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I've been hyper focused on fixing my open rate recently, less so on general promotion. But I've learned a few things that I think are extremely helpful. (I'll try not to get too into the weeds, but if you'd like me to, I can elaborate.)
1. Your total email list number is irrelevant. Focus on growing the number of subscribers of at least 1 star or more. These are the people that are at least casually engaging with your newsletter.
2. Validate your email list. Sometimes people make spelling errors when signing up. Sometimes their inboxes are full and can't get mail. Other times, bots and spam accounts sign up. There are third party services you can use to quietly ping email addresses and see if they're real and deliverable. I use zero-bounce to find spam accounts on my list. These invalid accounts artificially lower your open rate, which is important because:
3. Not everyone in your email list actually gets your emails when you send them out. You can see this under the "email" metric on your stats page. Even with a 100% valid email address list, you will probably NOT reach everyone on the list. I think this number reflects a statistic called "Dropped" emails. But I don't have enough data on this.
4. I also have reason to believe a low open rate makes your newsletter more likely destined for the spam folder of new readers, who have not yet marked you as a reputable sender.
5. This includes double opt-in emails. Double opt-in emails can also go to spam, which means those of you using them may be losing out on potential subscribers, unless email spam filters view your newsletter as reputable.
6. I don't know if this is universal, but I did an inbox analysis and found out that more than 70% of my subscribers are signed up with a g-mail account. This means that aside from the spam filter, I -- and probably you -- need to worry about Google's promotion folder. I post a brief instruction on how your viewer can sort your emails into "primary" at the top of most emails, and also in my about page.
7. In conclusion: PRUNE. I search for inactive subscribers by looking for people who have never opened an email, viewed a web post, left a comment, or shared, and joined more than one month ago. I send an email to them, to ensure they really aren't interested. Some email providers and devices have privacy settings that prevent email data from reaching you, so it always pays to double check.
David Gaughran did a piece about this and said headlines can also put you in spam - if there are any words that suggest sales, promotions, etc. (even things like "off" (as if it were 50% off) can push an email into spam territory.
I used to work for a TV station in buffalo and our sports department struggled with this a lot. Facebook ads heavily restricted distribution of all their posts about the local football team; it interpreted "Bills" as "dollar bills," not "Buffalo Bills."
This is helpful, Cole. Thank you for this. I've copied it into my notes. I have a good open rate, but I am certain there are emails that are just wrong. I thought Substack would report that back to me. I'll check out Zero Bounce.
With their free account, Zero Bounce lets you validate 100 emails a month at no charge. (I just now tried it thanks to your guidance, Cole).
Question: I'm not sure what to do with the addresses they put into the "catch-all" category. I have addresses with zero opens and are classified "catch-all," but I'm wondering if maybe they're legit and if "catch-all" domains are more likely not to reflect opens. Do you delete catch-alls?
I don't delete catch-alls. From what I can tell from Zero Bounce, catch-alls are addresses they're not sure about. I DO delete addresses marked as "abuse."
They also have a category called do not engage, or something like that.
Awesomely helpful, Cole -- thank you! I have pretty decent open rates, and I also regularly prune. It's always a little scary (unless I know it's a bot) but it's worthwhile.
I did a couple interviews and had a TON of sign ups over an extremely short period of time. Unfortunately, I saw my open rates drop from 40% to 15%. A lot of these new adds seem to be slowly opening up emails and reading, but some of them seem to have just signed up and forgotten about it.
I have a group of people who have never opened a single email. I went through each one and found 3 of them who had never even received an email (and they've been on the list for a while, so I know they should have received an email). So I'm assuming there was a typo of some kind or a spam email? I deleted those.
Also, for #3, I find that sometimes the reason not everyone appears to get my email is because I use sections, and some people have unsubscribed from specific sections. So if I send out something that goes in that section, I will have a lower send number than my total list because some have unsubscribed to that section.
I go to my subscriber list, and if it shows that a subscriber has opened 0 emails, I click on that person's email address, and it gives me their specific stats. The main one at the top is emails received, emails opened, links clicked. You can check those stats for anyone, but I was trying to remove people who weren't receiving emails at all, so I focused on the 0 opens group.
Substack, is there anything we can do to avoid being at the mercy of our email providers anti-spam protocols? Everything is random now, even your substack emails have gone to junk for the first time ever. My personal substack goes to main, other or junk depending on the week. It is disheartening to grow a large following but not be able to deliver to their inbox.
For what it's worth, the wonderful Tammi Lebreque, the Newsletter Ninja, believes Substack newsletters are more likely than most to get through to readers. But I agree that this is an all hands on deck situation.
Tammi is also a GREAT resource on all things newslettery. She literally JUST published her latest book yesterday on Amazon: "Newsletter Ninja 2: If You Give a Reader a Cookie: Supercharge Your Author Mailing List With the Perfect Reader Magnet"
One thing I wonder about is that since we all send from @substack.com, then it would only take a couple of bad actors to ruin the reputation of the domain.
This along with Substack allowing people to upload lists, which some bad actors may not have built legitimately, and the fact that Substack doesn't require double opt-in, might also lead to @substack..com being flagged for SPAM.
Love collaborating with other writers here: mentions in each other’s posts; trading places and writing for each other’s newsletters. Also, interviewing people from outside Substack who have expertise on a post I’m writing. Also: I now have old-school business cards and give them to people I meet.
Hi, Sarah! Great minds! I got tired of scrambling for paper and pen in my purse to write down contact info or trying to show my Substack account on my phone in a place with no Wi-Fi 😂
I had a great experience making business cards with vistaprint. They also gave me a great deal! Everyone I give them out to compliments me on the quality.
I will try with a friend of mine, who is also on Substack: we share the same interests, and we write in related areas (Intelligence, Investigations), so your idea of writing articles for each other's newsletter could work very well.
I also want to say a huge thank you to Substack for making me one of the featured writers this week. Double thanks to all of you who have checked out Cole's Climb from the home page these past few days.
I've been driving myself crazy trying to put out a bunch of new content for these new subscribers to check out!
One of the things I tried was using the video beta to create a kind of "movie trailer" for my writing. Would love to hear what you think:
Punchy and memorable! If you're thinking about incorporating video in the future, I'm a solid editor with an eye for finding patterns in piles of footage.
I write about coffee. So a few times a week I take a 10s video of me toasting my coffee mug. I post it and link to 4-5 social media followers who are not newsletter subscribers wishing them a good morning and ask them what coffee they're drinking. Link in bio, of course. That has been working. It is very targeted.
I've started scheduling in-person, outdoor, events where people can come and tell me what they love about coffee. Then the venues share my links.
I plan to use just 480p in my newsletter: the videos I will upload are just references/sources from interviews and such: not artistic, no need for high res.
Good eye, Bonnie! That is definitely my breath haha. Yes, a music residency in Silver Falls. I am originally a desert-dweller (from AZ), so I definitely understand where you're coming from.
Have you considered adding a tool that allows writers to create polls and readers to vote? I am expanding in experimental directions with my newsletter and would love to engage the audience in the decision-making process more directly.
Polls come up often here. I don't know to what extent Substack is working on them (if at all). I've sent out several surveys using Google Forms but of course it would be ideal to have that option as a native feature of Substack itself.
I am thinking of something similar, but hadn't thought of it being part of the platform. Was planning to put together a survey to send to some highly engaged readers, then send them a thank-you note after.
I am also here to beg substack for a bulk comment delete feature. I.e. banning a subscriber should also include the option to delete all of their comments.
I had to manually delete 300 instances of racial profanity from a spam account on a recent thread. I know the same person hit up three other substacks before they got banned.
Thank you so much! I love having community engagement and so far I've been really proud of how thoughtful substack commenters are. This has been my one and only bad experience. But I'm happy to hear there will be better tools in the future to stop comment spam like this!
I want to shout out Jan Peppler from Finding Home, who writes about belonging, the intersection of culture and mythology, and well, finding that indelible and illusive sense of home. Jan’s stuff is great, and you can find it all here: findinghome.substack.com.
Along with that, I wanted to celebrate the community that Substack creates. I don’t know Jan from anywhere except Substack, but we’ve exchanged emails and swapped ideas (I do satirical rewrites of Bible stories, so there’s some overlap). It’s really been amazing and surprising to find a community of peers and even friends on this platform, and I’m extremely grateful to Jan and others, who demonstrate that there’s a better way to internet. Rock on!
Hey, all. Been unexpectedly thrown into a flurry of cross-promotion, which is proving fruitful. Some I'm doing on purpose and some was entirely unexpected. Sara Campbell over at Tiny Revolutions plugged my newsletter in her most recent post. I saw her post come in, but didn't open it immediately. I was in the middle of something. Then I started getting all of these email notifications about new free sign-ups-- one after another after another. Still not understanding the connection I went to read her newsletter before I fell asleep and realized she had given my newsletter a very kind shout-out. I've gotten over 40 new subscribers since Monday, most of which I assume are from Sara because the sign-ups are linked specifically to the post she shared. Some are also probably from the last cross-promotion I did with Val over at Life Intelligence. Both felt so satisfying, unlike my social media promotion, which often feels like tossing a pebble down a bottomless well.
Anyway, all that to say, cross-promotions are great! Shout-outs to other newsletters you read and enjoy even if they haven't asked you to is also a sweet, sweet way to feed the ecosystem.
Looking at my posts dashboard I could see that the newsletter Sara linked to had over 30 free subscriptions that had originated from it, none of which existed before she linked to it. The newsletter that Val linked to only had 1 free and 1 paid subscription listed as originating from it, so I have to assume that Sara's promotion was the catalyst.
Hello! Are there any plans to improve the search function on Substack? On the Substack homepage, if you use the search box to search for newsletters about coffee, for example, using the term 'coffee', the result is a lot of newsletters that have coffee in their name, but aren't actually about coffee. I know this is quite a specific example and pertinent because my newsletter is about coffee, but I'm sure this is similar for other topics. It would be great if the search was context specific!
I like the category buttons on the Substack homepage, but they only show the top 25 most established newsletters. Any thoughts appreciated!
My readership is growing pretty slowly... at what point (# of subscribers) would you suggest it's time to turn on paid subscriptions? And what happens if you never reach that optimal number?
Turn it on now. Get a few friends to support your efforts and grow from there. I came out of the gate with a paid option, promoted to friends first and grew to 200+ paid.
I'm hesitant to turn on paid subscriptions, because once I do, I owe people content. While it's free, I don't owe anyone anything. The only way I'm going to feel comfortable being compelled to provide content is if I have a large enough audience to make it worth while.
The " forced" productivity may be good for you as a creator. I publish fiction on Substack every day and it can be stressful but the pace improves my skills as a writer and makes me more confident that my paid content is a great value. I don't know if my approach is Substack's preferred method but I don't think they can argue with the revenue I've created for them.
Yesterday I watched video of Tony Hawk coaching a very young girl who was frightened of a huge skate ramp. I was frightened just looking at it. One of his words of encouragement was "commit". A few seconds later she dropped in, and a few years after the video she won Gold at the X Games and/or the Olympics.
I have the same question re: when to turn on paid subscriptions. I’m looking to provide some small amount of paid posts, but the main value prop will be supporting the free posts. I’ve been looking at it like: let’s say somewhere between 1 and 10% of my subscribers go paid. If only 1% turn on paid subscriptions, would I be happy doing the work necessary for the paid posts? For me, I don’t want to overpromise things for a small amount of paid subscribers when I could be putting that effort into the public posts. Personally, I haven’t quite answered that for myself, which is why it’s all free for now!
Linda: post the links to your articles on social media: Twitter, etc, along with a short blurb. And ask your followers to retweet. On Facebook; groups related to your topics: same thing
At the moment I'm not on twitter because I really need to limit social media engagement for my own wellbeing. So, I'm doing what works for me (FB, groups, word of mouth, emails)... but at the same time it is slow going. I guess on the positive side, I'm getting a rhythm going -- without the pressure that paid subscriptions might result in -- to see what's possible for me to offer readers on a regular basis, while also still maintaining life balance.
Linda, I'm with you on limiting social media engagement. I have a friend with an excellent travel blog. She uses social media for promotion and her growth is slow too. I think it comes down to consistency and authenticity over an extended period of time. I applaud your approach!
Whitney nails it. I also find that what happens in FB feeds stays in FB, plus, as I think Jackie Dana noted, FB isn't showing our shared posts to our own FB friends....
Hello writers. Here's a cat mom from Ethiopia. I've found some creative folk on here last week, and we talked a bit about the role of illustrations in online writing. I just wanted to let you know that interpreting writing through a vivid illustration is one of my favorite things to do (apart from writing, that is). And I'm open to a collaboration with you, if you're into the idea
Hi all! First time on Office Hours. My target demographic is professional working moms. I've been primarily relying on my personal social media accounts, but would love to hear other suggestions for how to reach this group. I've been thinking about posts in targeted mom groups on Facebook (although some of those can get a little cringe...)
Hi Jessica, I'm Farrah from Substack. Welcome! So there are a couple of things you could try. How about commenting on other Substackers' posts who write similar things to you. I'm sure they'd appreciate the interaction, and their readers will then see you have a Substack. Have you also thought about interviewing individuals who have a large audience of working moms? They can then (hopefully) share with their networks.
What I have found successful to a certain degree is sharing links to specific posts when a related topic comes up in a FB group. So in my case if someone was asking about serial fiction platforms, I might share my post about that topic, and typically I get a few subs from that. It's tricky because it has to come across as a legitimate suggestion and not spam. So if you can manage being in a few of the better FB groups (which is a great place to find your audience) that could be a good strategy for you.
Hi Jessica, Please let me know if you would be interested in cross-posting sometime. My newsletter focuses on issues important to women more broadly, but I do write a bout maternal health and economic issues like child care. Check it out and see if you think we could work together!
Hi Jessica - So glad you are interested! I just subscribed to yours, too. I changed my format a little in January, so you might want to look at some of my articles from last year to see my long form writing.
Just popping in to say thanks again for adding the Version History option, as earlier today I tried copying and pasting a large amount of text before drinking an adequate amount of coffee, and replaced several just written paragraphs with “c”. The back arrow was of no use, but I was able to go back to the previous draft and rescue my morning’s work. Now, if Substack would just give us the centering text option, and ascending/descending option for previous posts (useful for serialized fiction), that would be great. Maybe someday.
Will there be action on these two REALLY important ideas?
The first idea is to allow Substackers to sort their posts/articles/threads by topic, so you could have a "science" column and a "politics" column and so on.
The second idea (even more important) is to allow a faux-paywall that allows you (like a normal paywall) to tease a few paragraphs of your article, but then to read further the reader (instead of paying) has to do a free signup. This might change the whole game when it comes to converting views into free signups; it could really change Substack for the better.
Also, someone told me this about a "quirk in Substack's system" that seems like it definitely should be fixed:
"Re: your data. It looks like nearly all your views are coming from your existing subscribers, which is probably one of the reasons why you're not seeing huge signups. There's a quirk in Substack's system that causes an email open to be counted if the email system refreshes. It's also likely, given the length of your posts, some of your subscribers are opening multiple times. But even including the views from emails, you still have 1000 outside readers. That's a big audience to convert."
In your Settings page, scroll down a ways (past half way) and there will be an Add a section option. Click Add New and follow the instructions. If you want to see what it looks like in principle, you can see how I have mine set up at https://groundedinthebible.substack.com/ The sections appear as headers at the top of the page.
Thanks! I have another big idea, which is simply to have a big super-convenient "dashboard" that allows you to adjust your "About" section and every single picture that you have and everything else in one simple and stress-free place; sometimes I feel like the status quo is like the space shuttle in its needless and stressful complexity with all of the bells and whistles scattered around.
People want to align their brand and image and aesthetic across all different domains, comprehensively and in one place and very easily; it shouldn't be like the space shuttle.
Another small thing is having a preview of how the image that you upload will be cropped; Instagram has that. Currently my photo is partly cut off, and I wouldn't have allowed that bad cropping to happen if there'd been an Instagram-style preview! :)
I have a suggestion 🤗. What if once a month the "Writer Office Hours" became a day when writers only post tips for other writers? There would be no questions or complaints, just tips about how to improve your newsletter. Here is an example of a tip I gave last week:
Here is a thing I learned recently: I used to have the simple rectangular "subscribe" button on my posts, but then realized that if you paste a link to your newsletter instead, you get a nice large box with the newsletter's one sentence summary and a subscribe field. It looks nicer and is more noticeable than just a simple button. Please scroll to the bottom of the following article to see what I mean: https://moviewise.substack.com/p/the-meaning-of-life
No worries! Perfectly safe assumption that I could get you in, since I brought it up. I'm just not great with discord. By the way, be sure you get yourself sorted into your appropriate category (fic/nonfic) as the advice you'll get will be very different.
Hey everyone! I'm scooping up all this great advice for my new substack 89% Unfiltered in which I review & reflect on books, beer & booze (I used to own a brewery and worked in the booze biz for years) and how my life as a 3-country expat while I was mom to 3 small kids made me who I am today (mom of 3 grown kids, author, former brewery owner, beer "expert" whatever THAT means). I'm treating this a bit like I did when I had a successful blog 10 years ago--social media shares, putting links to it in all my author promo newsletters but that's about it. I lurk on reddit and use bookfunnel a lot for my books so I'm eager to try all this out. I'm keeping mine free for the time being. THANKS again! I've subscribed to several of you today.
oh, I try to. There are authors there who have managed to monetize it but I firmly believe that it's hard to track actual sales v. "likes" on that platform.
Publishers Weekly highlights individual writers who have done really well there in terms of building a community. I'm experimenting (just like on Reddit) - so far more success with Reddit, but it's early days...
Just saw this - the aww subreddit is one of the most active places I've ever seen. If you are focused on the "cuteness" factor, you are destined for success :)
I signed up on Substack just 2 weeks ago. It works very smoothly, and it's very easy to write articles / newsletters, even with intensive multimedia content (images, YT videos, links) - great job! - and I agree that Substack is the best alternative to the toxic environment created by social media platforms - Thank you to Chris Best and to all the Substack team!
True, Sophie, it has an indie spirit, and I very much like that!
before signing up on Substack, I watched a number of video interviews with Chris Best, the CEO, and I liked what he said, and his spirit: "social media has made us angry and dumb". True.
I had a large audience on Twitter (164,000 followers, 72 million impressions in 28 days), but Twitter is toxic, some nice people, but also tons of trolls, bots, and idiots.
In one day, I had to block something like 3,000 trolls (wasting half of my day).
Substack seems to be the perfect antidote to Twitter toxic environment.
* * *
before signing up on Substack, I also studied the case of Glenn Greenwald on Substack.
(Greenwald: the Snowden affair)
In one article, Greenwald says that he now earns on Substack 3 times the money he was earning as a journalist for "The Guardian"...
That's pretty interesting.
I think the Substack business model is very smart, and very honest: I'm glad that Substack earns 10% of my income: it's fully deserved for the service they provide.
Any writers here in London, England? Do we have a Substack meetup / network here where writers will meet? It'll be amazing to exchange ideas, inspire and support each other
Is anyone doing a donation model? Meaning, you send all emails out for free, but have the paid option available for those generous souls who want to support the newsletter?
I know of a number of writers who do this, or mostly this (ie. all posts or almost all posts are unlocked). They say that the people who subscribe primarily do it because they love the creator, not because they're really trying to unlock more content. At first it seems strange, but the thinking goes that hiding your content behind a paywall may be an inhibitor to growth, whereas if you're the right kind of writer, a certain percentage of your audience will gladly contribute , just to show their support and be part of what you're doing.
Hi Cory, yes I went that route...mainly because I want to share my writing with as many readers as possible, but am also hoping to make a partial living off of this at some point. I launched in October and now have 820 free and 60 paid. The paid subscribers are so meaningful to me—knowing they could get it all for free and still choose to $upport the newsletter. Curious what results others are having with this.
Noooo sorry! I think I misunderstood Cory's question. I thought he was asking about people who make all their content free but have a paid subscription option. I don't use donation buttons.
Yes, you're right, that's what I meant. Paid option on, but giving all content away for free. The Pillar does this. I was actually a subscriber to them, long before I ever heard of Substack.
Donation model has its pros. The monthly sub fee is standard and people feel they need to be committed. Donation allows people to pay one piece of content and choose the amount. My concern is if I include the donation link in my newsletter would it appear tacking and put people off. I guess we need to change the mindset - Creativity should have value.
Yes, I've just started it on both of my newsletters. I have two annuals so far, no monthlies. It's within my comfort zone, so that's how I'll do it. I'm not famous enough for paywalls or shutting off comments. LOL.
In my Writer Everlasting newsletter, especially, I want my readers to feel as if they're in my living room, where we can settle in and talk, and making them pay to get in the door seems counter-intuitive.
I would love to see more paid support but then maybe I'd feel less like a friend and more like a proprietor, where I have to provide goods and services and establish open hours.
Whatever, this is where I am right now. We'll see what the future brings.
The annuals is what scares me the most. I’m committed for a year and maybe only have a couple of subs. I wish we could turn off annual and just do monthly. That is a commitment I could make. Lol.
I'd much rather just do monthlies, too, and was going to bring that up this time and completely forgot! I'll try to remember next week. I'm nervous about annuals but on the other hand it's a great motivator.
I gave it a lot of thought before I went with annual and monthly support payments, but I figured if I don't get much traffic and this all comes to a crashing halt, I'll prorate and return whatever little money I'd received at that point.
I've seen people include the "buy me a coffee" link. I also know people who run paid newsletters, but don't offer any additional comment, it's more of a "give what you can" situation
I am here to interview writers on themes from their posts (and the other way around) and mentions in each other’s posts. We can start with email interviews as they're quick, allowing well-thought out answers. And maybe we can solve the day's Wordle together after the interviews have been posted? If you too love the one-word-a-day, slow-pace of the game.
I don't do Wordle, but I like your idea of a written interview to get to know other writers. Please reach out to me for a videochat introduction. Easiest way to videochat me is on Instagram under @lononaut. Call me or DM me, and I'll call.
Hi! Thanks for help this week. Another question: Substack directory listings typically announce when someone has thousands or hundreds of followers. I'm not keen on this, honestly, because of the bandwagon effect that will likely lead to readers' disappointment, and would love a "best fit" approach, much as The Sample promotes. But, that said, my listing, instead of reading "hundreds of subscribers", says "The poor dear has been at this for 10 months" or something like that. Maybe I need more hundreds? Sorry, this is more of a comment disguised as a question. 😂
I asked the SS engineers to remove my displayed subscriber numbers, (even tho it’s in the thousands) as I hate the “followers/likes/friends” game that makes social media so f-ing toxic.
Yes! Substack is appealing to me because I'm sick of the followers/likes/attention pirating toxicity of social media. I hope Substack realizes that many of its authors feel the same way.
Frederick, you're a gem. And the more Substack can distance itself from social media, the better we will all be. Yes, I do realize I'm suggesting a paradigm shift, which is either prophetic or idiotic. Time will tell.
Exactly right! It was for this very reason I simply shrugged and sucked up the annoying displayed subscriber thing. But now that I've learned from a member of the community—that they created with these writer's hours!—that it can be removed... well I'm beyond thrilled. Thanks again. I look forward to reading more of your work.
It would be interesting to highlight people with a small amount of followers, who are doing interesting work. Not sure what the best answer to that algorithm is.
They are great — but they usually revolve around similar ‘safe’ topics and authors. If I see one more food-related SS I’ll choke
Unusual content like my SS, or anything else within the metaphysical community, (that is quite popular within the culture at large), is avoided or is (seemingly) considered too ‘fringe’. I’d love to see that change. Please contact me 😉
Hahaha! Thank you, Whitney, and I know what you mean. I always end up on my phone to add my emojis to my posts. Not that I overdo it or anything. 😂😂😂😂😂😱😬
I guess one needs to craft and implement a strategy to turn free subscribers into paid subscribers. I signed up on Substack on Jan 24. Began writing articles on Jan 26, just free articles, without paid option.
Now I have 370 subscribers, and I activated the paid option 2 days ago.
I plan to write 50% free articles, 50% only for paid subscribers.
I will try the strategy of writing articles with the paywall in the middle. I think it might work to encourage the conversion from free to paid subscriptions. I come from book writing: I've written 8 books until now, 4 have been bestseller on Amazon (in Intelligence & Espionage)
Craft a strategy, sure -- but also be willing to iterate. When I went paid I thought I knew what I would offer for free and what I would offer for paid. Turns out, you learn as you go 😊
Interestingly, I have had zero success with putting paywalls into posts. It seems the free people are fine with (or at least tolerant of) getting a portion for free and aren't inclined to pay to get the whole thing. I think it's very specific to each newsletter, though, so don't get too attached to what you think will work and just try different things.
Are the other 500 quite engaged? I'm just over 400, with 70 paid, and am blown away by the high engagement with the free...and why why why they won't cough up not even $5 US... Thinking seriously of doing something "fun" like taking pics of things they regularly purchase that are under $5, and having a wee series of such on social media, or a collage of such in a visual/email... Has to be humorous though, or it'll just be awful!
I just started publishing on January 14, and limited it to email lists I already had. Additionally, I personally text a couple of hundred people every Sunday after my piece goes live. These are people who I know personally and are fans of my writing in other venues. That, more than waiting for people to open an email they may or may not see with all their other emails, has been helpful for open rates - which are about 30% and holding steady. The next thing I did was take all my Facebook friends and put them into a spreadsheet, then sorted them by least to most likely to be interested. This is taking a while. The next step is to personally message the most interested, too. These are all people I know, and who already know me and my work. If you can't get your friends and colleagues to subscribe, you either have the wrong friends and colleagues or something is off on your newsletter. The next thing I plan to do is get in touch with people who have done a free sub, to get them to pay. That's the extent of my marketing plan at the moment.
Today, I posted three questions on this page. Not a single query got a single response, Please do a search on this page by putting in my last name, Gottfried, and see my questions. Your responses will be greatly appreciated.
I am not criticizing you. Although Your ideas and input is superior to those of substack authors, I thought it would be nice if authors, as well as substack personnel, attempted to respond to my queries.
I created an account and am ready to Substack-write. However, before I jump in, I could use some guidance on some particulars. Is anyone available to answer?
I have two business focus and a lot of interests. It's a question of the purpose behind my articles....seems everyone has a specific theme to their Substack.
If your two businesses are related then you could do them both on one Substack, but keep in mind you have to consider who your audience is, and whether the audience for one business is the same as the other. For example, if your businesses were dog grooming and dog walking, then they are related. But if one business was dog grooming and the other was catering, you should probably not combine them into one Substack if you are writing something that you would want to help build your business. However, if your Substack has a more personal bent and the audience is your friends and family, then it doesn't matter.
I started one Substack for my fiction and storytelling, and then discovered a passion for local history. I was putting everything in one Substack for a while, but it became impossible to explain what I was writing about. I split off the local history to its own Substack, and now everything makes sense again!
I have two business focus and a lot of interests. It's a question of the purpose behind my articles....seems everyone has a specific theme to their Substack.
Linda, I write on three themes but under one concept. You just need one overaching brand that tie all your topics together. It can be value, experience, passion etc...
What are your two focuses? there are a lot of substack writers who do a kind of compilation of what they're thinking about. I think you've got greater breadth of material but you're competing for more attention. The reason so many people niche is because once you find your audience, they tend to be easier to engage with
One is based on my podcast, Pressing Beyond and the other is spiritual (faith-based). As a professional writer, I have a completed manuscript that I would like to market. And the list goes on and on.....
Careers question here... I absolutely love what Substack has done for journalism and think it's a genuine game-changer for good. I'm a video / graphics editor by trade. Are there any plans to bring video to the platform, specifically behind paywalled articles? Would love to get involved if so.
Yes, you should apply to join the video beta program. My Substack deals with the outdoors and extreme sports, so I inherently have a ton of good video footage to use.
This is what the beta version of video looks like, if you're curious:
Hey everybody- I love to write, but suck at self-promotion... my page is a travel journal about my recent 85 day trip through Europe on trains, with only a backpack and hostels called Covid Insanity! Backpack and Bad Back EurailTrip '21 . . . so: I can't find it under travel . . . I don't use twitter- sorry - so, does anybody here willing to help/be hired to check out my page and help me get that bump to maximize it? If so, please check it out and let me know what you would need! Thanks!!!! https://steviericks.substack.com/p/welcome-to-covidinsanity?r=oi8r3&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
Is anyone else having trouble with the "Heart" feature? I've gotten more than one comment from readers today that they've gotten an error message when trying to "like" a post. And I'm actually having a hard time liking posts here on this thread — every third heart won't work.
Hello! This is the first time I'm in this event! I'm a Spanish Writer and I'm also First Gen, I'd like to know if it will be useful to run a Substack related to educational resources
Is it recommended to publish my post on my own website and Medium and Substack at the same time, for a new writer? I need to build readership from scratch. Any advice is appreciated!
Some people do that with great success. However, I have not had the same luck. I have a pretty solid following on Medium and used to do okay there, but these days my cross-posts have tanked so hard I stopped bothering.
Hi Maggie, I don't have Medium. But I am a new writer so I don't have readers. Thinking of it a way to build readers and bring them over to Substack which is my preferred platform as it is more personal
Another question: How are we to read the stats that Substack reports on the Publish page after a mailing? Example: "748 email recipients, 25% open rate", but under that "595 opens". How is that 25%? And then it says 601 total views. What is a "view" compared to an "open"?
Hi Stephen. The open rate refers to how many subscribers opened your email. So a 25% open rate means 187 people out of the 748 opened your email. If they only open your email and view it once, then your views would be 187 as well. However, some people will open your email to read it (view it) multiple times. So having 601 total views means that each person who opened your email viewed it three times, on average.
Put another way, if you have 10 subscribers and they all open your email, that would be a 100% open rate. If each of the 10 opened it twice, you'd have 20 views.
Also, Substack just posted today that the number of views has been incorrectly reported, so there's that, too. Hope that helps!!
I don't know exactly how long this beta phase will go for — but when they rolled out the beta in January they said it would only be a matter of "weeks" before it was rolled out in full. So, hopefully soon!
I was considering applying for the food intensive program. I have some drafts on deck and have a decent following on other platforms like instagram that are getting engagement and wanted to push people to a newsletter format here. Would I be considered a good candidate or does the 3 month minimum requirement take me out of the running altogether?
Consistency is always key. I am for once a week, plus the occasional extra. I want to known as a reliable writer for people. I do write in a faith category which has a lot of ups and downs for attracting people
I don't think there is any proven type of content that does well. It's all about the topics, the writing, the headlines, and how well the content matches the interests/needs of the audience.
I would say that to maximize your potential success, you should always aim to have a compelling headline (and a solid subheader), a compelling image, and a good hook to draw in a reader in the first paragraph. There are tons of articles and tools out there to help you craft a good email/blog post as well as tools that can analyze your headline.
Today the dashboard states that view counts have been adjusted to reflect a bug in double-counts. Does this apply retroactively, or within a certain time period?
Yes, but over what period? The entire time? I noticed an inflationary bump last November. I know all that matters ultimately is the subscriber metrics, but I was using mine as a gauge of relative trends and will now discard one of the metrics I've been tracking.
I am coming up to my one year anniversary on Substack (yay!) and I am wondering how my currently "comped" subscribers (I have paid subscribers, free subscribers, and about a dozen people I gave a free one year paid subscription to) will be notified that their complimentary paid subscription is ending. Although I have figured out how to edit the email that goes to paid subscribers informing them that their subscription is ending, I have not found anything for the comped category. Has anyone experienced this or does anyone have advice to share?
I haven't offered paid subscriptions long enough to get to this point, so I don't know exactly. But I do know in the settings that you can create specific emails for subscription renewal and subscription expired. The description says that the subscription renewal will be sent one week before the subscription expires, and the subscription expired email gets sent when the subscription expires. So you can control how your readers are notified that their subscription is ending.
My substack series, "Finding the Path of Inspiration," is going paid this week. Is there a way that I can edit the "Gift a Subscription" text that automatically appears as a subscription option? "Gift" isn't a verb - I would change it to "Give a Subscription."
I would love Substack to give us a better sense of the *overall* ages of Substack readers, as well as in specific categories. Some of the vocab is very Millennial, and may not have the same tone to Boomer, Gen X, or (surprise!) Gen Z readers. This matters if it turns out that Substack readers lean older. Or for that matter, younger. I can't stand "learnings" myself (sorry, Substack team) and hope it doesn't catch on. But I'm resigned to it sticking around.😂
Is there any way to make my Substack page searchable on Google? I've been hearing feedback that people have a really hard time finding my blog without a direct link.
Thanks Adam. Do you know how to do it? Ideally, I'd like people to be able to search/Google "De-Funk Blog Substack" or "John Luis Alvarez Substack", and the search would return my home page. But currently, it's nowhere to be found on Google
1. Verify your site in Google Search Console. Substack does not make this easy, as they’ve removed the ability to add the proper code in settings. However, if you are willing to pay the $50 for a custom domain, you can verify that way. This is the quickest and easiest way to ensure your entire site is indexed.
2. Barring + in addition to that, you need to have a backlink strategy. Google learns to trust your site and the keywords associated with it when already reputable sites link to your URLs. I use Help A Reporter Out to get organic backlinks that mention my name and the name of the publication, which it sounds like your goal is: https://www.helpareporter.com/
3. Think: Are people actually going to search “de-funk blog substack”? Or are people more likely to search “in a funk” or “how to get out of a funk”? Write posts that use keywords that people actually search, and you’ll see a lot higher traffic of people coming to those posts organically and potentially signing up for emails.
Substack has made it more difficult to get your site verified in Google Search Console, which is the best and easiest way to make sure your posts are indexed and searchable. One way around this is to use a custom domain and verify through DNS settings, though Substack also makes that difficult by charging $50 to even turn on that feature.
Another way around this is to try to get some high-quality backlinks from reputable sites with do-follow links. I’ve used Help A Reporter Out to answer requests and get some backlinks, which as helped with my search traffic a lot: https://www.helpareporter.com/
Hi team! Please forgive my extraordinary delinquency...better late than never I suppose! My name is Tom White (https://twitter.com/TomJWhiteIV) and I write a free, weekly newsletter entitled White Noise (www.whitenoise.email). White Noise is my attempt—via musings on books and bromides, psychology and philosophy, behavior and the brain—to comprehend the what and the why of the human condition. To delve deeply into the why behind our panoply of whats and to attempt to eke out a big helping of capital-T truth in the process.
My question is this: are there any plans to make a substack mobile app and/or improve email deliverability? The spam filters are absolutely killer!
No questions, just wanted to invite people to connect with me on Twitter [@theone_chiv]. It’s a different speed on there and I’m definitely more humorous.
I have some exciting cross promotion interviews coming up and I’m also doing guest posts. It’s been great collaborating with everyone. There’s going to be a lot of cool things happening this year. Hope you’ll join me.
Question: Is there a way to post something without emailing your subs? Sometimes I just want to add extra content and I don't want them to feel I'm showing up in their inbox too often. Thanks!
Debra, on each post, when you hit Publish, there is a little check box near the bottom that says Send Email -- it's automatically checked, assuming you want to send it to your subscribers, but if you uncheck it, you can simply post to your Substack directly.
Dear Substack: a few friends want to start a political substack on the EU's Foreign Policy. While we would welcome making the platform open to donations or subscriptions, most of the material would be on the "free list", and we'd also be reprinting some older material. None of us are "famous" even in our communities. What do you advise and does Substack still make sense? Is it possible within such a format to still get paid subscriptions from supporters of our project who don't care if much of the material is up for free? Do you know of any further avenues of publicising it ?
It seems as if you consist of a group of writers. With all due respect to the old adage that "too many cooks can spoil the broth," my newsletter frequently discusses foreign policy. Please take a look at it if you have a moment. I will try to remember to examine your newsletter.
Sarah, Bailey makes a lot of good points. My second question is this: How do I write to him. I see him identified by this Bailey @ substack. What is his PRECISE e mail address:
I've been hyper focused on fixing my open rate recently, less so on general promotion. But I've learned a few things that I think are extremely helpful. (I'll try not to get too into the weeds, but if you'd like me to, I can elaborate.)
1. Your total email list number is irrelevant. Focus on growing the number of subscribers of at least 1 star or more. These are the people that are at least casually engaging with your newsletter.
2. Validate your email list. Sometimes people make spelling errors when signing up. Sometimes their inboxes are full and can't get mail. Other times, bots and spam accounts sign up. There are third party services you can use to quietly ping email addresses and see if they're real and deliverable. I use zero-bounce to find spam accounts on my list. These invalid accounts artificially lower your open rate, which is important because:
3. Not everyone in your email list actually gets your emails when you send them out. You can see this under the "email" metric on your stats page. Even with a 100% valid email address list, you will probably NOT reach everyone on the list. I think this number reflects a statistic called "Dropped" emails. But I don't have enough data on this.
4. I also have reason to believe a low open rate makes your newsletter more likely destined for the spam folder of new readers, who have not yet marked you as a reputable sender.
5. This includes double opt-in emails. Double opt-in emails can also go to spam, which means those of you using them may be losing out on potential subscribers, unless email spam filters view your newsletter as reputable.
6. I don't know if this is universal, but I did an inbox analysis and found out that more than 70% of my subscribers are signed up with a g-mail account. This means that aside from the spam filter, I -- and probably you -- need to worry about Google's promotion folder. I post a brief instruction on how your viewer can sort your emails into "primary" at the top of most emails, and also in my about page.
7. In conclusion: PRUNE. I search for inactive subscribers by looking for people who have never opened an email, viewed a web post, left a comment, or shared, and joined more than one month ago. I send an email to them, to ensure they really aren't interested. Some email providers and devices have privacy settings that prevent email data from reaching you, so it always pays to double check.
Completely agree with you Cole. I’d rather have a small active group than people who don’t open.
And you’re right: low open rate will cause email providers to think you’re spam.
Bonus tip: spam filters rely on things called "chits" which are basically little data pieces about you, as an email sender.
The following things give you "good chit" that help you avoid spam:
-having your newsletter sender appear as a person's name (you can change this in your settings)
-having a previous newsletter with a high open rate
-sending AND receiving emails, which can be done by encouraging people to reply directly to your newsletter updates in their inbox
Things that give you bad chit, and make you more likely to be seen as spam
-having .sales or .info in your sender name
-having an inhuman name
-low previous open rate
-excessive links
-excessive high-data files like huge images
-only sending, never receiving mail
-rapid step-ups in mailing list size. I.e. if you add 1,000 people to your list over night
David Gaughran did a piece about this and said headlines can also put you in spam - if there are any words that suggest sales, promotions, etc. (even things like "off" (as if it were 50% off) can push an email into spam territory.
I used to work for a TV station in buffalo and our sports department struggled with this a lot. Facebook ads heavily restricted distribution of all their posts about the local football team; it interpreted "Bills" as "dollar bills," not "Buffalo Bills."
Interesting, Cole. I wonder how the new video feature will impact the bad chit (in theory, Substack says videos can be up to 20gb, which is massive).
yeah, I'm not sure about this one.
I ask my subscribers to click the like button, which helps to show engagement.
This is helpful, Cole. Thank you for this. I've copied it into my notes. I have a good open rate, but I am certain there are emails that are just wrong. I thought Substack would report that back to me. I'll check out Zero Bounce.
You have to pay to use it, but it's something like 20 bucks per 2,000 emails.
Also, keep track of the dates you validate to make sure you're not wasting credits by validating the same email twice.
With their free account, Zero Bounce lets you validate 100 emails a month at no charge. (I just now tried it thanks to your guidance, Cole).
Question: I'm not sure what to do with the addresses they put into the "catch-all" category. I have addresses with zero opens and are classified "catch-all," but I'm wondering if maybe they're legit and if "catch-all" domains are more likely not to reflect opens. Do you delete catch-alls?
I don't delete catch-alls. From what I can tell from Zero Bounce, catch-alls are addresses they're not sure about. I DO delete addresses marked as "abuse."
They also have a category called do not engage, or something like that.
Awesomely helpful, Cole -- thank you! I have pretty decent open rates, and I also regularly prune. It's always a little scary (unless I know it's a bot) but it's worthwhile.
I did a couple interviews and had a TON of sign ups over an extremely short period of time. Unfortunately, I saw my open rates drop from 40% to 15%. A lot of these new adds seem to be slowly opening up emails and reading, but some of them seem to have just signed up and forgotten about it.
Yes, some devices do have privacy settings that block the feedback data - I know this after I accused my brother of never opening my newsletter ;-)
That is so funny
I have a group of people who have never opened a single email. I went through each one and found 3 of them who had never even received an email (and they've been on the list for a while, so I know they should have received an email). So I'm assuming there was a typo of some kind or a spam email? I deleted those.
Also very possible that your messages have been going to their spam/Gmail Promotions folders.
Also, for #3, I find that sometimes the reason not everyone appears to get my email is because I use sections, and some people have unsubscribed from specific sections. So if I send out something that goes in that section, I will have a lower send number than my total list because some have unsubscribed to that section.
How do you find who has received an email?
I go to my subscriber list, and if it shows that a subscriber has opened 0 emails, I click on that person's email address, and it gives me their specific stats. The main one at the top is emails received, emails opened, links clicked. You can check those stats for anyone, but I was trying to remove people who weren't receiving emails at all, so I focused on the 0 opens group.
you can find out for sure by using this service: https://www.zerobounce.net/
but it sounds like it, yes.
Thanks. I'll check it out.
Substack, is there anything we can do to avoid being at the mercy of our email providers anti-spam protocols? Everything is random now, even your substack emails have gone to junk for the first time ever. My personal substack goes to main, other or junk depending on the week. It is disheartening to grow a large following but not be able to deliver to their inbox.
For what it's worth, the wonderful Tammi Lebreque, the Newsletter Ninja, believes Substack newsletters are more likely than most to get through to readers. But I agree that this is an all hands on deck situation.
Tammi is also a GREAT resource on all things newslettery. She literally JUST published her latest book yesterday on Amazon: "Newsletter Ninja 2: If You Give a Reader a Cookie: Supercharge Your Author Mailing List With the Perfect Reader Magnet"
She has a FB group for Newsletter Ninjas as well.
Here's a link to the Facebook group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/newsletterninja/
Thanks. I didn't happen to have them handy!
Happy to help!
And here's her Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/NewsletterNinja/
Thanks for coloring this in, Jackie! She's awesome.
I second (third, fourth, etc.) this! Several friends have informed me that unfortunately they're not seeing my emails :(
Strangers receive it, close friends and associates don't, so random.
I suppose an antidote to the randomness is to refer to ALL subscribers as my friends.
I came to ask a similar question. Thanks!
One thing I wonder about is that since we all send from @substack.com, then it would only take a couple of bad actors to ruin the reputation of the domain.
This along with Substack allowing people to upload lists, which some bad actors may not have built legitimately, and the fact that Substack doesn't require double opt-in, might also lead to @substack..com being flagged for SPAM.
Love collaborating with other writers here: mentions in each other’s posts; trading places and writing for each other’s newsletters. Also, interviewing people from outside Substack who have expertise on a post I’m writing. Also: I now have old-school business cards and give them to people I meet.
I got old school business cards, too! My husband hands them out all the time; I forget to carry them with me 🤦🏻♀️
Hi, Sarah! Great minds! I got tired of scrambling for paper and pen in my purse to write down contact info or trying to show my Substack account on my phone in a place with no Wi-Fi 😂
I had a great experience making business cards with vistaprint. They also gave me a great deal! Everyone I give them out to compliments me on the quality.
Yes, Vistaprint is so reasonable amd nice quality and also MOO.
Always open to collaboration!
Email to theflare@substack.com
Will email you, Chevanne!
Just subscribed. Love the concept!
Hi, Vicki, I just did the same with your page, love it!
interesting idea!
It’s so low tech, but it works!
it's a smart idea!
(many times high tech is dumb...)
*****
I will try with a friend of mine, who is also on Substack: we share the same interests, and we write in related areas (Intelligence, Investigations), so your idea of writing articles for each other's newsletter could work very well.
Thank you for the idea!
That’s great, Greg. It’s fun and you get a whole new audience looking at your work :)
I also want to say a huge thank you to Substack for making me one of the featured writers this week. Double thanks to all of you who have checked out Cole's Climb from the home page these past few days.
I've been driving myself crazy trying to put out a bunch of new content for these new subscribers to check out!
One of the things I tried was using the video beta to create a kind of "movie trailer" for my writing. Would love to hear what you think:
https://colenoble.substack.com/p/a-risk-a-rescue-and-a-crazy-idea
WOWZA! LOVE the movie trailer, Cole!
Punchy and memorable! If you're thinking about incorporating video in the future, I'm a solid editor with an eye for finding patterns in piles of footage.
That is a great idea!
Thank you! I happened to have a lot of really good POV footage from my hike, so I think it's visually interesting
I write about coffee. So a few times a week I take a 10s video of me toasting my coffee mug. I post it and link to 4-5 social media followers who are not newsletter subscribers wishing them a good morning and ask them what coffee they're drinking. Link in bio, of course. That has been working. It is very targeted.
I've started scheduling in-person, outdoor, events where people can come and tell me what they love about coffee. Then the venues share my links.
This is interesting. Thank you for sharing
Just wanted to say that the new video option (still in beta) is really, really good. Thank you, @substack for this new feature. https://onwego.substack.com/p/february-sunset
Great timelapse video, Bonnie! - just watched it
yes, I'm curious to see how the video feature works, I will certainly use it soon: from your page it looks good
Greg, I was really surprised. This is 1080. It uploaded with no problem. Early rollout of other video platforms couldn't do that. :)
1080p ?
That's really high res. for the web!
surprising that it went so smoothly
I plan to use just 480p in my newsletter: the videos I will upload are just references/sources from interviews and such: not artistic, no need for high res.
Bonnie! That video is stunning. I did one today, too: fogchaser.substack.com/p/meditation-006
Gorgeous! Makes this desert-dwelling Oregon girl homesick. (I'd like seeing your breath at 1:19, LOL). Were you doing a music residency?
Good eye, Bonnie! That is definitely my breath haha. Yes, a music residency in Silver Falls. I am originally a desert-dweller (from AZ), so I definitely understand where you're coming from.
Lovely video!
Thank you, Debra!
Have you considered adding a tool that allows writers to create polls and readers to vote? I am expanding in experimental directions with my newsletter and would love to engage the audience in the decision-making process more directly.
Polls would be awesome, especially in tandem with a discussion thread.
Polls come up often here. I don't know to what extent Substack is working on them (if at all). I've sent out several surveys using Google Forms but of course it would be ideal to have that option as a native feature of Substack itself.
I am thinking of something similar, but hadn't thought of it being part of the platform. Was planning to put together a survey to send to some highly engaged readers, then send them a thank-you note after.
I've been speaking with other writers about this. Some have started using google forms as embedded links
I am also here to beg substack for a bulk comment delete feature. I.e. banning a subscriber should also include the option to delete all of their comments.
I had to manually delete 300 instances of racial profanity from a spam account on a recent thread. I know the same person hit up three other substacks before they got banned.
Thank you so much! I love having community engagement and so far I've been really proud of how thoughtful substack commenters are. This has been my one and only bad experience. But I'm happy to hear there will be better tools in the future to stop comment spam like this!
Also, Bailey & Katie are the best!
I want to shout out Jan Peppler from Finding Home, who writes about belonging, the intersection of culture and mythology, and well, finding that indelible and illusive sense of home. Jan’s stuff is great, and you can find it all here: findinghome.substack.com.
Along with that, I wanted to celebrate the community that Substack creates. I don’t know Jan from anywhere except Substack, but we’ve exchanged emails and swapped ideas (I do satirical rewrites of Bible stories, so there’s some overlap). It’s really been amazing and surprising to find a community of peers and even friends on this platform, and I’m extremely grateful to Jan and others, who demonstrate that there’s a better way to internet. Rock on!
Hey, all. Been unexpectedly thrown into a flurry of cross-promotion, which is proving fruitful. Some I'm doing on purpose and some was entirely unexpected. Sara Campbell over at Tiny Revolutions plugged my newsletter in her most recent post. I saw her post come in, but didn't open it immediately. I was in the middle of something. Then I started getting all of these email notifications about new free sign-ups-- one after another after another. Still not understanding the connection I went to read her newsletter before I fell asleep and realized she had given my newsletter a very kind shout-out. I've gotten over 40 new subscribers since Monday, most of which I assume are from Sara because the sign-ups are linked specifically to the post she shared. Some are also probably from the last cross-promotion I did with Val over at Life Intelligence. Both felt so satisfying, unlike my social media promotion, which often feels like tossing a pebble down a bottomless well.
Anyway, all that to say, cross-promotions are great! Shout-outs to other newsletters you read and enjoy even if they haven't asked you to is also a sweet, sweet way to feed the ecosystem.
Looking at my posts dashboard I could see that the newsletter Sara linked to had over 30 free subscriptions that had originated from it, none of which existed before she linked to it. The newsletter that Val linked to only had 1 free and 1 paid subscription listed as originating from it, so I have to assume that Sara's promotion was the catalyst.
I quite enjoy the different views and ideas in this forum every week. It has become a good resource and a great way to discover new writers.
Katie does a great job with the Substack Go program. Well worth the no money paid.✌️
Agreed on all points!
New...very new.....to the Substack community. Overwhelmed and excited.
Welcome Todd!
hello! :)
Hello Vryn
Thank you Kelsa!
Hello! Are there any plans to improve the search function on Substack? On the Substack homepage, if you use the search box to search for newsletters about coffee, for example, using the term 'coffee', the result is a lot of newsletters that have coffee in their name, but aren't actually about coffee. I know this is quite a specific example and pertinent because my newsletter is about coffee, but I'm sure this is similar for other topics. It would be great if the search was context specific!
I like the category buttons on the Substack homepage, but they only show the top 25 most established newsletters. Any thoughts appreciated!
Thanks!
Thank you Kevin!
My readership is growing pretty slowly... at what point (# of subscribers) would you suggest it's time to turn on paid subscriptions? And what happens if you never reach that optimal number?
Turn it on now. Get a few friends to support your efforts and grow from there. I came out of the gate with a paid option, promoted to friends first and grew to 200+ paid.
I'm hesitant to turn on paid subscriptions, because once I do, I owe people content. While it's free, I don't owe anyone anything. The only way I'm going to feel comfortable being compelled to provide content is if I have a large enough audience to make it worth while.
The " forced" productivity may be good for you as a creator. I publish fiction on Substack every day and it can be stressful but the pace improves my skills as a writer and makes me more confident that my paid content is a great value. I don't know if my approach is Substack's preferred method but I don't think they can argue with the revenue I've created for them.
Good point Jimmy! I often think I have a fear of commitment, and this might be how it's manifesting in my writing.
Yesterday I watched video of Tony Hawk coaching a very young girl who was frightened of a huge skate ramp. I was frightened just looking at it. One of his words of encouragement was "commit". A few seconds later she dropped in, and a few years after the video she won Gold at the X Games and/or the Olympics.
You have already turned on paid subscriptions, did I miss something?
I did when I first started, but I disabled paid.
If you're talking to me, no I haven't turned paid on yet.
Sorry, no I was talking to Goodwin reads. No offense meant to you
That's pretty much how I'm feeling right now.
I have the same question re: when to turn on paid subscriptions. I’m looking to provide some small amount of paid posts, but the main value prop will be supporting the free posts. I’ve been looking at it like: let’s say somewhere between 1 and 10% of my subscribers go paid. If only 1% turn on paid subscriptions, would I be happy doing the work necessary for the paid posts? For me, I don’t want to overpromise things for a small amount of paid subscribers when I could be putting that effort into the public posts. Personally, I haven’t quite answered that for myself, which is why it’s all free for now!
Don't think like that, you will reach it!
Linda: post the links to your articles on social media: Twitter, etc, along with a short blurb. And ask your followers to retweet. On Facebook; groups related to your topics: same thing
At the moment I'm not on twitter because I really need to limit social media engagement for my own wellbeing. So, I'm doing what works for me (FB, groups, word of mouth, emails)... but at the same time it is slow going. I guess on the positive side, I'm getting a rhythm going -- without the pressure that paid subscriptions might result in -- to see what's possible for me to offer readers on a regular basis, while also still maintaining life balance.
Linda, I'm with you on limiting social media engagement. I have a friend with an excellent travel blog. She uses social media for promotion and her growth is slow too. I think it comes down to consistency and authenticity over an extended period of time. I applaud your approach!
Whitney nails it. I also find that what happens in FB feeds stays in FB, plus, as I think Jackie Dana noted, FB isn't showing our shared posts to our own FB friends....
They will like quality and consistency. Keep going. Linda, why can't I find your substack? Usually it says after our names what we write...
Thanks I'll take a look!
Hello writers. Here's a cat mom from Ethiopia. I've found some creative folk on here last week, and we talked a bit about the role of illustrations in online writing. I just wanted to let you know that interpreting writing through a vivid illustration is one of my favorite things to do (apart from writing, that is). And I'm open to a collaboration with you, if you're into the idea
Have to get back to you on that drawing. 😬
Yewpp ;)
I’ll shoot for an April feature just to give myself some time. Might be before then since March is a long month and I’m biweekly.
Hi all! First time on Office Hours. My target demographic is professional working moms. I've been primarily relying on my personal social media accounts, but would love to hear other suggestions for how to reach this group. I've been thinking about posts in targeted mom groups on Facebook (although some of those can get a little cringe...)
Hi Jessica, I'm Farrah from Substack. Welcome! So there are a couple of things you could try. How about commenting on other Substackers' posts who write similar things to you. I'm sure they'd appreciate the interaction, and their readers will then see you have a Substack. Have you also thought about interviewing individuals who have a large audience of working moms? They can then (hopefully) share with their networks.
What I have found successful to a certain degree is sharing links to specific posts when a related topic comes up in a FB group. So in my case if someone was asking about serial fiction platforms, I might share my post about that topic, and typically I get a few subs from that. It's tricky because it has to come across as a legitimate suggestion and not spam. So if you can manage being in a few of the better FB groups (which is a great place to find your audience) that could be a good strategy for you.
I have done this as well. If your post is specific to the topic, you may get a few reads and signups
Thanks, I like that suggestion because it feels more natural and less self-promoting... it's the Midwesterner in me ;-)
As a fellow Midwesterner, I concur. 😀
Hi Jessica, Please let me know if you would be interested in cross-posting sometime. My newsletter focuses on issues important to women more broadly, but I do write a bout maternal health and economic issues like child care. Check it out and see if you think we could work together!
Anna, I would love that! I'm subscribing now.
Hi Jessica - So glad you are interested! I just subscribed to yours, too. I changed my format a little in January, so you might want to look at some of my articles from last year to see my long form writing.
Thanks! Yes, I think you're right. I need to make a more direct "ask" for sharing
Just popping in to say thanks again for adding the Version History option, as earlier today I tried copying and pasting a large amount of text before drinking an adequate amount of coffee, and replaced several just written paragraphs with “c”. The back arrow was of no use, but I was able to go back to the previous draft and rescue my morning’s work. Now, if Substack would just give us the centering text option, and ascending/descending option for previous posts (useful for serialized fiction), that would be great. Maybe someday.
Thanks, Bailey!
Will there be action on these two REALLY important ideas?
The first idea is to allow Substackers to sort their posts/articles/threads by topic, so you could have a "science" column and a "politics" column and so on.
The second idea (even more important) is to allow a faux-paywall that allows you (like a normal paywall) to tease a few paragraphs of your article, but then to read further the reader (instead of paying) has to do a free signup. This might change the whole game when it comes to converting views into free signups; it could really change Substack for the better.
Also, someone told me this about a "quirk in Substack's system" that seems like it definitely should be fixed:
"Re: your data. It looks like nearly all your views are coming from your existing subscribers, which is probably one of the reasons why you're not seeing huge signups. There's a quirk in Substack's system that causes an email open to be counted if the email system refreshes. It's also likely, given the length of your posts, some of your subscribers are opening multiple times. But even including the views from emails, you still have 1000 outside readers. That's a big audience to convert."
For #1, this is the exact purpose of sections. You should check it out. They are great for sorting posts by topic.
Also agree that #2 is an EXCELLENT idea!
Can you tell me more about these sections? Sorry for missing that feature! :)
In your Settings page, scroll down a ways (past half way) and there will be an Add a section option. Click Add New and follow the instructions. If you want to see what it looks like in principle, you can see how I have mine set up at https://groundedinthebible.substack.com/ The sections appear as headers at the top of the page.
These are the very best suggestions I have ever seen on here.
Thanks! I have another big idea, which is simply to have a big super-convenient "dashboard" that allows you to adjust your "About" section and every single picture that you have and everything else in one simple and stress-free place; sometimes I feel like the status quo is like the space shuttle in its needless and stressful complexity with all of the bells and whistles scattered around.
People want to align their brand and image and aesthetic across all different domains, comprehensively and in one place and very easily; it shouldn't be like the space shuttle.
Another small thing is having a preview of how the image that you upload will be cropped; Instagram has that. Currently my photo is partly cut off, and I wouldn't have allowed that bad cropping to happen if there'd been an Instagram-style preview! :)
super agree with #1, and I hadn't thought of #2 but that's also an excellent idea. Substack should hire you to lead their app team immediately
Hah! Thanks! :)
See my respond to David Gottfried too; I explain my other vision for Substack to make it better.
I have a suggestion 🤗. What if once a month the "Writer Office Hours" became a day when writers only post tips for other writers? There would be no questions or complaints, just tips about how to improve your newsletter. Here is an example of a tip I gave last week:
Here is a thing I learned recently: I used to have the simple rectangular "subscribe" button on my posts, but then realized that if you paste a link to your newsletter instead, you get a nice large box with the newsletter's one sentence summary and a subscribe field. It looks nicer and is more noticeable than just a simple button. Please scroll to the bottom of the following article to see what I mean: https://moviewise.substack.com/p/the-meaning-of-life
I've found that the substack writers unite discord already serves this function. Are you a member?
It would be helpful to have a collection of tips on Substack itself.
Beyond their newsletter resources, you mean?
Yes. I've learned a lot from other writers, tips and tricks, advice etc.
How do you join the discord?
https://discord.gg/tVvnZfNMcC
I have zero recollection how I got in. I can find out for you though
Ignore me - I have been resourceful and managed to do it!! It was lazy of me to ask you in the first place. Apologies.
No worries! Perfectly safe assumption that I could get you in, since I brought it up. I'm just not great with discord. By the way, be sure you get yourself sorted into your appropriate category (fic/nonfic) as the advice you'll get will be very different.
This is why it would be better to have a discussion thread here on Substack "Office Hours" of tips by writers for other writers.
Thanks Kevin!
Just tried out the new native video feature and it was great! Going to brainstorm future video posts.
I uploaded a video too, it was easy to do for sure. I'll be adding them to the paid subscription posts once I switch that on, which will be very soon.
Hey everyone! I'm scooping up all this great advice for my new substack 89% Unfiltered in which I review & reflect on books, beer & booze (I used to own a brewery and worked in the booze biz for years) and how my life as a 3-country expat while I was mom to 3 small kids made me who I am today (mom of 3 grown kids, author, former brewery owner, beer "expert" whatever THAT means). I'm treating this a bit like I did when I had a successful blog 10 years ago--social media shares, putting links to it in all my author promo newsletters but that's about it. I lurk on reddit and use bookfunnel a lot for my books so I'm eager to try all this out. I'm keeping mine free for the time being. THANKS again! I've subscribed to several of you today.
Do you use #BookTok on TikTok? It is crazy active...
oh, I try to. There are authors there who have managed to monetize it but I firmly believe that it's hard to track actual sales v. "likes" on that platform.
Publishers Weekly highlights individual writers who have done really well there in terms of building a community. I'm experimenting (just like on Reddit) - so far more success with Reddit, but it's early days...
that said, mine are about 1/2 book tok 1/2 animals/pets tok!
Just saw this - the aww subreddit is one of the most active places I've ever seen. If you are focused on the "cuteness" factor, you are destined for success :)
I signed up on Substack just 2 weeks ago. It works very smoothly, and it's very easy to write articles / newsletters, even with intensive multimedia content (images, YT videos, links) - great job! - and I agree that Substack is the best alternative to the toxic environment created by social media platforms - Thank you to Chris Best and to all the Substack team!
Same here. I just started this week on Substack. Found it personable and decent. It has an indie spirit
True, Sophie, it has an indie spirit, and I very much like that!
before signing up on Substack, I watched a number of video interviews with Chris Best, the CEO, and I liked what he said, and his spirit: "social media has made us angry and dumb". True.
I had a large audience on Twitter (164,000 followers, 72 million impressions in 28 days), but Twitter is toxic, some nice people, but also tons of trolls, bots, and idiots.
In one day, I had to block something like 3,000 trolls (wasting half of my day).
Substack seems to be the perfect antidote to Twitter toxic environment.
* * *
before signing up on Substack, I also studied the case of Glenn Greenwald on Substack.
(Greenwald: the Snowden affair)
In one article, Greenwald says that he now earns on Substack 3 times the money he was earning as a journalist for "The Guardian"...
That's pretty interesting.
I think the Substack business model is very smart, and very honest: I'm glad that Substack earns 10% of my income: it's fully deserved for the service they provide.
Thank you, Bailey, and thank you to Chris Best and to all your Team!
I am truly grateful for the Genius invention you have created and developed.
Substack has a very balanced and well thought Business Model, and as Chris Best says: "social media has made us angry and dumb"
I agree 100%: Twitter & FB have created a toxic environment.
And Substack is the perfect antidote.
Any writers here in London, England? Do we have a Substack meetup / network here where writers will meet? It'll be amazing to exchange ideas, inspire and support each other
Is anyone doing a donation model? Meaning, you send all emails out for free, but have the paid option available for those generous souls who want to support the newsletter?
I know of a number of writers who do this, or mostly this (ie. all posts or almost all posts are unlocked). They say that the people who subscribe primarily do it because they love the creator, not because they're really trying to unlock more content. At first it seems strange, but the thinking goes that hiding your content behind a paywall may be an inhibitor to growth, whereas if you're the right kind of writer, a certain percentage of your audience will gladly contribute , just to show their support and be part of what you're doing.
Yes exactly!
Hi Cory, yes I went that route...mainly because I want to share my writing with as many readers as possible, but am also hoping to make a partial living off of this at some point. I launched in October and now have 820 free and 60 paid. The paid subscribers are so meaningful to me—knowing they could get it all for free and still choose to $upport the newsletter. Curious what results others are having with this.
That's awesome! I launched about the same time.
Anne, congrats on your progress? Do you mean you included donation link in your email?
Noooo sorry! I think I misunderstood Cory's question. I thought he was asking about people who make all their content free but have a paid subscription option. I don't use donation buttons.
Yes, you're right, that's what I meant. Paid option on, but giving all content away for free. The Pillar does this. I was actually a subscriber to them, long before I ever heard of Substack.
You can also use Paypal to set up a donation button and include in your newsletter
Donation model has its pros. The monthly sub fee is standard and people feel they need to be committed. Donation allows people to pay one piece of content and choose the amount. My concern is if I include the donation link in my newsletter would it appear tacking and put people off. I guess we need to change the mindset - Creativity should have value.
Yes, I've just started it on both of my newsletters. I have two annuals so far, no monthlies. It's within my comfort zone, so that's how I'll do it. I'm not famous enough for paywalls or shutting off comments. LOL.
In my Writer Everlasting newsletter, especially, I want my readers to feel as if they're in my living room, where we can settle in and talk, and making them pay to get in the door seems counter-intuitive.
I would love to see more paid support but then maybe I'd feel less like a friend and more like a proprietor, where I have to provide goods and services and establish open hours.
Whatever, this is where I am right now. We'll see what the future brings.
The annuals is what scares me the most. I’m committed for a year and maybe only have a couple of subs. I wish we could turn off annual and just do monthly. That is a commitment I could make. Lol.
I'd much rather just do monthlies, too, and was going to bring that up this time and completely forgot! I'll try to remember next week. I'm nervous about annuals but on the other hand it's a great motivator.
I gave it a lot of thought before I went with annual and monthly support payments, but I figured if I don't get much traffic and this all comes to a crashing halt, I'll prorate and return whatever little money I'd received at that point.
I've seen people include the "buy me a coffee" link. I also know people who run paid newsletters, but don't offer any additional comment, it's more of a "give what you can" situation
I am trying to get the Ko-Fi widget to work for the first time today and having great difficulty :(
I am here to interview writers on themes from their posts (and the other way around) and mentions in each other’s posts. We can start with email interviews as they're quick, allowing well-thought out answers. And maybe we can solve the day's Wordle together after the interviews have been posted? If you too love the one-word-a-day, slow-pace of the game.
Sounds good, I’m game.
theflare@substack.com
I don't do Wordle, but I like your idea of a written interview to get to know other writers. Please reach out to me for a videochat introduction. Easiest way to videochat me is on Instagram under @lononaut. Call me or DM me, and I'll call.
That sounds like fun! Do you interview all writers or just those in certain fields?
Hi! Thanks for help this week. Another question: Substack directory listings typically announce when someone has thousands or hundreds of followers. I'm not keen on this, honestly, because of the bandwagon effect that will likely lead to readers' disappointment, and would love a "best fit" approach, much as The Sample promotes. But, that said, my listing, instead of reading "hundreds of subscribers", says "The poor dear has been at this for 10 months" or something like that. Maybe I need more hundreds? Sorry, this is more of a comment disguised as a question. 😂
I asked the SS engineers to remove my displayed subscriber numbers, (even tho it’s in the thousands) as I hate the “followers/likes/friends” game that makes social media so f-ing toxic.
Yes! Substack is appealing to me because I'm sick of the followers/likes/attention pirating toxicity of social media. I hope Substack realizes that many of its authors feel the same way.
hear hear!
Frederick, you're a gem. And the more Substack can distance itself from social media, the better we will all be. Yes, I do realize I'm suggesting a paradigm shift, which is either prophetic or idiotic. Time will tell.
Bless you--seriously!
Did they do it? I hate this as well.
Yes.
I do love how responsive Substack is. I shall now send my request for the same. Thank you! (And I love what I've seen of your work, so far.)
I still can’t believe their level of outreach and engagement with the community. So impressive.
I’d become so accustomed to the impenetrable wall of silence that is Google-Facebook-Twitter
Exactly right! It was for this very reason I simply shrugged and sucked up the annoying displayed subscriber thing. But now that I've learned from a member of the community—that they created with these writer's hours!—that it can be removed... well I'm beyond thrilled. Thanks again. I look forward to reading more of your work.
It would be interesting to highlight people with a small amount of followers, who are doing interesting work. Not sure what the best answer to that algorithm is.
Yes, an algo that can accurately find quality over quantity has yet to be written :-)
They are great — but they usually revolve around similar ‘safe’ topics and authors. If I see one more food-related SS I’ll choke
Unusual content like my SS, or anything else within the metaphysical community, (that is quite popular within the culture at large), is avoided or is (seemingly) considered too ‘fringe’. I’d love to see that change. Please contact me 😉
You're not alone, Annette. Mine says, "The poor dear has been at this for TWO YEARS" 🤣
Aieee! 😂Okay, I guess hundreds means lots of hundreds? Or the algorithm hates us, Sarah? 😂
🤷🏻♀️ I don't take the algorithm personally...
A joke lost in translation. I'm a Brit.
LOL...
I second and love your idea of a "best fit" approach. Also, I'm afraid to see what my profile says. *laugh/cry emoji because I'm on a desktop*
Hahaha! Thank you, Whitney, and I know what you mean. I always end up on my phone to add my emojis to my posts. Not that I overdo it or anything. 😂😂😂😂😂😱😬
I'm curious, Rose.
I’ve slowly grown my subscription base to 600 free and 100 paid. What can I do to continue paid growth?
That's a good conversion rate -- keep doing whatever you're doing!
I guess one needs to craft and implement a strategy to turn free subscribers into paid subscribers. I signed up on Substack on Jan 24. Began writing articles on Jan 26, just free articles, without paid option.
Now I have 370 subscribers, and I activated the paid option 2 days ago.
I plan to write 50% free articles, 50% only for paid subscribers.
I will try the strategy of writing articles with the paywall in the middle. I think it might work to encourage the conversion from free to paid subscriptions. I come from book writing: I've written 8 books until now, 4 have been bestseller on Amazon (in Intelligence & Espionage)
Do you have any suggestion, Sarah?
Craft a strategy, sure -- but also be willing to iterate. When I went paid I thought I knew what I would offer for free and what I would offer for paid. Turns out, you learn as you go 😊
Interestingly, I have had zero success with putting paywalls into posts. It seems the free people are fine with (or at least tolerant of) getting a portion for free and aren't inclined to pay to get the whole thing. I think it's very specific to each newsletter, though, so don't get too attached to what you think will work and just try different things.
I agree: "learn as you go", looking at the feedback and being flexible is key.
And yes; I believe it is very specific to the kind of topics an author writes about.
I will try also the "cliffhanger" strategy - a cliffhanger before a paywall: like in a thriller movie.
Coming from book writing, it comes easy
>>> and thank you again for your advice!!
you have been very helpful, I appreciate
Are the other 500 quite engaged? I'm just over 400, with 70 paid, and am blown away by the high engagement with the free...and why why why they won't cough up not even $5 US... Thinking seriously of doing something "fun" like taking pics of things they regularly purchase that are under $5, and having a wee series of such on social media, or a collage of such in a visual/email... Has to be humorous though, or it'll just be awful!
I just started publishing on January 14, and limited it to email lists I already had. Additionally, I personally text a couple of hundred people every Sunday after my piece goes live. These are people who I know personally and are fans of my writing in other venues. That, more than waiting for people to open an email they may or may not see with all their other emails, has been helpful for open rates - which are about 30% and holding steady. The next thing I did was take all my Facebook friends and put them into a spreadsheet, then sorted them by least to most likely to be interested. This is taking a while. The next step is to personally message the most interested, too. These are all people I know, and who already know me and my work. If you can't get your friends and colleagues to subscribe, you either have the wrong friends and colleagues or something is off on your newsletter. The next thing I plan to do is get in touch with people who have done a free sub, to get them to pay. That's the extent of my marketing plan at the moment.
Good news from Google (!) When I searched for "Wayne Robins Substack," the top answer was the link to my Substack home page. FYI.
Today, I posted three questions on this page. Not a single query got a single response, Please do a search on this page by putting in my last name, Gottfried, and see my questions. Your responses will be greatly appreciated.
I am not criticizing you. Although Your ideas and input is superior to those of substack authors, I thought it would be nice if authors, as well as substack personnel, attempted to respond to my queries.
Generally, a bunch of us do, but keep in mind we're all just volunteering time. Plus we may not have answers to every question.
I created an account and am ready to Substack-write. However, before I jump in, I could use some guidance on some particulars. Is anyone available to answer?
What kinds of things are you needing assistance with?
I have two business focus and a lot of interests. It's a question of the purpose behind my articles....seems everyone has a specific theme to their Substack.
If your two businesses are related then you could do them both on one Substack, but keep in mind you have to consider who your audience is, and whether the audience for one business is the same as the other. For example, if your businesses were dog grooming and dog walking, then they are related. But if one business was dog grooming and the other was catering, you should probably not combine them into one Substack if you are writing something that you would want to help build your business. However, if your Substack has a more personal bent and the audience is your friends and family, then it doesn't matter.
I started one Substack for my fiction and storytelling, and then discovered a passion for local history. I was putting everything in one Substack for a while, but it became impossible to explain what I was writing about. I split off the local history to its own Substack, and now everything makes sense again!
sure thing, what do you need?
I have two business focus and a lot of interests. It's a question of the purpose behind my articles....seems everyone has a specific theme to their Substack.
Linda, I write on three themes but under one concept. You just need one overaching brand that tie all your topics together. It can be value, experience, passion etc...
What are your two focuses? there are a lot of substack writers who do a kind of compilation of what they're thinking about. I think you've got greater breadth of material but you're competing for more attention. The reason so many people niche is because once you find your audience, they tend to be easier to engage with
One is based on my podcast, Pressing Beyond and the other is spiritual (faith-based). As a professional writer, I have a completed manuscript that I would like to market. And the list goes on and on.....
Careers question here... I absolutely love what Substack has done for journalism and think it's a genuine game-changer for good. I'm a video / graphics editor by trade. Are there any plans to bring video to the platform, specifically behind paywalled articles? Would love to get involved if so.
Yes, you should apply to join the video beta program. My Substack deals with the outdoors and extreme sports, so I inherently have a ton of good video footage to use.
This is what the beta version of video looks like, if you're curious:
https://colenoble.substack.com/p/a-risk-a-rescue-and-a-crazy-idea
I love this. Thanks Cole. If you have any more info about the video beta program let me know.
Love your work too - consider me you newest subscriber 👍
Hey everybody- I love to write, but suck at self-promotion... my page is a travel journal about my recent 85 day trip through Europe on trains, with only a backpack and hostels called Covid Insanity! Backpack and Bad Back EurailTrip '21 . . . so: I can't find it under travel . . . I don't use twitter- sorry - so, does anybody here willing to help/be hired to check out my page and help me get that bump to maximize it? If so, please check it out and let me know what you would need! Thanks!!!! https://steviericks.substack.com/p/welcome-to-covidinsanity?r=oi8r3&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
Is anyone else having trouble with the "Heart" feature? I've gotten more than one comment from readers today that they've gotten an error message when trying to "like" a post. And I'm actually having a hard time liking posts here on this thread — every third heart won't work.
Hi Emily! Yep same here!
Hello! This is the first time I'm in this event! I'm a Spanish Writer and I'm also First Gen, I'd like to know if it will be useful to run a Substack related to educational resources
Is it recommended to publish my post on my own website and Medium and Substack at the same time, for a new writer? I need to build readership from scratch. Any advice is appreciated!
Some people do that with great success. However, I have not had the same luck. I have a pretty solid following on Medium and used to do okay there, but these days my cross-posts have tanked so hard I stopped bothering.
Thank you Kevin. That's what I did on Linkedin today :)
Hi Maggie, I don't have Medium. But I am a new writer so I don't have readers. Thinking of it a way to build readers and bring them over to Substack which is my preferred platform as it is more personal
Another question: How are we to read the stats that Substack reports on the Publish page after a mailing? Example: "748 email recipients, 25% open rate", but under that "595 opens". How is that 25%? And then it says 601 total views. What is a "view" compared to an "open"?
Hi Stephen. The open rate refers to how many subscribers opened your email. So a 25% open rate means 187 people out of the 748 opened your email. If they only open your email and view it once, then your views would be 187 as well. However, some people will open your email to read it (view it) multiple times. So having 601 total views means that each person who opened your email viewed it three times, on average.
Put another way, if you have 10 subscribers and they all open your email, that would be a 100% open rate. If each of the 10 opened it twice, you'd have 20 views.
Also, Substack just posted today that the number of views has been incorrectly reported, so there's that, too. Hope that helps!!
I think their data has some issues. I noticed that the numbers do not add up for my newsletter too
In my latest newsletter, which went out today, I did two new things:
1) I used the video feature (thank you for adding me to the beta of this, Substack!)
2) I gave people a free download of the song I wrote and shared.
I haven't checked the performance of this post yet, but hopeful that those two things will be engaging for folks.
fogchaser.substack.com/p/meditation-006
Hi Fog, do you know when will Substack roll out video feature?
I don't know exactly how long this beta phase will go for — but when they rolled out the beta in January they said it would only be a matter of "weeks" before it was rolled out in full. So, hopefully soon!
I'd love to know how that goes Fog. And glad you're enjoying video.
Thanks, Farrah!
I was considering applying for the food intensive program. I have some drafts on deck and have a decent following on other platforms like instagram that are getting engagement and wanted to push people to a newsletter format here. Would I be considered a good candidate or does the 3 month minimum requirement take me out of the running altogether?
Just wanted to encourage you to publish those drafts. Don't wait for them to be perfect, just get started! Best wishes to you!
hey! I was wondering how one gets featured on substack's main page? Is there an application process for this? just curious!
As always, we have a substack hype pod on twitter, it could help you get some new readers. Follow me @youtopianj and I will add you to it.
will do @caitlinmallery
I love your artwork. Just followed you with @OverThink_Sub
Thank you so much!
Just followed you - @fogchaser__
I'd love any data-driven insights you can share. What types of content seem to perform well?
FORMAT:
What publishing frequency, article length, images, headlines, or other format observations correlate with high engagement?
GROWTH: What kind of ROI do marketing efforts, like FB ads, have?
Are there other marketing channels that do well or aren't worth the effort?
What type of content is shared most?
Do shares correlate with subscriptions?
What's the average length of a subscription?
What's the usual reason for dropping a subscription?
CONTENT: What topic areas draw the most readers? What draw the fewest?
Here are a couple of headline tools I've used (be warned, it can take some experimentation to figure out how to get the most out of them!):
https://capitalizemytitle.com/headline-analyzer/
https://www.aminstitute.com/headline/
I just started using these this week
Consistency is always key. I am for once a week, plus the occasional extra. I want to known as a reliable writer for people. I do write in a faith category which has a lot of ups and downs for attracting people
I don't think there is any proven type of content that does well. It's all about the topics, the writing, the headlines, and how well the content matches the interests/needs of the audience.
I would say that to maximize your potential success, you should always aim to have a compelling headline (and a solid subheader), a compelling image, and a good hook to draw in a reader in the first paragraph. There are tons of articles and tools out there to help you craft a good email/blog post as well as tools that can analyze your headline.
Today the dashboard states that view counts have been adjusted to reflect a bug in double-counts. Does this apply retroactively, or within a certain time period?
Yes, but over what period? The entire time? I noticed an inflationary bump last November. I know all that matters ultimately is the subscriber metrics, but I was using mine as a gauge of relative trends and will now discard one of the metrics I've been tracking.
I am coming up to my one year anniversary on Substack (yay!) and I am wondering how my currently "comped" subscribers (I have paid subscribers, free subscribers, and about a dozen people I gave a free one year paid subscription to) will be notified that their complimentary paid subscription is ending. Although I have figured out how to edit the email that goes to paid subscribers informing them that their subscription is ending, I have not found anything for the comped category. Has anyone experienced this or does anyone have advice to share?
Linda, I *believe* (though am not 100% sure) the comps receive the same email as the paid, since you gave them a paid subscription for free.
I haven't offered paid subscriptions long enough to get to this point, so I don't know exactly. But I do know in the settings that you can create specific emails for subscription renewal and subscription expired. The description says that the subscription renewal will be sent one week before the subscription expires, and the subscription expired email gets sent when the subscription expires. So you can control how your readers are notified that their subscription is ending.
My understanding is that the comped people would get the same email as the paid subscribers. There's no differentiation.
I've been wondering this, too. Also, I would like more differentiation in stats, mailings, etc between comped and paid.
My substack series, "Finding the Path of Inspiration," is going paid this week. Is there a way that I can edit the "Gift a Subscription" text that automatically appears as a subscription option? "Gift" isn't a verb - I would change it to "Give a Subscription."
I would love Substack to give us a better sense of the *overall* ages of Substack readers, as well as in specific categories. Some of the vocab is very Millennial, and may not have the same tone to Boomer, Gen X, or (surprise!) Gen Z readers. This matters if it turns out that Substack readers lean older. Or for that matter, younger. I can't stand "learnings" myself (sorry, Substack team) and hope it doesn't catch on. But I'm resigned to it sticking around.😂
learningS??? What... My least fave word: pivot. I swear if I hear it one more time, I'll take a divot...
yes, that would be a lovely addition. A bit more transparent, I guess.
I can live with learnings, as long as they don't try to "incent" me.
Not to be confused with incense? 😂
Is there any way to make my Substack page searchable on Google? I've been hearing feedback that people have a really hard time finding my blog without a direct link.
I had to use the Google webmaster console to get some of my posts indexed on Google.
Even after that, I am getting more visitors from DuckDuckGo than Google.
Thanks Alex! So there's no way, that you're aware of, to get the home page of a Substack blog to be Google Searchable?
There absolutely is, but it’s much more likely that individual posts will be the entry point from Google search.
Thanks Adam. Do you know how to do it? Ideally, I'd like people to be able to search/Google "De-Funk Blog Substack" or "John Luis Alvarez Substack", and the search would return my home page. But currently, it's nowhere to be found on Google
1. Verify your site in Google Search Console. Substack does not make this easy, as they’ve removed the ability to add the proper code in settings. However, if you are willing to pay the $50 for a custom domain, you can verify that way. This is the quickest and easiest way to ensure your entire site is indexed.
2. Barring + in addition to that, you need to have a backlink strategy. Google learns to trust your site and the keywords associated with it when already reputable sites link to your URLs. I use Help A Reporter Out to get organic backlinks that mention my name and the name of the publication, which it sounds like your goal is: https://www.helpareporter.com/
3. Think: Are people actually going to search “de-funk blog substack”? Or are people more likely to search “in a funk” or “how to get out of a funk”? Write posts that use keywords that people actually search, and you’ll see a lot higher traffic of people coming to those posts organically and potentially signing up for emails.
Also, keep in mind, all of this takes months to years to bear any fruit. It’s a long game and it takes patience and persistence.
exactly - same here: Google doesn't like Substack
Why is that?
Check this article. Title might be misleading, given his final update. It seems that Substack used to have an option to do that.
https://rsilt.substack.com/p/how-i-got-my-substack-to-be-google
Its possible that google don't like substack... just sayin'
True! - I get more visits from DuckDuckGo than from Google! -- Google has become just a propaganda tool.
Substack has made it more difficult to get your site verified in Google Search Console, which is the best and easiest way to make sure your posts are indexed and searchable. One way around this is to use a custom domain and verify through DNS settings, though Substack also makes that difficult by charging $50 to even turn on that feature.
Another way around this is to try to get some high-quality backlinks from reputable sites with do-follow links. I’ve used Help A Reporter Out to answer requests and get some backlinks, which as helped with my search traffic a lot: https://www.helpareporter.com/
Hi team! Please forgive my extraordinary delinquency...better late than never I suppose! My name is Tom White (https://twitter.com/TomJWhiteIV) and I write a free, weekly newsletter entitled White Noise (www.whitenoise.email). White Noise is my attempt—via musings on books and bromides, psychology and philosophy, behavior and the brain—to comprehend the what and the why of the human condition. To delve deeply into the why behind our panoply of whats and to attempt to eke out a big helping of capital-T truth in the process.
My question is this: are there any plans to make a substack mobile app and/or improve email deliverability? The spam filters are absolutely killer!
Late to the party but still dancing. 💃🏽
No questions, just wanted to invite people to connect with me on Twitter [@theone_chiv]. It’s a different speed on there and I’m definitely more humorous.
I have some exciting cross promotion interviews coming up and I’m also doing guest posts. It’s been great collaborating with everyone. There’s going to be a lot of cool things happening this year. Hope you’ll join me.
How had we not connected before now?! I am @jadana17 by the way. 💃
Question: Is there a way to post something without emailing your subs? Sometimes I just want to add extra content and I don't want them to feel I'm showing up in their inbox too often. Thanks!
Debra, on each post, when you hit Publish, there is a little check box near the bottom that says Send Email -- it's automatically checked, assuming you want to send it to your subscribers, but if you uncheck it, you can simply post to your Substack directly.
Thanks Sarah!!
Dear Substack: a few friends want to start a political substack on the EU's Foreign Policy. While we would welcome making the platform open to donations or subscriptions, most of the material would be on the "free list", and we'd also be reprinting some older material. None of us are "famous" even in our communities. What do you advise and does Substack still make sense? Is it possible within such a format to still get paid subscriptions from supporters of our project who don't care if much of the material is up for free? Do you know of any further avenues of publicising it ?
It seems as if you consist of a group of writers. With all due respect to the old adage that "too many cooks can spoil the broth," my newsletter frequently discusses foreign policy. Please take a look at it if you have a moment. I will try to remember to examine your newsletter.
(by EU I meant the European Union)
Question: Who is Bailey @ substack ? Does he a substack writer or is he an employee or agent of substack. How might I write to him.
David, Bailey works for Substack.
Sarah, Bailey makes a lot of good points. My second question is this: How do I write to him. I see him identified by this Bailey @ substack. What is his PRECISE e mail address: