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Poll of the week:
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📊 Poll of the week 📊 If you are keen to learn more about the features you can use as tools to convert free reades to paid subscribers, here is where to start.
Subscriber dashboard & filters allow you to identify how often readers are engaging with your post and send them targeted emails.
The paywall allows writers to tease paid posts to free subscribers and new readers. It provides a call-to-action to upgrade and gives writers flexible control over how much of their paid post to show readers.
Stuart Winchester who writes Storm Skiing is using the paywall really effectively. He explicitly tells readers just above the paywall what's below.
"Below the paid subscriber jump: America’s tallest chairlift gets an upgrade, two new mountains join Freedom Pass, why the Ragged Mountain expansion is officially dead, I hate interactive trailmaps, a map of all ski areas on U.S. Forest Service land, how I got the Jay Peak story so wrong & how I’m preventing a repeat, & much more."
This is a good idea. I just mentioned that I wondered whether my free subscribers know or really care what is below the paywall, but the things I am paywalling are serialized chapters of books. I could probably do a teaser...time to get creative!
Yes, Stuart also noticed a surprisingly big jump in paid subscriptions when the paywall cutoff happened right on a cliffhanger… (A story about bad behavior at a ski resort, where he placed the paywall just as a bunch of sinister vehicles pulled into the parking lot, and…. PAYWALL! A lot of people really wanted to know what happened next, so they changed from free to paid. So maybe don’t cut at the end of a section; cut at the most dramatic point.)
Heh heh. True. Me too. I feel your pain. But if a reader is reading someone's work for free, it's hard to see what grounds the reader has for complaining. And if they are DYING to find out what happens next.... well, they could fix the problem immediately by... paying the writer for their work.
it's a risk only the most skilled writers should take. It would only work if they had me *totally* sucked in. It would piss me off either way, but for most instances, would just cause them to lose the opportunity to win me over in the future, since I would immediately unsubscribe to avoid being subjected to that experience twice.
There is none. I meant the monthly limit you encounter on the websites of traditional publishers, like The New York Times. I was suggesting a similar feature for Substack. Incidentally, my suggestion was addressed elsewhere on this thread. Apparently, you can create a trial period for new subscribers, which is similar to what I suggested.
Stuart does a great job with this, for sure! I'm wondering if there is similar wisdom surrounding where you should place subscribe CTAs in posts to get the best conversion
For what it's worth, and what I've tried, if I'm going to share the post on social media, sometimes I just put it above the first image at the very top of the article. A lot of times, people clicking over from Facebook will just skim, and putting it someplace high in the piece seemed to help.
I wonder if this type of tactic would work well for short fiction or serializations of fiction stories? The reader gets to read some of the story to determine if they're interested, and it cuts off at a dramatic point.
Perhaps doing it in combination with free posts on writing or other topics, while the fiction itself is behind the paywall ...
I also think consistency in tone and branding are key. I've read strong writing that is all over the place tonally, piece to piece, and inconsistent visually that does not get much engagement. In other words, I think meeting expectations amplifies great writing's ability to market.
I would argue that it's more a case of utility to the readers. Pieces that give the impression that you're offering a good value proposition, convert the most.
My highest converting piece of all time was web only, and thrown together in about 20 minutes. Go figure
Hmm... The last one especially makes me think that perhaps once a month, I can just send a roundup to just free subscribers showing them what they missed... 😅
Some writers mention this in their headers and footers too! They'll update them weekly to free subscribers and include a list of what they would have seen if they were paying subscribers. That can be effective too!
This is a great idea! I just made downloadable PDF's of my paywalled guides and created an archive & sent that to everyone. It got a good open rate and a few new paid subscriptions.
That also sounds like an excellent idea. One writer I was looking at recently has a link roundup for what he was reading that week or that month. It's all about adding value to the reader for what they may like.
I do that too. Once a month I have a paragraph with links of TV & podcasts & articles. They don’t always have an Italy link but I try to keep them somewhat relevant
Cool! I've recently been including a song related to mental health or something talking about human problems in some way, as well as relevant links to the weird things I read during the month. Hopefully it resonates :)
Do your readers like the link roundup of tv, podcasts, and articles?
Hi all. I write my newsletter weekly https://interestingdatagigs.substack.com/ and a very interesting way I've found to grow my newsletter is through Slack communities. There are so many out there, you have to find the right ones for your niche, and participate on them. It takes time but it's worth the effort.
Before writing the newsletter, I was already active in some communities, especially from my field (Data Analytics). This helps me a little. It takes time, but you don't have to be in several of them, just the right ones.
I send two newsletters each month - one to free subscribers and one to paid subscribers. The paid subscribers also get the free version. In the free version I mention what the paid subscribers are getting that month with several opportunities (subscribe buttons) to upgrade. I Would love to be able to send one newsletter with all of the content to everyone with the paid subscribers' material below a paywalll but I have not been able to get this to work as I would like and not sure it is possible.
Tried the subscriber dashboard with filters trick literally 10 min after reading this tip, ran a filter for our top interactive free subs and sent a mass email out asking them to subscribe with 25% off. Got 6 brand new annual paid subs out of it in less than 11 hours.
Hi all. I write my newsletter weekly https://aaban.substack.com/. a weekly email with fresh discoveries at the intersection of startups, design, technology, and culture.
Here’s what you can expect from me, every occasionally in your Inbox:
Is there a way to give away a select number of posts for free per month, after which readers are prompted to subscribe to the paid version? The same thing traditional publishers do.
Hey everyone! Here's a little encouragement from one small newsletter to all of you. If you're feeling stuck, unmotivated, or worried that no one is listening, you're not alone. But here's the most important thing: you don't have to believe everything you think! Odds are, there's someone out there right now who needs to hear what you have to say. So don't keep them waiting! Keep writing, keep moving, keep sharing. The world needs your voice! 🌿
I have a paid subscriber that NEVER comments or hits the heart or anything. But I run into her every once in a while face-to-face and she says glowing things every time, and lets me know she's forwarding emails to folks every time I publish. It surprises and delights me every time.
You never know who's in love with your writing. You just don't.
This warms my soul - I've had several people send me voicenotes or messages to tell me how useful the writing is, but have never reacted on Substack. There'll always be lurkers watching your every move - don't forget the smile you give them.
I’ve just recently started my free Substack. Several folks, in person and online, have told me how much they like reading it. But I’ve experienced very little organic growth. If folks are sharing it, almost nobody is subscribing.
My somewhat limited experience suggests that you may want to be proactive and share it yourself and encourage other people to share it. As an example, if I have a post on a specific topic, I'll search Twitter for people who are also Tweeting about the same thing. I'll send them a Reply with a link to my newsletter and ask them for their feedback. Sometimes it works really well.
Meanwhile, for those interested in reviews & essays on new and old movies, by a longtime arts/entertainment journalist w/ bylines in national mags and major daily newspapers (boldly plugs his own newsletter) … https://philipbooth.substack.com/p/bullet-train-quentin-tarantino-on
Well, the plug worked. I was looking for a movie-focused newsletter and found yours fun and unpandering. So I guess the lesson is... engage with Substack Office Hours more regularly????
I kinda do that, Mark, but more to the point (as I'm sure you know or suspect), I can frequently add a link to a tweet that features a rocker about whom I've written. Just yesterday, a tweet showed a pic of Joey Ramone and Debbie Harry.
I, of course, replied with a link to my article about spending backstage and hotel room time with Da Ramones ca. late '70s! Subtle? Maybe not, but effective. I have to imagine it's tough to do that if your 'Stack is all about self-improvement for Norwegian dwarves, hiking the Himalayas, or carpentry with homemade tools.
I only do a Twitter "sweep" once or twice a week, dropping the occasional article link. I find it hard to believe that approaches anything resembling spam. The news cycle is too furious and rapidly changing, and any one of my links may be missed completely.
One person's spam is another person's first time seeing it! As for DMs, I haven't found a bio on Twitter that actually welcomes DMs! Most promise an immediate block!!
I’m already pretty active sharing on social media, and encouraging others to share. But good advice about searching for tweets that I can respond to. I’ll try that.
This sounds good. Another thing that could work is dropping an email to fellow writers in space too, asking whether they'd be up to recommend your publication and give you a shout-out at the end of their articles! Obviously. this should only be done to writers' whom you're genuinely interested in. It should expand your subscriber base, too.
+1 for the Sample. It's great both as a writer and a reader. Once you add your newsletter you are put in a directory with other writers. That makes easy to connect and see about guest posts, cross-promos, etc.
People are for the most part passive participators. That's a side effect of internet fatigue. In the pre-internet world if you were into something you had to really dig to find it and needed to join groups and be active in them. Now stuff is pushed out by bots and more tangentional stuff is pushed on us too. It's a case of internet overload so people just leave everything alone, read what they like but otherwise aren't that active anymore. They don't need to be. Why subscribe when you can just bookmark the page?
True, although Substack is built on the idea that folks WILL subscribe if they like the content and delivery of any given newsletter enough. So let’s hope that email subscriptions regain popularity.
They will just in lower conversion rates. My posts were getting about 80 views based off less than 10 subscribers, so clearly something was being shared somehow and that read count was pretty consistent across different posts. So same people returning too.
This is so true. I wrote a piece (on a different platform! gasp!) and a former colleague who I hadn't heard of in years sent me a text to tell me how much it moved him and how much he related to it. The piece itself got very little engagement.
This is true! I've found a lot of readers don't like to open up the website, and just prefer to read the emails. Sometimes it makes it really hard to figure out what your true engagement is like
I got a handwritten letter (and a check) from my childhood piano teacher letting me know that she reads “Living in a Body” every week and it “moves her very deeply.” She’s 90 years old. :) It made my week. I will keep writing.
Same here. I just started my newsletter last Monday. I vacillated back and forth about starting with a paid subscription model, since many people said start free and graduate to a paywall. But in the end I started with a paywall and now I have 16 or 17 paid subscribers and 78 total. Most of the people who have paid are people I know and they haven't said a peep to me about it! They just read every time and say nothing about it. It's weird and wonderful.
Honestly, I started on a whim. I decided over the weekend to start a Substack and then did it on Monday. I announced on Facebook (600 friends) and Instagram (400) in both posting and in "stories" and then waited to see what happened. I did post on Linkedin (500) but with minimal traffic from there but I did gain a few subscribers there. That's it. My plan is to post on Wednesdays and Sundays (may change that) but I again posted on FB and IG every time send out a newsletter. All of my social media is public so you can check out my posts if you want. I am @giyen - happy to answer any questions.
Congratulations! That’s so wonderful and I’m happy for you! I’m in the middle of rebranding my newsletter (hopefully will be finished by the start of next week) and had started about 3 months ago now. But with this rebrand I’m adding a paid subscription model for pieces I don’t feel as comfortable having openly available to the public.
Super excited to be back! I’ll be posting my first official post since starting the rebrand tomorrow!
Yes! Consistency is extremely important to growth, especially when it comes to recommendations. I've found more news letters are willing to send you traffic if you're regularly posting. I am personally reluctant to recommend newsletters that are inactive.
Agreed. That's why I started with a cadence I knew I could stick to: once a week. After proving I can do that over an extended period of time, I might up the activity.
I've actually tried to up the activity twice and it didn't go well. I used to do a weekly essay, plus news whenever it broke, plus podcasts every other Sunday.
I love my audience, but it seems they don't have an appetite for multiple weekly postings, which is fine. I lose usually about two subscribers every time I post, which feels pretty normal. There are people who lose interest in you over time, and your email popping up in their inbox is sometimes the reminder they needed to unsubscribe.
But when I was double-posting, that number skyrocketed. One post I lost 8 subscribers. I think they believed I was going to start flooding their inbox.
Keep in mind, readers certainly don't forget about you if you don't post as often. Fog Chaser is a great example. It's a monthly newsletter, where the author Matt uploads a new song. Just look at the engagement he gets
thanks for this Cole, I post once a week because I think about what I can manage when I receive other people's newsletters. If there's too many and I don't get round to reading them it makes me feel bad. I also think about what I can actually manage to put out that's really valuable. I don't want to dilute that just to create content.
100 percent agree. I wish I could search Substacks by activity. I often find when I'm searching for like-minded writers that they haven't posted in a while, but I can only discover that clicking through to the home page.
First thing I check out when exploring a new Substack is the Archive. That'll tell you how active they are. Then I go to the About page to see if I'm into it. I assume other readers do the same or similar, so I think about that with regards to providing as much info/consistency as possible to highlight my value prop.
Right but you have to click through to each Substack to see the archive and recent posts. If you could sort by recent activity, you would never have to encounter inactive Substacks.
Yes, the magic is contagious, alluring, and unpredictable. Certainly, there are all different types of magic, magnetic expression that entices all cells to interact, all nerves to pay attention, all extraneous thoughts to still themselves so the essential self gets in the groove again. I find these office hours enticing and frustrating. I only have so much concentration. If I refresh to see what is the latest, I lose the thread I'm on. How to find the jewels, the gems that change a life, the connections that demand a pivot, the inspiration that ignites deep within.
Absolutely! Then there wouldn't be much to recommend... For me, I have trouble posting on the days I've said I was going to post. For about the first 5 or 6 months, I kept to the schedule... but now my posts go up at any day and time I get them finished. I do feel that a consistent schedule is best, though. Any help or thoughts?
I'd settled on Fridays but then wrote something really topical this week and blasted it on Tuesday. I think it threw my readers off. Gonna revert back to normal day/time starting next week.
I appreciate the whole thing about consistency, however, competition is vast. Turning out because we said we would, doesn't always deliver the most inspired. I personally like a piece when it vibrates off the page with delight and calling rather than duty and obligation.
And fortunately, there is the update option that allows us to share our improvements... whenever they come to us. I think that the right people read the important words at the most conducive time. There is a reason for everything. It comes to us when it comes to us.
I hear that. I definitely don't do well if I'm writing to deadline for a thing I'm doing because I love it. Having said that, there are way to capitalize on those writing rushes many of us experience and then scheduling those posts. I do agree, though, that, as important as consistency is, it shouldn't take precedence over quality.
I agree and appreciate this comment. You are right about scheduling posts. I have done plenty of inspired writing that is hidden away. I don't have to reinvent the wheel, I just have to unearth something already ready to be shared. Thank you for this enlightening POV.
My experience: When I moved to more frequent (but shorter) emails, my open rates went up. Like, a lot.
I ship 4x a week. That's obviously not for everyone. But what *is* for everyone is to find a cadence that works for you, and stick to it.
If you (general sense) say you'll write once a week, people come to expect that. You can always increase/decrease frequency--or take a break-- but letting people know what to they're in for goes a long way.
absolutely! I tend to write longer pieces -- usually around 1,500 words. And my Image resolution means I flirt with the email data limit a lot. I think a ton depends on the kind of content you're shipping. Some newsletters it makes no sense to send daily. Others, you need to be!
I get a mix of both. But I have uncovered some really interesting social media habits.
I don't really post links to my articles on my facebook page. I mostly use it to share outdoor photography from my hikes. I have a ton of followers who just like the outdoor pics which is fine. And I have a lot of readers who like to get a peak at what I may be writing about next. ( here's a link if you want to see what I mean https://www.facebook.com/NobleClimb )
Recently though, I've had subscribers tell me that seeing totally unrelated pictures I share pop up in their feed... is actually a reminder to go back into their email from the previous thursday, at around 8 MST, to make sure they hadn't missed a post. So they ARE cognizant of the schedule.
I'm coming up on my 2 year anniversary of posting fiction every day (with the exception of a 6 day brutal bout with Covid) and my free subscription list grows but my paids hit a plateau in the 280s months ago and I just can't seem to grow from there.
I was sharing them on Twitter and some of my followers shared them. They got nearly zero hits. Almost nothing despite trying to work hashtags. I'm shadowbanned like crazy on Facebook, though I do pick up some attention there if I'm diligent about avoiding keywords. Instagram gets a lot of reactions but very rare conversions, usually just to free subscriptions.
Facebook seems to be really tricky. The site DOES NOT WANT you to post anything that will take readers off the page. I saw a good rule that linked posts should make up less than ten percent of what you share. And I think that's a good rule.
I have a facebook page that I use to gently remind people once in a while "hey I have some really cool stuff going on on my site, maybe go try signing up." The rest is just wildlife pictures and stuff. I share that to other groups as my page, and invite people to come like my content when they respond to my pictures.
Instagram has a terrible growth model. If you don't do reels, you won't get new people.
Thank you for the beautiful reminder and all the thoughtful replies below. As someone writing under a brand new pseudonym, I am basically at zero in all the metrics. But I am at 1,000 in terms of the creative freedom and possibilities I feel at this moment.
My Substack goals so far have been: a) Post every week; and b) Try my best to be authentic with each post. I know I need to actively promote, but I'm also trusting that if I focus on the writing, an audience will find me.
Right on! I think everyone needs someone to say this. Even though I have only a few subscribers, I hope that someone will find my writing funny at times, serious at other times, and interesting at other times.
Absolute best message ever! I struggle to find new subscribers and just about once per week, I feel this way! Thanks for this and kudos to you for being an amazing person. The world needs more people like you!
That spoke directly to me. I started my newsletter. Love writing ✍️. But now, I'm having the hardest time coming up with topics. Hummm! Maybe, . . . Just maybe, 😏 I need to change directions on my focus 🤔. I'm just thinking out loud here. I'm an emerging artist 🎨 after suffering from a stroke. Maybe I need to narrow my focus down to that!!
It's so important. Even once a week can be a challenge for me, but I'm just trying to prove that I can establish that cadence over a long period of time.
Yeah, having the ability to schedule out three months in advance is so helpful. It allows me to batch and get things done ahead of time so if I hit a busy patch personally I know that I'm still able to get the work done.
I'm still teaching with two kids at home. She's a new mom who is taking a break from teaching to freelance. And we usually have to do most of our planning online because we can only see each other about every other month. We HAVE to be that organized 😉 I'm thankful for Substack scheduling and for the ability to schedule through FB and IG business hub. Otherwise, we would never be able to do this project. Now that school has started, I have to figure out how to carve out time for my own writing in addition to everything else, so yeah, working ahead is a must.
I find scheduling difficult because I can't wait to see my name in print! That's why I could never write obituaries (in advance): I'd be constantly wishing the person to shuffle off their mortal coil.
That's funny. Yeah, I've had my travel stuff completed and scheduled still for the next three weeks. I have work to do on that this weekend to get ahead again. For litthinkpodcast.substack.com, we record two episodes at a time, schedule them every other week, and we currently have all of our episode and blog posts scheduled for the next three Wednesdays. I have one to write still and then we'll be at four!
Another good way of getting new Subscribers (If you've thrashed your guerilla marketing and keep regularly keeping your social media alive with new posts - these are a must) is to offer something different - and sell it like a one-off. I write autobiographical short stories on Substack, but it appeared 'SPECIAL' when I offered people a TEASER to my forthcoming novel - like I am doing right now: https://chrisdangerfield.substack.com/p/skagless-and-bible-black
So instead of promoting myself on all the socials, I decided my best method to growing my audience is via THIS community. All I want is to be surrounded by people creating good words and stories. I'd rather spin my wheels supporting smaller writers on the Stack by engaging, liking, commenting, not wring my hands over the shifting sands of social media.
For me (and at least for now), social media is the cart before the horse.
I feel this way too. It’s so hard to get people to crossover from different platforms. And the folks who write and read substack are already interested in the platform. Plus y’all are awesome. We are a community of WRITERS first, and I think that way we all understand each other a bit more than folks you might find on other socials.
Precisely! It's so easy to split ourselves between all these platforms and honestly I'd rather give my energy to the platform that most aligns with my goals. At least for now.
Once I realized I was actually hunting for the dopamine hit, that was it. I deleted IG and if I want to scroll, I have to re-install the app. So far it's working for me.
Yes I’ve been playing with the same idea. It’s so draining. I’ve had a 5 minute time limit for socials set on my phone that seems to help but I think I may just go for it and delete them all! Substack is way better anyway
Yes!! Same. I just decided last night to focus on my writing and let IG come when it comes. It’s been such a time suck trying to create content over there when I could be writing with what limited time I have.
Im trying to build a business also outside of substack but still plan to use social media less
I only have 121 followers on Instagram and when I promoted myself, I got a few bites. IG is so saturated with reels, trying to be TikTok these days; definitely not for writers.
Just wanted to say, I've been feeling less motivated to write and getting less engagement on a number of recent posts, but in the last 24 hours, two separate people I don't know personally reached out to tell me that my writing resonated with them. Plateaus and lulls happen, but our writing matters to people! Keep going :)
That's so great! I feel like writing and publishing online can so often feel like screaming into the void, so it's very affirming when someone validates that we're not *actually* screaming into the void.
Ha! For sure. Every time I hit "publish" it's like... well, there it goes, swimming into the ether. And then you're surprised when someone actually finds your post.
I've also been falling behind on some writing I love--it can be hard to keep up with everything all the time! Just nice to connect with people when it does happen, and makes it all feel worth it to keep moving forward :)
Any advice for promoting my blog. I've tried twitter, reddit, LinkedIn and Facebook pages. None have really brought readers. I'm not a big social media user so don't have much of a following on these platforms. Any advice to grow the blog for someone who is not a big social media user? The blog is about leaving the classroom and the state of English education.
Hey James, great question. It's something a lot of us struggle with on here - I've grown my free list to 359 people in 4 months and learnt a thing or two that hopefully helps.
1) Don't Self-Promote Too Often
Provide value to any communities or platforms you share on. It's okay to shout about what you're doing every now and again, but avoid simply saying "check out my work".
2) Repurpose Your Content
Cut up your blog into smaller chunks that add value by themselves and turn them into LinkedIn posts, Twitter threads, Reddit comments. Edit for the rules of the platform, but don't overthink it.
3) Focus On Community
Connect with people wherever you go. Send them direct messages, support their work and help them by sign-posting resources. In return, they'll be sure to engage with your posts.
I agree with Charlie here — I did social media marketing for 10 years, and those three points are incredibly good pieces of advice.
One thing I would add is to post regularly, whether or not it is related to your Substack. I have a friend who does a Friday meme drop on her Facebook page, so it tends to keep her at the top of everyone's feed when she markets her makeup artist business. Consistency is key.
That's a great addition - thanks Kathleen. If your readers know what to expect and when it means you start becoming part of their week. I've had subscribers tell me that my newsletter is the first thing that they read when they wake up on Fridays. Pretty cool!
I've definitely seen the growing momentum of consistency on LinkedIn, but it feels like the return on investment is not there for Twitter, at least not for me. It just feels like treading water.
@Kathleen . As a social media marketer, I'd love to get your thoughts on https://newslettertosocials.com . It's a tool like Hootsuite/Buffer, but specifically for newsletter creators! I tried to merge content creation and scheduling into one platform. Would love to hear your thoughts. Thanks!
I'm surprised by the number of people encouraging self-promo! I agree with all of your tips strongly and when working with creators, self-promo is usually the number one reason they are not gaining more traction. You need to provide value before you provide your newsletter.
Very interesting Brad, thanks for sharing! It likely depends on our level of current activities. I like to think of it as an 80/20 rule of 80% value content, 20% promotional content. Like Gary Vee says Jab, Jab, Right Hook.
You need to earn their trust in the post before directing them elsewhere.
Hopefully I gave a decent example of a self-promotion without self-promoting post above? Haha
I also agree with Woody Allen: 80% of success is showing up. So I try to publish at least once a week, and often more frequently. Haven't managed anything in last couple of weeks, though, cos of personal circs. Getting worried now that people will lose interest :-(
"Worried that people will lose interest"? I have it great in that regard! Decades of conditioning have proven to me that there are very few people on the planet (this one) around whom me or anything I do are of anything even remotely close to being that consequential!
If you're of the charisma level where you think people might lose interest (well, you're blessed!), they'll be re-united with you and your life-in-writing as soon as you return, and will be happy you're back!
Speaking of legendary comics, you might've guessed I subscribe to the Groucho maxim (once quoted by Woody): "I wouldn't want to belong to a club that would have me as a member!"
You're right, I'm sure. I like to believe that people's day is spoilt beyond repair if they don't hear from me. I try to get out of chores by protesting: "But my readership..."
That's pretty funny, Terry! Apparently, I need to read one of the many Substack Newsletters about personal growth and improvement. There are at least 8,376,592,857,463,098,756 of 'em, so I have no excuse!
Loved tips 2 and 3, Charlie, but must take exception with number 1: "Don't Self-Promote Too Often." In my experience, most of my readers, contacts, community, have NO IDEA what Substack is. The more I post on IG, Twitter and FB, the more acquainted my folks are becoming, and the more acquainted they become, the more comfortable they are clicking buttons, entering emails and payment info.
I'm a bit wary of too much self-promotion because (a) I'm British, and we like to apologise for existing, so trumpeting about ourselves can be difficult; (b) I think it can be obnoxious and off-putting; and (c) I'm so outspoken I'm worried about being cancelled. None of that stops me doing it though!
I also get REALLY annoyed when I sign up for a free substack and the next week I get a "teaser" email where they try to dangle a paid only post in my face. I need at least a few weeks of engagement with the content to decide to pay! It is not a small investment for many. I will often unsubscribe immediately from these folks.
Exactly. I've had a couple of authors follow me on Twitter (where I follow back basically anyone who isn't a bot or porn account) and their feed is nothing but adverts for their books. No thanks, can't do it.
Secondly, you touched on something that has slowly been dawning on me: So much of promoting your stuff is, well, not promoting your stuff.
It's saying interesting things, talking to interesting people, making interesting comments, etc. Eventually, it seems, people just start to gravitate toward you. I have found that to work better than shouting about your latest article from the mountaintops.
I do social media for a non-profit and I second all of this! It's great advice.
I would also add that you should consider the users of each platform and why they're there. People go to LinkedIn for different reasons than Twitter, for instance (professional stuff versus goofing around). I post about my Substack on LinkedIn only when I have some kind of milestone to talk about--finishing season 1 of my podcast or announcing my book deal. People don't post on LinkedIn as often, so posts have a longer life in the feed.
I post on Twitter several times a day, and only about 10% of my tweets are self-promotional in any way. The rest are goofing around, interacting with other users, making fun of myself, etc. Tweets have a very short shelf-life (usually if it doesn't get interaction in the first ~20 minutes, it's dead in the water) so you can post 50 times a day and most people will only see a few of those.
Great addition Valorie - the rules and place of the platform make a difference. Though the platforms can definitely change. Recently I've seen LinkedIn changing into a more personal storytelling style alongside the value-driven posts. Sometimes breaking the rules can make you stand out even more! 😊
Good stuff in this guide; thank you! Izzy Prior’s quote on viewing content as a tool for connection and inspiration is profound and something I’ve recently realized as I ponder my purpose. For me there is no joy in relentless promotion.
Thank you Amie, appreciate it. Izzy is also one of my coaching clients and I can 100% say that's what she always does with her 18k followers on LinkedIn!
I'm the same way! I'm not big on promoting my stuff on social media (in fact, I'm terrible at it...need to work on it) but I've found something that works is to read the stuff that you're interested in, things that will help you write your own posts and interact directly with those writers. For example, I generally click on links that other Substack writers included in their posts. I also check out the 'Recommended' tab on the Substack app/dashboard to see what's interesting. I also reply or comment directly if a post truly resonates so that person knows I exist. Over time, they'll notice and then maybe you can start collaborating with them... who knows? That's my hope anyway.
I put my substack details in my email signature -- even when I'm emailing relatives! No idea if it has worked, but one never knows what word of mouth is happening behind the scenes
I put my substack in my email signature to everyone I send an email to, even potential clients, because I want them to see my writing. What better place to have samples than your substack.
That's a great idea, Alex, thank you. Completely bonkers that I didn't think of it myself, given that I use Bitly partly for that very reason in blog posts and presentations!
I have several different signatures, Sarah, and vary the one I use, depending on recipient. I also stick a link to my Substack newsletters in articles I write on my other blogs
Second this! I think cross promos have been huge. I've just done a couple, but even from that noticed a big jump in subscribers. And I actually found one opp for a cross promo right here at Office Hours!
Reading comments to this question and taking notes! Just launched, and although I am quite good with social media, I don't post a lot! I'm going with once a week at the moment, just doing little updates and sneak previews of my substack.
I think the biggest thing is to figure out who your audience is and where they live online. Are you writing to educators? If so, where do they hang out? Is there a subreddit for teachers that might welcome this content? A Facebook group? Are there networks that you need to be in to join the conversation? Also, do your teacher friends/colleagues all know what you're doing, and have you encouraged them to share? This would of course be more effective if you have a wider reach than your own town, but you gotta start somewhere!
1. Start with imagining your target audience. Who are they, where do they hang out online, etc
2. Create content directly from your newsletter that appeals to the target audience or provides value! Things like stats, quotes, questions, hooks, etc.
3. Post and engage ALOT on social media. If the time is right, provide your newsletter. If not then just know that with time, your newsletter will be discovered. People who are interested in what you are saying will check out your bio and find your newsletter.
These things take time, but with a solid game plan, it is possible! I'd be happy to chat more and brainstorm strategies for you or anyone.
Yes! So many people drop their links in random groups where their target audience presence is low. It's important to be calculated about how you promote yourself!
Newsletter to Socials will pull engaging quotes from your newsletter and schedule them on social media. Most newsletter creators struggle with social media because it is SO different than writing a newsletter. Things are counterintuitive. I recommend checking out "You suck at Social Media. Here's why" https://newslettertosocials.substack.com/p/you-suck-at-social-media-heres-why
I have met (Zoom) with Krager (Matt) and discussed his solution to the problem of getting more eyes on our work.. I suggest you give it a try. It is free. The system republishes your newsletter link to various social media sites auto-magically!
Awesome idea. It is similar to "Buffer," but for newsletter writers, in that you can schedule when and where to engage with your social media sites.
Just catching (and reading) this very thoughtful thread on tips for using social media - more, please! This topic (how to make productive use of social media) is the #1 question we keep reading in Office Hours. So much to learn from each other! Thanks, everyone.
Joining cross promotion lists has helped me. I use The Sample https://thesample.ai/?ref=b66a. Collaborations are another way to get your words in front of a new audience. If you write a piece for someone else and them have write something for you.
The key is finding someone with an established audience who has been doing it long enough. We've done podcast guesting on two different shows that are now either defunct or have gone in a completely different direction. We're looking for our next cross promotion and we're trying to be very careful about how we go about it.
There is a significant advantage to building up your presence in social media but it can take a long time to build recognition and relationships and even then it's no guarantee. Just out of curiosity, are there any groups out there that specifically focus on people who have given up teaching? Online or offline? Have you considered local newspapers or websites to share your ideas?
I'm actually in one even though I am still in teaching, in a good position, and have no desire to leave soon. But self-promotion is discouraged except in limited posts every week. I had more success posting in the FB groups for current AP English teachers, TBH.
I’m facing the same issue! Not the biggest socmed user and reluctant to put my actual face and name to my newsletter, so I’m having a tough time finding readers as well ):
I get a handful, depending on the post. I have no interest in spending a lot of time interacting there because I'm not looking for a job, but I understand the value of having a strong network there. I also know that with a business page it will give people who don't spend time on the other social media apps a place to get information about our podcast and blog. I have to see if my partner thinks it's worth looking into. We scrapped and closed our Pinterest account because it just didn't fit right for goals and material.
I'm not ready to jump to a paid option (still brainstorming models/pricing), but one thing I'm planning to do (as a former finance guy) is provide a semi-detailed accounting of how I plan to utilize any future revenues, including supporting other stacks, going to writing conferences, research, etc.
Haha - indeed! I have some very specific thoughts for why I'd want to provide this level of transparency as well, but I'm not quite ready to articulate them. Stay tuned... :-)
I turned on paid subscriptions a while back, but I don't push them very hard. Might have to start pushing in just because there are so many other writers I want to support! It's a nice circular economy. :)
I’ve doubled my subscribers in the last month (writing here for two). Still not a huge number, but I’ll take that growth! How did I do it? I have promoted zero on social media. I have been engaged with the Substack community (and loving all of the content I’m reading!) and referencing some other ‘stackers work in my posts as they relate to topics I’m writing about.
Congrats on the little writer!!!!!! And thank you for this feedback. I have no social media following (trying to grow it on Twitter at the same time as Substack), so this is really helpful. And cool!!!
Funny, I was just chatting about community on the Novelleist Substack. One thing I’ve noticed is that I have an audience of mostly passive readers and within that group a smaller, nascent community. I recently launched a second weekly edition on Wednesday. It’s still slice of life humor like my Sunday stories, but the Wednesday edition is shorter and it includes reader submissions (mostly funny things readers find in the wild). The Wednesday edition isn’t as widely read, but I’ve noticed that in the six weeks since launching the conversations on both days seem to be getting better. I know some Susbtack writers use threads to do this. I tried those a while ago, but they always felt off. A bite-sized edition with community input seemed to be a better fit for me.
Thank you! Wednesday has a slightly lower open rate - low 40s, compared to low 50s for the Sunday edition. One thing I’m wondering is if I should rebrand Wednesday’s edition with a name that isn’t specific to the day of the week. Reason being that it’s all pretty evergreen and I wonder if readers who see it after Wednesday are skipping it because they think it’s not timely.
I tried a “Midweek Musings” yesterday in addition to my weekly posts. Also tried the shorter format. I’ll be interested to see if I get the same trend as you.
Interesting. I keep toying with the idea of incorporating threads, but I wonder if my audience is still too small to get enough engagement to make it worthwhile. I like the idea of a shorter post that's conducive to community input. I might give that a whirl.
For what it's worth, the Substacks I've seen that use threads to greatest effect are quite large. I modeled my approach after them, but it never felt right.
One thing I could never figure out is whether my readers made any real distinction between a thread and a post. I know it says "thread" but I never really thought my readers put much stock into that label. On the other hand, a few high profile Substacks like Culture Study seem to have audiences that distinguish between threads and posts. I probably could have done a better job educating, but in the end I don't think it was worth the effort.
Not mentioned, but a good tactic to get paid subscribers is to tell your readers **WHY** you should go paid and **WHERE** the money goes. My stack's goal is to revive the art of the short story and 50% of the revenue goes to authors. I think that this makes people feel like they are doing something worthwhile with their money rather than just adding to someone's bank account.
Love this idea - you have a new subscriber and I forwarded your link to my small group coaching container, as they are starting to work on submissions!
I always respond to community comments on my newsletter games, but in the upcoming edition (publishing in a half hour), I decided to try shouting-out recent comments I've received. My players say smart and cool things, and I want to showcase them.
Here's a related feature idea. When you paste a Substack link into a post, it converts the link into a nifty feature box. It'd be rad if the same thing happened for comments. So when I post a comment from a previous edition, the formatting is nice and encourages folks to join the conversation.
I’m using the NPR model of encouraging “Member Supporters” who are enthralled with my free content versus strategies to actively pursue them. That strategy, albeit a slower roll, has worked fabulously well for me. Most importantly, it conforms with my Taoist way of effortlessly allowing what’s meant for me to naturally unfold.
I mean, just showing up for Office Hours means you're taking your Substack seriously and you care about making it better and interacting with other writers. So that means YOU ROCK!
Yes!! I've been browsing through the threads here with my morning coffee and it's such a great way to start the day. So lovely to see all these writers who care not just about writing but also about support and community!
We really need more options about subscription costs. As someone who loves to subscribe, $5 limits how many newsletters I can pay for. In some cases, a person is more likely to get 1000 subscribers at $2 or 3 than 400 subscribers at $5, yet those add up to the same payout. Your platform may actually be limiting folks. I read the justification of "why" you have $5 as your lowest, but I strongly disagree with it. Thank you :)
Many 'Stackers (including myself) have a Ko-fi account or Patreon (and there are others), with a QR code I sometimes slap at the bottom of my articles. Here's what it looks like: https://ko-fi.com/frontrowandbackstage
To answer what I'm guessing is your next question: "You've gotta be kidding!"
I kind of wish I could charge per article. I suspect a reader would be more willing to pay $1 per piece of content than commit to a recurring $5 monthly fee.
I've tried to combat that by severely lowering the annual total...I think I've got it down to $39, now. I realize that's a tough sell for someone struggling to pay $5, but it's a price I can control, until (maybe) 'Stack makes more flexible the monthly cost.
That's over a $20 savings, and it's a total I can control, when $5 is the lowest monthly price point. I work within what's made available!
Yes, I set my annual to the lowest. I make all my content free anyway, since I am really just doing this for fun, but when I am subscribing to others, I am not likely to pay $5 a month until I am REALLY into them.
I do not know how to convey to potential paid subscribers that out of the $7 / month I charge, I am only getting about $5.64 from their monthly subscription.
I would make the accounting clear in your About section. That's what I plan to do if/when I launch a paid tier. And I think you can make it clear that supporting the Substack platform is part of the value prop since they provide the tools for your newsletter. The credit card processor fee is the cost of doing online business, so most people should understand and accept that too.
Hey fellow writers, I went paid last week! So, I just wanted to share my thoughts:
I converted only 3 of the 359 subscribers to paid. My open rates are great (50%), the polls score 4.5 / 5, I've had awesome feedback and it seems people like the work. However, I see a lot other publications converting 3-5% or even 10% of subscribers to paid.
But, I'm not stressed. I priced pretty high for the amount of times I hit publish because I'm focusing on evergreen content that lasts. I know with consistent time, more great content and a few well placed paywalls & special offers more will convert in time.
Aiming for 50 paid / 500 free by the end of the year.
Will be thinking about how to add EVEN more to the subscription (especially things that can be built once like digital products) to get subscribers to go paid.
But, that feeling of someone paying for my work was truly awesome.
Now to keep adding value and trusting the process.
If you're facing the same sorta conversion rate, you're not alone.
Currently struggling with converting direct visitors into free subscribers. Also, finding the right audience is a tough nut it seems. Best to all, Substack is driving my brain into overdrive!
Keep writing, keep posting on social media, and don't sweat the small stuff i.e. subscribers. Focus on quality writing, and subs will come, especially as Substack and the concept of subscribing to a writing platform keeps growing.
Reminds me of the early days of eBay, late '90s. Suddenly, the notion of online auctions went from "huh?" to pop cultural phenomenon!
Make sure you have at least one Subscribe button in every single post. I typically have one very close to the top and then one further down or at the end. Make it really obvious that subscribing is an option, and maybe even take a moment to explain why someone should subscribe.
It’s a funny balance isn’t it? The majority of people reading are probably already subscribers so I don’t want to piss them off with too many subscribe buttons.
But, as you post onto social media, those subscribe buttons suddenly have a useful function! What you might do is just go with the pre-set sub buttons you have on your e-mail post headers, etc, and as soon as you publish (your e-mails go out to your subscribers), go in and add more intentional sub buttons before you post on social media!
A feature request: I want the ability to remove/hide any post from my archive, but for that post to still be accessible if someone enters the URL or gets a link. I know about the Unpublish option but that does make the post inaccessible. What I want is not for a page to get actually removed from the internet, but just get hidden from my blog.
Reason for this: I do a monthly recommendations post where I link to other stuff I came across. However, I don't want to keep these posts forever as they'll clutter my archive, which I want to mostly have my original work. I'm currently unpublishing each such post after a month or so, but I wish I could just hide them so that if anyone in the future (myself included) wants to see what I recommended any given month, they can just enter the correct URL and check.
Have you tried setting up another newsletter feed? You can have several different "post types" that can keep your main homepage decluttered. Lots of the "News" newsletters use them!
I’ve done this to organize different sections of my Substack, but, sadly, posts to individual newsletters/sections still show up on the home page/app feed and in the archive regardless of where they are published.
It would be ideal if we could turn homepage visibility on/off when posting to avoid this clutter at the source!
You can change a post's publishing date in its settings. If you make it really "old" it ends up further down the archive page. That is one way to move the "clutter". Not an ideal fix, but at least worth knowing about.
I have requested something similar and would also love the ability to “hide” posts from my feed/front page but still have them accessible in individual newsletters where they are originally posted.
I sometimes post things to separate newsletters within my overarching Substack that are exclusive to that newsletter and don’t necessarily fit with content on the home page. Or, as you say, are more administrative. It would be nice to exclude them from the app feed/front page.
There is currently the option the “exclude from top” or “pin” etc any post in the archive. Maybe options to “hide” or “exclude from home page/archive” would solve the problem?
You can apparently send emails to your subscribers without the content appearing on the web version of your Substack. I haven't tried that myself and don't know the mechanics of it, but maybe someone else here can explain it? (I saw it discussed on Discord).
That’s good to know! I’ll have to look into that also.
But I actually want to post directly to the website under different newsletters without sending emails or necessarily going on the home page. Some of my content is more about creating context or references, and it would be great to exclude those posts where appropriate.
Hi Substack world! I’m Sam. I write about travel, culture, and my life as an expat in Egypt.
To those of you who have built highly engaged communities on Substack: how did you do it? (Sorry if this has been asked a million times.)
I’m realizing more and more that my goal isn’t just to get people to read my writing—though I definitely do want that!—it’s to find and engage authentically with people who share my interests. I plan to reach out to a couple writers I admire who are good at this, and I appreciated Scott Hines’ advice that when you find your voice, readers will come. But I would love to hear thoughts from the wider group!
For context, I’m very new at this (only been here a month) and I don’t have an existing audience/community that I’m bringing over from another platform.
So - those people who share your interests, but who haven't found you yet - where are they right now? Where do they regularly hang out? What are they reading online?
And by all this I mean: where do YOU regulartly hang out & what are you reading online? (Because they are just kinda like you, right?) If you regard your ideal audience as other people more or less like you and acting more or less like you, then your own behaviour is a good guide and a good thing to analyse here - and might lead you straight to that audience.
Alternately: if you yourself kinda aspire to be like one of your writer heroes, where do *they* hang out - and then by extension, where does *their* audience hang out?
If you know where your ideal audience currently is, you can start coming up with a plan to get their attention - eg. guest-posting, or leaving a really amazingly thoughtful comment somewhere, or even helping one of those "other Yous" directly with something, which is a fantastic way to get someone interested.
Thanks so much for this thoughtful comment, Mike--lots of good (and actionable) advice in here. It makes sense that to find an engaged, like-minded readership I need to get out there and contribute to potential readers’ communities, rather than just hoping they find me. You get out what you put in, I guess!
This stuff is really, really hard - but for me, the hardest thing of all was that feeling of Howling Into The Digital Void, where you have no idea who is hearing what you're saying. It's much easier - and much more effective - to put your outreach into a place where you know those people already halfway on the same page as you, either in a comment thread, or clustered around a hashtag, or something like that...
Facebook and Twitter and everywhere else: they're not communities. The communities are *on* those platforms. And once you find them and get yourself into them, you see people acting like how you want your audience to act towards your work - and so it begins!
That feeling of Howling Into The Digital Void is the worst! Finding the right communities within social media platforms will definitely take some legwork, but I sounds like it will pay dividends...and the success of your newsletter clearly proves that it can work! Thanks again for the solid advice.
Yes, me too. My articles get 0 or 1 comment, mostly 0. I ask questions in the articles, I include 'Leave a Comment' buttons. What else should I be doing to get people to engage?
I have an opinion that may be unpopular, but I think it is important that writers (and the platform) at least be aware of this perspective.
Sometimes I sign up for a free subscription and then I get a "teaser" email where they dangle a *paid only* post in my face to encourage me to subscribe. I need at least a few weeks of engagement with the content to decide to pay! It is not a small investment for many. I will often unsubscribe immediately from these folks out of principle.
I did not subscribe to these emails and do not want them. I consider them spam. We should be able to only receive what we ask for. Maybe instead, plug your "paid only" post at the end of a free post. something like, "if you enjoyed this, you might also enjoy my post about ____ that is available to paid subscribers". That way you aren't wasting people's time.
oh Kristen, I feel the same way! I feel very annoyed when a writer "gives me a free week" or other length to enjoy their paid content. If I don't ask for it, don't send it. I don't need more things in my inbox. This marketing ploy has the opposite effect on me. Like you, I simply unsubscribe.
With all due respect, then you aren’t part of that newsletters target audience anyway. Creators are not trying to beg for money, they are just presenting an opportunity for folks to get more if they want. Which you don’t and that’s fine. But to not promote right when you have someone’s attention isn’t sound marketing advice.
Those are the best, right? Just a nice, unassuming cafe in Europe. I have an entire highlight on my IG devoted to #croissanting in France and Spain, soon to be a post.
Hi Michael, we host each week at 5pm GMT. The local time is always listed on the event page and will save to your calendar accordingly if you are RSVP. https://lu.ma/office-hours
Fascinating to learn that 5pm GMT = 6pm BST, which I thought was something of an oxymoron at the best of times - the summertime part I mean, although it is roasting here this evening, nothing like a heatwave to keep us on out toes....but much fascinating reading nevertheless :-)
1. Clean your subscriber list every month or so and remove users who never open your emails. It impacts your open rates and increases the risk of the user forgetting they signed up and reporting you as spam. There's no point in flaunting large follower numbers if they don't read or engage. It'll hurt, but it's for your own good. Morning Brew, for example, allegedly removes users if no email has been opened within 18 days of signing up.
2. Don't budge from your basic monthly rates. If it's a minimum 5, don't budge. Respect the value of your own offering. Be willing to negotiate on annual rates to an extent. Going too low will hurt the authenticity of your brand. You deserve to be paid for work you put out and that others enjoy.
3. Don't worry about subscriptions drying up. It'll hurt, but post consistently, help others, and be firm where you to be, and the people will come. I may be joining the list of memorable names and faces by helping out here every week. When people know me and recognize me, they trust me and aren't afraid to subscribe, or colloborate, or recommend my newsletter to their readers (this has happened for 60% of my current recos).
"Oh, Nikhil, the What's Curation? guy! He's a nice dude!" is the sentiment I'm chasing.
A word of caution though--I have a reader who engages frequently but who never shows up as having clicked, opened, or read anything. Some browsers allow users to stop tracking and some email clients don't send read-confirmations. If I didn't have this reader example I wouldn't know, but it does exist. Be careful and cautious when pruning your subscriber list--you don't want to cut a privacy-conscious reader who loves your content!
Yep, can confirm this as well. One of my friends subscribed and it showed that she had never opened or interacted with a single post. I thought that was odd since she has been a big supporter of mine in the past. Lo and behold, one day she commented on Facebook how much she has been enjoying my Substack.
Several of my paid subscribers have this star rating, but then reply directly to emails saying they loved an episode. Soooo they must be reading? Or they're all liars. Those are options. 😂
Yes! This is a big problem. I have multiple subscribers who've reported that their e-mail blocks scripts that indicate mail's been opened. I've tested this myself and know of at least two e-mail clients that do this. Substack needs to create a "mark as read" button they can click from within the e-mail that would take them out to a brief page that would then record it as opened.
I agree with 2 and 3 but I'd be cautious about 1. Security settings in some browsers or email clients (like DuckDuckGo) prevent Substack from tracking email opens. If they open in a Private window in Chrome the same thing would happen. I tend to assume that if people are taking the time to subscribe, they know what they want. Who am I to tell them they don't want my newsletter?
Wow, this is super helpful. I was just about to purge some non-openers but now I'll have to think twice, particularly as some are close friends. Very interesting.
Thank you for this - I appreciate the words of wisdom. There seems to be a common theme (which is awesome) of powering through sometimes and remaining consistent.
It's Office Hours time again! I just wanted to share that my two main Substacks have been seeing incredible growth, and I think most of that of late has come from Recommendations. For those recommending me, thank you! And to those who are still on the fence about Recommendations, I would definitely encourage you to give them a shot.
I also discovered an interesting phenomenon over on Reddit. Someone asked a question in my local sub that I had coincidentally answered in that day's post on my Unseen St Louis Substack. Before I could reply, someone else (one of my subscribers!) had shared the link. Even though the link wasn't the top post, it generated a huge amount of traffic and about 30 subscriptions. That was as good or better performance over when I share my link in a new Reddit post. The moral of the story is, never underestimate the power of word of mouth and personal recommendations (even the non-Substack kind) on social.
My growth recently has certainly been mostly from recommendations. I can't emphasise enough the importance of connecting with other writers. And by that I mean really connecting, not just self-promoting.
Total success story! It's the little things. "Don't let your unseen influence go to your head now" haha Seriously though that's a great little positive boost there
I've been creating these one line "memes" (for lack of a better word) on IG (stories). I find a photo on pixabay or unsplash, and pair it with a link to one of my stack columns and add a line like: "Don't be shy: subscribe." Or "Come hang with me," and a picture of clothespins. See where I'm going? It's fun! Creative, and it does get attention and subscribers!
I have had wonderful luck with Recommendations. I’ve teamed up with a couple of other newsletter writers to recommend and cross-promote our work. I have a little success with Instagram, but none with Twitter or Facebook. You really need to find an audience that is already reading newsletters, not hope that you can convert readers to them.
Really smart to partner with other Substack writers! I always tell writers to look at who is recommending them and if they don't already know them to reach out and make an introduction and see if there's anything you can do together.
I was knocking myself out, writing tweets and excepts and posting links to my newsletter all over social. Nothing worked as well as having other writers recommend me. I'm writing a post next week that will be all newsletter recommendations.
Hi Micheline, it's great to connect with other fellow food writers here, I just subscribed. Re audience: substack is doing a great job in channeling readers to my newsletter. I've had to take a long break from posting recently and during that time recommendations only garnered me 70 new subscribers. The substack network has a huge potential!
I think gearing your messaging to the specific platform helps! I find Facebook is family-oriented and nostalgic, Twitter is reactionary and goofing around, LinkedIn is buttoned-up and celebratory, and Instagram is... I don't know what Instagram is anymore. 🤷 So presenting your content around the personalities most likely to use a platform helps!
I've got a tiny new publication - just 177 subscribers and only 26 paid. I'd been building a traditional email list for years, but became truly weary of the feeling of continually creating content for that list and social media for free. I love substack creating a space where I can continue to offer free content, but also receive payment for my writing. At first I had steady signups and conversions from social and my email list, but that seems to have entirely tapered off. Would love some ideas to create a more steady increase.
I think if you had 177 people in your house you’d feel differently about your “small” list! And if 26 of those people put cash In your hand as they walked through the door you’d be a puddle on the floor. Don’t minimize your list— you’re doing great!
Very good perspective. And yes I’m so grateful for my supporters and current growth ! But as a solo mama solely supporting herself with writing definitely interested and way motivated to grow :)
One of the best things you can do to grow your audience from *within* Substack is to build a healthy ecosystem of writer-to-writer recommendations with your peers. Here's more on that: https://on.substack.com/p/recommendations-update?s=w
Off topic thought: it would be cool to be able to save post templates. I write a regular newsletter with the same columns every week--being able to save the format and pull it up easily would save me some time :)
One thing that I'm struggling with is discovery and finding new subscribers and part of that is finding the right niche--I've mentioned before it would be great if there was our own Addiction or Recovery tag. Hint??? If you search "alcoholism" here one of the top results is still a home bartending newsletter.
In the meantime, I'm trying to compile a complete or nearly complete listing of the addiction/recovery stuff available here. I'll be happy to share the list with anyone who wants to use it and happy to add anyone who wants to be included!
I imagine you've been very active in the therapy community- in another post here, Sarah was asking about LinkedIn- if you haven't tried it, it might work well for connecting with other recovery groups, therapists, and people involved in your community. Your podcast would benefit anyone they're working with, and some people might be protective and proprietary, but many other will not. Hit that numbers game- to add someone you don't know you just need to add a comment to the request, it's that easy I believe. The intricate search functionality can allow you to target a large number of people with a specific job title or working for a specific organization, in a specific area, etc. You can easily spend a whole day doing that. A small percentage will add you, hence why it's a numbers game. Ensure you have a professional, short message that gets them interested in your mutual interest and your services. This is one way to help build your network that will help boost subscribers. I'm currently unemployed but in the meantime I have built a LinkedIn network filled with highly connected people all over North America.
Hey, friends! I'm coming up on one year since going paid in September. My growth in both paid and free subscribers has been slow but steady. I've had the most significant jumps, after the first flush of sign-ups, through either being unexpectedly given a shout-out in another newsletter or doing a guest post for another newsletter. I've also tried, as a result, to do shout-outs to other newsletters in my own as often as I can.
Now, I'm thinking about expanding what I offer regularly to feature guest posts. At Let Your Life Speak I write about integrity, and how we practice integrity consistently as imperfect human beings in a complex world. https://ashasanaker.substack.com.
If that's an umbrella you could happily climb under and write something, let me know: ashasanaker@gmail.com.
May I ask if there’s an algorithm that promotes our newsletters when people search on the substack website itself or are recommended it? For example if they’re looking for literature-related newsletters, are the top most suggested ones just the ones with the most followers? How can I tailor my content to reach out to a wider global audience who share the same interests as me? Asking because I’m shy to post on my own social media and have my name and face attached to my newsletter. Appreciate any help or insight!
Not long ago, I inputted the keywords for my newsletter in the search bar and 70% of the results listed before my publication were completely empty. There was not a single post in them except the "coming soon". I do believe this should be sorted out pronto to support active publications over inactive ones.
I think there should be some way for Substack to track the activeness of newsletters. For example, if they detect no activity for a certain period of time, they bump up the ones who ARE active. But then again, I believe Substack is still peaking, so they need some time to sort out the backend stuff. Really appreciate that they're always having these regular conversations with writers and take our suggestions to heart!
I mentioned this on the last Office Hours. I wish I could search by recent activity, or at least be able to see when they last posted from the list view so that I didn't have to click through every single Substack in the search results to see if they're current.
Right! Personally not a bold, loud person so it makes me uncomfortable to shout about my newsletter. But unfortunately I know that’s one of the only ways to grow. How did social media work for you?
Social media has not worked as well as I thought. People, I think, still do not know what "substack" is and are hesitant about clicking a link that they are unsure of. If I am unsure of a link, I will Google the root URL to see what it is, then I may click on the link.
As I mentioned somewhere else here, 'Stack reminds me (in '22) of late '90s eBay. People 25 years ago were going, "Huh? Online auctions? Whaddayatalkin'about?" Shortly thereafter, a pop cultural icon was born!
In various industries/businesses, I've noticed, 'Stacks with certain subject matter (economics, stocks, politics, etc) can grab hundreds, if not thousands, of paid subs simply because the subs can be a write-off! With my little shop of show-biz whores, I'm not quite that lucky!
I just passed one year on 'Stack, and am proud to have (somehow) amassed 125 subscribers, with the number of paid subscribers able to be counted on a couple of bony fingers (avoid giggling, please)!
I can definitely identify, Caroline. For me it helps to tease out an interesting factoid or study I might've cited in the newsletter instead of making a direct appeal.
Just a quick post to say how much I love this platform! As “The Footloose Muse” (carolmossa.Substack.com), I have 308 subscribers and 18 of those are paid. I’ve been a writer my whole life, and only now do I feel free to create content that matters. Thank you!!
My strategy is to build up my community off free subscribers first. I'm curious if anyone has any insight as to how I might prime the pump in the meantime, however. I may not be going paid any time soon, but there might be strategies to ready my audience for that eventual shift. What say you, fellow Substackers??
Similar strategy here. I'm a big fan of Cafe Anne. She has a paid option, but doesn't really promote it and nothing is behind the paywall. It's just a way for readers to support her work. Can't seem to find the post, but she shared her subscriber data a few months back. https://annekadet.substack.com/
Anyway, I suspect that when I eventually go paid I may use a similar approach.
Anne's work is gold! Her paid subscription is the ultimate soft sell. I think I was aware of it for a few months and then when she wrote a report about how paid was going, I realized just how much I love reading her Substack, so it was kind of a no-brainer to go paid.
I had the same strategy, Pablo, but decided to offer a paid option that doesn’t currently get anything extra--just opportunity to support my writing. I’ve had a couple of subscribers upgrade to paid since doing that.
I’ve been writing for two months and added the paid option about 3 weeks ago. I also updated my About page as well as my email headers and footers to include a blurb about why becoming a paid subscriber matters.
I watched one of substack's "Grow" videos and one guy said that going paid actually encouraged more free subscribers lol I haven't gone paid yet, so I can't attest. Also, just read your blog and it's soooo good (name is very creative)! I just shared it with my spanish/latin friends & added it as a recommendation on my page
I've been thinking about this effect as well. If you see some people are paying for the newsletter, psychologically it indicates the newsletter has value. This is a tricky consumer behavior topic that probably doesn't have a clear answer.
I would love to have data on which posts are getting viewed. Right now it’s just the source of where the traffic came from. But not where it’s going.
For instance, I post on Wednesdays with occasional posts on other days. So if I get an uptick in traffic on a Sunday when I haven’t posted anything in 4 days and the past month of content has no increase in views, I have no idea who’s reading what content.
I have weekly posts since February 2021 at a minimum, I can’t go back and check each one to find out what people are reading.
At litthinkpodcast.substack.com we have just hit over 100 subscribers!!! We are so excited and looking into adding paid after the new year (you know, to avoid messes with taxes). How many free subscribers should we have before we make the change? Any advice for how we can get teachers (mostly) to subscribe so that we can get paid for the freelance work we're doing now?
Hi all! A friend and I want to launch a pop-up substack (?) of sorts about Louise Penny's books before the 19th one comes out this fall. If you're interested in contributing, please let me know! You definitely don't have to be a book writer to join. We're looking for essays on any topics including:
- The role of food in the books. (looking at you foodie substackers)
- I'd love to have a poet write about Ruth Zardo.
- The unique joy of the audiobooks.
- The role of art/artists (painters, poets and playwrights, oh my)
- Masculinity in the books.
- The way the series approaches Catholicism/religion.
Comment or email whattoreadif@substack.com if you're interested. If you're curious, but don't have a topic idea drop me a note and we'll see what we can think of!
How do you all do your planning? I have a Miro board with lists of topic ideas, and few Draft posts on Substack itself. But I don't really have anywhere comfortable for fleshing out ideas before they become posts. What do you all do?
I have a running Excel sheet with a long list of ever-expanding ideas. I pick whichever story idea strikes my fancy or is current and I announce the following week's topic in advance. This helps me commit to a post and sets my subconscious to work on the next story.
I track ideas in a notebook along with a general plan for what I want to publish week to week. I try to do a first draft at least 5 days in advance and refine it until publishing. I may brainstorm on paper or within a post draft itself.
I just use Apple Notes. I have a grid with my weekly schedule for the next three months and then a long list of one-line ideas. From there, I start fleshing out in a doc. I use the app iA Writer on my iPad primarily, and then switch to my Mac to enter the text in Substack and do the formatting (the Substack editor is a bit of a pain on iPad at the moment).
Paid subscribers continue to be readers who don't even open all the emails yet the most engaged readers open everything and remain free, any ideas as to why?
I have, so far, done a dismal job converting subscribers, but in fairness I haven't tried. I am using a paywall for my paid content, but I realized there might be a challenge with that, because my free subscribers don't know what is hidden behind the paywall or know whether they think it's valuable.
My grand conversion experiment is going to be SUBtember. I mentioned it sometime in July in this space, and I am working steadily towards it. My August posts all have a warning to my subscribers that SUBtember is coming, and I have begun to build spreadsheets to run analytics so that at the end of SUBtember I can report back about how well it worked. I don't like overly promoting, so SUBtember will be my one subscription drive for the year and then I'll leave everyone alone.
I really enjoyed the Going-Paid checklist and it helped me think about my process even though I started paid out of the gate.
You should definitely let your free subscribers know what you put behind a paywall! You can share this info on your About page, in your headers and footers, and in captions when you use subscribe buttons in posts! Being strategic about where you put the paywall in your posts can work well too.
One awesome thing I noticed other writers doing is creating a small list of maybe 3-4 linked bullet points at the bottom of a post, directing their readers to similar content on that same substack. (ex. "Liked my post on Swiss Cheese? You might like this one on Edam and this one on Brie.")
Obviously a little bit of extra work to do this each time, but as a reader, seeing this at the end of a post frequently makes me click from the email to the person's substack page.
I'm sorry I can't remember offhand who I've seen do this, but if it is you then GREAT JOB!
whats up yall! I recently turned on paid subscriptions (woot woot) with the patronage model - everything is free but if you would like to support and make this all possible, you can become a paying subscriber.
I would love to hear from everyone else here and the substack team on best practices / language / etc for communicating this concept to readers.
right now i tell them its like NPR or Elmo (on PBS), but I don't know if that's good lol.
Judd Legum who writes popular information does the "donation based" model. I really like the language he uses on his subscribe page: https://popular.info/subscribe
He also uses really compelling language in his headers and footers.
I use "mission based" language too. I talk about supporting independent research outside of the rules of academia, and making history free and interesting. For season 2 I'm pivoting to having my podcast be freely available (it's currently available with ads or behind a paywall), so I can lean into the message of "make knowledge free."
I'm doing this too. There's a strong element of public service in what I write (it's helping people understand the science behind important issues like climate change). But I really appreciate when people do choose to pay.
In response to the poll: I've just had an uptick in paid folks. My first-of-the-month newsletter was a stew of all sorts, even including a "hot weather" recipe to be made early in the day... with the idea to construct your day around getting your writing done. I've done my usual eclectic posts, all about writing, but a real breadth of writing... Sharing my process, but also--always--taking the readers' writing seriously. I think my sheer consistency (posting between 8-12 pieces/month) is paying off. So I'm here to say, keep going. Keep the quality of your posts to a standard, let people know you're here. I've had zero to little response to any sort of "deal," paywalls don't seem to make much difference, I've never done the unlock-later (in fact, I lock down after a short period of free), and when I've targeted 4-5 star free folks, I've gotten little. I think it's just the work itself that's bringing them in. Intriguing pics, and working in areas and approaches to writing that aren't elsewhere.
I do have questions about how commenting works, and how/who gets notifications. How best to let readers know about responses to posts. I need to understand this in order to keep discussion going. Is there a Substack primer on this topic? Many thanks, Team, as always!
I targeted all my five star readers, thousands of them, very little uptick for conversion. In fact, majority of my paid subscribers are two star readers, very odd.
Brand new to Substack, so I'm still working on my content, my schedule and getting free subscribers. Acknowledging all of you who are in paid mode. I hope to be there soon!
I see that a number of my new subscribers are finding me on the Substack app or platform, which is awesome! That said, I have no idea *where* on the app/platform they are finding me! For example, I see on their subscriber profile that they found me from the "Substack Network"-- what does this mean? Is it another one of my follower's profiles? Is it on the discover page? (I can't find myself there when logged into a friend's account, lol)
TBH I dunno if this knowledge will help me write or tailor my newsletter in anyway. I'm just super curious!
You always own your intellectual property, mailing list, and subscriber payments. That include any of the writing you publish, you can decide to publish again elsewhere too
Yes, as I understand it....your writing is your writing! I have to believe that, because I have a singer/songwriter writing for me in what we're hoping will end up being his printed memoirs/autobio!!
You own the material, but it will be considered "previously published" if you then try to submit the story elsewhere, to a publication that you do not own.
Couple things that I saw deep in comment threads that I wanted to put on the surface as useful tidbits:
-The community values consistency, and many writers want to be sure if they're recommending a publication, there's actually something there for their readers to... well... read
-It is possible to oversaturate your readers with content. Make sure you're sticking to the expectations that you lay out in your newsletter
-Community health and engagement > raw subscriber numbers
-The value of social media pages for sharing non-link content: Sometimes just posting pictures, video, etc. simply serves as a reminder to your followers to go check your page
Thanks for a great office hours. I write about the outdoors and climbing, if anyone would like to collaborate, or reach out with questions (I've been at this a while) I'll try to get back to you. You can reach out at colenobleclimbs@gmail.com
I feel like people might prefer the word “follow” than subscribe. Just because following on social media is so common and so easy. Just playing around with that thought.
The thing is, it is a newsletter and they have to provide their email address to subscribe. When you follow someone on Twitter or FB, you don't have to do so, and that content isn't delivered to your inbox in the same way. So "Subscribe" and "Follow" are actually different things.
I've been making custom buttons with the word "join" above the email input. This way it's not a gotcha, but it feels more like an invitation to a fun group.
📊 Poll of the week 📊 If you are keen to learn more about the features you can use as tools to convert free reades to paid subscribers, here is where to start.
Subscriber dashboard & filters allow you to identify how often readers are engaging with your post and send them targeted emails.
https://on.substack.com/p/subscriber-dashboard-guide
Special offers include discounts (https://support.substack.com/hc/en-us/articles/360037835291-How-do-I-offer-a-discount-to-my-publication-) and free trials (https://support.substack.com/hc/en-us/articles/360037465192-How-do-I-offer-a-free-trial-to-my-publication-). You can set both up from your settings page.
The paywall allows writers to tease paid posts to free subscribers and new readers. It provides a call-to-action to upgrade and gives writers flexible control over how much of their paid post to show readers.
https://support.substack.com/hc/en-us/articles/4407989020308-How-do-I-publish-a-free-preview-of-a-paid-post-on-Substack-
Unlock paid posts later schedules a paid post to unlock automatically and be sent as a newsletter to free subscribers.
https://support.substack.com/hc/en-us/articles/7737934503828-How-do-I-change-a-post-from-paid-to-free-#:~:text=Interested%20in%20scheduling%20a%20paid%20post%20to%20unlock%20automatically%20and%20be%20sent%20as%20a%20newsletter%20to%20free%20subscribers%3F
How have you most effectively used these tools?
Stuart Winchester who writes Storm Skiing is using the paywall really effectively. He explicitly tells readers just above the paywall what's below.
"Below the paid subscriber jump: America’s tallest chairlift gets an upgrade, two new mountains join Freedom Pass, why the Ragged Mountain expansion is officially dead, I hate interactive trailmaps, a map of all ski areas on U.S. Forest Service land, how I got the Jay Peak story so wrong & how I’m preventing a repeat, & much more."
Check it out: https://www.stormskiing.com/p/vails-summer-of-epic-woe-continues
This is a good idea. I just mentioned that I wondered whether my free subscribers know or really care what is below the paywall, but the things I am paywalling are serialized chapters of books. I could probably do a teaser...time to get creative!
Yes, Stuart also noticed a surprisingly big jump in paid subscriptions when the paywall cutoff happened right on a cliffhanger… (A story about bad behavior at a ski resort, where he placed the paywall just as a bunch of sinister vehicles pulled into the parking lot, and…. PAYWALL! A lot of people really wanted to know what happened next, so they changed from free to paid. So maybe don’t cut at the end of a section; cut at the most dramatic point.)
oh that would piss me off!
Heh heh. True. Me too. I feel your pain. But if a reader is reading someone's work for free, it's hard to see what grounds the reader has for complaining. And if they are DYING to find out what happens next.... well, they could fix the problem immediately by... paying the writer for their work.
it's a risk only the most skilled writers should take. It would only work if they had me *totally* sucked in. It would piss me off either way, but for most instances, would just cause them to lose the opportunity to win me over in the future, since I would immediately unsubscribe to avoid being subjected to that experience twice.
Yeah totally, that'd be more of an unsub trigger for me than something that would get me reaching for my wallet.
I've been cutting after the first paragraph--doing story-selective paywalling is a great idea!
I would love to see data on this approach. It's never worked on me, whereas meeting my monthly limit on articles, for example, has worked on me.
Hello Pablo,
I'm relatively new to substack.com Only been writing a couple of months. What is the monthly limit on articles?
There is none. I meant the monthly limit you encounter on the websites of traditional publishers, like The New York Times. I was suggesting a similar feature for Substack. Incidentally, my suggestion was addressed elsewhere on this thread. Apparently, you can create a trial period for new subscribers, which is similar to what I suggested.
Stuart does a great job with this, for sure! I'm wondering if there is similar wisdom surrounding where you should place subscribe CTAs in posts to get the best conversion
Agreed.
Good question—thanks Cole.
For what it's worth, and what I've tried, if I'm going to share the post on social media, sometimes I just put it above the first image at the very top of the article. A lot of times, people clicking over from Facebook will just skim, and putting it someplace high in the piece seemed to help.
Now, I'm not so sure.
I wonder if this type of tactic would work well for short fiction or serializations of fiction stories? The reader gets to read some of the story to determine if they're interested, and it cuts off at a dramatic point.
Perhaps doing it in combination with free posts on writing or other topics, while the fiction itself is behind the paywall ...
I'm definitely trying this on Friday!
What a great example!
I find that pieces I put the most time and care into are ones that convert readers to paid subscriptions.
Yes! Great writing is the best marketing
So true. A well researched and well organised piece does most of its marketing by itself.
I also think consistency in tone and branding are key. I've read strong writing that is all over the place tonally, piece to piece, and inconsistent visually that does not get much engagement. In other words, I think meeting expectations amplifies great writing's ability to market.
I would argue that it's more a case of utility to the readers. Pieces that give the impression that you're offering a good value proposition, convert the most.
My highest converting piece of all time was web only, and thrown together in about 20 minutes. Go figure
I have a some like that, too.
Hmm... The last one especially makes me think that perhaps once a month, I can just send a roundup to just free subscribers showing them what they missed... 😅
Some writers mention this in their headers and footers too! They'll update them weekly to free subscribers and include a list of what they would have seen if they were paying subscribers. That can be effective too!
I like that idea better than a separate email.
This is a great idea! I just made downloadable PDF's of my paywalled guides and created an archive & sent that to everyone. It got a good open rate and a few new paid subscriptions.
That also sounds like an excellent idea. One writer I was looking at recently has a link roundup for what he was reading that week or that month. It's all about adding value to the reader for what they may like.
I do that too. Once a month I have a paragraph with links of TV & podcasts & articles. They don’t always have an Italy link but I try to keep them somewhat relevant
Cool! I've recently been including a song related to mental health or something talking about human problems in some way, as well as relevant links to the weird things I read during the month. Hopefully it resonates :)
Do your readers like the link roundup of tv, podcasts, and articles?
You have some great recommendations! I occasionally make a playlist, always Italian related. I hope my readers like my off-topic suggestions too.
Sometimes a little random adds a nice bit of spice to things :)
This is a great idea.
Hi all. I write my newsletter weekly https://interestingdatagigs.substack.com/ and a very interesting way I've found to grow my newsletter is through Slack communities. There are so many out there, you have to find the right ones for your niche, and participate on them. It takes time but it's worth the effort.
How do you find the slack communities? Does it take a lot of your time to be active in them?
Before writing the newsletter, I was already active in some communities, especially from my field (Data Analytics). This helps me a little. It takes time, but you don't have to be in several of them, just the right ones.
For example:
- If you are writing about Marketing, a good community to be part is Product Marketing Alliance: https://productmarketingalliance.com/join-slack/ or if you are more focused in the B2B Marketing, Dave Gerhardt's community is amazing https://davegerhardt.com/
- In my case of Data Analytics, there are so many of them but I'm more active in dbt labs, timescaledb and Redpanda.
There are a lot of Slack (and Discord as well) communities out there. You just have to find the right one for your niche.
The same happens with certain Facebook groups.
Hi Katie!
I send two newsletters each month - one to free subscribers and one to paid subscribers. The paid subscribers also get the free version. In the free version I mention what the paid subscribers are getting that month with several opportunities (subscribe buttons) to upgrade. I Would love to be able to send one newsletter with all of the content to everyone with the paid subscribers' material below a paywalll but I have not been able to get this to work as I would like and not sure it is possible.
Tried the subscriber dashboard with filters trick literally 10 min after reading this tip, ran a filter for our top interactive free subs and sent a mass email out asking them to subscribe with 25% off. Got 6 brand new annual paid subs out of it in less than 11 hours.
Fantastic tip. Thank you!
That's cool!
Interesting
This is very useful, thanks. I hadn't known about all these tools. I just cut'n'pasted it all into Roam for reference later.
Hi all. I write my newsletter weekly https://aaban.substack.com/. a weekly email with fresh discoveries at the intersection of startups, design, technology, and culture.
Here’s what you can expect from me, every occasionally in your Inbox:
- Thought-provoking things to read, listen, watch
- Interesting books and projects
I am waiting for substack to address my concerns
Katie, I still havent heard peep and I am still keeping my stuff private because I don't feel safe.
Is there a way to give away a select number of posts for free per month, after which readers are prompted to subscribe to the paid version? The same thing traditional publishers do.
We do have a free trial tool! https://support.substack.com/hc/en-us/articles/360037465192-How-do-I-offer-a-free-trial-to-my-publication-
I would love this!
Same. That feels more organic and less intrusive than cutting off an article after a paragraph.
The Substack team is singing off today! We will be back next week, same time and place, to help answer your questions.
Thanks for being here and generously contributing to the conversation.
See you soon,
Katie, Bailey, Jasmine, Christina, Jairaj, Chloe, Kristen, Joro, Tian, Lucas, Jack, Josh and Kamil
Hey everyone! Here's a little encouragement from one small newsletter to all of you. If you're feeling stuck, unmotivated, or worried that no one is listening, you're not alone. But here's the most important thing: you don't have to believe everything you think! Odds are, there's someone out there right now who needs to hear what you have to say. So don't keep them waiting! Keep writing, keep moving, keep sharing. The world needs your voice! 🌿
I have a paid subscriber that NEVER comments or hits the heart or anything. But I run into her every once in a while face-to-face and she says glowing things every time, and lets me know she's forwarding emails to folks every time I publish. It surprises and delights me every time.
You never know who's in love with your writing. You just don't.
This warms my soul - I've had several people send me voicenotes or messages to tell me how useful the writing is, but have never reacted on Substack. There'll always be lurkers watching your every move - don't forget the smile you give them.
I’ve just recently started my free Substack. Several folks, in person and online, have told me how much they like reading it. But I’ve experienced very little organic growth. If folks are sharing it, almost nobody is subscribing.
My somewhat limited experience suggests that you may want to be proactive and share it yourself and encourage other people to share it. As an example, if I have a post on a specific topic, I'll search Twitter for people who are also Tweeting about the same thing. I'll send them a Reply with a link to my newsletter and ask them for their feedback. Sometimes it works really well.
Meanwhile, for those interested in reviews & essays on new and old movies, by a longtime arts/entertainment journalist w/ bylines in national mags and major daily newspapers (boldly plugs his own newsletter) … https://philipbooth.substack.com/p/bullet-train-quentin-tarantino-on
Well, the plug worked. I was looking for a movie-focused newsletter and found yours fun and unpandering. So I guess the lesson is... engage with Substack Office Hours more regularly????
Score! Thanks, and … lesson learned! 😁
Just checked yours and ran smack into Gil Scott-Heron. Any blog that recommends his work is alright with me. Subscribed!
Ditto-ish! I too write about movies, mostly older ones, focusing on the life lessons or wisdom revealed in them.
I also have an opportunity for Guest Writers to share their newsletters:
https://moviewise.substack.com/s/-guest-posts
I’ll check it out!
I kinda do that, Mark, but more to the point (as I'm sure you know or suspect), I can frequently add a link to a tweet that features a rocker about whom I've written. Just yesterday, a tweet showed a pic of Joey Ramone and Debbie Harry.
I, of course, replied with a link to my article about spending backstage and hotel room time with Da Ramones ca. late '70s! Subtle? Maybe not, but effective. I have to imagine it's tough to do that if your 'Stack is all about self-improvement for Norwegian dwarves, hiking the Himalayas, or carpentry with homemade tools.
Also worth noting that too much of those retweets, especially on Twitter, may spam your followers. There's a balance. Perhaps DMs.
I only do a Twitter "sweep" once or twice a week, dropping the occasional article link. I find it hard to believe that approaches anything resembling spam. The news cycle is too furious and rapidly changing, and any one of my links may be missed completely.
One person's spam is another person's first time seeing it! As for DMs, I haven't found a bio on Twitter that actually welcomes DMs! Most promise an immediate block!!
One never knows what might work.
I’m already pretty active sharing on social media, and encouraging others to share. But good advice about searching for tweets that I can respond to. I’ll try that.
This sounds good. Another thing that could work is dropping an email to fellow writers in space too, asking whether they'd be up to recommend your publication and give you a shout-out at the end of their articles! Obviously. this should only be done to writers' whom you're genuinely interested in. It should expand your subscriber base, too.
Uh oh
It takes awhile to get momentum. Keep going!
Wait for it, Phil. Stay laser focused and it will begin to happen for ya.
Thanks!
If you want to cross promote , you can join the Sample's list. https://thesample.ai/?ref=b66a
This gets you some organic growth. My own circles can feel limited and redundant so sharing in other spaces is often a good idea.
Very true
Wow, thanks for this resource! I'd never heard of it. I've added my newsletter and look forward to exploring it more.
+1 for the Sample. It's great both as a writer and a reader. Once you add your newsletter you are put in a directory with other writers. That makes easy to connect and see about guest posts, cross-promos, etc.
I hadn't seen this tool yet! Thank you for sharing.
thanks so much for sharing this Caitlin. Did you see any uptick in your subscribers after submitting your newsletter?
I consistently see new subs. about 4 a week right now
People are for the most part passive participators. That's a side effect of internet fatigue. In the pre-internet world if you were into something you had to really dig to find it and needed to join groups and be active in them. Now stuff is pushed out by bots and more tangentional stuff is pushed on us too. It's a case of internet overload so people just leave everything alone, read what they like but otherwise aren't that active anymore. They don't need to be. Why subscribe when you can just bookmark the page?
True, although Substack is built on the idea that folks WILL subscribe if they like the content and delivery of any given newsletter enough. So let’s hope that email subscriptions regain popularity.
They will just in lower conversion rates. My posts were getting about 80 views based off less than 10 subscribers, so clearly something was being shared somehow and that read count was pretty consistent across different posts. So same people returning too.
Such a great point!
^This^
a good reminder--thank you, Asha!
Love this!!
This is so true. I wrote a piece (on a different platform! gasp!) and a former colleague who I hadn't heard of in years sent me a text to tell me how much it moved him and how much he related to it. The piece itself got very little engagement.
TRUTH, Asha.
wow. this is so cool.
This is true! I've found a lot of readers don't like to open up the website, and just prefer to read the emails. Sometimes it makes it really hard to figure out what your true engagement is like
I got a handwritten letter (and a check) from my childhood piano teacher letting me know that she reads “Living in a Body” every week and it “moves her very deeply.” She’s 90 years old. :) It made my week. I will keep writing.
I love that!
That is so sweet.
SO good! Thank you for sharing this :)
Wow what a lovely story!
Love this, Hal. As my mentor “Alan Weiss” used to say, “cash all checks!”
WOW. I love that
This is what it’s all about! Awesome and encouraging story!
What a great story and a wonderful motivator to keep writing!
✨🤩
Wow! That’s fantastic!
Same here. I just started my newsletter last Monday. I vacillated back and forth about starting with a paid subscription model, since many people said start free and graduate to a paywall. But in the end I started with a paywall and now I have 16 or 17 paid subscribers and 78 total. Most of the people who have paid are people I know and they haven't said a peep to me about it! They just read every time and say nothing about it. It's weird and wonderful.
Honestly, I started on a whim. I decided over the weekend to start a Substack and then did it on Monday. I announced on Facebook (600 friends) and Instagram (400) in both posting and in "stories" and then waited to see what happened. I did post on Linkedin (500) but with minimal traffic from there but I did gain a few subscribers there. That's it. My plan is to post on Wednesdays and Sundays (may change that) but I again posted on FB and IG every time send out a newsletter. All of my social media is public so you can check out my posts if you want. I am @giyen - happy to answer any questions.
“Weird and wonderful” haha I love that. Keep up the great work and thanks for your honesty
Enjoy that feeling!
Congratulations! That’s so wonderful and I’m happy for you! I’m in the middle of rebranding my newsletter (hopefully will be finished by the start of next week) and had started about 3 months ago now. But with this rebrand I’m adding a paid subscription model for pieces I don’t feel as comfortable having openly available to the public.
Super excited to be back! I’ll be posting my first official post since starting the rebrand tomorrow!
Yes! This is all so exciting! 🤞
Love the mystery of weird and wonderful Giyen.
That's some crazy growth! How did you pull it off?
See above! :)
That's a great start! Congrats, Giyen! What was your promotional approach if you don't mind me asking?
I answered this question in the thread somewhere! :)
Yes! Consistency is extremely important to growth, especially when it comes to recommendations. I've found more news letters are willing to send you traffic if you're regularly posting. I am personally reluctant to recommend newsletters that are inactive.
Totally agree with you, Cole. If you don't regularly, what's the point? You need to be consistent, and if you are starting even more.
Agreed. That's why I started with a cadence I knew I could stick to: once a week. After proving I can do that over an extended period of time, I might up the activity.
I've actually tried to up the activity twice and it didn't go well. I used to do a weekly essay, plus news whenever it broke, plus podcasts every other Sunday.
I love my audience, but it seems they don't have an appetite for multiple weekly postings, which is fine. I lose usually about two subscribers every time I post, which feels pretty normal. There are people who lose interest in you over time, and your email popping up in their inbox is sometimes the reminder they needed to unsubscribe.
But when I was double-posting, that number skyrocketed. One post I lost 8 subscribers. I think they believed I was going to start flooding their inbox.
Keep in mind, readers certainly don't forget about you if you don't post as often. Fog Chaser is a great example. It's a monthly newsletter, where the author Matt uploads a new song. Just look at the engagement he gets
https://fogchaser.substack.com/p/meditation-012#details
thanks for this Cole, I post once a week because I think about what I can manage when I receive other people's newsletters. If there's too many and I don't get round to reading them it makes me feel bad. I also think about what I can actually manage to put out that's really valuable. I don't want to dilute that just to create content.
100 percent agree. I wish I could search Substacks by activity. I often find when I'm searching for like-minded writers that they haven't posted in a while, but I can only discover that clicking through to the home page.
First thing I check out when exploring a new Substack is the Archive. That'll tell you how active they are. Then I go to the About page to see if I'm into it. I assume other readers do the same or similar, so I think about that with regards to providing as much info/consistency as possible to highlight my value prop.
Right but you have to click through to each Substack to see the archive and recent posts. If you could sort by recent activity, you would never have to encounter inactive Substacks.
Ah, right, sorry I think I misread your initial comment. Yes, that would be helpful.
Yes, the magic is contagious, alluring, and unpredictable. Certainly, there are all different types of magic, magnetic expression that entices all cells to interact, all nerves to pay attention, all extraneous thoughts to still themselves so the essential self gets in the groove again. I find these office hours enticing and frustrating. I only have so much concentration. If I refresh to see what is the latest, I lose the thread I'm on. How to find the jewels, the gems that change a life, the connections that demand a pivot, the inspiration that ignites deep within.
It's funny because you can actually do this with readers
What do you mean?
Absolutely! Then there wouldn't be much to recommend... For me, I have trouble posting on the days I've said I was going to post. For about the first 5 or 6 months, I kept to the schedule... but now my posts go up at any day and time I get them finished. I do feel that a consistent schedule is best, though. Any help or thoughts?
I'd settled on Fridays but then wrote something really topical this week and blasted it on Tuesday. I think it threw my readers off. Gonna revert back to normal day/time starting next week.
I do think the most engaged readers start to get used to your cadence. I'm starting to see engagement from the usual suspects around the same time.
I appreciate the whole thing about consistency, however, competition is vast. Turning out because we said we would, doesn't always deliver the most inspired. I personally like a piece when it vibrates off the page with delight and calling rather than duty and obligation.
Great point! I do take my time on posts, but after I publish, I always think of ways to improve.
And fortunately, there is the update option that allows us to share our improvements... whenever they come to us. I think that the right people read the important words at the most conducive time. There is a reason for everything. It comes to us when it comes to us.
I hear that. I definitely don't do well if I'm writing to deadline for a thing I'm doing because I love it. Having said that, there are way to capitalize on those writing rushes many of us experience and then scheduling those posts. I do agree, though, that, as important as consistency is, it shouldn't take precedence over quality.
I agree and appreciate this comment. You are right about scheduling posts. I have done plenty of inspired writing that is hidden away. I don't have to reinvent the wheel, I just have to unearth something already ready to be shared. Thank you for this enlightening POV.
My experience: When I moved to more frequent (but shorter) emails, my open rates went up. Like, a lot.
I ship 4x a week. That's obviously not for everyone. But what *is* for everyone is to find a cadence that works for you, and stick to it.
If you (general sense) say you'll write once a week, people come to expect that. You can always increase/decrease frequency--or take a break-- but letting people know what to they're in for goes a long way.
absolutely! I tend to write longer pieces -- usually around 1,500 words. And my Image resolution means I flirt with the email data limit a lot. I think a ton depends on the kind of content you're shipping. Some newsletters it makes no sense to send daily. Others, you need to be!
I would try to batch your writing when you're feeling most energized and inspired, and then schedule posts.
Good idea!
I get a mix of both. But I have uncovered some really interesting social media habits.
I don't really post links to my articles on my facebook page. I mostly use it to share outdoor photography from my hikes. I have a ton of followers who just like the outdoor pics which is fine. And I have a lot of readers who like to get a peak at what I may be writing about next. ( here's a link if you want to see what I mean https://www.facebook.com/NobleClimb )
Recently though, I've had subscribers tell me that seeing totally unrelated pictures I share pop up in their feed... is actually a reminder to go back into their email from the previous thursday, at around 8 MST, to make sure they hadn't missed a post. So they ARE cognizant of the schedule.
I'm coming up on my 2 year anniversary of posting fiction every day (with the exception of a 6 day brutal bout with Covid) and my free subscription list grows but my paids hit a plateau in the 280s months ago and I just can't seem to grow from there.
where are you sharing your pieces?
I was sharing them on Twitter and some of my followers shared them. They got nearly zero hits. Almost nothing despite trying to work hashtags. I'm shadowbanned like crazy on Facebook, though I do pick up some attention there if I'm diligent about avoiding keywords. Instagram gets a lot of reactions but very rare conversions, usually just to free subscriptions.
Facebook seems to be really tricky. The site DOES NOT WANT you to post anything that will take readers off the page. I saw a good rule that linked posts should make up less than ten percent of what you share. And I think that's a good rule.
I have a facebook page that I use to gently remind people once in a while "hey I have some really cool stuff going on on my site, maybe go try signing up." The rest is just wildlife pictures and stuff. I share that to other groups as my page, and invite people to come like my content when they respond to my pictures.
Instagram has a terrible growth model. If you don't do reels, you won't get new people.
I have over 700 short stories in my archive. Thought the amount of content would help it grow. It hasn't. Not sure what I can do.
Thank you for the beautiful reminder and all the thoughtful replies below. As someone writing under a brand new pseudonym, I am basically at zero in all the metrics. But I am at 1,000 in terms of the creative freedom and possibilities I feel at this moment.
My Substack goals so far have been: a) Post every week; and b) Try my best to be authentic with each post. I know I need to actively promote, but I'm also trusting that if I focus on the writing, an audience will find me.
Rian.
Absolutely LOVE your notion of “creative freedom.” That’s what it’s all about for me, Ryan!!
Right on! I think everyone needs someone to say this. Even though I have only a few subscribers, I hope that someone will find my writing funny at times, serious at other times, and interesting at other times.
Absolute best message ever! I struggle to find new subscribers and just about once per week, I feel this way! Thanks for this and kudos to you for being an amazing person. The world needs more people like you!
Thanks for the encouragement! Good to know others are feeling similarly 😅
Hi, glad you made it!
That spoke directly to me. I started my newsletter. Love writing ✍️. But now, I'm having the hardest time coming up with topics. Hummm! Maybe, . . . Just maybe, 😏 I need to change directions on my focus 🤔. I'm just thinking out loud here. I'm an emerging artist 🎨 after suffering from a stroke. Maybe I need to narrow my focus down to that!!
Thinking. . .
Thanks 💋
This is me. I have started so many paragraphs. I save them to word.
I’m with you!
You are a sweetheart S.E., always so encouraging in this forum. May a boomerang 🪃 of abundance head back your way.
Nice bit of encouragement!
Thank you for that, "... you don't have to believe everything you think!"
Thank you for writing this out. Really helps
I've definitely had this experience. Thanks for the words of encouragement!
Awesome advice, Reid.
First Rule - Keep writing.
Honestly this is what I'm focusing on. Consistency, blocking out the noise and just writing.
Same. Consistency is so important, especially early on!
That's why I think setting a manageable target is important. I see a lot of writers try to stick to 3-4 times a week and then burn out.
It's so important. Even once a week can be a challenge for me, but I'm just trying to prove that I can establish that cadence over a long period of time.
Yeah, having the ability to schedule out three months in advance is so helpful. It allows me to batch and get things done ahead of time so if I hit a busy patch personally I know that I'm still able to get the work done.
Now that is organized!
I'm still teaching with two kids at home. She's a new mom who is taking a break from teaching to freelance. And we usually have to do most of our planning online because we can only see each other about every other month. We HAVE to be that organized 😉 I'm thankful for Substack scheduling and for the ability to schedule through FB and IG business hub. Otherwise, we would never be able to do this project. Now that school has started, I have to figure out how to carve out time for my own writing in addition to everything else, so yeah, working ahead is a must.
I find scheduling difficult because I can't wait to see my name in print! That's why I could never write obituaries (in advance): I'd be constantly wishing the person to shuffle off their mortal coil.
That's funny. Yeah, I've had my travel stuff completed and scheduled still for the next three weeks. I have work to do on that this weekend to get ahead again. For litthinkpodcast.substack.com, we record two episodes at a time, schedule them every other week, and we currently have all of our episode and blog posts scheduled for the next three Wednesdays. I have one to write still and then we'll be at four!
Second Rule - remember rule number 1
Another good way of getting new Subscribers (If you've thrashed your guerilla marketing and keep regularly keeping your social media alive with new posts - these are a must) is to offer something different - and sell it like a one-off. I write autobiographical short stories on Substack, but it appeared 'SPECIAL' when I offered people a TEASER to my forthcoming novel - like I am doing right now: https://chrisdangerfield.substack.com/p/skagless-and-bible-black
100%
Indeed!!! No matter what.
So instead of promoting myself on all the socials, I decided my best method to growing my audience is via THIS community. All I want is to be surrounded by people creating good words and stories. I'd rather spin my wheels supporting smaller writers on the Stack by engaging, liking, commenting, not wring my hands over the shifting sands of social media.
For me (and at least for now), social media is the cart before the horse.
I feel this way too. It’s so hard to get people to crossover from different platforms. And the folks who write and read substack are already interested in the platform. Plus y’all are awesome. We are a community of WRITERS first, and I think that way we all understand each other a bit more than folks you might find on other socials.
Precisely! It's so easy to split ourselves between all these platforms and honestly I'd rather give my energy to the platform that most aligns with my goals. At least for now.
Yes, Yes, and Yes. I just deleted my Instagram and Twitter apps this morning as I feel like it is nothing more than useless exhaust.
Once I realized I was actually hunting for the dopamine hit, that was it. I deleted IG and if I want to scroll, I have to re-install the app. So far it's working for me.
Yes I’ve been playing with the same idea. It’s so draining. I’ve had a 5 minute time limit for socials set on my phone that seems to help but I think I may just go for it and delete them all! Substack is way better anyway
Most definitely!! The tribe is already here!
I love this Erin! I just read another post that said the same. I’ve been struggling with social media and it definitely gets frustrating.
Thanks for this!
Yes!! Same. I just decided last night to focus on my writing and let IG come when it comes. It’s been such a time suck trying to create content over there when I could be writing with what limited time I have.
Im trying to build a business also outside of substack but still plan to use social media less
I just checked out your bio, I’m exactly the same, would love to just travel the world and watch everyone do their thing! 
Nice!
I only have 121 followers on Instagram and when I promoted myself, I got a few bites. IG is so saturated with reels, trying to be TikTok these days; definitely not for writers.
Particularly Twitter. I feel like I’m walking into a drunken bar when I’m on there. 😂
We need to avoid those drunken bars, right? Social media is so overly-stimulating these days.
Ha that’s exactly it
Just wanted to say, I've been feeling less motivated to write and getting less engagement on a number of recent posts, but in the last 24 hours, two separate people I don't know personally reached out to tell me that my writing resonated with them. Plateaus and lulls happen, but our writing matters to people! Keep going :)
Honestly, you never know when stuff like this will happen but it's always a nice lift when it does!
That's so great! I feel like writing and publishing online can so often feel like screaming into the void, so it's very affirming when someone validates that we're not *actually* screaming into the void.
Ha! For sure. Every time I hit "publish" it's like... well, there it goes, swimming into the ether. And then you're surprised when someone actually finds your post.
Yeahhhhhhhhhh
I know I’ve been busy and haven’t been able to keep up with newsletters lately. It happens. But your audience is still there and will join soon. 🙂
I've also been falling behind on some writing I love--it can be hard to keep up with everything all the time! Just nice to connect with people when it does happen, and makes it all feel worth it to keep moving forward :)
Ahhh, the existential mystery of life. Stay in the flow Kate.
Awesome. Thanks for sharing and cheers.
That's amazing!!
Any advice for promoting my blog. I've tried twitter, reddit, LinkedIn and Facebook pages. None have really brought readers. I'm not a big social media user so don't have much of a following on these platforms. Any advice to grow the blog for someone who is not a big social media user? The blog is about leaving the classroom and the state of English education.
Hey James, great question. It's something a lot of us struggle with on here - I've grown my free list to 359 people in 4 months and learnt a thing or two that hopefully helps.
1) Don't Self-Promote Too Often
Provide value to any communities or platforms you share on. It's okay to shout about what you're doing every now and again, but avoid simply saying "check out my work".
2) Repurpose Your Content
Cut up your blog into smaller chunks that add value by themselves and turn them into LinkedIn posts, Twitter threads, Reddit comments. Edit for the rules of the platform, but don't overthink it.
3) Focus On Community
Connect with people wherever you go. Send them direct messages, support their work and help them by sign-posting resources. In return, they'll be sure to engage with your posts.
If you want any further info, I actually wrote a Guide on "Creating" that you can get through in 5 mins or less here: https://masteryinyour20s.substack.com/p/12-creating
Good luck! Shout if you need anything else 😊
359 in four months sounds pretty good to me
I agree with Charlie here — I did social media marketing for 10 years, and those three points are incredibly good pieces of advice.
One thing I would add is to post regularly, whether or not it is related to your Substack. I have a friend who does a Friday meme drop on her Facebook page, so it tends to keep her at the top of everyone's feed when she markets her makeup artist business. Consistency is key.
That's a great addition - thanks Kathleen. If your readers know what to expect and when it means you start becoming part of their week. I've had subscribers tell me that my newsletter is the first thing that they read when they wake up on Fridays. Pretty cool!
I've definitely seen the growing momentum of consistency on LinkedIn, but it feels like the return on investment is not there for Twitter, at least not for me. It just feels like treading water.
Good advice - thank you!
@Kathleen . As a social media marketer, I'd love to get your thoughts on https://newslettertosocials.com . It's a tool like Hootsuite/Buffer, but specifically for newsletter creators! I tried to merge content creation and scheduling into one platform. Would love to hear your thoughts. Thanks!
I'm surprised by the number of people encouraging self-promo! I agree with all of your tips strongly and when working with creators, self-promo is usually the number one reason they are not gaining more traction. You need to provide value before you provide your newsletter.
"Don't self-promote too often"? This 'Stacker begs to differ, as he suggests, if not insists, one self-promote to the level of spamming (however one defines that flabby term): https://eightyfour.substack.com/p/ok-but-do-you-spam-enough
Very interesting Brad, thanks for sharing! It likely depends on our level of current activities. I like to think of it as an 80/20 rule of 80% value content, 20% promotional content. Like Gary Vee says Jab, Jab, Right Hook.
You need to earn their trust in the post before directing them elsewhere.
Hopefully I gave a decent example of a self-promotion without self-promoting post above? Haha
Haha judges will accept!
This is a great guide! Thank you for putting this into writing so thoughtfully.
Thank you Bailey - trying my best to help the reader!
I also agree with Woody Allen: 80% of success is showing up. So I try to publish at least once a week, and often more frequently. Haven't managed anything in last couple of weeks, though, cos of personal circs. Getting worried now that people will lose interest :-(
"Worried that people will lose interest"? I have it great in that regard! Decades of conditioning have proven to me that there are very few people on the planet (this one) around whom me or anything I do are of anything even remotely close to being that consequential!
If you're of the charisma level where you think people might lose interest (well, you're blessed!), they'll be re-united with you and your life-in-writing as soon as you return, and will be happy you're back!
Speaking of legendary comics, you might've guessed I subscribe to the Groucho maxim (once quoted by Woody): "I wouldn't want to belong to a club that would have me as a member!"
You're right, I'm sure. I like to believe that people's day is spoilt beyond repair if they don't hear from me. I try to get out of chores by protesting: "But my readership..."
That's pretty funny, Terry! Apparently, I need to read one of the many Substack Newsletters about personal growth and improvement. There are at least 8,376,592,857,463,098,756 of 'em, so I have no excuse!
lol
LOL. Me too!
Keep going Terry! Wasn’t it Kevin Costner who said If you write it they will come?
Loved tips 2 and 3, Charlie, but must take exception with number 1: "Don't Self-Promote Too Often." In my experience, most of my readers, contacts, community, have NO IDEA what Substack is. The more I post on IG, Twitter and FB, the more acquainted my folks are becoming, and the more acquainted they become, the more comfortable they are clicking buttons, entering emails and payment info.
I'm a bit wary of too much self-promotion because (a) I'm British, and we like to apologise for existing, so trumpeting about ourselves can be difficult; (b) I think it can be obnoxious and off-putting; and (c) I'm so outspoken I'm worried about being cancelled. None of that stops me doing it though!
I see nothing wrong with self-promotion but have to agree there can be a "too much" threshold one can cross.
Who wants to follow a social media account where every post is "Hey! Buy my book!" or "Check out my newsletter!"? Seems very boring to me
I also get REALLY annoyed when I sign up for a free substack and the next week I get a "teaser" email where they try to dangle a paid only post in my face. I need at least a few weeks of engagement with the content to decide to pay! It is not a small investment for many. I will often unsubscribe immediately from these folks.
Oh, I haven't seen that yet, but I know that would annoy me too. I don't blame you, I wouldn't stick around either.
I agree, Mark. It's like those Youtube videos that BEGIN with "Subscribe to my channel" -- before you've heard anything at all.
Exactly. I've had a couple of authors follow me on Twitter (where I follow back basically anyone who isn't a bot or porn account) and their feed is nothing but adverts for their books. No thanks, can't do it.
I wrote about this self-promotion business here: https://terryfreedman.substack.com/p/job-announcements (Just thought I'd self-promote that...)
I keep being followed by bots that look like porn. It's horrible.
Firstly, 359 in four months is solid. Congrats!
Secondly, you touched on something that has slowly been dawning on me: So much of promoting your stuff is, well, not promoting your stuff.
It's saying interesting things, talking to interesting people, making interesting comments, etc. Eventually, it seems, people just start to gravitate toward you. I have found that to work better than shouting about your latest article from the mountaintops.
I do social media for a non-profit and I second all of this! It's great advice.
I would also add that you should consider the users of each platform and why they're there. People go to LinkedIn for different reasons than Twitter, for instance (professional stuff versus goofing around). I post about my Substack on LinkedIn only when I have some kind of milestone to talk about--finishing season 1 of my podcast or announcing my book deal. People don't post on LinkedIn as often, so posts have a longer life in the feed.
I post on Twitter several times a day, and only about 10% of my tweets are self-promotional in any way. The rest are goofing around, interacting with other users, making fun of myself, etc. Tweets have a very short shelf-life (usually if it doesn't get interaction in the first ~20 minutes, it's dead in the water) so you can post 50 times a day and most people will only see a few of those.
Good luck!
Great addition Valorie - the rules and place of the platform make a difference. Though the platforms can definitely change. Recently I've seen LinkedIn changing into a more personal storytelling style alongside the value-driven posts. Sometimes breaking the rules can make you stand out even more! 😊
Good point! I don't spend a lot of time on LinkedIn so I haven't noticed that, but I'll keep an eye out!
Good stuff in this guide; thank you! Izzy Prior’s quote on viewing content as a tool for connection and inspiration is profound and something I’ve recently realized as I ponder my purpose. For me there is no joy in relentless promotion.
Thank you Amie, appreciate it. Izzy is also one of my coaching clients and I can 100% say that's what she always does with her 18k followers on LinkedIn!
This is helpful! That’s a lot of followers in a short period of time! Congrats and thanks for your contribution.
Thanks. That's a perfect example of good promotion. Nearly didn't realise you'd slipped your article in at the end there ha
Haha, giving you a good example was the plan 😉
Interesting. I agree with points 2 and 3. But I genuinely feel that there needs to be some self promotion ( creatively) to drive growth.
I'm the same way! I'm not big on promoting my stuff on social media (in fact, I'm terrible at it...need to work on it) but I've found something that works is to read the stuff that you're interested in, things that will help you write your own posts and interact directly with those writers. For example, I generally click on links that other Substack writers included in their posts. I also check out the 'Recommended' tab on the Substack app/dashboard to see what's interesting. I also reply or comment directly if a post truly resonates so that person knows I exist. Over time, they'll notice and then maybe you can start collaborating with them... who knows? That's my hope anyway.
Brilliant tips, social media can garner you subscribers but the substack network environment has way more potential in my opinion!
These are good ideas, Hoang!
Hey Mark. Great to see you here as always. Let’s connect. You can find me on LinkedIn under Diamond-Michael Scott. Onward, my good brotha.
Yes, will do. Take care!
Thanks!
I put my substack details in my email signature -- even when I'm emailing relatives! No idea if it has worked, but one never knows what word of mouth is happening behind the scenes
I put my substack in my email signature to everyone I send an email to, even potential clients, because I want them to see my writing. What better place to have samples than your substack.
Why don’t you try using bit.ly to make a trackable link for your email signature . Then you’ll know how many folks clicked on it from that source!
Great suggestion.
Thanks for the tip!
Oh, I didn't think to do that. Duh!
That's a great idea, Alex, thank you. Completely bonkers that I didn't think of it myself, given that I use Bitly partly for that very reason in blog posts and presentations!
Smart!!
Yeah, I need to fix my signature for that very reason.
I have several different signatures, Sarah, and vary the one I use, depending on recipient. I also stick a link to my Substack newsletters in articles I write on my other blogs
TOTALLY forgot about the email signature. I'm definitely adding that. Thanks, Terry.
Maybe try engaging with other writers in public -- eg. cross-posting, guest posts, mutual recommendations...?
Second this! I think cross promos have been huge. I've just done a couple, but even from that noticed a big jump in subscribers. And I actually found one opp for a cross promo right here at Office Hours!
Yes, I'm doing some of this and it's great!
Reading comments to this question and taking notes! Just launched, and although I am quite good with social media, I don't post a lot! I'm going with once a week at the moment, just doing little updates and sneak previews of my substack.
I think the biggest thing is to figure out who your audience is and where they live online. Are you writing to educators? If so, where do they hang out? Is there a subreddit for teachers that might welcome this content? A Facebook group? Are there networks that you need to be in to join the conversation? Also, do your teacher friends/colleagues all know what you're doing, and have you encouraged them to share? This would of course be more effective if you have a wider reach than your own town, but you gotta start somewhere!
Great points, but it is easier said than done if you don't have a specific audience.
All of this.
1. Start with imagining your target audience. Who are they, where do they hang out online, etc
2. Create content directly from your newsletter that appeals to the target audience or provides value! Things like stats, quotes, questions, hooks, etc.
3. Post and engage ALOT on social media. If the time is right, provide your newsletter. If not then just know that with time, your newsletter will be discovered. People who are interested in what you are saying will check out your bio and find your newsletter.
These things take time, but with a solid game plan, it is possible! I'd be happy to chat more and brainstorm strategies for you or anyone.
Absolutely. Getting smart on your "who" and where they spend their time is crucial!
Yes! So many people drop their links in random groups where their target audience presence is low. It's important to be calculated about how you promote yourself!
I really like your 1. suggestion! What a great practice.
I write about and created a tool to help with exactly this: https://newslettertosocials.com/
Newsletter to Socials will pull engaging quotes from your newsletter and schedule them on social media. Most newsletter creators struggle with social media because it is SO different than writing a newsletter. Things are counterintuitive. I recommend checking out "You suck at Social Media. Here's why" https://newslettertosocials.substack.com/p/you-suck-at-social-media-heres-why
I have met (Zoom) with Krager (Matt) and discussed his solution to the problem of getting more eyes on our work.. I suggest you give it a try. It is free. The system republishes your newsletter link to various social media sites auto-magically!
Awesome idea. It is similar to "Buffer," but for newsletter writers, in that you can schedule when and where to engage with your social media sites.
Thanks for the kind words Paul!
Just catching (and reading) this very thoughtful thread on tips for using social media - more, please! This topic (how to make productive use of social media) is the #1 question we keep reading in Office Hours. So much to learn from each other! Thanks, everyone.
Joining cross promotion lists has helped me. I use The Sample https://thesample.ai/?ref=b66a. Collaborations are another way to get your words in front of a new audience. If you write a piece for someone else and them have write something for you.
The key is finding someone with an established audience who has been doing it long enough. We've done podcast guesting on two different shows that are now either defunct or have gone in a completely different direction. We're looking for our next cross promotion and we're trying to be very careful about how we go about it.
That is fair. You never know how things are going to play out.
We are going to publish some more posts about this on this publication soon, so stay tuned! But until then, I recommend reading through this post - https://on.substack.com/p/grow-4, in particular it's worth watching Ali share his strategies (https://on.substack.com/i/40842309/in-practice-how-first-grew-to-subscribers)
I talk to strangers all day. When I get asked what I do, I tell me that I read books for a living. That typically reels them in as a subscriber.
There is a significant advantage to building up your presence in social media but it can take a long time to build recognition and relationships and even then it's no guarantee. Just out of curiosity, are there any groups out there that specifically focus on people who have given up teaching? Online or offline? Have you considered local newspapers or websites to share your ideas?
I'm actually in one even though I am still in teaching, in a good position, and have no desire to leave soon. But self-promotion is discouraged except in limited posts every week. I had more success posting in the FB groups for current AP English teachers, TBH.
I’m facing the same issue! Not the biggest socmed user and reluctant to put my actual face and name to my newsletter, so I’m having a tough time finding readers as well ):
I encourage you to read through this entire comment thread, I think you'll get some good ideas!
I've personally found Hacker News to be very supportive.
Here is an article about my success with it from another great Substack that I highly recommend, "Deplatformable Newsletter":
https://pau1.substack.com/p/how-to-grow-your-newsletter-with
I feel ya on LinkedIn. I post all my links to my Substack on my LinkedIn. I don't think I get anyone from there.
I get a handful, depending on the post. I have no interest in spending a lot of time interacting there because I'm not looking for a job, but I understand the value of having a strong network there. I also know that with a business page it will give people who don't spend time on the other social media apps a place to get information about our podcast and blog. I have to see if my partner thinks it's worth looking into. We scrapped and closed our Pinterest account because it just didn't fit right for goals and material.
Honestly thinking about going paid so I can afford to subscribe to more paid Substacks!
This is a ponzi scheme i can get behind
I decided to pay for one new Substack subscription for every x number of paid subscriptions l get going forward. Just not sure what ‘x’ is yet.
I'm not ready to jump to a paid option (still brainstorming models/pricing), but one thing I'm planning to do (as a former finance guy) is provide a semi-detailed accounting of how I plan to utilize any future revenues, including supporting other stacks, going to writing conferences, research, etc.
Oh I love stuff like this! I think a lot of people do. We are so nosy…
Haha - indeed! I have some very specific thoughts for why I'd want to provide this level of transparency as well, but I'm not quite ready to articulate them. Stay tuned... :-)
I like that idea!
The struggle is real.
I turned on paid subscriptions a while back, but I don't push them very hard. Might have to start pushing in just because there are so many other writers I want to support! It's a nice circular economy. :)
Do it Mark. I’m surprised that you’re not. Your posts are great.
Thanks. It's under significant consideration.
Hahahah :)
*shrugs*
😂
I’ve doubled my subscribers in the last month (writing here for two). Still not a huge number, but I’ll take that growth! How did I do it? I have promoted zero on social media. I have been engaged with the Substack community (and loving all of the content I’m reading!) and referencing some other ‘stackers work in my posts as they relate to topics I’m writing about.
I think that’s the key, promotion where people are already reading, as opposed to over on social media where people are often just scrolling. 
Wow! Nice job! Definitely going to take your advice.
Congrats on the little writer!!!!!! And thank you for this feedback. I have no social media following (trying to grow it on Twitter at the same time as Substack), so this is really helpful. And cool!!!
Yes! I talked about my move away from social in a post called “Digital Detox.”
That sounds like a great app! Checking it out!
Funny, I was just chatting about community on the Novelleist Substack. One thing I’ve noticed is that I have an audience of mostly passive readers and within that group a smaller, nascent community. I recently launched a second weekly edition on Wednesday. It’s still slice of life humor like my Sunday stories, but the Wednesday edition is shorter and it includes reader submissions (mostly funny things readers find in the wild). The Wednesday edition isn’t as widely read, but I’ve noticed that in the six weeks since launching the conversations on both days seem to be getting better. I know some Susbtack writers use threads to do this. I tried those a while ago, but they always felt off. A bite-sized edition with community input seemed to be a better fit for me.
Your Wednesday community posts are excellent, Michael. Keep 'em coming!
I'd be curious if new readers are more likely to open them, since they didn't get used to the once-a-week rhythm.
Thank you! Wednesday has a slightly lower open rate - low 40s, compared to low 50s for the Sunday edition. One thing I’m wondering is if I should rebrand Wednesday’s edition with a name that isn’t specific to the day of the week. Reason being that it’s all pretty evergreen and I wonder if readers who see it after Wednesday are skipping it because they think it’s not timely.
I'd rebrand it, if for no other reason than to give yourself more flexibility with scheduling.
Good point! And I can always use the name Big Wednesday for a Substack devoted entirely to surfing movies.
I agree. Plus, when you get to Big Wednesday #50 and higher it might feel a little long in the tooth.
Yeah, I've been debating killing the numbering too. Thanks for the input, Amran!
I tried a “Midweek Musings” yesterday in addition to my weekly posts. Also tried the shorter format. I’ll be interested to see if I get the same trend as you.
Yep, I might incorporate something like that too.
Interesting. I keep toying with the idea of incorporating threads, but I wonder if my audience is still too small to get enough engagement to make it worthwhile. I like the idea of a shorter post that's conducive to community input. I might give that a whirl.
For what it's worth, the Substacks I've seen that use threads to greatest effect are quite large. I modeled my approach after them, but it never felt right.
Providing a thread inviting (not asking) people to introduce themselves seems to effective!
That's a good idea! Have you done this on your Substack?
Yes, I did today, have a look! https://howaboutthis.substack.com/p/an-invitation-to-reintroduce-yourself/comments
Great idea, but I'd be embarrassed if only three people responded, especially if one of them was me
Wow, that's great! 👏👏👏
I haven't had much success with threads. In fact, they were so underwhelming that I am tempted to delete them entirely.
One thing I could never figure out is whether my readers made any real distinction between a thread and a post. I know it says "thread" but I never really thought my readers put much stock into that label. On the other hand, a few high profile Substacks like Culture Study seem to have audiences that distinguish between threads and posts. I probably could have done a better job educating, but in the end I don't think it was worth the effort.
I’m not sure I’ve figured it out yet either!
Oooh, a community-input section is fun! Love that!
Not mentioned, but a good tactic to get paid subscribers is to tell your readers **WHY** you should go paid and **WHERE** the money goes. My stack's goal is to revive the art of the short story and 50% of the revenue goes to authors. I think that this makes people feel like they are doing something worthwhile with their money rather than just adding to someone's bank account.
https://shortstory.substack.com/
Yes! Even if the "why" is just "support the free posts for everyone," that is often enough to convert your biggest fans!
I think that's a nice way of treating writers, so have just subscribed (the free option, at least for now)
Love this idea - you have a new subscriber and I forwarded your link to my small group coaching container, as they are starting to work on submissions!
Absolutely. This is essential!!!
Brilliant tip. I'm going paid this September and was thinking about this very point.
Great newsletter, I’ll definitely take a deeper dive into it later today!
I love your mission! Subscribed!
I always respond to community comments on my newsletter games, but in the upcoming edition (publishing in a half hour), I decided to try shouting-out recent comments I've received. My players say smart and cool things, and I want to showcase them.
Here's a related feature idea. When you paste a Substack link into a post, it converts the link into a nifty feature box. It'd be rad if the same thing happened for comments. So when I post a comment from a previous edition, the formatting is nice and encourages folks to join the conversation.
Love this idea!
This would be an awesome way to include audience engagement!
I’m using the NPR model of encouraging “Member Supporters” who are enthralled with my free content versus strategies to actively pursue them. That strategy, albeit a slower roll, has worked fabulously well for me. Most importantly, it conforms with my Taoist way of effortlessly allowing what’s meant for me to naturally unfold.
That's awesome! We do see a good number of Substackers, including quite large ones like Judd Legum of Popular Info, rely on a donation-based model.
So good to know I'm not the only one feeling this way about subscriptions and the Taoist philosophy! 😅
I've also got this strategy. Growth in paid subscriptions is slow but I'm reasonably happy with it.
Oh I love this mindset. It feels much more peaceful to me than the "hustle" of "selling." Do you plan to do an annual drive to enourage donations?
Everyone, you're doing a great job, I MEAN IT
I mean, just showing up for Office Hours means you're taking your Substack seriously and you care about making it better and interacting with other writers. So that means YOU ROCK!
Yes!! I've been browsing through the threads here with my morning coffee and it's such a great way to start the day. So lovely to see all these writers who care not just about writing but also about support and community!
Oh yeah!!! You too!! Substack is our Netflix!
I love this! I'm going to start using this phrase :D
Yeahhhhhhhhh!
We really need more options about subscription costs. As someone who loves to subscribe, $5 limits how many newsletters I can pay for. In some cases, a person is more likely to get 1000 subscribers at $2 or 3 than 400 subscribers at $5, yet those add up to the same payout. Your platform may actually be limiting folks. I read the justification of "why" you have $5 as your lowest, but I strongly disagree with it. Thank you :)
Heard! Thank you.
I wish there was an option for people to pay what they think it's worth/what they can afford -- perhaps with a set minimum like $2.
Many 'Stackers (including myself) have a Ko-fi account or Patreon (and there are others), with a QR code I sometimes slap at the bottom of my articles. Here's what it looks like: https://ko-fi.com/frontrowandbackstage
To answer what I'm guessing is your next question: "You've gotta be kidding!"
great example, Brad
I kind of wish I could charge per article. I suspect a reader would be more willing to pay $1 per piece of content than commit to a recurring $5 monthly fee.
I've tried to combat that by severely lowering the annual total...I think I've got it down to $39, now. I realize that's a tough sell for someone struggling to pay $5, but it's a price I can control, until (maybe) 'Stack makes more flexible the monthly cost.
That's over a $20 savings, and it's a total I can control, when $5 is the lowest monthly price point. I work within what's made available!
Another pint worth noting; with an annual subscription, “churn” is less of an issue.
Yes, I set my annual to the lowest. I make all my content free anyway, since I am really just doing this for fun, but when I am subscribing to others, I am not likely to pay $5 a month until I am REALLY into them.
Yes! I’m really coming unstuck here as want to change it up but it seems once set, it’s in stone!
I do not know how to convey to potential paid subscribers that out of the $7 / month I charge, I am only getting about $5.64 from their monthly subscription.
I would make the accounting clear in your About section. That's what I plan to do if/when I launch a paid tier. And I think you can make it clear that supporting the Substack platform is part of the value prop since they provide the tools for your newsletter. The credit card processor fee is the cost of doing online business, so most people should understand and accept that too.
Hey fellow writers, I went paid last week! So, I just wanted to share my thoughts:
I converted only 3 of the 359 subscribers to paid. My open rates are great (50%), the polls score 4.5 / 5, I've had awesome feedback and it seems people like the work. However, I see a lot other publications converting 3-5% or even 10% of subscribers to paid.
But, I'm not stressed. I priced pretty high for the amount of times I hit publish because I'm focusing on evergreen content that lasts. I know with consistent time, more great content and a few well placed paywalls & special offers more will convert in time.
Aiming for 50 paid / 500 free by the end of the year.
Will be thinking about how to add EVEN more to the subscription (especially things that can be built once like digital products) to get subscribers to go paid.
But, that feeling of someone paying for my work was truly awesome.
Now to keep adding value and trusting the process.
If you're facing the same sorta conversion rate, you're not alone.
We've got this 👊🏼
The difficulty with conversion is real.
Thank you Lucas, I'll see what I can do!
Currently struggling with converting direct visitors into free subscribers. Also, finding the right audience is a tough nut it seems. Best to all, Substack is driving my brain into overdrive!
Keep writing, keep posting on social media, and don't sweat the small stuff i.e. subscribers. Focus on quality writing, and subs will come, especially as Substack and the concept of subscribing to a writing platform keeps growing.
Reminds me of the early days of eBay, late '90s. Suddenly, the notion of online auctions went from "huh?" to pop cultural phenomenon!
An eBay comparison! We'll take it
Hey, I was there in those early days!! That's where my 2,000 LPs and other record biz memorabilia went......all over the globe!!
What Brad said!
This is good advice. Consistency, head down, do the work, and baby steps!
Make sure you have at least one Subscribe button in every single post. I typically have one very close to the top and then one further down or at the end. Make it really obvious that subscribing is an option, and maybe even take a moment to explain why someone should subscribe.
It’s a funny balance isn’t it? The majority of people reading are probably already subscribers so I don’t want to piss them off with too many subscribe buttons.
But, as you post onto social media, those subscribe buttons suddenly have a useful function! What you might do is just go with the pre-set sub buttons you have on your e-mail post headers, etc, and as soon as you publish (your e-mails go out to your subscribers), go in and add more intentional sub buttons before you post on social media!
I add the button after I post to the link for this reason.
If you haven't yet read through this resource, it shares a lot of strategies about how to grow your free list: https://on.substack.com/p/grow-4
A feature request: I want the ability to remove/hide any post from my archive, but for that post to still be accessible if someone enters the URL or gets a link. I know about the Unpublish option but that does make the post inaccessible. What I want is not for a page to get actually removed from the internet, but just get hidden from my blog.
Reason for this: I do a monthly recommendations post where I link to other stuff I came across. However, I don't want to keep these posts forever as they'll clutter my archive, which I want to mostly have my original work. I'm currently unpublishing each such post after a month or so, but I wish I could just hide them so that if anyone in the future (myself included) wants to see what I recommended any given month, they can just enter the correct URL and check.
Have you tried setting up another newsletter feed? You can have several different "post types" that can keep your main homepage decluttered. Lots of the "News" newsletters use them!
I’ve done this to organize different sections of my Substack, but, sadly, posts to individual newsletters/sections still show up on the home page/app feed and in the archive regardless of where they are published.
It would be ideal if we could turn homepage visibility on/off when posting to avoid this clutter at the source!
Yup. I just tried this and faced the exact problem. If only...
Are you referring to "Sections"?
I thought about it but haven't tried. I'm more of an "dump everything in one place" kinda guy but will check out newsletters that do this.
You can change a post's publishing date in its settings. If you make it really "old" it ends up further down the archive page. That is one way to move the "clutter". Not an ideal fix, but at least worth knowing about.
I have a few threads that show up and I would like to delete them. I am able to delete posts but can't find the option for threads. Is that possible?
I have requested something similar and would also love the ability to “hide” posts from my feed/front page but still have them accessible in individual newsletters where they are originally posted.
I sometimes post things to separate newsletters within my overarching Substack that are exclusive to that newsletter and don’t necessarily fit with content on the home page. Or, as you say, are more administrative. It would be nice to exclude them from the app feed/front page.
There is currently the option the “exclude from top” or “pin” etc any post in the archive. Maybe options to “hide” or “exclude from home page/archive” would solve the problem?
You can apparently send emails to your subscribers without the content appearing on the web version of your Substack. I haven't tried that myself and don't know the mechanics of it, but maybe someone else here can explain it? (I saw it discussed on Discord).
Yes! There's more on how to do this here: https://on.substack.com/i/32682557/filter-and-segment-your-subscriber-list
That’s good to know! I’ll have to look into that also.
But I actually want to post directly to the website under different newsletters without sending emails or necessarily going on the home page. Some of my content is more about creating context or references, and it would be great to exclude those posts where appropriate.
This is good, interesting feedback, thank you! It's been shared with the team.
I am also rooting for this feature. I use Substack as a newsletter platform but also as a lightweight CMS.
Hi Substack world! I’m Sam. I write about travel, culture, and my life as an expat in Egypt.
To those of you who have built highly engaged communities on Substack: how did you do it? (Sorry if this has been asked a million times.)
I’m realizing more and more that my goal isn’t just to get people to read my writing—though I definitely do want that!—it’s to find and engage authentically with people who share my interests. I plan to reach out to a couple writers I admire who are good at this, and I appreciated Scott Hines’ advice that when you find your voice, readers will come. But I would love to hear thoughts from the wider group!
For context, I’m very new at this (only been here a month) and I don’t have an existing audience/community that I’m bringing over from another platform.
Hi Sam.
So - those people who share your interests, but who haven't found you yet - where are they right now? Where do they regularly hang out? What are they reading online?
And by all this I mean: where do YOU regulartly hang out & what are you reading online? (Because they are just kinda like you, right?) If you regard your ideal audience as other people more or less like you and acting more or less like you, then your own behaviour is a good guide and a good thing to analyse here - and might lead you straight to that audience.
Alternately: if you yourself kinda aspire to be like one of your writer heroes, where do *they* hang out - and then by extension, where does *their* audience hang out?
If you know where your ideal audience currently is, you can start coming up with a plan to get their attention - eg. guest-posting, or leaving a really amazingly thoughtful comment somewhere, or even helping one of those "other Yous" directly with something, which is a fantastic way to get someone interested.
Thanks so much for this thoughtful comment, Mike--lots of good (and actionable) advice in here. It makes sense that to find an engaged, like-minded readership I need to get out there and contribute to potential readers’ communities, rather than just hoping they find me. You get out what you put in, I guess!
Thanks, Sam. Hope it helped!
This stuff is really, really hard - but for me, the hardest thing of all was that feeling of Howling Into The Digital Void, where you have no idea who is hearing what you're saying. It's much easier - and much more effective - to put your outreach into a place where you know those people already halfway on the same page as you, either in a comment thread, or clustered around a hashtag, or something like that...
Facebook and Twitter and everywhere else: they're not communities. The communities are *on* those platforms. And once you find them and get yourself into them, you see people acting like how you want your audience to act towards your work - and so it begins!
That feeling of Howling Into The Digital Void is the worst! Finding the right communities within social media platforms will definitely take some legwork, but I sounds like it will pay dividends...and the success of your newsletter clearly proves that it can work! Thanks again for the solid advice.
We have published a few resources on this that are well worth a read, too!
https://on.substack.com/p/how-to-engage-readers-substack
https://on.substack.com/p/engage-1-suleika-jaouad
Thanks for these links, Bailey!
Yes, me too. My articles get 0 or 1 comment, mostly 0. I ask questions in the articles, I include 'Leave a Comment' buttons. What else should I be doing to get people to engage?
Write
Connect with other writers
Promote your work
Write some more
Make sure to add some sort of call to action in your articles.
Repeat.
That’s it. There’s no growth hack.
I have an opinion that may be unpopular, but I think it is important that writers (and the platform) at least be aware of this perspective.
Sometimes I sign up for a free subscription and then I get a "teaser" email where they dangle a *paid only* post in my face to encourage me to subscribe. I need at least a few weeks of engagement with the content to decide to pay! It is not a small investment for many. I will often unsubscribe immediately from these folks out of principle.
I did not subscribe to these emails and do not want them. I consider them spam. We should be able to only receive what we ask for. Maybe instead, plug your "paid only" post at the end of a free post. something like, "if you enjoyed this, you might also enjoy my post about ____ that is available to paid subscribers". That way you aren't wasting people's time.
oh Kristen, I feel the same way! I feel very annoyed when a writer "gives me a free week" or other length to enjoy their paid content. If I don't ask for it, don't send it. I don't need more things in my inbox. This marketing ploy has the opposite effect on me. Like you, I simply unsubscribe.
With all due respect, then you aren’t part of that newsletters target audience anyway. Creators are not trying to beg for money, they are just presenting an opportunity for folks to get more if they want. Which you don’t and that’s fine. But to not promote right when you have someone’s attention isn’t sound marketing advice.
If you subscribe in the app, Substack will send those automatically, without the input of the newsletter author.
I don't use the app.
Good morning fellow writers from Portland! Dark coffee in hand, at a bakery, west coast time!
I just moved to CA and I'm joining my first Office Hours from Pacific time!
Where in California, Kate. I’ve lived in both San Diego and near Sacramento in Folsom.
I'm in the Bay Area!
hey San Diego native right here!
Oooh, welcome to CA, Kate! If you ever need an LA writer buddy, holler!
cheers!
That sounds amazing...☕️🥐
That's very on brand based on your bio! Let me know if you find that perfect croissant.
I'll never find a perfect croissant. It's a lifelong quest.
The best croissant I've ever found was a random little cafe in Florence Italy right next to the Duomo. I still dream about it to this day.
Those are the best, right? Just a nice, unassuming cafe in Europe. I have an entire highlight on my IG devoted to #croissanting in France and Spain, soon to be a post.
503 represent!
YUP...
Could you please post the time GMT, after all it is where all started!!
Hi Michael, we host each week at 5pm GMT. The local time is always listed on the event page and will save to your calendar accordingly if you are RSVP. https://lu.ma/office-hours
Fascinating to learn that 5pm GMT = 6pm BST, which I thought was something of an oxymoron at the best of times - the summertime part I mean, although it is roasting here this evening, nothing like a heatwave to keep us on out toes....but much fascinating reading nevertheless :-)
Genesis of Modern Time
We saw it here first.
3 valuable tips for writers:
1. Clean your subscriber list every month or so and remove users who never open your emails. It impacts your open rates and increases the risk of the user forgetting they signed up and reporting you as spam. There's no point in flaunting large follower numbers if they don't read or engage. It'll hurt, but it's for your own good. Morning Brew, for example, allegedly removes users if no email has been opened within 18 days of signing up.
2. Don't budge from your basic monthly rates. If it's a minimum 5, don't budge. Respect the value of your own offering. Be willing to negotiate on annual rates to an extent. Going too low will hurt the authenticity of your brand. You deserve to be paid for work you put out and that others enjoy.
3. Don't worry about subscriptions drying up. It'll hurt, but post consistently, help others, and be firm where you to be, and the people will come. I may be joining the list of memorable names and faces by helping out here every week. When people know me and recognize me, they trust me and aren't afraid to subscribe, or colloborate, or recommend my newsletter to their readers (this has happened for 60% of my current recos).
"Oh, Nikhil, the What's Curation? guy! He's a nice dude!" is the sentiment I'm chasing.
A word of caution though--I have a reader who engages frequently but who never shows up as having clicked, opened, or read anything. Some browsers allow users to stop tracking and some email clients don't send read-confirmations. If I didn't have this reader example I wouldn't know, but it does exist. Be careful and cautious when pruning your subscriber list--you don't want to cut a privacy-conscious reader who loves your content!
Yep, can confirm this as well. One of my friends subscribed and it showed that she had never opened or interacted with a single post. I thought that was odd since she has been a big supporter of mine in the past. Lo and behold, one day she commented on Facebook how much she has been enjoying my Substack.
So sometimes, the stats lie.
😬👉🏿🙃
Could be bookmarking your newsletter and checking on it once in a while as opposed to reading it off email?
Some of my paid subscribers have no stars to 1 star so I agree with this.
Several of my paid subscribers have this star rating, but then reply directly to emails saying they loved an episode. Soooo they must be reading? Or they're all liars. Those are options. 😂
Yes! This is a big problem. I have multiple subscribers who've reported that their e-mail blocks scripts that indicate mail's been opened. I've tested this myself and know of at least two e-mail clients that do this. Substack needs to create a "mark as read" button they can click from within the e-mail that would take them out to a brief page that would then record it as opened.
I agree with 2 and 3 but I'd be cautious about 1. Security settings in some browsers or email clients (like DuckDuckGo) prevent Substack from tracking email opens. If they open in a Private window in Chrome the same thing would happen. I tend to assume that if people are taking the time to subscribe, they know what they want. Who am I to tell them they don't want my newsletter?
Wow, this is super helpful. I was just about to purge some non-openers but now I'll have to think twice, particularly as some are close friends. Very interesting.
Thank you for this - I appreciate the words of wisdom. There seems to be a common theme (which is awesome) of powering through sometimes and remaining consistent.
I give you a ton of credit!
Love this piece of advice
It's Office Hours time again! I just wanted to share that my two main Substacks have been seeing incredible growth, and I think most of that of late has come from Recommendations. For those recommending me, thank you! And to those who are still on the fence about Recommendations, I would definitely encourage you to give them a shot.
I also discovered an interesting phenomenon over on Reddit. Someone asked a question in my local sub that I had coincidentally answered in that day's post on my Unseen St Louis Substack. Before I could reply, someone else (one of my subscribers!) had shared the link. Even though the link wasn't the top post, it generated a huge amount of traffic and about 30 subscriptions. That was as good or better performance over when I share my link in a new Reddit post. The moral of the story is, never underestimate the power of word of mouth and personal recommendations (even the non-Substack kind) on social.
My growth recently has certainly been mostly from recommendations. I can't emphasise enough the importance of connecting with other writers. And by that I mean really connecting, not just self-promoting.
Total success story! It's the little things. "Don't let your unseen influence go to your head now" haha Seriously though that's a great little positive boost there
I've been creating these one line "memes" (for lack of a better word) on IG (stories). I find a photo on pixabay or unsplash, and pair it with a link to one of my stack columns and add a line like: "Don't be shy: subscribe." Or "Come hang with me," and a picture of clothespins. See where I'm going? It's fun! Creative, and it does get attention and subscribers!
I have had wonderful luck with Recommendations. I’ve teamed up with a couple of other newsletter writers to recommend and cross-promote our work. I have a little success with Instagram, but none with Twitter or Facebook. You really need to find an audience that is already reading newsletters, not hope that you can convert readers to them.
Really smart to partner with other Substack writers! I always tell writers to look at who is recommending them and if they don't already know them to reach out and make an introduction and see if there's anything you can do together.
That's a really good idea, and very wise - we need to find an audience that wants to read more than 3 lines!
I was knocking myself out, writing tweets and excepts and posting links to my newsletter all over social. Nothing worked as well as having other writers recommend me. I'm writing a post next week that will be all newsletter recommendations.
Well I’ve just followed you so I can see how you’re doing it! Thank you
Thanks for the great info. I'm following a few days late on this thread. I plan to follow you as well.
Hi Micheline, it's great to connect with other fellow food writers here, I just subscribed. Re audience: substack is doing a great job in channeling readers to my newsletter. I've had to take a long break from posting recently and during that time recommendations only garnered me 70 new subscribers. The substack network has a huge potential!
Thanks! I would happily take 70 more subscribers, especially given how hard it is to attract them in other ways.
Ahh, yea. You’re talking about Italian Food. 😎
I think gearing your messaging to the specific platform helps! I find Facebook is family-oriented and nostalgic, Twitter is reactionary and goofing around, LinkedIn is buttoned-up and celebratory, and Instagram is... I don't know what Instagram is anymore. 🤷 So presenting your content around the personalities most likely to use a platform helps!
I've got a tiny new publication - just 177 subscribers and only 26 paid. I'd been building a traditional email list for years, but became truly weary of the feeling of continually creating content for that list and social media for free. I love substack creating a space where I can continue to offer free content, but also receive payment for my writing. At first I had steady signups and conversions from social and my email list, but that seems to have entirely tapered off. Would love some ideas to create a more steady increase.
I think if you had 177 people in your house you’d feel differently about your “small” list! And if 26 of those people put cash In your hand as they walked through the door you’d be a puddle on the floor. Don’t minimize your list— you’re doing great!
Very good perspective. And yes I’m so grateful for my supporters and current growth ! But as a solo mama solely supporting herself with writing definitely interested and way motivated to grow :)
I have 5k on my email list and 12 k on ig. So my interest is definitely on ways to covert followers into readers and subscribers.
And subscribed to yours !
That's a great conversion rate! Take a moment to pat yourself on the back for that. :)
One of the best things you can do to grow your audience from *within* Substack is to build a healthy ecosystem of writer-to-writer recommendations with your peers. Here's more on that: https://on.substack.com/p/recommendations-update?s=w
That’s a great conversion rate!
Off topic thought: it would be cool to be able to save post templates. I write a regular newsletter with the same columns every week--being able to save the format and pull it up easily would save me some time :)
Maybe Substack could license rights to use Microsoft office, or Google apps, or Adobe online compatibility tools?
Thanks, I believe that should work for letters I have now.
Yep, that's what I currently do lol. Really not that much trouble, but it would be nice to have a formalized method rather than a book-legged one!
great minds think alike sometimes... maybe you should hire me ;)
I love Substack. I write about addiction and recovery and host the Breakfast with an Alcoholic podcast here: https://thanksforlettingmeshare.substack.com
One thing that I'm struggling with is discovery and finding new subscribers and part of that is finding the right niche--I've mentioned before it would be great if there was our own Addiction or Recovery tag. Hint??? If you search "alcoholism" here one of the top results is still a home bartending newsletter.
In the meantime, I'm trying to compile a complete or nearly complete listing of the addiction/recovery stuff available here. I'll be happy to share the list with anyone who wants to use it and happy to add anyone who wants to be included!
Did I mention that I love it here!
Randall
I imagine you've been very active in the therapy community- in another post here, Sarah was asking about LinkedIn- if you haven't tried it, it might work well for connecting with other recovery groups, therapists, and people involved in your community. Your podcast would benefit anyone they're working with, and some people might be protective and proprietary, but many other will not. Hit that numbers game- to add someone you don't know you just need to add a comment to the request, it's that easy I believe. The intricate search functionality can allow you to target a large number of people with a specific job title or working for a specific organization, in a specific area, etc. You can easily spend a whole day doing that. A small percentage will add you, hence why it's a numbers game. Ensure you have a professional, short message that gets them interested in your mutual interest and your services. This is one way to help build your network that will help boost subscribers. I'm currently unemployed but in the meantime I have built a LinkedIn network filled with highly connected people all over North America.
Recovering is a great one in this space too: https://hollywhitaker.substack.com/
Yes, love Holly!
Hey Randall! My newsletter is alcohol-free! Excited to read some of your words! Here is mine: https://relatableaf.substack.com
Thank you for telling me--will definitely take a read!
Ah your name is Randall! Hello :).
I should have introduced myself before! It is Alcoholics Anonymous!
Thank you and the feeling is mutual!
Hey, friends! I'm coming up on one year since going paid in September. My growth in both paid and free subscribers has been slow but steady. I've had the most significant jumps, after the first flush of sign-ups, through either being unexpectedly given a shout-out in another newsletter or doing a guest post for another newsletter. I've also tried, as a result, to do shout-outs to other newsletters in my own as often as I can.
Now, I'm thinking about expanding what I offer regularly to feature guest posts. At Let Your Life Speak I write about integrity, and how we practice integrity consistently as imperfect human beings in a complex world. https://ashasanaker.substack.com.
If that's an umbrella you could happily climb under and write something, let me know: ashasanaker@gmail.com.
And, hey, happy to write a guest post for you as well! My latest one, for Oldster Magazine, did really well. https://oldster.substack.com/p/at-50-i-started-getting-naked-for
If you're looking for folks to write guest posts for you, or if you know of another Substack soliciting, let me know!
I have a section for Guest Writers (to write about the life lessons in movies):
https://moviewise.substack.com/s/-guest-posts
Love this idea - will follow up with a draft guest post!
I remember that guest post! Nice!
Saw your email. Will reply soon!
May I ask if there’s an algorithm that promotes our newsletters when people search on the substack website itself or are recommended it? For example if they’re looking for literature-related newsletters, are the top most suggested ones just the ones with the most followers? How can I tailor my content to reach out to a wider global audience who share the same interests as me? Asking because I’m shy to post on my own social media and have my name and face attached to my newsletter. Appreciate any help or insight!
Not long ago, I inputted the keywords for my newsletter in the search bar and 70% of the results listed before my publication were completely empty. There was not a single post in them except the "coming soon". I do believe this should be sorted out pronto to support active publications over inactive ones.
I think there should be some way for Substack to track the activeness of newsletters. For example, if they detect no activity for a certain period of time, they bump up the ones who ARE active. But then again, I believe Substack is still peaking, so they need some time to sort out the backend stuff. Really appreciate that they're always having these regular conversations with writers and take our suggestions to heart!
This would be huge for discoverability and finding like-minded writers.
Yes, kudos to the team for listening and responding to great points like this. Cheers!
Great feedback. Let me check in with our engineers on this.
Thank you Bailey ❤️❤️
I mentioned this on the last Office Hours. I wish I could search by recent activity, or at least be able to see when they last posted from the list view so that I didn't have to click through every single Substack in the search results to see if they're current.
Spot on.
It took me a while to get "comfortable" posting my newsletter information on multiple social media platforms. I still do not like to do it.
Right! Personally not a bold, loud person so it makes me uncomfortable to shout about my newsletter. But unfortunately I know that’s one of the only ways to grow. How did social media work for you?
Social media has not worked as well as I thought. People, I think, still do not know what "substack" is and are hesitant about clicking a link that they are unsure of. If I am unsure of a link, I will Google the root URL to see what it is, then I may click on the link.
As I mentioned somewhere else here, 'Stack reminds me (in '22) of late '90s eBay. People 25 years ago were going, "Huh? Online auctions? Whaddayatalkin'about?" Shortly thereafter, a pop cultural icon was born!
Ha it can be hard to predict the emergence of a cultural icon though. Here's hoping!
It might just take time for people to consider you a trustable resource. Doesn't hurt to keep at it.
Thanks, Mark! I keep posting on my Substack regularly.
I think it ranges quite a bit. In my industry (media/advertising), a lot of people know about Substack. I suspect it depends on the circle.
In various industries/businesses, I've noticed, 'Stacks with certain subject matter (economics, stocks, politics, etc) can grab hundreds, if not thousands, of paid subs simply because the subs can be a write-off! With my little shop of show-biz whores, I'm not quite that lucky!
I just passed one year on 'Stack, and am proud to have (somehow) amassed 125 subscribers, with the number of paid subscribers able to be counted on a couple of bony fingers (avoid giggling, please)!
Right! I actually rarely bother googling suspicious links, I simply won't click.
I can definitely identify, Caroline. For me it helps to tease out an interesting factoid or study I might've cited in the newsletter instead of making a direct appeal.
Most people don’t like posting on social media. I see it almost as a forcing function.
•How bad do I want to increase my reach?
•How bad do I want this project to succeed?
•What do I have to do to make that happen?
Ooooo awesome question!
Out of curiosity, are there plans to incorporate an algorithmic feed?
Just a quick post to say how much I love this platform! As “The Footloose Muse” (carolmossa.Substack.com), I have 308 subscribers and 18 of those are paid. I’ve been a writer my whole life, and only now do I feel free to create content that matters. Thank you!!
Thank you for the kind note, Carol!
My pleasure, Bailey. I feel right at “home”
here, and quote often Substack’s tagline: “a home for great writers and readers.” That, we are!!
Huzzah! Congrats, Carol!
Thanks so much, Pablo!! Following you.
New to Substack! 2 newsletters out so far - next step is converting!!!! 339 subscribers, 4 are paid.
Excited to read the responses. My newsletter is an alcohol-free one: https://relatableaf.substack.com
339 subscribers after two newsletter posts? What's your secret?
Yes! My secret...a decent sized (16K+) Instagram following...I brought people over from there mostly! https://www.instagram.com/sobrietyactivist/
I applaud your AF approach, I'm checking it out!
Hey thanks Mark!
None.
My strategy is to build up my community off free subscribers first. I'm curious if anyone has any insight as to how I might prime the pump in the meantime, however. I may not be going paid any time soon, but there might be strategies to ready my audience for that eventual shift. What say you, fellow Substackers??
Similar strategy here. I'm a big fan of Cafe Anne. She has a paid option, but doesn't really promote it and nothing is behind the paywall. It's just a way for readers to support her work. Can't seem to find the post, but she shared her subscriber data a few months back. https://annekadet.substack.com/
Anyway, I suspect that when I eventually go paid I may use a similar approach.
I LOVE Anne’s work, and I recently paid for an annual subscription simply because her articles are wonderful!
Anne's work is gold! Her paid subscription is the ultimate soft sell. I think I was aware of it for a few months and then when she wrote a report about how paid was going, I realized just how much I love reading her Substack, so it was kind of a no-brainer to go paid.
Everyone should read Release and Gather: http://hollyrabalais.substack.com
Thanks Michael! Here’s a link to the issue with my latest quarterly update; it’s at the very bottom of the newsletter:
https://annekadet.substack.com/p/car
Even though I put nothing behind a paywall as you said, about 5 percent of my subscribers are paying. That really makes me happy!
I also subscribed to https://brentandmichaelaregoingplaces.substack.com?r=5apie&utm_medium=iOS because the articles have such value. Of course, they have paid content that isn’t available to free subscribers, but great stuff!
I had the same strategy, Pablo, but decided to offer a paid option that doesn’t currently get anything extra--just opportunity to support my writing. I’ve had a couple of subscribers upgrade to paid since doing that.
It might just be me, but my paid subscribers seem more interested in supporting the project overall than any extra content I might offer.
As a reader, I pay for a few for the same reason.
What do you mean by “supporting the project overall?” Do you mean your paid subscribers are more engaged?
I meant that they seem more interested in supporting the newsletter (and me/) overall than they are in any extra content I might offer up.
As for engagement, 1 is extremely active commenting. The others very rarely say anything in the comment section.
Oh interesting. Yeah, that's been my strategy but I'm definitely open to other approaches. When did you add the paid option?
I’ve been writing for two months and added the paid option about 3 weeks ago. I also updated my About page as well as my email headers and footers to include a blurb about why becoming a paid subscriber matters.
Notes with interest.
I watched one of substack's "Grow" videos and one guy said that going paid actually encouraged more free subscribers lol I haven't gone paid yet, so I can't attest. Also, just read your blog and it's soooo good (name is very creative)! I just shared it with my spanish/latin friends & added it as a recommendation on my page
Thanks for much, Maria! I just subbed to your newsletter too.
Do you have a link to that Grow video handy? That's interesting about going paid driving free subscribers.
+ thank you for subscribing!
Yep, jump to 5:08
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GmCffJgypv0&t=6s
I've been thinking about this effect as well. If you see some people are paying for the newsletter, psychologically it indicates the newsletter has value. This is a tricky consumer behavior topic that probably doesn't have a clear answer.
Yoooooooo Substack
Yoooo
Yo!
I would love to have data on which posts are getting viewed. Right now it’s just the source of where the traffic came from. But not where it’s going.
For instance, I post on Wednesdays with occasional posts on other days. So if I get an uptick in traffic on a Sunday when I haven’t posted anything in 4 days and the past month of content has no increase in views, I have no idea who’s reading what content.
I have weekly posts since February 2021 at a minimum, I can’t go back and check each one to find out what people are reading.
Yes, better analytics would be so useful!
I agree on this.
I maintain spreadsheets but to get to the desired level of data is more work than I can handle!
I agree!
At litthinkpodcast.substack.com we have just hit over 100 subscribers!!! We are so excited and looking into adding paid after the new year (you know, to avoid messes with taxes). How many free subscribers should we have before we make the change? Any advice for how we can get teachers (mostly) to subscribe so that we can get paid for the freelance work we're doing now?
Congrats!
Thank you!
Hi all! A friend and I want to launch a pop-up substack (?) of sorts about Louise Penny's books before the 19th one comes out this fall. If you're interested in contributing, please let me know! You definitely don't have to be a book writer to join. We're looking for essays on any topics including:
- The role of food in the books. (looking at you foodie substackers)
- I'd love to have a poet write about Ruth Zardo.
- The unique joy of the audiobooks.
- The role of art/artists (painters, poets and playwrights, oh my)
- Masculinity in the books.
- The way the series approaches Catholicism/religion.
Comment or email whattoreadif@substack.com if you're interested. If you're curious, but don't have a topic idea drop me a note and we'll see what we can think of!
How do you all do your planning? I have a Miro board with lists of topic ideas, and few Draft posts on Substack itself. But I don't really have anywhere comfortable for fleshing out ideas before they become posts. What do you all do?
I list ideas in a Google doc. Then I outline articles on scraps of teletype paper from work.
The best system is which ever one you’ll actually use.
I have a running Excel sheet with a long list of ever-expanding ideas. I pick whichever story idea strikes my fancy or is current and I announce the following week's topic in advance. This helps me commit to a post and sets my subconscious to work on the next story.
That's a great tactic!
I use a lot of Google Docs! I also made templates for each week then copy/paste into the new draft when I start the next week's email.
Docs, Sheets...all very helpful when you are collaborating.
I track ideas in a notebook along with a general plan for what I want to publish week to week. I try to do a first draft at least 5 days in advance and refine it until publishing. I may brainstorm on paper or within a post draft itself.
I just use Apple Notes. I have a grid with my weekly schedule for the next three months and then a long list of one-line ideas. From there, I start fleshing out in a doc. I use the app iA Writer on my iPad primarily, and then switch to my Mac to enter the text in Substack and do the formatting (the Substack editor is a bit of a pain on iPad at the moment).
Google apps. That is where we do all of our planning for litthinkpodcast.substack.com
Me too! I have one of the cardstock cover moleskine notebooks specifically for ideas for my Substacks. Whenever I get an idea, I write it down!
Twinsies!
Paid subscribers continue to be readers who don't even open all the emails yet the most engaged readers open everything and remain free, any ideas as to why?
Gift them a subscription? Perhaps lazy paid subscribers will be tempted to engage more once they see others doing the same?
I have, so far, done a dismal job converting subscribers, but in fairness I haven't tried. I am using a paywall for my paid content, but I realized there might be a challenge with that, because my free subscribers don't know what is hidden behind the paywall or know whether they think it's valuable.
My grand conversion experiment is going to be SUBtember. I mentioned it sometime in July in this space, and I am working steadily towards it. My August posts all have a warning to my subscribers that SUBtember is coming, and I have begun to build spreadsheets to run analytics so that at the end of SUBtember I can report back about how well it worked. I don't like overly promoting, so SUBtember will be my one subscription drive for the year and then I'll leave everyone alone.
I really enjoyed the Going-Paid checklist and it helped me think about my process even though I started paid out of the gate.
You should definitely let your free subscribers know what you put behind a paywall! You can share this info on your About page, in your headers and footers, and in captions when you use subscribe buttons in posts! Being strategic about where you put the paywall in your posts can work well too.
Heck yeah, I like the SUBtember energy.
One awesome thing I noticed other writers doing is creating a small list of maybe 3-4 linked bullet points at the bottom of a post, directing their readers to similar content on that same substack. (ex. "Liked my post on Swiss Cheese? You might like this one on Edam and this one on Brie.")
Obviously a little bit of extra work to do this each time, but as a reader, seeing this at the end of a post frequently makes me click from the email to the person's substack page.
I'm sorry I can't remember offhand who I've seen do this, but if it is you then GREAT JOB!
whats up yall! I recently turned on paid subscriptions (woot woot) with the patronage model - everything is free but if you would like to support and make this all possible, you can become a paying subscriber.
I would love to hear from everyone else here and the substack team on best practices / language / etc for communicating this concept to readers.
right now i tell them its like NPR or Elmo (on PBS), but I don't know if that's good lol.
Excited to hear how others are doing it !
Judd Legum who writes popular information does the "donation based" model. I really like the language he uses on his subscribe page: https://popular.info/subscribe
He also uses really compelling language in his headers and footers.
Some other pubs that do everything free:
https://otherfeminisms.substack.com/
https://exclusivecontent.substack.com/
Diamond just shared they are doing the sam model! https://on.substack.com/p/office-hours-48/comment/8322705
What is the patronage model? That sounds great. Would love to learn more.
I use "mission based" language too. I talk about supporting independent research outside of the rules of academia, and making history free and interesting. For season 2 I'm pivoting to having my podcast be freely available (it's currently available with ads or behind a paywall), so I can lean into the message of "make knowledge free."
I'm doing this too. There's a strong element of public service in what I write (it's helping people understand the science behind important issues like climate change). But I really appreciate when people do choose to pay.
In response to the poll: I've just had an uptick in paid folks. My first-of-the-month newsletter was a stew of all sorts, even including a "hot weather" recipe to be made early in the day... with the idea to construct your day around getting your writing done. I've done my usual eclectic posts, all about writing, but a real breadth of writing... Sharing my process, but also--always--taking the readers' writing seriously. I think my sheer consistency (posting between 8-12 pieces/month) is paying off. So I'm here to say, keep going. Keep the quality of your posts to a standard, let people know you're here. I've had zero to little response to any sort of "deal," paywalls don't seem to make much difference, I've never done the unlock-later (in fact, I lock down after a short period of free), and when I've targeted 4-5 star free folks, I've gotten little. I think it's just the work itself that's bringing them in. Intriguing pics, and working in areas and approaches to writing that aren't elsewhere.
I do have questions about how commenting works, and how/who gets notifications. How best to let readers know about responses to posts. I need to understand this in order to keep discussion going. Is there a Substack primer on this topic? Many thanks, Team, as always!
I targeted all my five star readers, thousands of them, very little uptick for conversion. In fact, majority of my paid subscribers are two star readers, very odd.
Brand new to Substack, so I'm still working on my content, my schedule and getting free subscribers. Acknowledging all of you who are in paid mode. I hope to be there soon!
Hi, Linda!! You’re in the right place.
Thanks, Carol! I'm excited to be here!
I see that a number of my new subscribers are finding me on the Substack app or platform, which is awesome! That said, I have no idea *where* on the app/platform they are finding me! For example, I see on their subscriber profile that they found me from the "Substack Network"-- what does this mean? Is it another one of my follower's profiles? Is it on the discover page? (I can't find myself there when logged into a friend's account, lol)
TBH I dunno if this knowledge will help me write or tailor my newsletter in anyway. I'm just super curious!
I have the same question based on stats page traffic sources. Some are obvious, but others aren’t.
If I write short stories here, fiction mostly, do I still on the material to publish it later somewhere else?
You always own your intellectual property, mailing list, and subscriber payments. That include any of the writing you publish, you can decide to publish again elsewhere too
Thanks, Katie!
Good question, I’m sure the answer is yes. But I’d also be curious to know the finer points on this as I also publish short works of fiction here.
Also, I can never get enough fiction so consider me subscribed!
Yes, as I understand it....your writing is your writing! I have to believe that, because I have a singer/songwriter writing for me in what we're hoping will end up being his printed memoirs/autobio!!
You own the material, but it will be considered "previously published" if you then try to submit the story elsewhere, to a publication that you do not own.
Couple things that I saw deep in comment threads that I wanted to put on the surface as useful tidbits:
-The community values consistency, and many writers want to be sure if they're recommending a publication, there's actually something there for their readers to... well... read
-It is possible to oversaturate your readers with content. Make sure you're sticking to the expectations that you lay out in your newsletter
-Community health and engagement > raw subscriber numbers
-The value of social media pages for sharing non-link content: Sometimes just posting pictures, video, etc. simply serves as a reminder to your followers to go check your page
Thanks for a great office hours. I write about the outdoors and climbing, if anyone would like to collaborate, or reach out with questions (I've been at this a while) I'll try to get back to you. You can reach out at colenobleclimbs@gmail.com
Happy writing!
Great tips. Thanks!
One last thought to add -- VULNERABILITY COUNTS! This post of mine went skyward within minutes of posting it. Just nuts!
https://greatbooksgreatminds.substack.com/p/a-brand-new-me
I feel like people might prefer the word “follow” than subscribe. Just because following on social media is so common and so easy. Just playing around with that thought.
The thing is, it is a newsletter and they have to provide their email address to subscribe. When you follow someone on Twitter or FB, you don't have to do so, and that content isn't delivered to your inbox in the same way. So "Subscribe" and "Follow" are actually different things.
I've been making custom buttons with the word "join" above the email input. This way it's not a gotcha, but it feels more like an invitation to a fun group.
I like that!