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What creative ways have you been promoting your Substack? Anything In particular that have helped you grow your list significantly?

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Thank you all for participating in the Office Hours thread! Our team is signing off for today.

There was a lot of great conversation around how writers are going their readership. You can read that thread here. (https://on.substack.com/p/office-hours-29/comment/4993856)

We'll be back next week to answer more questions and continue the conversation. Until then, happy writing.

Katie + Bailey + Rose + Kelsa + Jasmine + Farrah + Dayne + Joyce + Kevin + Evans + Chris

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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

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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.

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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

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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.

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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.

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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!

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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.

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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.✌️

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New...very new.....to the Substack community. Overwhelmed and excited.

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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!

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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?

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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

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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...)

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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.

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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."

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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

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Anyone’s stats gone completely loopy today? Just scanning through the last few weeks, my total views per post have suddenly fallen by between 30 and 50% overnight.

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Just tried out the new native video feature and it was great! Going to brainstorm future video posts.

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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.

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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!

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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

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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?

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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.

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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. 😂

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I’ve slowly grown my subscription base to 600 free and 100 paid. What can I do to continue paid growth?

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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.

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Good news from Google (!) When I searched for "Wayne Robins Substack," the top answer was the link to my Substack home page. FYI.

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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.

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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?

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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.

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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

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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.

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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

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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!

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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"?

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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

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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?

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hey! I was wondering how one gets featured on substack's main page? Is there an application process for this? just curious!

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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.

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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?

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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?

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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?

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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."

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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.

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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!

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