions! And for answering each other's questions.
We are wrapping this week's thread but will be back next week with more.
In the meantime, we have lots of great resources for you here: https://substack.com/resources and in our own "Library" archive.
Happy writing,
Katie + Bailey + Kristen + Hanne + Lisa + Rishi
Hi. It would be nice to be able to control what content a Free Subscriber sees when viewing a Paid post. If you added a tool to the editing toolbar that allowed us to place a marker in the post that controlled the point at which the content was "hidden" to Free Subscribers, that would be great. Sometimes we want to place a video teaser, an image or a paragraph or two to entice a Free Subscriber to upgrade. Right now there is not way to do that.
The "Stats" page has a "emails" sub-section that shows a list of emails and their individual stats.
Two things:
1) It would be great here if you could click on the top of a column and have it sort in ascending or descending order by that column.. So for example, see which emails got the higher open rate, or signups, etc
2) It would be great if you added a column for "paid signups" per email, rather than just have the free signups stats.
Some free subs that want to go paid are confused because when they click the "subscribe" button, they see the page that says "enter your email" and no other options. They figure they are already subbing, so they don't want to enter their email again, and leave confused.
It's because they aren't logged-in Substack on that particular browser or device.
There should be a clear way for them to figure this out from that page. Maybe some link or button on that page "if you are already a subscriber and want to log-in/upgrade your membership, click here".
I'm sure a better wording exist, but the problem is real that a certain % of logged-out readers will be confused and just can't find the paid options or even know they need to log back in.
Do you recommend pruning subscribers from your list who never open your emails, or haven't in a long time, in order to maintain your open rate? If so, what are best practices for doing this on Substack?
I have a high open rate but a relatively small subscriber count - while the former is certainly nice, do you have any tips for getting more subscribers? I'd be definitely ok with the open rate going down if it meant a higher reach.
Hello! I'm just here say hello and learn about what other writers are doing with their Substacks. I've been writing on Substack of just over a year, sending out a weekly newsletter analyzing the biggest policy developments (foreign and domestic policy) in India. It's been a great experience so far, and always looking to learn how I can grow the newsletter and provide more value to the readership. Thanks so much for doing these weekly office hours!
I write about startups, tech, and history which is relevant today. I have faced one issue: Some emails reach the primary folder while some reach the promotion folder - hence the open rates stagger a lot. How to solve this?
Additionally, are there any tools to interact with readers through polls in the newsletter?
Here's one that will make everybody happy: Crypto needs its own category.
It's taking over at least 3 others (tech, finance, business), and there's relatively little overlap between readers in crypto and those categories (ie. It is truly its own separate thing).
I know you don't want category sprawl, but the downsides are bigger to keeping it spread all around other categories than giving it its own (and crypto readers and writers will love knowing where to go to find it and see rankings).
I would love to hear subscriber growth case studies (and tips) from writers who share more personal work that doesn't necessarily fit into a clearly defined (or booming) niche like tech or politics, e.g. "Tiny Revolutions" type newsletters. Thank you!
How should I go around finding subscribers for a newsletter I am just starting?
What timelines and methods have worked for you?
I'd really love more resources guides for things on the business side of Substack that is shown to work for marketing, PR, click open the email, leave a comment, get more subscribers, shift them to paid. It seems the individuals are in a guessing game while the successful and established ones have figured out things that work and could help others. Just as an example, many put a photo at the top of the email before the text-- have they seen that makes people read more? What email subject lines work best to get people to open? What length of email is ideal for someone to read and absorb? What style of PR/marketing wording speaks to people who dont know substack? I have a lot of these type of questions and I assume Substack has seen the backend numbers from the big newsletters and could share with us. Thanks!
Is it possible to upload a PDF file to insert into a post that readers can click and download? Thanks.
How would you define the niche for my newsletter, White Noise (www.whitenoise.email)? Currently I describe it as "A weekly missive in which I write about books, behavior, and the brain." Would love any input!
Thoughts on how to deal with an institutional subscription? I have a library interested in purchasing a subscription, but I am not sure how to go about it.
Hi, just want to thank Substack support, helped me sort through email delivery snafu last week (it was my fault, 😂)
Big SEO question. With almost 100k subscribers, and daily content going back to 2019, if you google my name (Bill Murphy Jr.), you only get the home page for Understandably.com, and no individual posts. (There are 300+ posts, some with tons of engagement). I should rank for a lot of things, I think. Am I doing something wrong in terms of SEO? Is there a way to fix this?
I am hoping to go paid June 1, and really am wondering about it. Thinking $6/month. It's a site about writing (I've just left teaching in an MFA program for 14 too long years...) But am not sure whether to have a sliding scale--so many apprenticing writers are so broke! Or... various scenarios in my head. I have just over 70 signed up for free since April 21 when I started.
The question I've had is: Is there a way to email my subscribers through Substack without publishing a post? Sometimes I just have an announcement or something, but it's not really content for a post.
Is there a trick to encouraging comments on the newsletter? I brought my list over my mailchimp and most of my readers are used to that sort of static format. If they have a comment, they respons to the email and me directly -- so there's no community engagement. Does anyone have suggestions on how I can let people know that they can heart and comment on posts now?
Also, do they need a substack account in order to comment on the post?
Almost all my content goes to my entire free subscriber base of nearly 100k. However, the default in posts for me is “This post is only for paid subscribers." Let's just say that's ... um, a smaller group. Can I change the default setting (for the inevitable time I’ll forget) to: "This post is for Everyone?”
I would love to see updated/expanded information in the "Resources for Writers" section -- I have read every link multiple times and while I've absorbed the lessons from each as best I can, I find myself wanting more examples. Newsletters vary so much depending on the writer, the topic, the audience -- you name it and there's someone out there doing something different than the next person. I think Substack does a good job of trying to share the work of this community, especially in weekly emails to writers, but updating resources to offer variety once in awhile would go a long way to keeping things fresh for those of us who have been here for more than year, who publish consistently and are always looking for new ideas.
Is there a way to change the amount of money subscribers pay per month? Was wondering if there’s an option to put subscriptions on tiers the way Patreon does?
How many newsletters should I realistically post a week? I want to get more subscribers but I don't want to spam my currently following!
Hi Bailey, I have a question about paid subscription tiers. I have some subscribers who have already paid for an annual subscription, but they've asked if there's way to upgrade to the Founder level. It's made me think I'd like to offer something value-added at the Founder level and promote an upgrade for already-paid annual members. How would that work -- it seems the only way paid subscribers can upgrade is to go into their account settings? Or am I missing something? Thanks!
Thank you for the Ali Abouelatta post (and link) - I've been writing on Substack for a year now and (like Ali) always on the look out for new ideas to get new subscribers (free and paid). Although I prefer to be writing all the time, I get that I have to work hard at the promotion / awareness-raising aspect...
In the Dashboard, in the Subscribers section. When I want to filter the Subscriber list to send a targeted email to a subset of Subscribers and I need to have more than one filter, it would be very helpful to have the option to choose between "AND", "OR" and "NOT". The standard Boolean Logic operators.
For example: If I want to filter to create a list of "Paid" and "Founding" subscribers, I would need the filter to be "Where Subscription Type is Paid OR Subscription Type is Founding". With only the option of "AND", the filter produces no results. As it is, I have to send two emails out, filtering once for "Paid" and then separately for "Founding".
I realize that in more complex filtering situations, you would need to also provide for nesting of filters but, this kind of basic boolean logic in filtering would be much more useful.
I have a few specific questions so I’ll add them here separately!
I’ve thought of splitting my daily newsletter into 5 weekly newsletters (more focused themes, people can sign up for some, or all). Q: On the Account page, is there a way we could include the description of each Section on that page? Right now I think it’s just the name, so I think I'd have to make the name itself describe what it’s about.
Q: Is there a way to publish an article on the website, but not have it send by email to subscribers? Thanks.
How are categories assigned to the various Substacks? Is it based off of chosen keywords or is there some poor soul who has to review every single Substack and decide how best to categorize it?
Psyched
My traffic is about 90% from Facebook and then 10% Twitter -- miniscule from the emails -- so why isn't Substack more helpful with Facebook to get new subscribers? I only see Substack use twitter and encourage us to use it too for growing an audience, but I don't see it as a way to get new subscribers or readers. Is there a reason Substack focuses on Twitter over Facebook? I'd love to get away from both but I haven't found a way to do that yet.
Beginner here. Do people ever use Substack for shorter posts? I want to be able to share brief reflections on things. Or is this platform more for Medium-type posts/articles?
If someone reads your posts via the Substack Reader is that counted as an ‘open’ in your stats?
I write about geopolitics, business and media - i know Substack is creating/fostering lists of writers to recommend if you already read someone’s newsletter - any tips ?
Hi, I'd really like to email an email list with an _invite_ to my substack publication. In other words, I'd like to opt them in, not out by auto-subscribing them. How do I email a list of folks with an invite to my substack publication short of creating a separate list on another service like Mailchimp or something? Or am I missing something obvious in the setup tools?
Can we eliminate the "free" option on our subscription button?
We all know we can add subscribers if we want for free...
but our aim is to encourage paying subscribers - right?
And, I’m starting to get spam comments. Is there a way to delete all past comments from a specific user? Here’s an example. https://www.understandably.com/p/oxygen-is-a-hell-of-a-drug
love every thing in writing magazine and thing honest working for good lies I hate lie through editing love seeing my work on shelve helping infotech and many more not an expert but learning isn't a crime true true go to school though online school book shelves truth truth truth on 100 truth
It may be because I'm a beginner, but I am thoroughly confused about several aspects of Substack. I don't even understand if the idea is to email the newsletters myself or through Substack, or to email them at all. I also seem to have managed to register twice, and without a password; afterwards when I was asked to sign in and indicated I didn't have one, I was told more than once that Substack would email me a link to create a password, but that never happened. After I posted installment #1, I posted #2 and #3, but those two seem to have vanished. It seems to me that IF Substack is a serious enterprise, it should have a live Help desk, whether by phone or email-chat. And finally: Is anybody in charge of Substack's spell-checker? I'm asking because every time I type the word Substack in this query, it is flagged.
I need no reward no recognition or no fame no name. I have more than everything that I need.
I want to write about the path to resolution and how the entire human species just needs to be in order and harmony just like all other species before the same.
That can only happen by understanding and the infinite power of aspirations and evaluation power of thoughts give every individual liberty and free will to understand as he wants to .
The reality of the form and the formless existing together is the same for all of us.
Instead of getting divided we need to unite and understand that either we all will live happily or we all will get annihilated as a species together by damaging the ecosystem.
The body is not the complete us and with out the body also we are not complete. Need some people with intelligent questions who are better with words to spread this all around knowledge holistically adding up all sciences learnt till now.
www.howtogivemore.com.
is my small attempt and I can help clarify and give information to anyone who wants to present it in his way to spread the knowledge.
Sorry if I sound like ranting or not connecting my dots properly.
Substack can be a great medium for the same.
Is anyone else experiencing a glitch where your current draft and all previous draft histories appear blank? This has happened to me twice now and I've switched to Google Docs for my drafts as a workaround.
I don’t know how to use sections. When I try to move old posts to the sections. They do not reflect in the appropriate section.
I’m a member of a group of four people that wants to create a new Substack publication. It’s a progressive non-hierarchical cooperative venture and we feel strongly that one person should not be listed as the “master” above others. We would like to set up an LLC so that any funds go to the coop, not to one person. Do we have to set up one person as the “owner”? Can we set up the LLC as the “owner”?
What is your response to the NY Times article that just came out about Substack? Are we to understand that Substack's policy is to allow anyone on it? Including someone who has been banned from FB or twitter?
My newsletter Wine Wanderings has both paid and free subscribers (6 months running now. )What has been the experience of those who have converted to all paid? How did they approach it? What was the conversion rate?
Hi
I am very new to this platform. Just want to know that after creating the account here, how to go ahead ? From where to get subscribers ?
Hi everyone, I'm looking to interview writers about their experience creating and managing email newsletters as part of a UX project. Any help or insight you could provide would be greatly appreciated!
The Calendly link is below: https://calendly.com/nicholson-david830/15min
After confirmation, I'll set up a Zoom link.
Also... Is there any reason not to republish on, for example, medium.com?
Hi. I have a very low open rate (30%). Does this suggest emails are not getting through? Anything I can do about it? Thanks.