Have questions about publishing, growing, or going paid on Substack?
The Substack team, and your fellow writers, are here to help!Â
We’re gathering the writer community and members of the Substack team together in this discussion thread to answer writer questions for an hour. Drop your questions in the thread by leaving a comment, and we’ll do our best to share knowledge and tips.
Our team will be answering questions and sharing insights with you in the thread today from 10 a.m.–11 a.m. PST / 1 p.m.–2 p.m. EST. We encourage writers to stick around after the hour and continue the conversation together.Â
Some updates and reminders from the Substack team:
Autoshare to Twitter: When your Twitter is connected to your Substack and you go to publish a new post, you now have the option to automatically share your new post to Twitter. Sharing your posts on other social media platforms gives potential readers a taste of your writing and can be effective in growing your email list.
Writer advice: Robert Reich shared advice on bringing your unique skills together. What writerly advice are you seeking the answer to? Who do you dream of answering your question?
Apply for our audio intensive: Our Summer of Sound program is accepting applications until Tuesday, June 21. If you have a podcast or audio project on Substack, apply now!
Got questions about Substack or feedback about what’s new? You’re in the right place! Leave a comment in this thread.
Hey Substackers! How are you doing in your creative journey today (be honest)? I know it's tough sometimes to feel like you're actually a writer. A "real" writer. I struggle with that, too. But if you're here, and you're showing up, and you're not giving up no matter what happens with your newsletter...then guess what? You're a writer! A real one! No one has to pick you or crown you. If you're doing the work, you're a writer. So wear the title proudly, and DON'T give up! 🌿
Substack, I still think we need data on best days and times for open rates so we can deem when is best to send. My usual Sunday issue this week was a whopper yet a Tuesday issue sent at the same time has nearly a 1,000 less opens.
Here we go again, people. Don't forget the top prize goes to that author best able to disguise the shilling of their own Substack while singing the praises of another Substack they never read. Let's do this....
Substack writers: has anyone decided not to go the paid route? This is a dilemma I’ve faced for a long time, and I’m still leaning toward keeping my newsletter free indefinitely. Is anyone else in this boat?
I write short fiction twice weekly. A part of my thinking is that I’d like to continue to increase my readership. Down the line my plan is to self-publish a collection of my stories. At that point I’d use the newsletter to promote it, while continuing to write new, original fiction for free.
Any thoughts or feedback on this? Are there any other fiction writers following a similar plan? Thanks in advance!
And thank you, Substack team, for hosting these office hours!
Just a general comment that you guys seem to have added a feature where new subscribers are automatically signed up for all the emails on my recommendations list (unless they uncheck a box) and I really hope you get rid of it. I am getting complaints, accusations that I've "sold" peoples email addresses...it's not good. Please remove that feature!
I'd like a way to get more information about people who unsubscribe. It would be useful to know how long they have been subscribed for, how active they were in reading, and also nice if there was an automated way to ask for feedback from them.
Could we fix the notification alerts so that the App doesn’t get pinged every time anyone just comments on this thread? I end up getting 50 or 60 notifications on each edition. Sometimes even after 6 six days when somebody comments.
Hello dear fellow Substack writers! How are you all doing. Always when there are regular office hours, I miss the shoutout thread. Do you miss it, too? If so, I invite you to join the #substackshoutout thread on Twitter. Simply share a link to a substack newsletter or post you liked and add the hashtag. Read, like and retweet others. That would be nice. See you on Twitter (after these office hours of course).
I think the app needs a way to bring a piece back from the archive. Like an undo button or something. Occasionally, I will accidentally archive something I didn’t intend to but there’s no way to fix that.
Reading over the comments here and it seems like a universal theme is how to grow a subscriber base and I too face that dilemma like everyone else.
In some respects, since I publish comics it might be even harder becuase the equation of work per post vs. ROI is unbalanced as yet since it has been very hard to convert subscribers to paying subscribers.
However, I think it's important to remember what's also at play is that people have so many services/items seeking their attention and subscription dollars (streaming services, apps, etc.) that they tend to get overwhelmed with making the jump unless they really, really, really love what you are creating and to believe in your creation. Plus the dubious state of our economy doesn't help matters.
But I've accepted that getting a subscriber to that point of love takes a lot of time and which needs a pretty thorough and steady campaign that makes use of as many touch points to subscribers as possible. You have to get them to through this funnel: know you > Like you > Trust You > Love You > and then PAY You.
As hard as this journey seems, I still believe that for every writer/artist there's an appreciative audience out there somewhere. Thankfully Substack give us some great tools to help that journey.
But with that said there's also a fair amount of work one has to also do to promote, promote, promote. One place I recently found: If you search in the Reddit Substack a person put up a really useful link to a doc with a dozen different newsletter distribution sites where you can get listed.
Recommendations has been great for getting new subs, I think allowing users to refer and rewarding bonuses for 3,5,10,100, etc referrals would work great.
I am working on a new podcast. I hope to start it within the next 30-60 days. Would I be able to apply for the audio intensive, given the fact that I don't yet have any audio content available? I'm incredibly hopeful that my podcast will take off and grow quickly—isn't everyone who starts a new podcast—but I feel that something like the audio intensive might give me just the boost I need to get this new project off the ground. Any thoughts on this? Many thanks for any answers or advice!
Hi everyone! I'm new here ... curious to know the top 3 things you'd recommend to grow your subscriber base and direct readers to your website... struggling a bit with this and any and all advice would be just great :)
I've got a question to those of you who have switched from sending your newsletter weekly to doing so several times a week. What prompted the switch? And do you stick to the same structure for all issues then or have different types of texts/content come out different days of the week?
Substack if we have more than five referrals on our page, I suggest you implement a feature that allows the referrals to switch/refresh (much like how you do on your homepage). This allows everyone to get some love and subs.
Well the hour is almost up and I would particularly like an answer to this question I asked before about importing and exporting content between Wordpress and Substack. In exporting from my Wordpress site to Substack the feature images do not transfer. Is there anything I can do apart from putting them in manually. I am just one person and the more streamlined the process the better. This is the magazine on Wordpress: https://asenseofplacemagazine.com/ But when I put it over to Substack the feature images do not transfer automatically. https://asenseofplacemagazine.substack.com/ Is there a solution to this issue?
How does one get and keep Readers when one's viewpoint or outlook resists easy classification ?
I don't want to appear snarky or cantankerous, but I think most readers want to read that which is in accord with and confirms their biases and prejudices.
Liberals want to read liberal writers and conservatives want to read conservative writers. Yada Yada Yada.
I, for whatever reason, subscribe to supposedly contradictory ideas. On economics, I am, for the most part, a fierce leftist. However, I tend to veer toward the right when identify politics screams its manifestos of multiculturalism.
I am gay, but at the same time I take issue with the salient concepts promulgated by the gay and feminist communities.
There is only one thing I can promise about my work: I will try very hard not to waste your time. I will try to ensure that my posts will say that which has not been said before. I will unceasingly knock my head against the wall to conjure up new and provocative ideas. Then again, maybe that imagery is all wrong: If I really knocked my head against the wall, I'd be at risk for traumatic brain injury and the consequent loss of IQ points might eviscerate the creativity of my output.
This week I posted to those that I subscribe to, asking for a mutual like or subscribe. I had several subscribe to my site. Thanks to those that did. I’m finding more and more really good writers. My main thing is music, not a writer, but Substack offers a great platform for me to share my work. Some have paid, though I don’t have locked content. I like to give everyone the goodies and if they can pay $5 $50 $100 fantastic.
Two quick technical questions that I'm not sure are on-topic:
1) Has Substack considered a feature that would enable writers to schedule posts so that they e-mail subscribers at the chosen time in their time zone? (So that, say, everyone gets the e-mail at 10am their time?) It's tricky to pick a time to send posts so that folks in different time zones get them at a sensible hour.
2) I've noticed that the "share this post" button doesn't display in my actual posts, only in the editing window. Does it not display for authors viewing their own posts?
I have questions about the adding of a section. I've done this--a workshopping section to my newsletter, for paid subs only. However, I find only some people seem to manage to register for notifications...and sometimes--they say--they don't receive notifications of comments. Overall, even, with my newsletter, the notifications (and potential community-building) seem not to function at times. I have no sense of what people know or are receiving about comments.
Is there any way for me to manually sign up subs to the section, so I know they're solidly "in" and receiving notification?
I HAVE given detailed explanations as to how to sign up... but some do, and others not.
Hello Substack! I don't know if this is the place to put it, but while setting up my new publication I stumbled upon a feature request. Is there some way to choose what content shows up on your home page (when you have sections?) More specifically: I also write in French, and had set up a sub-section of my Substack that I figured my French-language subscribers could also subscribe to. But then, when I clicked to my home page, everything showed up as one bilingual mess! Oops! Anyway, I've heard similar requests from other writers and thought I'd elevate that thought. Sometimes we'd like to have stuff "available" but not necessarily prominent, to eliminate any confusion.
I created a Google Sheet to allow you to see who has unsubscribed and subscribed between two periods of time. I created this for me but decided I would provide it to anyone who wants to use it.
HOW IT WORKS:
You export your subscribers on a given day - for instance, prior to sending a new newsletter/article.
Then a few days after publishing, you export your list again.
Upload both lists to the Google Sheet and run a comparison. You'll get a list of unsubscribes and subscribes. You will, of course, need a Gmail account. This uses Google Apps Scripts - Google's javascript automation tool. Anyone who copies the sheet can view and change the code - for the nerds among us.
I have a shared Google Doc that explains it and gives you a link to the tool. You will need to copy it to your own Google Drive. It is all explained in the document.
Substack team (Katie, Bailey). If there is any issue with me posting this, let me know. There is no profiteering or promo - well, I do suggest, with some snark, that they might consider subscribing stuff. But I think some may find the tool useful.
Does anyone here have multiple sub stacks? Like for different subjects? Is that too much to keep track???? Should I organize my content that way??? Pros and cons plz :)
Katie, I've just recently started on substack, covering topics like conspiracies, weird history, and other similarly related "strange" occurrences. Clearly its a niche topic, so how would you recommend gaining exposure while targeting people who're likely to enjoy the topics I'm writing about?
Here's a specific question! I write about addiction and recovery at https://thanksforlettingmeshare.substack.com and host a podcast, "Breakfast with an Alcoholic" there, too. I'm struggling to find the right categories for the podcast in particular--health and wellness, spirituality and religion? Feels like I'm having a hard time finding the right category fit.
Hey Substackers! How are you doing in your creative journey today (be honest)? I know it's tough sometimes to feel like you're actually a writer. A "real" writer. I struggle with that, too. But if you're here, and you're showing up, and you're not giving up no matter what happens with your newsletter...then guess what? You're a writer! A real one! No one has to pick you or crown you. If you're doing the work, you're a writer. So wear the title proudly, and DON'T give up! 🌿
Is anyone other than myself serializing fiction? I'm currently over halfway through a 40,000 word adult genre novella that I've been publishing on my Substack for over a month now.
Hi, I have a quick question. I just started a newsletter and added some friends and family as subscribers. Did the welcome email automatically get sent to them if this was a part of the set up process?
Hi everyone! The advice (my two cents) I'd like to share about writing regularly—which for me means one post per week—is to always be constantly mulling over ideas starting immediately after publishing an article. In other words, I feel that to write regularly one needs to be thinking about ideas for the newsletter at all times in the background. I find that if I disconnect my daily life from the newsletter, then it becomes much harder to write it than if I'm always in the lookout for how something makes me feel or think. Then, almost as if by magic, I have a new post to publish within a week.
My question to other writers is how to get better at writing humor/comedy? One of my goals is to develop this skill and I've dedicated a "section" of my newsletter, "moviewise: Life Lessons From Movies" to studying and practicing humor writing:
Hi team! I love Substack - thank you so much. My question has to do with VIDEO and AUDIO/Podcasting on Substack. Currently, I upload the mp3 audio for a podcast "Episode," which is then automatically added to Spotify. NOW, I would like to upload a video, and also distribute it as an audio/podcast. Can I somehow do simultaneously, or does it have to be two different posts? Is there a way that the audio portion of the video file will extract to podcast? Thank you!
I'm happy Substack is adding some social media automation! Promoting a newsletter on social media effectively takes almost as much time as writing itself!
This is why I created newslettertosocials.com, an all-in-one platform for generating and scheduling social media content directly from your newsletter. It will schedule weeks worth of social media content in a matter of minutes, so you can focus on writing! If you are trying to improve your growth on social media, this is a good place to start!
I struggle to figure out how to expand my reader base beyond my email subscribers. I have made comments on other similar Substacks, have added them as recommendations on my page, but see no new subscribers or viewers. and most everyone reads it in their email and rarely click the interactive audio or video links. I don’t use other types of social media so I know I’m limiting myself so I’d love advice specific to Substack. Thanks. I’m at earworm.Substack.com. Steve
Am I in the write place at the right time? My email says Substack Writer Office Hours starts now. But I don't understand how it works. It looks like it's been and gone?
Hey Substack, question: When folks open the newsletter in email on their computer, there is no like heart to click on. Could you please add a LIKE button that we can include in posts? There's a COMMENT, but no LIKE. I have some older subscribers who are confused and don't know how to like a post with no heart and no link to the heart.
Hey all, my paid subscription rate was great when I started TFP in Feb. But it’s now flatlined. I still give all my content away to everyone but ask for paid subscriptions in the SUBSCRIBE button and in email headers to help keep the newsletter going and to support independent journalism. Should I do an organized "re-launch" asking all subscribers to be paid, if they can afford it? Any other ideas?
I think another question I would have, though not entirely 'writerly' would be what avenues have you found to be the most successful in gaining subscribers? (Besides TikTok. I won't do TikTok)
Technical question from a newb. I've written my newsletter posts several months ahead because I'm neurotic like that, and I was wondering if there's a scheduler to auto post? I can't seem to find it if there is.
💌 Dear writers 💌
What writerly advice are you seeking the answer to? Who do you dream of answering your question?
The Substack team is signing off from today's Office Hours thread.
If you are hosting your podcast on Substack or posting other audio work here, don't apply for Summer of Sound audio intensive: https://on.substack.com/p/summer-of-sound?s=w
We'll be back same time next week.
See you then!
The Substack Team
Katie, Bailey, Kelsa, Amanda, Peter, Ashley, Dayne, Christina, Mary, Mike, and Kamil
Hey Substackers! How are you doing in your creative journey today (be honest)? I know it's tough sometimes to feel like you're actually a writer. A "real" writer. I struggle with that, too. But if you're here, and you're showing up, and you're not giving up no matter what happens with your newsletter...then guess what? You're a writer! A real one! No one has to pick you or crown you. If you're doing the work, you're a writer. So wear the title proudly, and DON'T give up! 🌿
Substack, I still think we need data on best days and times for open rates so we can deem when is best to send. My usual Sunday issue this week was a whopper yet a Tuesday issue sent at the same time has nearly a 1,000 less opens.
Here we go again, people. Don't forget the top prize goes to that author best able to disguise the shilling of their own Substack while singing the praises of another Substack they never read. Let's do this....
Substack writers: has anyone decided not to go the paid route? This is a dilemma I’ve faced for a long time, and I’m still leaning toward keeping my newsletter free indefinitely. Is anyone else in this boat?
I write short fiction twice weekly. A part of my thinking is that I’d like to continue to increase my readership. Down the line my plan is to self-publish a collection of my stories. At that point I’d use the newsletter to promote it, while continuing to write new, original fiction for free.
Any thoughts or feedback on this? Are there any other fiction writers following a similar plan? Thanks in advance!
And thank you, Substack team, for hosting these office hours!
Just a general comment that you guys seem to have added a feature where new subscribers are automatically signed up for all the emails on my recommendations list (unless they uncheck a box) and I really hope you get rid of it. I am getting complaints, accusations that I've "sold" peoples email addresses...it's not good. Please remove that feature!
I'd like a way to get more information about people who unsubscribe. It would be useful to know how long they have been subscribed for, how active they were in reading, and also nice if there was an automated way to ask for feedback from them.
Could we fix the notification alerts so that the App doesn’t get pinged every time anyone just comments on this thread? I end up getting 50 or 60 notifications on each edition. Sometimes even after 6 six days when somebody comments.
A few weeks ago I put a callout on Writer Office Hours looking for a collaborator on a boxed mac and cheese review, and this week the review is out! https://www.nightwater.email/p/camp-cheetos-mac-cheese-review
Thanks to Office Hours for helping to make the connection.
Substack, is it better to send a paid issue to all my subscribers with a paywall or just to paid subscribers only?
Hello dear fellow Substack writers! How are you all doing. Always when there are regular office hours, I miss the shoutout thread. Do you miss it, too? If so, I invite you to join the #substackshoutout thread on Twitter. Simply share a link to a substack newsletter or post you liked and add the hashtag. Read, like and retweet others. That would be nice. See you on Twitter (after these office hours of course).
https://twitter.com/hashtag/substackshoutout
If you are doing an original poetry substack, please tag me or reply here. I promise I will follow and share in the shoutout :)
I think the app needs a way to bring a piece back from the archive. Like an undo button or something. Occasionally, I will accidentally archive something I didn’t intend to but there’s no way to fix that.
Reading over the comments here and it seems like a universal theme is how to grow a subscriber base and I too face that dilemma like everyone else.
In some respects, since I publish comics it might be even harder becuase the equation of work per post vs. ROI is unbalanced as yet since it has been very hard to convert subscribers to paying subscribers.
However, I think it's important to remember what's also at play is that people have so many services/items seeking their attention and subscription dollars (streaming services, apps, etc.) that they tend to get overwhelmed with making the jump unless they really, really, really love what you are creating and to believe in your creation. Plus the dubious state of our economy doesn't help matters.
But I've accepted that getting a subscriber to that point of love takes a lot of time and which needs a pretty thorough and steady campaign that makes use of as many touch points to subscribers as possible. You have to get them to through this funnel: know you > Like you > Trust You > Love You > and then PAY You.
As hard as this journey seems, I still believe that for every writer/artist there's an appreciative audience out there somewhere. Thankfully Substack give us some great tools to help that journey.
But with that said there's also a fair amount of work one has to also do to promote, promote, promote. One place I recently found: If you search in the Reddit Substack a person put up a really useful link to a doc with a dozen different newsletter distribution sites where you can get listed.
When will you release a referral system?
Recommendations has been great for getting new subs, I think allowing users to refer and rewarding bonuses for 3,5,10,100, etc referrals would work great.
How best to gain reach on social media like Twitter?
I am working on a new podcast. I hope to start it within the next 30-60 days. Would I be able to apply for the audio intensive, given the fact that I don't yet have any audio content available? I'm incredibly hopeful that my podcast will take off and grow quickly—isn't everyone who starts a new podcast—but I feel that something like the audio intensive might give me just the boost I need to get this new project off the ground. Any thoughts on this? Many thanks for any answers or advice!
Hi everyone! I'm new here ... curious to know the top 3 things you'd recommend to grow your subscriber base and direct readers to your website... struggling a bit with this and any and all advice would be just great :)
Ching Ching just got another $50 a year subscriber, thanks Substack……
I've got a question to those of you who have switched from sending your newsletter weekly to doing so several times a week. What prompted the switch? And do you stick to the same structure for all issues then or have different types of texts/content come out different days of the week?
Substack if we have more than five referrals on our page, I suggest you implement a feature that allows the referrals to switch/refresh (much like how you do on your homepage). This allows everyone to get some love and subs.
Well the hour is almost up and I would particularly like an answer to this question I asked before about importing and exporting content between Wordpress and Substack. In exporting from my Wordpress site to Substack the feature images do not transfer. Is there anything I can do apart from putting them in manually. I am just one person and the more streamlined the process the better. This is the magazine on Wordpress: https://asenseofplacemagazine.com/ But when I put it over to Substack the feature images do not transfer automatically. https://asenseofplacemagazine.substack.com/ Is there a solution to this issue?
The recommendations feature rocks Substack!
How does one get and keep Readers when one's viewpoint or outlook resists easy classification ?
I don't want to appear snarky or cantankerous, but I think most readers want to read that which is in accord with and confirms their biases and prejudices.
Liberals want to read liberal writers and conservatives want to read conservative writers. Yada Yada Yada.
I, for whatever reason, subscribe to supposedly contradictory ideas. On economics, I am, for the most part, a fierce leftist. However, I tend to veer toward the right when identify politics screams its manifestos of multiculturalism.
I am gay, but at the same time I take issue with the salient concepts promulgated by the gay and feminist communities.
There is only one thing I can promise about my work: I will try very hard not to waste your time. I will try to ensure that my posts will say that which has not been said before. I will unceasingly knock my head against the wall to conjure up new and provocative ideas. Then again, maybe that imagery is all wrong: If I really knocked my head against the wall, I'd be at risk for traumatic brain injury and the consequent loss of IQ points might eviscerate the creativity of my output.
I welcome your responses.
What is the optimum number of times to post? I am posting my memoir as an episodic. I've only posted the intro so far last week.
This week I posted to those that I subscribe to, asking for a mutual like or subscribe. I had several subscribe to my site. Thanks to those that did. I’m finding more and more really good writers. My main thing is music, not a writer, but Substack offers a great platform for me to share my work. Some have paid, though I don’t have locked content. I like to give everyone the goodies and if they can pay $5 $50 $100 fantastic.
Hi all! I just published my first video on how to create social media content for your newsletter! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7TzyMaABQGU Hope it helps!
Good day everyone,
I'm Lenny and I write about personal development.
My most popular article so far is about learning on my own after dropping out from school
https://mindvoyage.substack.com/p/a-dropouts-guide-to-self-education?s=w
Two quick technical questions that I'm not sure are on-topic:
1) Has Substack considered a feature that would enable writers to schedule posts so that they e-mail subscribers at the chosen time in their time zone? (So that, say, everyone gets the e-mail at 10am their time?) It's tricky to pick a time to send posts so that folks in different time zones get them at a sensible hour.
2) I've noticed that the "share this post" button doesn't display in my actual posts, only in the editing window. Does it not display for authors viewing their own posts?
I have questions about the adding of a section. I've done this--a workshopping section to my newsletter, for paid subs only. However, I find only some people seem to manage to register for notifications...and sometimes--they say--they don't receive notifications of comments. Overall, even, with my newsletter, the notifications (and potential community-building) seem not to function at times. I have no sense of what people know or are receiving about comments.
Is there any way for me to manually sign up subs to the section, so I know they're solidly "in" and receiving notification?
I HAVE given detailed explanations as to how to sign up... but some do, and others not.
Hello Substack! I don't know if this is the place to put it, but while setting up my new publication I stumbled upon a feature request. Is there some way to choose what content shows up on your home page (when you have sections?) More specifically: I also write in French, and had set up a sub-section of my Substack that I figured my French-language subscribers could also subscribe to. But then, when I clicked to my home page, everything showed up as one bilingual mess! Oops! Anyway, I've heard similar requests from other writers and thought I'd elevate that thought. Sometimes we'd like to have stuff "available" but not necessarily prominent, to eliminate any confusion.
Hello Substackers.. Wanna know who's unsubscribed?
=====
I created a Google Sheet to allow you to see who has unsubscribed and subscribed between two periods of time. I created this for me but decided I would provide it to anyone who wants to use it.
HOW IT WORKS:
You export your subscribers on a given day - for instance, prior to sending a new newsletter/article.
Then a few days after publishing, you export your list again.
Upload both lists to the Google Sheet and run a comparison. You'll get a list of unsubscribes and subscribes. You will, of course, need a Gmail account. This uses Google Apps Scripts - Google's javascript automation tool. Anyone who copies the sheet can view and change the code - for the nerds among us.
I have a shared Google Doc that explains it and gives you a link to the tool. You will need to copy it to your own Google Drive. It is all explained in the document.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/124jECm4K5CV-rioMxvzUvkCMd1F1m1hk6awpb8N1xkY/edit?usp=sharing
Substack team (Katie, Bailey). If there is any issue with me posting this, let me know. There is no profiteering or promo - well, I do suggest, with some snark, that they might consider subscribing stuff. But I think some may find the tool useful.
Does anyone here have multiple sub stacks? Like for different subjects? Is that too much to keep track???? Should I organize my content that way??? Pros and cons plz :)
Katie, I've just recently started on substack, covering topics like conspiracies, weird history, and other similarly related "strange" occurrences. Clearly its a niche topic, so how would you recommend gaining exposure while targeting people who're likely to enjoy the topics I'm writing about?
Here's a specific question! I write about addiction and recovery at https://thanksforlettingmeshare.substack.com and host a podcast, "Breakfast with an Alcoholic" there, too. I'm struggling to find the right categories for the podcast in particular--health and wellness, spirituality and religion? Feels like I'm having a hard time finding the right category fit.
Thanks--love Substack and these office hours!!
Hey Substackers! How are you doing in your creative journey today (be honest)? I know it's tough sometimes to feel like you're actually a writer. A "real" writer. I struggle with that, too. But if you're here, and you're showing up, and you're not giving up no matter what happens with your newsletter...then guess what? You're a writer! A real one! No one has to pick you or crown you. If you're doing the work, you're a writer. So wear the title proudly, and DON'T give up! 🌿
I hope this isn’t off-topic.
But I would love to see the Substack techs devise better stat tracking than what’s currently available.
I really don’t want to hook my Substack into Google’s analytics matrix. 😩
Checked it out and subscribed. Thank you.
Is anyone other than myself serializing fiction? I'm currently over halfway through a 40,000 word adult genre novella that I've been publishing on my Substack for over a month now.
Hi, I have a quick question. I just started a newsletter and added some friends and family as subscribers. Did the welcome email automatically get sent to them if this was a part of the set up process?
Hi everyone! The advice (my two cents) I'd like to share about writing regularly—which for me means one post per week—is to always be constantly mulling over ideas starting immediately after publishing an article. In other words, I feel that to write regularly one needs to be thinking about ideas for the newsletter at all times in the background. I find that if I disconnect my daily life from the newsletter, then it becomes much harder to write it than if I'm always in the lookout for how something makes me feel or think. Then, almost as if by magic, I have a new post to publish within a week.
My question to other writers is how to get better at writing humor/comedy? One of my goals is to develop this skill and I've dedicated a "section" of my newsletter, "moviewise: Life Lessons From Movies" to studying and practicing humor writing:
https://moviewise.substack.com/s/ready-to-laugh
I also created a Discord channel to meet other humor/comedy writers to discuss and share tips, tricks and give feedback on each other's work.
If anyone here is interested in humor/comedy writing, please join us 🤗:
https://discord.gg/bzMsYwdw
Hi team! I love Substack - thank you so much. My question has to do with VIDEO and AUDIO/Podcasting on Substack. Currently, I upload the mp3 audio for a podcast "Episode," which is then automatically added to Spotify. NOW, I would like to upload a video, and also distribute it as an audio/podcast. Can I somehow do simultaneously, or does it have to be two different posts? Is there a way that the audio portion of the video file will extract to podcast? Thank you!
I'm happy Substack is adding some social media automation! Promoting a newsletter on social media effectively takes almost as much time as writing itself!
This is why I created newslettertosocials.com, an all-in-one platform for generating and scheduling social media content directly from your newsletter. It will schedule weeks worth of social media content in a matter of minutes, so you can focus on writing! If you are trying to improve your growth on social media, this is a good place to start!
I struggle to figure out how to expand my reader base beyond my email subscribers. I have made comments on other similar Substacks, have added them as recommendations on my page, but see no new subscribers or viewers. and most everyone reads it in their email and rarely click the interactive audio or video links. I don’t use other types of social media so I know I’m limiting myself so I’d love advice specific to Substack. Thanks. I’m at earworm.Substack.com. Steve
Oh, I see, it's questions and answers right here. Got it. :)
My question is as follows:
In a sea of content that gets bigger by the day, how do we stand out? Do we "write for our audience" or for ourselves? Or...? What say you? :)
Am I in the write place at the right time? My email says Substack Writer Office Hours starts now. But I don't understand how it works. It looks like it's been and gone?
Hey Substack, question: When folks open the newsletter in email on their computer, there is no like heart to click on. Could you please add a LIKE button that we can include in posts? There's a COMMENT, but no LIKE. I have some older subscribers who are confused and don't know how to like a post with no heart and no link to the heart.
Thanks so much!
Hey all, my paid subscription rate was great when I started TFP in Feb. But it’s now flatlined. I still give all my content away to everyone but ask for paid subscriptions in the SUBSCRIBE button and in email headers to help keep the newsletter going and to support independent journalism. Should I do an organized "re-launch" asking all subscribers to be paid, if they can afford it? Any other ideas?
I think another question I would have, though not entirely 'writerly' would be what avenues have you found to be the most successful in gaining subscribers? (Besides TikTok. I won't do TikTok)
Technical question from a newb. I've written my newsletter posts several months ahead because I'm neurotic like that, and I was wondering if there's a scheduler to auto post? I can't seem to find it if there is.