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That's a wrap for Office Hours today! We hope to see you next week for our monthly Shoutout Thread (https://lu.ma/shoutout). Come with what you've been loving to read lately, or listen to if you are in the app!

In the meantime, if you have questions, please visit our Resource and Support Centers.

https://support.substack.com/

https://substack.com/resources

Keep going,

Katie, Bailey, Jasmine, Helen, Lulu, Dan, Tian, Becca, Ari, and Lisa

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Hi Substack! Here's a little encouragement to take with you into the end of the week: no matter what your engagement looks like, your follower numbers, your ability to come up with new and fresh ideas, or any of those other metrics we use to measure success...you are showing up, and THAT is the most amazing thing you could possibly do! Someone out there, whether they comment or not, needs to read what you've written, so write for them! DON'T GIVE UP! 🌿

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Suggestions (I'm packing them in since next week is a "shout-out" thread!)

1. Really love recommends, BUT I really *don't* love the feature that presents new readers with a ready-checked list of other newsletters they might want to sign up for, and stressed that these are "free". My observation so far is that people who onboard in this wasy really aren't good quality sign-ups, because people subscribe often without realizing they're doing it (and have no idea what they're signing up for). They dilute interest in Substack, and make people feel they were spammed.

2. I don't like everyone being able to see who left "likes". Many of my readers are readers, not writers, and they're shy (as I learned in my survey). They aren't eager commenters, and many don't want to be identified.

3. We need Substack to make it clear that this is a different kind of platform, not just more free writing. I know that at least one prominent Substacker got fed up of people who subscribed for a year or more, and opened everything, but who refused all entreaties to go paid. I think of these as the "No, I'm good" folks. No matter how deep the discount, they won't spend a dime. Yes, I can limit free posts, and yes, I can be patient, and yes, I know that those who pay will always be a minority. BUT I think much more can be done to adjust folks' expectations. Substack advertised itself as a place where writers can be paid, but needs to do more to promote the "paid" angle, especially to help those writers who aren't blue checks--money tends to follow celebrity, I get that.

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Just a quick note to say how much we all appreciate the community team. Thanks for all you do!

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Hi Substack, I just want to express my gratitude for the platform and all the people who have been working so hard to allow creators to find an audience. I'm saddened by yesterday's news regarding the staff reduction. Obviously the economy is not strong, and people don't have as much disposable income as two years ago etc. It's a tough time for everyone, but economies always turn around eventually, and hopefully Substack will be able to weather the storm and come out stronger for it in the near future. 🤗

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I can't emphasize enough how much I appreciate every facet of what Substack and the SS crew is about and what they accomplish.

Aside from the continual development of new and better tools for writers, it's the care and respect you demonstrate towards participants on the platform that inspires me most.

I've been active as a writer for close to 25 years online, and have never experienced any sort of personal engagement from within the monolithic tech infrastructure that dominates all things 'internet.' I can't imagine Mark Zuckerberg ever offering me a stipend for some of my health insurance coverage, as Substack did earlier this year.

So a huge thank you to all of you!

On another note: are there any plans to upgrade or offer more granular insights about traffic stats to my SS? I'd prefer not hooking myself into Google's analytics again. And I think my readers would appreciate one less set of cookies being dumped into their browser.

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My thanks to the community team for everything y'all do, week after week. We appreciate you!

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I'm curious about others' experiences with discussion threads. I know the topic needs to be short and in my other work, I know specific and targeted questions tend to yield better quality responses.

But logistically on Substack: did you line up a couple of people to respond so readers wouldn't be shy about going first (it always seems like readers are more likely to respond if they aren't the first). How long did you actively keep the thread going? How did you handle it if you got no/little response -- did you transparently acknowledge that with an edit in the original post for archive purposes?

Thanks for any tips as I ponder some experiments.

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I have seen a few new subscriptions each week from people I don't know. But it seems that my best luck has come from posting to Facebook Groups, like The Professor Is Out (for post-academe material) and Czech Genealogy (for two recent posts on how researching family roots can add stability during a life transition). I'd enjoy hearing about any other strategies along that line. I'm growing slowly, but steadily.

Two weeks ago, I crossed the 100 follower threshold, and I'm now over 50 and have only had one person unsubscribe. I'm sure everyone has a different pace for growth, but I'm feeling reasonably proud of tangible progress. See my series here: https://joshuadolezal.substack.com/

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I just wanted to note that based on some really sharp feedback we got in the breakout session we revamped our About page and I'm really happy with how it looks. So thanks to the Substackers I was with!

https://brentandmichaelaregoingplaces.substack.com/about

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Today is the one year anniversary of my newsletter! Over this first year, I have found Substack to be an inclusive, safe, and caring space to write and also to create community...the later of which 25 years ago is something I would have said could never have happened on the internet. But, times change, it does happen, and here we are.

Many thanks to all at Substack for your vision and in creating this space, especially to Katie O’Connell and Bailey Richardson who have been so responsive and supportive over this first year!

Onward to Year 2!

❤️

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Just saw the voice over option and I am eager to try it out. I enjoy reading aloud and feel that it adds inflections that don't always get into the writing!

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Fellow writers, what are some suggestions for creating a brand/look and design illustration for your posts and page in general? What are your tools? Do you hire someone to design them for you?

I have been using photos on Unsplash but I have found using specialized design helps connect with readers better and stimulate thinking and discussion (from my personal opinion and experience with other

creators)

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I’ve been writing a lot of content that isn’t really “newsletter” but more like “essays” that can be read any time. I’d love for old essays to still be discoverable in the future, but it doesn’t seem as possible given how substack operates right now. Are there new features meant to help surface good old content?

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Really love the new speech-to-text feature! My only additional wish with that feature is that the audio stop to tell the reader that there's a photo or some other media inside the body of the post. That way, you can pause the audio and look at the pic, or the gif, or play a video or sound file.

One HUGE win. I went on vacation for two weeks, so I didn't post during that time. I assumed my subscribers would hold steady or shrink a little, but my subs GREW by nearly 100 people! Why? Because I've been seeing a lot of growth through recommendations and the app ecosystem. Really love that & I love the fact that when I came back with a funny vacation story, I had so many new subscribers to share it with! https://michaelestrin.substack.com/p/we-took-an-alaskan-cruise-i-kept?r=1fqhx&s=w&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web

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Is anyone else dealing with impostor syndrome this week? Someone messaged me this week (I think they thought they were being helpful) to tell me they didn't subscribe to my Substack because it didn't offer anything that they couldn't get in the New Yorker or somewhere else. 😕 My questions are:

1) How do you deal with impostor syndrome? AND

2) What do you do to really define and carve out who your readers are?

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Is there a way to download a backup copy of all your posts? You know--for safety reasons?

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About Founding Members: I have a brand-new Substack and I was a little leery about offering a Founding Member option, but during the launch several people grabbed the opportunity to sign up at the $100 Founding Member option even though the only extra benefit over the $20 annual fee they'd get was "good karma for helping to spread the word about our culture's misunderstanding of introverts. (Which is the topic of my newsletter.) So I want to encourage others to offer that option - some people who believe in what you're doing may well step up for it.

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Keep on keeping on.

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The new Recommendation Digests? weekly emails to my subscribers about the other newsletters I subscribe to? Aw come on. Please stop, Substack! That's way too much.

Yes, I opted out but I'm not thrilled that I have to. I feel like my readers are getting hit with WAY too many recommendations and extra emails. Yes, I support other writers and want to keep supporting other writers but personally, I'm already clearing unread emails out of my inbox every day - way too many! And I dont' want my readers to have to sort thru extra emails as well.

Yes, substack is great for introducing readers to new writers within the "substack universe" - but the reality is, if readers get too many emails, they will stop opening them. And in the end that actually hurts ALL of us.

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Thank you to all of the Substack staff who have supported the writers, created programs that have built our great community, helped us with technical support, listened to our concerns, and added features based on our feedback.

This platform has done more to support its users, and has been more transparent about what's happening, than any other platform I have ever used, and I appreciate everything they have done.

I hope the Substack leadership understands and appreciates how important the writer resources and support are to its writers, and how much the writers value the Substack family.

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Everyone knows I LOVE Substack and I've made it my home now, but I have one little request: (For this week; we'll see what I come up with in weeks to come.)

Can we PLEASE have a search bar on our home page? Once we get even a year's worth of posts it's really hard to go back and find one we might want to pull up again.

Just a simple search bar. That's all I ask.

And thank you, Substack crew. Not trying to butter you up but you really are the best!

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Hi, I have reached 1.3k subscribers and I'm wondering what should be done to reach my next milestone, at 10k. Any suggestions are welcome! Thanks in advance

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Here is a point that is finally starting to sink in for me, and that is the idea of community. I believe Substack goes to amazing lengths to build community among its writers, and that has been incredibly helpful for me. But what I've come to learn ( I've only been publishing consistently since September 15, 2021), is that readers want a community, too. I added a paragraph to my posts a short while ago, that just simply told people that what I was trying to do with my newsletter was gather a community of committed readers so together we could effect change. This seems to have helped bring in new subscribers for me, so I thought I'd mention it. Any thoughts or tips on building community of readers is welcome! Thanks!

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Thank you so much for this forum where you take in feedback and work on it at the back end. It shows that you really do want to make the product the best it can be. I have a slight gripe in terms of accessibility. The timings of these writer hours are always North America and Euro centric which I understand as being the current primary focus market. I run a niche newsletter that provides a platform to writers of creative non fiction while being based in Singapore and I feel rather overlooked because it's the middle of the night here for me(1:28 am right now). As you look to onboard more diverse voices and grow your presence in other regions, I request that you consider staggering the times of these office hours so a wider variety of people have access to this support

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When I first turned to Substack about 9 months ago, my aim was to create a newsletter I could send to my existing customers as a tool to keep them engaged and up to date with my latest material on my subscription-based site. In other words, I viewed Substack as a replacement to MailChimp…it was my newsletter tool that I wanted to use to increase subscriptions on my own site.

Fast-forward 9 months…and things have changed considerably!

My strategy to increase subscribers didn’t pan out like I wanted. Instead…and this was a big surprise to me…I attracted a number of new subscribers to my newsletter. And Substack kept adding attractive features I either wanted on my website or considered as a future addition. And then I realized – the Substack platform and backbone is doing exactly what I wanted from my website without the hassle and cost of dealing with my web developer. Substack is not a perfect fit but it is damn close, and that has given me the space to reconsider my business and focus going forward.

I now view my substack newsletter as my main focus and my website is rapidly turning into a place I can archive my material. So, here’s my question…has anyone successfully migrated their subscriber base from a subscription-based website to the Substack platform? If so, I would happily like to hear more about your experience or get any advice you would like to share. Ideally, I would like to be able to seamlessly transfer accounts (my site uses Stripe for payment and subscriptions) without having my readers cancel on one end and re-subscribe on another end.

Thanks for all input…and thanks Substack team for your continued hard work and bringing us helpful and cool features.

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Currently the recommendations show are in order of newest--> oldest. Are there any plans to change that or roll out customization options for writers?

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Maybe a dumb question: to activate text to speech is there anything as writers we'd need to do? I'd like my newsletter to be as accessible as I can make it, and this seems like an great step to take.

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Just saying Thanks to everyone on the Substack team as well as the community of writers on here...my life has changed and my healing journey has started.

I’ve made a couple new friends, learned about myself AND get continuous guidance from these office hours

Thanks to everyone on here seriously, love and light to you all❤️❤️❤️

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Are other publishers finding it effective to guest post or do exchanges? I did something this week where two other Substackers and I interviewed each other and we linked to each other's posts. Is anyone seeing something like this as an effective means to gain new readers and new subscribers? Thanks.

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I look forward to trying out the new audio options. I've been creating podcasts that aren't podcasts because I've just been reading my posts for visually impaired community or for those for whatever reason just prefer to listen. At times I've also wanted to embed other audio files so this improvement is really solving a pain point for me.

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Thank you for the new audio features! Going to be adding some of my audiobook chapters to my serialized book and going to record some voiceovers of my non-fiction posts!

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Anyone else having a problem clicking on the little hearts here at Office Hours? It happens every week for me--sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. They're not working for me today.

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I am thinking of asking my social media followers WHY they read me. What are they getting out of my writing? It might help me figure out how to do it better.

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Hi team! Tom here from White Noise (www.whitenoise.email), my free, biweekly missive on books and behavior, philosophy and psychology. Has anyone used the new voiceover feature in a clever way? Looking for inspiration via examples!

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For the first time this week, when I sent myself a test email, all the links were redirects. (substack.com/redirect/gobbledeegook) Is this going to be the case with actual sent emails going forward? I'd love to know, because the redirects adversely affect the URL params that make some of my games work. Thank you!

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Think Im gonna give up. Seems futile, Id get more response from posting something under a brick in the back yard. Possibly my stuff sucks, think I need to accept that and move on

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Hi fellow writers, if you'd like to submit your Substack to Google News and thus get more organic search and related traffic, I've written a quick guide on how I submitted my Substack: https://thoughts.jatan.space/p/how-i-got-my-blog-listed-on-google-news

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Hi everyone! Back for another Writers Hour - I've really enjoyed interacting with writers here, so thank you for creating this!

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I'm thrilled to be on this site and love the freedom it offers as well as the great and supportive community. My newsletter is about writing, pop culture, and whatever else might spring to mind that week. You can find me over at : https://markfyve.substack.com/

Best of luck to you all!

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I have to disappear now, unfortunately. I just wanted to say thanks for all the support given here. It's always a great morale booster.

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Hi all! I created a tool for Substack writers trying to grow on social media.

https://newslettertosocials.com

Here is my reason and goals with building this site:

1. Grows your Newsletter

Once you have exhausted your personal audience, how do you grow a newsletter? For someone with little social media experience, it can be near impossible to crack social media on your own.I see most writers making the common mistake of simply announcing new issues on their social channels. This is not enough and is actually hurting you!Newsletter to Socials integrates directly with your publication and highlights engaging excerpts which will succeed on social media. It will then auto-generate tweets and images that you can schedule or download.

2. Saves you Time

Running social media can take many hours each day. For writers, this is a time commitment that is impossible to make on top of creating and publishing. I know this was certainly the case for me!With just a few minutes in Newsletter to Socials, you can generate and schedule weeks of quality social media content.

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Can’t wait to try out the new audio features.

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The audio update looks fantastic....

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Question for Substack. Are there any plans to allow us to re-email an old post? I can see a way to update old posts on the site, but if they've already been sent to subscribers, it won't let me re-send it by email. This might be a good feature for writers who need a week off and just want to re-send an old "favorite" post to subscribers, or to send a popular old post out to subscribers if you've had a lot of new subscribers recently.

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Hi Substack,

Congratulations for your awesome platform 😀

As a Software Engineer, we would appreciate :

- To have a "Software Engineer" and "Software Development" topic

- Code snippets with more code style formats

These 2 updates will help a lot Software Engineers to choose and write in Substack

Thanks a lot🍃

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Question about tagging our ‘Stacks - do you guys offer a “mental health” category? On your roadmap a while back I did not see mental health as an option and my Substack is all about PTSD and mental health awareness, normalization, and support. PS- thanks for the amazing audio updates and features!

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How many subscribers is too few to monetize ????

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Why doesn’t the app let you compose new posts?

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Did anyone hear about the job losses at Substack. I hope this is not a sign of a general decay?

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