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👋 Roll call 👋

Who's new here? Reply to this comment and tell us what's on your mind. We look forward to meeting you.

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🎥 How's everyone feeling about Tik Tok?

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That's a wrap on Office Hours for today. We officially have one full year of Office Hours in the books! Thank you for showing up and creating this space with us.

We'll be back next week and will carve out some extra time to talk about podcasting and audio tools. More to come soon.

See you next time,

Katie, Bailey, Kelsa, Jasmine, Zoe, Dominik, Nikhil, Jairaj, Jonathan, Sam, and Jessica

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Just reflecting on how much vulnerability and courage it takes to keep showing up, keep sharing, and keep putting yourself and your writing out there, regardless of how it goes or performs or reaches people... reminding myself of this, which means I know others may need it too. It is no easy thing to keep going and yet here we are.

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Hey everyone! So close to 100 subscribers! But it's important that they are engaged, so here are some tips!

1. Ask questions, seek feedback in the post. Consider a standalone fortnightly chillax discussion thread.

2. Look at your peaks in your visitor stats and see which days do better and try to schedule your best work then.

3. Subscribe and engage only to what you can commit. I would prioritize subscribing to and contributing to a small Substack that's just starting out.

4. Once a community is formed, seek collaboration. Maybe do a cross-post, text interview, or even podcast interview?

5. It's not a race, so grow at a pace that's comfortable and sustainable!

Good luck, folks!

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Good morning! Here is this week's encouragement from one tiny newsletter to all of you: Keep Writing! The more consistent you are, the more the ones who need you will find you. "Engagement" isn't the best measure of readership, because sometimes the ones who love you most won't know how to tell you in a comment. Build a community, not just a collection of readers. It may be small at first, but it will grow. Focus on your passions, your interests, your goals, and your true fans will show up. Most importantly: don't give up!! 🌿

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It's been a year I joined substack and a year these threads have opened countless introductions and friendships for so many of us. Kudos to the substack team for enabling people to form meaningful connections. 🎉🎉🎉

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Slow and steady is good advice. I am approaching my two year mark on Substack and just passed 500 subscribers (11 paid.) Which I think is pretty good for a fiction/humor/creative writing newsletter by an unknown writer. I have learned some hard lessons along the way.

First, don't overcommit and burnout. Find a comfortable pace and (if possible with your type of newsletter) schedule a buffer of newsletters in advance so you won't feel the pressure of deadlines.

Second, more is not always better. Many people are reaching over-saturation of newsletters. Offering them more frequent newsletters as a paid benefit may not be the best strategy. Quality will keep them coming back, not quantity.

Build a community. Respond to comments. Do threads. Sure, if you have 50,000 readers, you probably can't respond to every comment. But for us mortals, it helps. Besides, comments are my favorite part of Substack.

Anyway, thanks Substack for creating a great platform for indie publishing.

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hello everyone! this is my first "office hours". i'm wondering if there are any other musicians or songwriters out there who are using video/podcast features to share their demos or work in progress? this is something i've been enjoying a lot with substack.

i started my newsletter about two months ago and i honestly can't believe i didn't do it sooner. every time Monday rolls around when I get to write and schedule, it always feels like a treat. maybe i'm still in the "honeymoon" stages of this project, but having something i'm so ~into~ even only at 25 subscribers feels great.

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Celebrating that my readership more than doubled (from 61 to 131) in the last few weeks because a mentor (with 500K followers on fb) shared this post of mine. I am so grateful to her for seeing what I'm trying to share.

https://sarahkmongrowinghearths.substack.com/p/the-paradigm-shift?s=w

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I'm slowly exploring more and more substack functionality. I clicked the button to set up a podcast and it was scary easy. I haven't, you know, done anything with it yet. My goal is to keep it bare bones and mostly as a way to improve my speaking and especially speaking off-the-cuff. My goal is to have a topic and some basic notes and speak for 10 minutes about it and try to minimize the "ums" and "uhs".

Still thinking about the right content for it and my topic area, but it feels good to explore multiple formats.

I've only been on substack for a month or so but cheers on the office hours anniversary! God bless!

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I just wanted to express appreciation for Substack, in the sense that I am happy to be able to put something out in the world without having to go through the painful process of pitching to editors at various publications. I have been both a freelancer crossing my fingers and toes that my pitch is the right story for the right time for the right publication, and I've also been a magazine editor and had to decline awesome pitches because there just wasn't room in our editorial calendar or we had recently included something on a similar topic. I'm really grateful that I can publish something consistently on Substack without barriers (albeit with my small audience) without having to go through that process. Thanks Substack!

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Hello. I’m new to Substack and Office Hours! So far, I’ve gathered most of my (small) readership through my accounts on Instagram. But I’m looking to discover new ways of connecting with readers and writers.

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Great to see the new categories, any chance of a Video Games (ideally the actually correct ‘Videogames’ but I’m not picky) one? We are growing in number and being ghettoised within Technology means we’re up against some pretty big tech/startup-focused names and it’s hard to cut through. Discovery is pretty rough, I think y’all could be a bit more aggressive with the category system and I’m curious about why it’s currently so limited.

Been a good week, anyway. A couple signups away from 2,000 readers and I did a special offer on paid subs that’s brought in another 15 or so, pushing the conversion rate up towards 9%. Onwards!

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So thrilled to be featured on Discover this week!! Thank you Bailey, Kate, & the Community Team for the shout-out, and for all the hard work you do to support us ☺️

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Hi all - For those who are new to the platform, welcome! I just released my 9th issue today — creeping up on a year myself. And congrats to the Substack community team on the milestone!

I just want to take a moment to share that whatever questions you have, you can ask here and the folks in this wonderful community will point you in the right direction. Everyone — from the Substack community team, to the writers here chiming in — has always been incredibly supportive, kind, and helpful.

The platform gives you pretty much everything you need to be successful. So, be patient with the process, and pick an approach that feels like it is sustainable for you (whether that's post frequency, subject matter, or design). Try thinking about your newsletter as a long-term endeavor — the last thing you want to feel is burnt out after a short time. It can feel like a hustle sometimes, so be patient with yourself. Slow and steady.

Thanks again to everyone here for the support over the last 9 months.

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Hey everyone. I am new to substack and looking to grow my subscribers list. My aim is to help people on their journey to living a happy and purposeful life, to help achieve the goals you have and become the best version of yourself. Please subscribe and help me build a community of people that want to live a happy and purposeful life!

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How does the dashboard distinguish a subscriber source? For example, I have had readers join from an office hour and it says direct for one, substack network for another. This would help to show us exactly where our subscribers come from.

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Truly so excited for TikTok embeds. Can't wait to see what other multimedia embeds y'all bring to Substack!

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Hi all - this thread just keeps getting better and better! I'm so grateful to have found you all. I can't remember if I've mentioned, but I've rebranded and renamed my substack from "Whole Health" to "Next Draft with Diane Hatz". I've finally stood tall and have announced to the world (and my terrified inner child) that I'm a fiction writer. I'm in the process of republishing an indie book I put out 14 years ago and never promoted. I'm currently doing cover, marketing, plan etc. I want to sync my substack with the book coming out and what it relates to, the book I'm currently writing, and articles around research I'm doing (mainly spirituality type of stuff). And possibly document the process of putting out an indie book. I would love to connect with writers who have books out or are publishing something relatively soon who are working on or who've done marketing plans for them. I'd love to be able to bounce ideas off folks to come up with creative ways to market/promote the work - especially ways to sync our books with our substacks. Anyone doing anything similar and interested in connecting? Thanks!

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For growth, recommendations are pretty solid and a passive way to get new subscribers, although it depends on the subscriber count. A substack I recommend has received almost 400 subscribers. Another one that I just started recommending less than a week ago has received 13 so far. I recommend everyone try it out.

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Wondering about how to encourage followers to be engaged with my content. Aside from providing them a call to action ("Comment below if...."), how might one go about doing that? How do you get people out of their email inbox and into the comments section after they read the newsletter?

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Welcome new Substackers! Your Welcome email has more than double the open rate of any other email message. It will pay to make it great! Here's how: https://pau1.substack.com/p/-which-email-message-has-the-highest?s=w

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Happy One-Year Office Hours Anniversary Substack and Writers! 🎉

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Good morning y'all! Can't believe it's been a year in office hours!

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I’ve hit a plateau just under 300 subs. Any suggested tactics for continuing to grow ams overcome this hurdle?

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Every "Writer Office Hours" I read; I always tell myself how I need to step up my Substack game. Today is no different. You guys really are inspiring. Thanks!

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hello! i am unsure if this is the right way to use office hours as this is my first time. i am fairly new to substack and i found it hard to find writers who write on similar topics: early twenties life, mindful living, reflections. how do you find a community of like minded writers on substack?

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I mentioned yesterday that I thought it would be great if you broadened the categories. I had a real problem categorising my substack which is a a writing course for beginners. I also have problems finding other people to subscribe to because of the categorising issue.

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Looking for recommendations partners!

I write an outdoor/adventure newsletter. My experience with the recommendations feature so far has been pretty great. I've found that partnering with people who truly match your niche is a huge component of making sure you source subscribers who actually are interested in your writing.

If anyone else writes about the outdoors, please reach out to me. I'd love to talk, have you on the Trail Talk podcast as a guest, and work on some cool cross-promotion ideas!

I'm colenobleclimbs@gmail.com

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Hmmm - looking around, it seems that Substack is more for writers. Perhaps I’m just stating the obvious but there seems to be quite a few that write about arts, philosophy and academia. So the question is … is Substack going to work for me?

Essentially I write a newsletter from my 3minutemaths website. It’s directed at students / parents and focussing on the resources I’ve created - mainly UK curriculum. Will this work on Substack or should I be thinking more about opinion pieces?

My motivation was to try to monetise the newsletter - perhaps providing additional value for subscribers.

Any thoughts would be much appreciated.

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Is there any progress on my idea for a "faux paywall"? Everyone I've discussed this idea with thinks that this would be massively beneficial for writers and that Substack should definitely prioritize this!

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Hi there, I have a Technical question.

Which type of URL will enable me see the Stats breakdown:

- adding ?s=twitterDM to the URL or

- adding ?utm_source=twitterDM

I stupidly tested with same keywords and now do not know which one is right. 😅

Thank you for your help!

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What is the best way to clean up an email list? How can we know for certain that a subscriber is not opening emails or reading any posts?

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Did anyone else send out a newsletter today? Are your analytics working?

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I know I'm really late to this, but I have questions. My name is Roger and I publish "Roger's Writings." It's kind of a sarcastic, snarcasitc, opinionated look at current events. I mix in historical projects as well. I have a few questions that maybe some of you can help with. I have a very modest following and would like to grow my readership. I already use email and social media to push my work out there.

1) Can I record, and then review, a podcast before I post?

2) I probably have a targeted audience, what is the best way to reach them?

3) Other than email and social media, what is a good way to promote my work?

Thanks in advance, and hopefully I will be able to find answers to my questions. :) - Roger

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Hi there! I'm Lisa Amowitz, YA fantasy author and cover designer. Just popping in quickly between meetings. (also a graphic design professor--gahhh!)

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Hi all! I started my newsletter focused on mental health and psychology about four months ago. Been pretty happy with my growth so far, 2500+ free subscribers and consistent open rates between 55 - 65%. I researched all the guides on going paid, and 2 weeks ago launched a premium subscription. I created quite some offers and promoted it a lot, but my conversion is nowhere near the estimated 5-10% Substack mentioned. I feel pretty discouraged because I receive a lot of positive feedback through polls and unsure how to improve. Any tips? I do not want to bombard my free followers all the time with offers and promotions as I want to focus on providing quality content first.

If anyone wants to check out my newsletter, you can find it here: https://thepresentpsychologist.substack.com/

Thank you all for this great and supportive community ❤️

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Can anyone recommend best strategies for "searching" for other newsletters in your niche? I can search random terms in the search bar . . . but is there a better way? My area is history, politics, and democracy.

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Hi all! Prepping for my paid launch and I'm going to be giving away some promotional materials for different subscriber levels. Two questions:

1. Does anyone know how we can access subscriber addresses to mail them their goodies?

2. Is anyone aware of any small business/"bulk" mailing services to try to get a break on shipping?

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Will something be done to allow better placement of images? Left justified or right justified or allowing text to wrap around them?

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i wonder if there is a way for someone to do a newsletter on all of the best-ofs for substack? does that make sense? i'd like to read a bunch of everybody's work. but it's hard to commit to subscribing to each one individually.

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Hi! I am new here. I write the Zed Review which is a publication for people who love to read -- poetry, short non-fiction. I am also completing the #100DaysChallege

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Happy One Year of Office Hours! I brought cake!

🍰 🍰 🍰 🍰 🍰

Hopefully five slices is enough for everyone.

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Has anyone had a good subscriber experience with Reddit? Any tricks of the trade to share?

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I honestly don't remember when I started my newsletter, but I want to congratulate myself for developing this project until now, though I seem to have done many things "wrong" (e.g. being all over the place subject-wise, not sticking to a regular publication schedule, etc.).

Substack easy-to-use tools certainly help. Even a lazy serial killer like me (I created and then abandoned my share of blogs in the past) has no excuses.

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Congrats on one year of Office Hours!

I recently reach my six-month milestone and it's amazing to see how much has changed since the fall!

One feature I would love to see would be a recently used images option so that I don't have to keep searching my computer to upload my divider and other illustrations that I often use in my posts (I know this is available for the header/preview image, but I don't it's available to use in posts?).

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I am a poet and essayist. I moved here from Medium. I like the look of the formatting and ease of publishing on Substack. Being able to control my text formatting more is very important.

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Hi. This is my first visit to office hours. If you post a comment and someone replies do you get some notification? Or do you have to look back and find it in the thread? Guess I’ll see that first hand if someone replies. 😂 thank you!

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Hi! This is my first time participating in a Writer Office session. I'm a writer with a publishing certificate as well. My passion lies in wrestling. I started a substack newsletter dedicated to my skills in writing, podcasting, and wrestling. I created different newsletter sections so it can diverse and fans can sign up just to follow my fictionalized wrestling novel I'm currently writing or follow my wrestling write-ups that can range from wrestler spotlights, to wrestling news, my opinions about wrestling and the wrestling community, and then I have a section for musings like small updates that everyone on my list gets. I currently grew to 7 subscribers over night between a soft launched and a hard launched the next day on twitter thanks to my circle of awesome peeps in my community. I don't have any specific questions yet. I'm still testing out the features and planning stuff out. I do like the collab feature when writing posts because if I can't get a wrestler to do a video interview, I can have them answer questions and make it as a write-up. Thanks for having me in the video beta feature as well! I plan to go live on my twitch soon to talk wrestling and upload that as test video per say and have fun with that feature. I have some great ideas for the future of my newsletter. Now, I'm just enjoying it slowly, and thinking larger than life ideas on how to present my creativity for both free and paid fans. If anyone wants to collab about wrestling which is my super passion, I'm down. DMs are open; let's collab. If you want to talk writing, that's cool too because I create my content to have these two forms of entertainment - wrestling and writing go hand in hand. I created a video called: How To Make A Pro Wrestler, which talks about taking ideas and the structure format of a play or a novel (the 3 story act) and use that as a starting point to create a memorable character (wrestler) that fans will love. So yeah, that's like a little intro. Side notes: I used to for WWE back in 2018. I have my podcast up on my newsletter. I am dubbed The Professor of New Japan Pro Wrestling.

I have more cool articles and stuff coming up! Thanks for reading this and connecting!

https://marieshadows.substack.com/

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