Have questions about publishing, growing, or going paid on Substack?
The Substack team, and your fellow writers, are here to help!
We’re gathering the writer community and members of the Substack team together in this discussion thread to answer writer questions for an hour. Drop your questions in the thread by leaving a comment, and we’ll do our best to share knowledge and tips.
Our team will be answering questions and sharing insights with you in the thread today from 10 a.m. - 11 a.m. PST / 1 p.m. - 2 p.m. EST. We encourage writers to stick around after the hour and continue the conversation together.
Some updates and reminders from the Substack team:
Mark your calendar: To learn about the tools that could help motivate your free subscribers to upgrade their subscriptions, join us next Wednesday, August 24, for a free writer workshop on conversion.
What is Substack? We updated our homepage to tell the story of Substack. How do you explain what Substack is to people learning about it for the first time?
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If there’s another tool you use to engage with your subscribers and build your reader community, tell us in the comments.
Got questions about Substack or feedback about what’s new? You’re in the right place! Leave a comment in this thread.
If you are hosting conversations and cultivating community with your subscribers with your readers, tell us more! What tools do you use and how do you imagine they might better serve your needs?
The Substack team is signing off for today! We'll be back next week at the same time and place. In the meantime, checkout the Substack resources: https://substack.com/resources and consider joining us for our workshop on free to paid subscriber conversion: https://lu.ma/download-conversion
Keep going,
Katie, Bailey, Jasmine, Alex, Michelle, Lucas, Kirthi, Yuriy, and Nicole
Hello everyone! Here's a little encouragement from one small newsletter to all of you. Do you find yourself getting caught up in the numbers? It's really easy to get stuck on how many subscribers you have...or don't have. But take it from me: while the numbers feel good, they ultimately don't matter. What matters is the community you build around your newsletter, the way you build yourself up as a writer, and the persistence you show as you keep writing. So keep writing! Don't stop! The world needs your voice! 🌿
Happy to share that my newsletter, “moviewise: Life Lessons From Movies” has just been accepted into the Google News app under the “entertainment” category! I learned about this program from another Substack writer, Jatan Mehta, who shared this tip in a Writer Office Hours a while ago (Jun 30). (Aside: it would be great if these kinds of tips were put together in one place).
Here is his article explaining how to do it, which I followed:
Paging my fellow travel/culture/personal essay writers—is there a community for us to connect, exchange ideas, maybe explore cross-promotion? I’ve joined the Substack writers Discord, but haven’t seen anything more specific than the nonfiction channel (I also literally joined Discord yesterday, so maybe I’m doing it wrong?). While I love and am open to connecting with Substack writers of all types, a more tailored group would be super helpful. TIA!
On the subject of conversation with readers, I'm curious: how many people get contacted by their readers by old fashioned E-mail with questions or proposals? This is less about community and more about 1:1 interaction but I'd like to hear other Substacker experiences. I get very few E-mails but they do seem to be increasing a little bit. Thanks! Keep on keeping on, everyone!
Entering my third week on Substack and I am having so much fun! I am at 90 subscribers (last week 78) and 19 paid (last week 16). With two that converted from free to paid this week. I am learning a lot, but ever better - I'm writing and get a lot of joy out of it. Thank you to this community!
One of the core ways to develop an audience is to borrow someone else's. There are lots of ways to do that, one of which is to publish in other places with established audiences. I often find myself wondering whether a particular piece I am writing should go in the newsletter or if I should submit it to other publications where it might lead people back to the newsletter. I'm wondering if people have thoughts/experiences/data on how much one should publish elsewhere to develop an audience for a newsletter. (To be clear, I'm not asking about publishing on more than one platform simultaneously. I'm talking about established publications that accept submissions.)
Hi, everyone. I'm grateful to be here with you as I find my way. I find this community inspiring and helpful. I launched Heart's Content, my free weekly newsletter 7 months ago as a grand experiment and a way to help hold myself to some accountability to showing up and sharing my thinking/writing more publicly beyond social media posts. The newsletter is still teaching me what it wants to be. Sometimes deeply reflective and instructional, sometimes simply a weekly journal, I tend to center around creativity, writing as a healing modality, spirituality, the power of sharing our stories, and the curriculum of my life. Thus far, I have what I think is a good open rate ( hovers around 35-37%) but I struggle with engagement. I've tried a few open-thread discussions but they mostly go nowhere. I long for more community and would love to hear your thoughts!
I've been engaging with my readers through good old email. When I see a new subscriber who engages frequently with my content, I send them an email asking about their life and story. I've made a few good friends this way and really enjoy how it makes me feel connected to my community.
I started writing my newsletter a few months ago to document the aftermath of losing a loved one. It's an attempt to understand grief and navigate towards healing. Through my essays, I try to figure out the complex nature of grief and healing. I'm not an expert, I'm just a writer going through shit. And writing the newsletter helps me channel my focus on acceptance, healing and love.
The subscribers are growing slowly and steadily and I am not complaining. I also love the luxury that is running my own newsletter, where I can write without the confines of an editor or for it to be sold. I can simply let it be - honest and raw. It allows me to explore my craft further and so, I would love to collaborate with anyone who works along the lines of personal essays/memoirs/ slice of life writings.
I am also in the process of adding a new section to my newsletter for art (books, movies, music, food) that revolves around healing and acceptance. So if anyone here would like to contribute to this section, it'd be great!
Thanks for your efforts on this platform. A few adjustments that would make it more useful to content providers:
1) allow people to choose which image will be the thumbnail of the newsletter, and to edit/crop that image for best results. Most blogging platforms have had this function for about a decade.
2) Polls with more than 4 possible answers
3) The ability to save and re-use custom buttons and their associated text. Who wants to design a new one every time they want a custom button? I have a co-author, and constantly have to edit the phrase "...support my work" to "support our work." Tedious and frustrating!
4) The ability to set a recurring publication date/time. Why do we content providers have to do this manually for every single newsletter? I'd like to lock in "21:00 EST Weds" for the foreseeable future.
5) Richer data analytics would be great. What time of day do most people view my newsletter? On mobile device or laptop? etc. This would help us give the audience what they want.
I’m curious what growth tools are most effective to other writers. I love meeting other writers in these discussion threads, following new Substacks, and meeting other writers. It’s been the most effective way of really building a community so far! I also use The Sample which has gotten me some new subscribers-- https://thesample.ai/?ref=f8b4
I've been on Substack since March, and one of the best things I've done is remain consistent. I'm really focusing on the whole the concept of "if you build it, they will come" and it's working. People know that they can expect new writing from me on a weekly basis and I give myself room to explore different styles. I do advertise that I have a paid subscription but I don't bash it over people's heads. I provide great free content and I think that makes some people be like "hmm, if the free content is great and consistent, the paid must be even better". For me, the key has been having paid content that doesn't lead to me burning out because it requires so much from me.
Taking a moment to share that I just wrapped up the first installment of my newsletter: 12 original instrumental songs, one every month, comprising an entire volume of music.
In a few weeks, I'll release the first song of Volume II, which will be another 12 pieces of original instrumental music. So, I guess I'm serializing an album?
I don't know. I'm just so excited about it, and I really couldn't do it without this platform and the wonderful people here.
Oh, also we were so excited that Substack added a clear guest post feature! Since liththinkpodcast.substack.com tries to take breaks during the year, we love the option of growing our community and continuing to offer our readers and listeners content even if we are on a break.
Good day, friends. I’ve indicated in the poll that I use Facebook most of the time, but I’m happy to announce that the shift is underway to move the important conversations to my stack. And just this week I tried using the “thread” feature and I am obsessed with it! Love love love it. I am a creative wife, affectionately known here as The Footloose Muse. And no, I do not deliver babies, I help people gift birth to their creative ideas. Would love some follows and promise to return the gesture.
I just started a weekly feature for my paid subscribers called The Conversation and I’ve already gotten a newsletter feature out of it. Not every topic gets people talking, it can be hit or Miss, but people should be encouraged to share their thoughts.
I'm de-motivated in my writing. I miss writing on my wordpress blog www.fallingleaves197988517.wordpress.com . Then again I felt no one took my blogging work seriously. I feel annoyed and burnt out. Also im having a lot of anxiety and panic attacks.
Started two weeks ago to write about small musicians and groups who produces really good songs but don’t managed to get the exposure they deserve from places like Spotify, Apple Music, the radio…
I’m searching for people to write with/for to collaborate but I don’t know where to start !
I think that growing a reader community start by working together ! Where can I find people who wants to work together, here on Substack ?
I'm trying to avoid dispersing too widely across platforms, not least because I don't want to increase my own admin time. Anything which is going to eat up time from doing actual writing I have to approach carefully.
What has surprised me is how successful Substack threads are - I thought I'd struggle to generate actual discussion but they've always worked out really well for me, immediately bringing in a bunch of intelligent and interesting responses from subscribers. I've also noticed comments on more general newsletters seem to have increase since I started doing threads - perhaps it puts my readers in the right mindset generally for commenting?
It's also because it isn't just 'comments' - it's a proper discussion. Substack's simple but focused approach encourages depth in the interactions.
Hi. I am interested in converting some of my free subscribers to paid subscriptions. I'd like to have some content available for free and then additional content (which also includes the free content) available for paid subscribers. Best place for me to figure out how to do this is where? Thanks!
I would love a way to organize my content so readers can sort of choose their own adventure. Maybe using #tags or some kind of Table of Contents to direct them to essays around the same theme, topic or style.
In Outsourced Optimism, I explore themes of human experience by weaving together fictional stories (usually things I'm watching or reading) together with my personal experiences via different story structures.
For example, my first series explored hope, disappointment and failure through A24's movie Everything Everywhere All At once. I wrote one essay as a timeline of hope, one that documented my experiment of looking at the world through a bagel, one that imagined an email correspondence between my internal parts regarding a recent failure, and one in the form of a letter.
Ideally, I'd love for readers to be able to view my essays by theme, by structure or by the fictional story they were prompted by....if that makes sense? Or to be able to recommend other essays they may like at the bottom of the essay they're reading.
One, I’m looking to host more guest posts on my newsletter, which is all about living a life of integrity as an imperfect human in a complex world. If you might be interested, or interested in swapping guest posts, email me: ashasanaker@gmail.com.
Two, I’m coming up on the first anniversary of going paid and thinking about rejiggering my paid vs. free offerings. Have you done that? How and why? Thanks for you input!
I have been writing for a few weeks. I am getting 18 to 26 views per issue. But, only 6 have subscribed (free) and no one has subscribed as a paid reader. What could I do to increase subscriptions in general, and patrons specifically?
I'm new to Substack, so my subscriber base has just begun to establish itself. What advice do you have for writers whose personal brand is focused on being a member of a marginalized community and sharing experiences that those outside of said community don't know about and those within the community can relate to? (In my case, I was born with a visible physical disability, cerebral palsy. I walk with crutches and LOVE GOING TO THE GYM, which, it turns out, people don't typically expect.) Also, is there a way to leave a tip jar so that people who want to pay you can but no one has to pay to subscribe?
Hi, I love it here on Substack and I write about addiction and recovery at https://thanksforlettingmeshare.substack.com and also host a podcast, Breakfast with an Alcoholic. We've ben trying really hard to encourage discussion and there just hasn't been much response no matter what the prompts have been--at least so far.
A little off menu for todays theme, but a few weeks ago I asked about “randomizing” the order our recommendations are seen on our pages. I didn’t want the same one to always be at the top.
At any rate, it looks like that’s now occurring, and I want to thank whomever made that happen.
I just did my first poll and my readers were really into it. I got the response I was looking for. They also left lots of comments about what they wanted to see more of in my newsletter. Thanks for offering this poll. I'm at https://diannejacob.substack.com/
I only started my Substack in the last few days but find it interesting how self promo mainly seems to revolve around social media these days.
As someone who doesn’t use social media and has no wish to, it can be difficult trying to figure out how to get your work to a wider audience. Just a thought about the world we live in now!
One of the biggest questions I have concerns SEO and organic discovery. I know Medium does SEO incredibly well and Medium articles are often top Google and Bing searches. However, I have yet to see a Substack post show up in a search.
My question is (and forgive me if this has been answered in a previous Office Hours), does Substack allow search engines to crawl through publications, or do search engines not index Substack articles?
I am a fairly new Substacker (since July) who writes about health and wellness mainly, as that is my career field. I've learned a lot from comments by other writers here and esp. in this thread. Am excited to check out The Sample, Discord, Slack, Hello Universe, Bookstackers, etc. Most of my subscribers so far are people I know and those from links on my Facebook page and so my open rate is pretty good (I think) at 50-75% and my couple dozen subscribers seem to enjoy my musings. I would love to acquire subscribers from other venues, however, but am still mystified as to how to do this, although I will check out the resources listed above and hope that they might be helpful. Any other suggestions?
Any of our fellow Substackers interested in a collaboration?
We create custom ambient music and white noise audio tracks - would be great to team up with another creator to bolster (both) of our Substack communities.
Send me a message if you're interested in exploring this.
I try to use both comments and discord, but neither have worked out so far in snagging engagement.
Think I just need to keep going on until I can get people interested in talking. I'll be making a discussion thread relatively soon, so that might become a turning point.
Interestingly, I have a bit of mystery right now with my traffic. I'm getting traffic from facebook according to my stats, despite not linking to my substack there, but attempting to find out who is posting links has been futile even with advanced google tricks. So I'm wondering if there are some private facebook groups talking about my posts where I can't see them, not the engagement I was looking for, but it's something.
I'm terrible at social media, and generally speaking, do not like to talk about things I create. I'm caught between wanting to build a following and not wanting to engage anyone at all to do it.
So I guess what I'm asking is: How have others with similar dispositions overcome their social media anxiety?
I’d love the ability to edit comments from the app. Currently the only way to do it is on the main browser based page. It’s not the easiest thing to have to switch.
Please give us more information about our publications in the stats.
I want to be able to cultivate information like
Total word count
Total free word count
Total word count behind paywall
To include in promotional posts on Instagram but right now I have to open the editor on each post and add it up manually just to get a rough idea of how much content already exists.
You already have this information, please just add it on to our stats page so we can see and use it. Especially helpful as a "year in review" kind of information that we could use to make a 1 year anniversary post.
If you are hosting conversations and cultivating community with your subscribers with your readers, tell us more! What tools do you use and how do you imagine they might better serve your needs?
The Substack team is signing off for today! We'll be back next week at the same time and place. In the meantime, checkout the Substack resources: https://substack.com/resources and consider joining us for our workshop on free to paid subscriber conversion: https://lu.ma/download-conversion
Keep going,
Katie, Bailey, Jasmine, Alex, Michelle, Lucas, Kirthi, Yuriy, and Nicole
Hello everyone! Here's a little encouragement from one small newsletter to all of you. Do you find yourself getting caught up in the numbers? It's really easy to get stuck on how many subscribers you have...or don't have. But take it from me: while the numbers feel good, they ultimately don't matter. What matters is the community you build around your newsletter, the way you build yourself up as a writer, and the persistence you show as you keep writing. So keep writing! Don't stop! The world needs your voice! 🌿
Happy to share that my newsletter, “moviewise: Life Lessons From Movies” has just been accepted into the Google News app under the “entertainment” category! I learned about this program from another Substack writer, Jatan Mehta, who shared this tip in a Writer Office Hours a while ago (Jun 30). (Aside: it would be great if these kinds of tips were put together in one place).
Here is his article explaining how to do it, which I followed:
https://thoughts.jatan.space/p/how-i-got-my-blog-listed-on-google-news
Also, I do not have a custom domain, but it worked for me anyway. This is my domain:
https://moviewise.substack.com
It took about 10 days to get approval and go “live". Ask me anything! I’m happy to help 🤗
Paging my fellow travel/culture/personal essay writers—is there a community for us to connect, exchange ideas, maybe explore cross-promotion? I’ve joined the Substack writers Discord, but haven’t seen anything more specific than the nonfiction channel (I also literally joined Discord yesterday, so maybe I’m doing it wrong?). While I love and am open to connecting with Substack writers of all types, a more tailored group would be super helpful. TIA!
On the subject of conversation with readers, I'm curious: how many people get contacted by their readers by old fashioned E-mail with questions or proposals? This is less about community and more about 1:1 interaction but I'd like to hear other Substacker experiences. I get very few E-mails but they do seem to be increasing a little bit. Thanks! Keep on keeping on, everyone!
Entering my third week on Substack and I am having so much fun! I am at 90 subscribers (last week 78) and 19 paid (last week 16). With two that converted from free to paid this week. I am learning a lot, but ever better - I'm writing and get a lot of joy out of it. Thank you to this community!
One of the core ways to develop an audience is to borrow someone else's. There are lots of ways to do that, one of which is to publish in other places with established audiences. I often find myself wondering whether a particular piece I am writing should go in the newsletter or if I should submit it to other publications where it might lead people back to the newsletter. I'm wondering if people have thoughts/experiences/data on how much one should publish elsewhere to develop an audience for a newsletter. (To be clear, I'm not asking about publishing on more than one platform simultaneously. I'm talking about established publications that accept submissions.)
Hi, everyone. I'm grateful to be here with you as I find my way. I find this community inspiring and helpful. I launched Heart's Content, my free weekly newsletter 7 months ago as a grand experiment and a way to help hold myself to some accountability to showing up and sharing my thinking/writing more publicly beyond social media posts. The newsletter is still teaching me what it wants to be. Sometimes deeply reflective and instructional, sometimes simply a weekly journal, I tend to center around creativity, writing as a healing modality, spirituality, the power of sharing our stories, and the curriculum of my life. Thus far, I have what I think is a good open rate ( hovers around 35-37%) but I struggle with engagement. I've tried a few open-thread discussions but they mostly go nowhere. I long for more community and would love to hear your thoughts!
I've been engaging with my readers through good old email. When I see a new subscriber who engages frequently with my content, I send them an email asking about their life and story. I've made a few good friends this way and really enjoy how it makes me feel connected to my community.
FYI, I write poems on Hello Universe - https://hellouniverse.substack.com
Go subscribe!
Loved Anne Byrn’s interview yesterday and am so honored to be mentioned in it!
Hello guys!
I started writing my newsletter a few months ago to document the aftermath of losing a loved one. It's an attempt to understand grief and navigate towards healing. Through my essays, I try to figure out the complex nature of grief and healing. I'm not an expert, I'm just a writer going through shit. And writing the newsletter helps me channel my focus on acceptance, healing and love.
The subscribers are growing slowly and steadily and I am not complaining. I also love the luxury that is running my own newsletter, where I can write without the confines of an editor or for it to be sold. I can simply let it be - honest and raw. It allows me to explore my craft further and so, I would love to collaborate with anyone who works along the lines of personal essays/memoirs/ slice of life writings.
I am also in the process of adding a new section to my newsletter for art (books, movies, music, food) that revolves around healing and acceptance. So if anyone here would like to contribute to this section, it'd be great!
see you around :))
To the Substack developers:
Thanks for your efforts on this platform. A few adjustments that would make it more useful to content providers:
1) allow people to choose which image will be the thumbnail of the newsletter, and to edit/crop that image for best results. Most blogging platforms have had this function for about a decade.
2) Polls with more than 4 possible answers
3) The ability to save and re-use custom buttons and their associated text. Who wants to design a new one every time they want a custom button? I have a co-author, and constantly have to edit the phrase "...support my work" to "support our work." Tedious and frustrating!
4) The ability to set a recurring publication date/time. Why do we content providers have to do this manually for every single newsletter? I'd like to lock in "21:00 EST Weds" for the foreseeable future.
5) Richer data analytics would be great. What time of day do most people view my newsletter? On mobile device or laptop? etc. This would help us give the audience what they want.
I’m curious what growth tools are most effective to other writers. I love meeting other writers in these discussion threads, following new Substacks, and meeting other writers. It’s been the most effective way of really building a community so far! I also use The Sample which has gotten me some new subscribers-- https://thesample.ai/?ref=f8b4
I've been on Substack since March, and one of the best things I've done is remain consistent. I'm really focusing on the whole the concept of "if you build it, they will come" and it's working. People know that they can expect new writing from me on a weekly basis and I give myself room to explore different styles. I do advertise that I have a paid subscription but I don't bash it over people's heads. I provide great free content and I think that makes some people be like "hmm, if the free content is great and consistent, the paid must be even better". For me, the key has been having paid content that doesn't lead to me burning out because it requires so much from me.
Taking a moment to share that I just wrapped up the first installment of my newsletter: 12 original instrumental songs, one every month, comprising an entire volume of music.
So, I made my first section, Volume I: https://fogchaser.substack.com/s/volume-one
In a few weeks, I'll release the first song of Volume II, which will be another 12 pieces of original instrumental music. So, I guess I'm serializing an album?
I don't know. I'm just so excited about it, and I really couldn't do it without this platform and the wonderful people here.
Just reached my 6 month milestone on Substack!
Oh, also we were so excited that Substack added a clear guest post feature! Since liththinkpodcast.substack.com tries to take breaks during the year, we love the option of growing our community and continuing to offer our readers and listeners content even if we are on a break.
How many fellow writers have subscribers who never open anything? Even from Substack recommendations, I have so many subscribers who have no stars.
Good day, friends. I’ve indicated in the poll that I use Facebook most of the time, but I’m happy to announce that the shift is underway to move the important conversations to my stack. And just this week I tried using the “thread” feature and I am obsessed with it! Love love love it. I am a creative wife, affectionately known here as The Footloose Muse. And no, I do not deliver babies, I help people gift birth to their creative ideas. Would love some follows and promise to return the gesture.
I just started a weekly feature for my paid subscribers called The Conversation and I’ve already gotten a newsletter feature out of it. Not every topic gets people talking, it can be hit or Miss, but people should be encouraged to share their thoughts.
I'm de-motivated in my writing. I miss writing on my wordpress blog www.fallingleaves197988517.wordpress.com . Then again I felt no one took my blogging work seriously. I feel annoyed and burnt out. Also im having a lot of anxiety and panic attacks.
👋 Everyone !
Started two weeks ago to write about small musicians and groups who produces really good songs but don’t managed to get the exposure they deserve from places like Spotify, Apple Music, the radio…
I’m searching for people to write with/for to collaborate but I don’t know where to start !
I think that growing a reader community start by working together ! Where can I find people who wants to work together, here on Substack ?
See you every Friday on https://smallears.substack.com
I'm trying to avoid dispersing too widely across platforms, not least because I don't want to increase my own admin time. Anything which is going to eat up time from doing actual writing I have to approach carefully.
What has surprised me is how successful Substack threads are - I thought I'd struggle to generate actual discussion but they've always worked out really well for me, immediately bringing in a bunch of intelligent and interesting responses from subscribers. I've also noticed comments on more general newsletters seem to have increase since I started doing threads - perhaps it puts my readers in the right mindset generally for commenting?
It's also because it isn't just 'comments' - it's a proper discussion. Substack's simple but focused approach encourages depth in the interactions.
Off-topic question: Any good recs for logo designers for one's own Substack? Hit me with 'em!
🎶🎸🎶🎸 every-body's / blog-ging / for the / weekend 🎶🎸🎶🎸
I have a few questions quick questions.
1. Is there a good length for an article?
2. How often should you have paid stories?
3. Is there a social media platform that is really effective for posting your substack article? I notice LinkedIn is very effective for me.
Hi. I am interested in converting some of my free subscribers to paid subscriptions. I'd like to have some content available for free and then additional content (which also includes the free content) available for paid subscribers. Best place for me to figure out how to do this is where? Thanks!
I would love a way to organize my content so readers can sort of choose their own adventure. Maybe using #tags or some kind of Table of Contents to direct them to essays around the same theme, topic or style.
In Outsourced Optimism, I explore themes of human experience by weaving together fictional stories (usually things I'm watching or reading) together with my personal experiences via different story structures.
For example, my first series explored hope, disappointment and failure through A24's movie Everything Everywhere All At once. I wrote one essay as a timeline of hope, one that documented my experiment of looking at the world through a bagel, one that imagined an email correspondence between my internal parts regarding a recent failure, and one in the form of a letter.
Ideally, I'd love for readers to be able to view my essays by theme, by structure or by the fictional story they were prompted by....if that makes sense? Or to be able to recommend other essays they may like at the bottom of the essay they're reading.
Hey, lovelies! Two things:
One, I’m looking to host more guest posts on my newsletter, which is all about living a life of integrity as an imperfect human in a complex world. If you might be interested, or interested in swapping guest posts, email me: ashasanaker@gmail.com.
Two, I’m coming up on the first anniversary of going paid and thinking about rejiggering my paid vs. free offerings. Have you done that? How and why? Thanks for you input!
I have been writing for a few weeks. I am getting 18 to 26 views per issue. But, only 6 have subscribed (free) and no one has subscribed as a paid reader. What could I do to increase subscriptions in general, and patrons specifically?
I'm new to Substack, so my subscriber base has just begun to establish itself. What advice do you have for writers whose personal brand is focused on being a member of a marginalized community and sharing experiences that those outside of said community don't know about and those within the community can relate to? (In my case, I was born with a visible physical disability, cerebral palsy. I walk with crutches and LOVE GOING TO THE GYM, which, it turns out, people don't typically expect.) Also, is there a way to leave a tip jar so that people who want to pay you can but no one has to pay to subscribe?
Hi, I love it here on Substack and I write about addiction and recovery at https://thanksforlettingmeshare.substack.com and also host a podcast, Breakfast with an Alcoholic. We've ben trying really hard to encourage discussion and there just hasn't been much response no matter what the prompts have been--at least so far.
A little off menu for todays theme, but a few weeks ago I asked about “randomizing” the order our recommendations are seen on our pages. I didn’t want the same one to always be at the top.
At any rate, it looks like that’s now occurring, and I want to thank whomever made that happen.
I just did my first poll and my readers were really into it. I got the response I was looking for. They also left lots of comments about what they wanted to see more of in my newsletter. Thanks for offering this poll. I'm at https://diannejacob.substack.com/
These threads are so long it's hard to absorb all this activity. Is there any way to organize a thread so it is more readable?
I only started my Substack in the last few days but find it interesting how self promo mainly seems to revolve around social media these days.
As someone who doesn’t use social media and has no wish to, it can be difficult trying to figure out how to get your work to a wider audience. Just a thought about the world we live in now!
Conveniently, your post today brings me to my request! A poll in which folks can choose more than one option, please. :)
One of the biggest questions I have concerns SEO and organic discovery. I know Medium does SEO incredibly well and Medium articles are often top Google and Bing searches. However, I have yet to see a Substack post show up in a search.
My question is (and forgive me if this has been answered in a previous Office Hours), does Substack allow search engines to crawl through publications, or do search engines not index Substack articles?
Thanks!
Would someone like to collaborate with me? I have a new Substack and am looking to grow! Open to any ideas or feedback.
Thank you!
jaroslavnovosyolov.substack.com
I'm just getting started and think I missed a step. Where do I create the little box with the title, short description and an email box to subscribe?
I am a fairly new Substacker (since July) who writes about health and wellness mainly, as that is my career field. I've learned a lot from comments by other writers here and esp. in this thread. Am excited to check out The Sample, Discord, Slack, Hello Universe, Bookstackers, etc. Most of my subscribers so far are people I know and those from links on my Facebook page and so my open rate is pretty good (I think) at 50-75% and my couple dozen subscribers seem to enjoy my musings. I would love to acquire subscribers from other venues, however, but am still mystified as to how to do this, although I will check out the resources listed above and hope that they might be helpful. Any other suggestions?
I have many questions ahead of the launch of our newsletter next week! Here are a few to start:
- After we add subscriber emails, how long does it take for them to become active?
- When you hit publish, does your post automatically get emailed to your subscriber list, or do you have to do anything apart from that?
- When someone subscribes, do they automatically get a welcome email?
Thanks in advance!
Has anyone found LinkedIn to be useful for getting paid subscriptions and for getting employers in a target sector to pay for subs?
Any of our fellow Substackers interested in a collaboration?
We create custom ambient music and white noise audio tracks - would be great to team up with another creator to bolster (both) of our Substack communities.
Send me a message if you're interested in exploring this.
Does having Twitter help??
I try to use both comments and discord, but neither have worked out so far in snagging engagement.
Think I just need to keep going on until I can get people interested in talking. I'll be making a discussion thread relatively soon, so that might become a turning point.
Interestingly, I have a bit of mystery right now with my traffic. I'm getting traffic from facebook according to my stats, despite not linking to my substack there, but attempting to find out who is posting links has been futile even with advanced google tricks. So I'm wondering if there are some private facebook groups talking about my posts where I can't see them, not the engagement I was looking for, but it's something.
I'm terrible at social media, and generally speaking, do not like to talk about things I create. I'm caught between wanting to build a following and not wanting to engage anyone at all to do it.
So I guess what I'm asking is: How have others with similar dispositions overcome their social media anxiety?
I’d love the ability to edit comments from the app. Currently the only way to do it is on the main browser based page. It’s not the easiest thing to have to switch.
Please give us more information about our publications in the stats.
I want to be able to cultivate information like
Total word count
Total free word count
Total word count behind paywall
To include in promotional posts on Instagram but right now I have to open the editor on each post and add it up manually just to get a rough idea of how much content already exists.
You already have this information, please just add it on to our stats page so we can see and use it. Especially helpful as a "year in review" kind of information that we could use to make a 1 year anniversary post.