682 Comments

Hi writers! Katie is out today, but our team will be logging in soon to hang with y'all.

I'm a community-building nerd, so curious to ask for your thoughts on that this week -->

✨ How are you interacting and building community with your readers? This week we asked Suleika Jaouad in our Engage interview (https://on.substack.com/p/engage-1-suleika-jaouad?s=w) and now we want to hear from you!

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✋ Roll call: Who's new here? Tell us about you and what's on your mind as you get started on Substack.

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Thank you for coming to Office Hours! Our team is signing off for today.

In the meantime, our resources are here for you.

https://substack.com/resources

https://support.substack.com/hc/en-us

Next week we are taking a break from Office Hours as usual for our monthly shoutout thread. Save it to your calendar so you don't miss it: https://lu.ma/tour-shoutout

See you soon,

Bailey, Kelsa, Jasmine, Kevin, Hannah, Claire, James, Josh, Alex, Linda, Thomas, & Chloe from the Substack Team

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Hi everyone! Regarding the topic of growing your publication, this isn't a question, but - if you're feeling in need of a bit of inspiration or a kick up the bahookie*, this post by Katie Hawkins-Gaar that went up two days ago may be exactly what you need:

https://mysweetdumbbrain.substack.com/p/am-i-selling-outor-selling-myself

Especially this bit:

"The more I’ve witnessed other people pour time, energy, strategy, and, yes, self-promotion into their work, the more I realize how much I’ve been short-changing myself. Although I’ve been losing paying newsletter subscribers, I continue to gain new readers. My ideas have value. My essays are worth reading. My work means something."

So if you're having a rough time with your newsletter for whatever reason, please keep going. Because your ideas have value, your words are worth reading (or hearing) - and your work means something.

Ta.

*Scottish for "bottom". (I'm living in Scotland right now. The words keep creeping into my writing.)

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I'll buy every employee of Substack lunch if you come up with a poll feature that can be restricted to paying subscribers

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The Substack recommendations feature has been super dope, 16 newsletters are now recommending mine and I have sent almost 500 new subscribers to the newsletters I recommend, well done Substack!

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Hi writers, and happy Thursday! Do you feel like there's room for all of us at the table, or do you get caught up in competition? The truth is, when writers support writers--instead of comparing and competing--magic happens, and everyone wins. So tell us: how are you doing this week in your writing journey? How are you feeling? If you're feeling discouraged, tell us so we can support you. If you're feeling on top of things, reach out to someone below who is feeling discouraged. Let's lift each other up today! 🌿

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10 things I learned while growing a daily newsletter to 140k subscribers and making every mistake along the way. (I write Understandably.com for those who don't know.)

1. Content matters most! If the content isn't great, fix that first. :)

2. Consistency matters second-most. My advice is to start slow and manageable, and increase pace as you go along. I started as a daily newsletter which was INSANE. But it would not have grown this big if it were not daily.

3. Choose growth over monetization. If your'e 100% confident you can make a lot of $$$ right away, that's different. But if you're starting without a big following, grow big first. I kept mine free (and daily!) for more than a year.

4. Try lots of stuff. Try Twitter, try other socials, try giving talks, try cross-posts, try YouTube, try lead magnets, try everything. I know this is a Substack board, but I would try other ways to share content, too. Heather Cox Richardson is the master at this - she posts every word on Substack, on Facebook, etc.

5. Love your readers. Example: I try to reply almost everyone who replies to the newsletter. It's gotten harder as the list grows bigger, but I still do as much as I can.

6. Have a healthy respect for numbers. Study what works well (based on analytics). But don't obsess.

7. Make mistakes. Even though there are a lot of us here, we're still in the early days of this media. Make mistakes and learn from them.

8. Create tools. Example: I created a hacked-together "one-click feedback system" with 5 stars at the end of all of my newsletters that gets me TONS of feedback.

9. Ask for help. This forum is a good place. Also, ask your readers. And other writers. People who are into this are REALLY into it and will talk for hours.

10. Pay it back (and forward). Every problem you face and solve is probably something others are grappling with. Help them. They'll help you!

Disclaimer: I'm not sure these are my "top 10" or "10 most important..." they're the "10 I pulled together in 10 minutes because I hoped they might help someone!" Also, while I put this in another post here... I'm recruiting writers ... details here ... https://www.journalismjobs.com/1674777-newsletter-writereditor-understandablycom

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Ok just launched my first article yesterday after thinking about it for 1 1/2 years! It’s called “unintended consequences” and it is free now.

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Just crossed 100 subscribers this week. Also featured in Substack’s Discovery page, and recommended by 2 readers. This brought in a decent trickle of newcomers.

Meaningful engagement is key. As is finding your brand and building it.

Next target milestone is 200!

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Who else can't wait for the shoutout thread? I always try to share the individual issues of the newsletters I recommend, but the shoutout is a nice thing, too. So, for today, I'm launching something new: the #substackshoutout on Twitter. What should I read? https://twitter.com/search?q=%2523substackshoutout

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Yooooooo Substack!

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Hi Friends,

What happens to writing when other side-hustles out-hustle writing? I'm fascinated because I've been posting once a week for 1.5 years now. Other things have been started and abandoned during that time. But not writing. It's not a hassle or a burden. Sometimes, I worry that my head is empty or that the words will sound hollow or forced. Just to meet a deadline. The blank screen just taunts, not helps. But a word or thought falls out of the jumble and finds its way onto the page, and another one follows, then too many randos to count. The story is born, and the post writes itself. People read it and like it. Or don't. Readers make comments. The whole process is fascinating. I'm so glad I found Substack.

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Hi! I’m looking for a writer who might be interested in collaborating on a post. The idea is that the post would be split between us—I would be reviewing a vegan mac and cheese from a company called Camp and you would be reviewing Cheetos mac and cheese. Two very different products. I’d use the guest writer feature on Substack so it would link back to your profile and promote your newsletter at the end. If you’re interested feel free to email me at adam@nightwater.email !

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Dear Substack, I have a question about leaderboards by categories.

Is it possible to see our exact position overall even though we don't appear in the top 50 for example ?

It would be nice to know the evolution of our reach within the Substack ecosystem.

Thanks.

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Hello friends, I'm weighing in with a celebration and milestone: On May 30, my Substack turns 1 year old!

a Question: How do you celebrate a milestone with your community? Let me know any ideas!

And a Share: Here are my two biggest surprises from the first year:

-That Substack is a community of writers. I thought it would be more oriented toward digital; and there's plenty of savvy on the digital side but also a real commitment and passion for the practice and art of writing. Also, key word: Community.

-Second surprise: My day job is as an audio producer and my expectation was that it would be the podcast that would bring the audience, and that people might put up with the posts/essays I write (spoutiing off about the badassness of Jane Austen). The surprise: The writing actually gets the biggest hits.

Thank you for being here. You all make this a joy, and in these times community and joy are precious. .

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Hello!! I am not able to make the call - I busting to connect with other Stackers. I am 2 weeks new here. I imported my email list and 2 years of weekly emails. The open rates are blowing my mind!! Is this true?? Does Substack have a secret key to deliverability? I have 6600 subs and a 51% open rate here. With similar engagement as previous emails but in replies not comments. I am working on increased engagement in comments, I think it will take time for the community to adjust to the feature. The entire experience is unbelievable, really. I am pinching myself.

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Hi everyone. I'm recruiting writer-editors (paid of course) for my daily newsletter. Started here on Substack 2 years ago, 600+ daily editions later we're at 140k subscribers! If you're interested or know someone who might be, I'd love to hear from them! Details: https://www.journalismjobs.com/1674777-newsletter-writereditor-understandablycom

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Hi everybody: This is my first post. I'm launching a substack called Newspeak. It's about the language of power and influence, and I provide insight on usage of buzz words on the internet. I plan to put together a critical mass of several posts before promoting this. I would like to invite others with a passion for free speech to contribute, or republish other substack posts along these lines. Can I do that? If so, please share best practices for building community, aligning with other blogs or syndicating content on substack. Many thanks for your comments.

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Hey.... My name is Liam. I am a writer/essayist. I write about anthropology, specifically Japan and Korea (north and south). I posted one old essay today to get the ball rolling but my writing tutor says I need more structure in my work. I dont have many contacts or fans on social media (the biggest is a mind dump wordpress blog with 320 followers). I dunno how to promote my blog. Im trying to improve my writing style as it needs some improvement but how do i crank the organ of social media when im basically starting from a big fat zero? My aim is not to make money but to develop my style and share my writing. My schtick is that im an armchair anthropologist doing web based research on the culture and language of asia. I might be going to Japan over the summer (radio is my profession - BBC style stuff).

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My name is Jack I’ve written for Democracy Chronicles for about 3 years now

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Hi everyone! I'm 30 subscribers away from when I told myself I'd launch a paid version of my newsletter.

I'm planning on adding additional posts throughout the week, a monthly zoom call for the community, and access to occasional long-form pieces.

Any ideas on how to promote the launch outside of sharing with subscribers and typical socials channels?

Any and all feedback is greatly appreciated! :)

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Question for the collective: if you take an extended writing break, do you pause subscriptions, or just ask people to hang with you? Any tips for navigating this?

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Hey, everyone! I’m a new writer on this platform, and I’m curious about your opinions on a few things...

I recently lost my job, and it has made me realize that I would actually like to write full time (as opposed to what I was doing before). And Substack is such a great way for me to have a creative outlet, showcase my writing skills, and possibly make some extra money while I’m at it.

So I’m curious:

1) When is a good time to start paywalling posts (after a certain number of posts or months?) and what point in an essay is a good time to throw up a paywall?

2) Beyond sharing on social media and with friends, what are some ways you’ve built your subscriber base?

3) How do find quality subscribers who you know will enjoy your work and want to engage with it?

Thank you all!

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I’ve been about to launch my new Substack newsletter/blog called Advocacy School for several months now. My main hold-up (among others) has been a parallel need to redo my website. Do I need it to have a website for a Substack presence? Do you provide any support / advice for that?

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Any data on what day/time is best for sending out a newsletter? I have been consistent on Sundays for over a year but experimenting with mid week issues as well. Any data you can share would be helpful.

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Hi, for every post that our Substack called DemocracySOS publishes, we select the button "Subscribe with Caption" for the bottom. That button inserts this language: "DemocracySOS is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber." This language is not right for our Substack, since we have several authors. So I have been pasting in our preferred language. I have to do this every time, which is a pain. Is there a way to customize that language so that it uses our preferred language every time? I have searched and searched on Substack but cannot find a way to do it. CAn you help? Thank you!

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Hello! 👋🏾

I love engaging with readers on my newsletter as well as sharing insight on others’ newsletters. That’s really what makes the community great. I try to give as much (if not more) than I receive. I ask questions at the end of a post or even invite readers to compose the ending to a story. I am so thankful for my tiny but mighty readership.

Audio! It’s so nice to hear people’s voices! There’s an intimacy to hearing someone’s emotions come out in a piece and I can’t wait to see what others come up with. It’s a great step for the platform and it’s definitely in the pipeline for The FLARE in the future.

Special thanks to those recommending my Substack. Great returns so far. As always, I look forward to more collaboration and creating for the future. Email at theflare@substack.com.

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Hi! Is anyone effectively using social media to promote their newsletter? If so, what is your strategy?

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Here's a really basic question. When I post comments here, next to my name it says I write Eclecticism (which I do). But I also write another newsletter. How to I make that come up instead? Do I have to log in with a different email address? Thanks

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Hello everyone! I took my project about the history of video games from Blogspot to Substack a month and a half ago and I'm enjoying it, thanks to the interface made available. I have a question for you: have you ever thought about creating specific tools for people who manage a newsletter in languages other than English (mine is in Italian) ? I am talking about, for example, categories and tags to select and see languages during search activities for users. Thank you, kind regards

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Greetings! I have so many questions. I’ve been writing a Substack column for 1.5 years and just started a paid component a couple of weeks ago and have 68 onboard. It’s a gratifying start. I would like to find other Substack writers with a focus on Iowa for the purpose of collaborating to build our paid subscriber base. I’d also like to expand the free subscription base. I hold a writers’ retreat in the Iowa Lakes area in the fall, and it’s proving to be a lovely cross-promotion. Www.okobojiwritersretreat.com. My Substack is called Julie Gammack’s Potluck. I look forward to learning from all of you.

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So, this has probably been asked before, but now that we have the office hours, and in light of knowledge always evolving... I would like to go paid, but I don't want to put content behind the paywall. Can I, with some other benefits, launch without putting content (or commenting) behind a paywall? And my second question: how many of subscribers did you have when you went paid?

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When you publish, where do you post besides socials/hacker news/discords/reddits, trying to see where else we can share our work and get new eyes. Also, we have some room in the Twitter Hype pod I believe for a few writers, follow @youtopianj and I will see what I can do.

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Hey fellow writers! Has anyone experimented with their domain name (i.e., transitioned from one domain to another)? I'm considering it, but I feel like updating links could be a massive undertaking. I'm also anxious about potentially tanking my SEO.

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Hi everyone!

I'm toying with the idea of adding a podcast to my newsletter. Interview-based. Not sure if I want to a micropod of 5 mins or something 15 mins or maybe 25. Have no idea how difficult or easy Substack interface is to use. I suppose I just don't know how difficult this could be.

Any tips? Success stories? Resources?

Barry.

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Apologies if this has been asked here before but I can't see the answer elsewhere: is it possible to send an email only to 'founding' level paid subscribers (rather than just all free or all paid)…?

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I think community is the key word. It can take a long time to build a community. It is one of the things that really attracted me to Substack.

In New Zealand we have a Maori saying that I really like. It goes He tangata, he tangata, he tangata.

It comes from a proverb. What is the most important thing in the world? It is the people, it is the people, it is the people.

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Hi I'm new to Substack. Wondering how to go about getting/growing subscribers when most people can just click on the link I share when I promote it and read rather than subscribing?

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Coming to this late, but wondering if anyone else is experiencing a sudden jump in subscribers. Like hockey-stick level growth? (For me, that means more than 150 new signups in the last 36 hours). What I'm wondering is where this is coming from and whether these are spam accounts. I've scoured the web and social media and found no evidence that anyone with a truly BIG following suddenly decided to point people my way. Also, a lot of these email addresses are suspicious like mlassiter304@gmail and forbeshamilton238@gmail and majicman1973@gmail and jcp61874@gmail. It frankly looks too good to be true, and while I suppose it doesn't matter all that much, gaining hundreds of fake subscribers will just make my open rates less meaningful. Anyone else seeing this or have ideas?

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Ah! I’m very new to Substack and hate that I missed this chat about community-building! Adding it to my calendar for sure.

Because I’ve finally gotten to a headspace where I’m giving myself permission to finally show up to do what I love (writing about what I wanna share!!), it makes every subscriber genuinely make me SUPER excited!

I’ve never felt such joy any time I see views go up, another subscriber, if people buy me a matcha and write supportive messages, comments...

I LOVE when people resonate with something I truly love doing so it makes it so much more easy for me to show up to talk about it all with anyone who takes time out to show up for me!

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I am very, very new to substack. Just got my account created and still preparing the first post, my introduction to the weekly newsletter. These features - this discussion and the emails and the other resources - are great. Really great. Exactly what I need and hoped to find. The possibility of finding this kind of support from the platform and from other writers is almost as important to me as the ability to directly engage with the (future) subscribers. Looking forward to learning and interacting and, later, making contributions to my new home. Randy Green

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Hi, I have a question. Has anyone found a best day of the week (for those who publish weekly) to release their newsletter? Do weekends work better than weekdays? Or is consistency the key?

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We are finding a good number read our articles but few subscribe. Any tips?

We are experiencing a small amount of subscribers each time but nothing exponential.

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Wondering if shorter newsletters have lower open rates? Or do longer newsletters have higher because the reader has to come back to read the piece multiple times? Thoughts?

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I’m curious if others have found it helpful to focus on a community or your state?

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Hello! I have been writing an entertainment newsletter for several months, and I’m thinking about writing another newsletter that features slice-of-life essays.

Have any of you written two separate newsletters that have different focuses/tones and potentially different audiences? If so, how has it worked for you?

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I just thought I'd share a video I made about the beauty of connection, since I know there is plenty of the opposite out there...hugs to all who need them.

https://lilychili.substack.com/p/friendship-island-stories-of-connection?utm_source=%2Finbox&utm_medium=reader2&s=w

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If any of you are writing content on growth, spiritual, emotional, intellectual, physical and financial growth for creators or for millennial & GenZ then I would like to collaborate with others you for my latest newsletter getschooled.Substack.com

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"But yet, I write. Because for me, writing contains multitudes.

To write is to wade, alone, into the vast, murky ocean of thought and idea. It is equal parts treading water and drowning, a haphazard stumbling toward insight and inspiration. It is plumbing into the depths of your soul, groping around to grab hold of something true and real and unique and you. It is casting and reeling, changing the tackle and hoping that the Big One doesn’t just nibble at your hook, but firmly latches on. And that you can successfully reel it in."

From: https://www.whitenoise.email/p/why-i-write?s=w

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