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. PDT / 1 p.m. - 2 p.m. EDT. We encourage writers to stick around after the hour and continue the conversation together.
Some updates and reminders from the Substack team:
Product news: Earlier this week we shared a rundown of what we’ve released in the past few weeks—from gift referrals to serialization tools and homepage customization. Check out what’s new!
Android app: Readers can now read, watch, and listen to your writing in one dedicated space on Android. The new app amplifies the network effects that already exist on Substack, making it easier for writers to gain new subscribers, and for readers to explore and sample Substacks they might otherwise not have found. Learn more.
Motivate your readers to upgrade their subscription: There's more than one way to convert free readers to paying subscribers. The savviest writers and podcasters determine what to offer their free vs. paid subscribers through reflecting on their audience, business model, and value proposition. Learn from them in our latest resource on free vs. paid strategy.
Got questions about Substack or feedback about what’s new? You’re in the right place! Leave a comment in this thread.
Hello all, and happy Office Hours! Here’s a little bit of encouragement from one small newsletter to all of you: no matter how tired, frustrated, numb, or bored you feel with your writing (and believe me, we all feel that way sometimes!), I'm here to say KEEP GOING. No matter who you are, no matter what you write about, you have a community hoping to form around you. You have someone out there who loves what you do, even if they don't know how to tell you. So write! And keep writing! Share so they can find you! It may take a little time, but I guarantee that the more you share, the more the right people will find you and surround you. Keep going, keep writing, and DON'T GIVE UP!
Feeling down? Share below so we can lift you up. Feeling good? Who can YOU encourage today? 🌿
The way I see it, there are three parts to the process of writing a newsletter:
1) Circling The Writing
2) Writing
3) Editing
"Circling The Writing" is when you're kinda chewing over an idea, and it feels a bit like you're procrastinating. But you're not! (Unless you really are. 😁But I reckon you're probably not.) And - you're doing the dishes, you're tidying a room, you're going for a walk, you're staring out the window with an expression that makes your loved ones think you've fallen asleep with your eyes open. ALL THAT STUFF. And it's important! Without this kind of wandering round and round the writing, looking at it from all angles and letting your brain play with ideas without panicking, you won't know what to write about and you'll just sit there, unable to start.
So here's the thing: if you're just sat there, in 2) - "The Actual Writing" - and absolutely nothing is happening inside and outside, and the cursor on your blank screen is flashing away and the panic is bubbling up... then get up, walk away and retreat to 1)! Go back and Circle The Writing, until the ideas are flowing.
It's not "giving up." It's not "defeat." It's not "being a failure as a writer."
It's just part 1 of the 3-part process of getting this work done.
And sometimes you just have to go back and forth between all three stages, again and again, until the whole thing is working in the way it should. This really happens. To *everyone*. (Including seasoned journalists - who then go away and do some more research, find more people to interview, more facts to dig up, etc.)
I’m new here! Im very intimidated to actually post to my Substack. I’ve changed the title about six times and I just feel so inadequate! Is everyone on Substack a professional writer or podcaster? Is this even a platform for complete novices like me?
It has been more than two months now since I started my newsletter and I’m interviewing my 10th artist tomorrow! I’ve got a lot of good feedback and improvements advice since then! I didn’t imagined it would grow like this! I just have one recommendation for the Substack Team, it would be the possibility to create pre-filled buttons directly in the settings of the newsletter (without having to change the text every time)!
Also, yesterday, I made my first thread asking for the small artist people are listening to these days!
If some of you want to share it with me feel free to write here or directly by DM on Instagram for the shy ones :
One of the newer Substack features I really like are the "new subscriber" emails that show what other newsletters a reader subscribes to. It got me thinking: Could Substack show me how much audience overlap my newsletter has with others?
For example, let's say Newsletter X has 50 subscribers in common with Newsletter Y. The authors might not know each other, or be recommending each other, but if they saw that in their Stats sections, now they'd have a reason to connect and cross-promote, potentially growing both their readerships.
From the beginning, I adopted the model that offers all my subscribers equal access to my content. So far, I'm happy for the way it's worked for me. I have 700 total subscribers and 52 paid subscribers. It may just be laziness that makes me take this approach. I leave it to the conscience of my readers on whether or not to pay and I don't have to think about figuring out some other approach.
My main challenge these days is questioning whether or not my production model is sustainable. I write weekly personal essays and I'm running out of stories. I have no idea what's going to happen when the stories are all told... What happens if the well runs dry. I have a hard time facing the fact that every artist must go through "fallow" times, but my weekly production mindset has not allowed for that. I ask myself "What would it be like to take a break?" -- I'm scared I could never start again... Just some thoughts. All the best to all of you. I love Substack. Hal
It's Thursday again. Where are all my fiction friends at in the comments? Make sure you head over and check out https://fictionistas.substack.com. We wouldn't want anyone to miss out on the most amazing, crazy party of fiction writers on the planet.
We can try to answer as a community any questions about how amazing and crazy it gets, and there is a growing catalogue of helpful articles about the world of writing fiction on Substack.
I’m curious what everyone is doing with their newsletters during the holidays / month of December? It’s usually a pretty dead month and I don’t know if I want to wait to share some of my best posts in January?
I am a writer and poet who has journaled and written most of my life about my experiences of growing up as an orphan - essentially living all my childhood in "boarding homes". I think there may be value for me and others if I create a Substack about these experiences,
Please pardon me for going a bit off topic but I think this post might be helpful to some. I wrote about my stalled or unfinished projects this week with the hopes that it might help me either put them to rest, permanently, or else motivate me to finally finish some of them. I think the admission might be enough to motivate me to move forward with some. Do you have have unfinished projects that are troubling you? Maybe talking about this will help.
Loving the Android app! Or, rather I’m loving that my readers who use Android now have an app. Really helps their reading experience and makes it easier to leave comments and have a conversation. Great work, Substack team!💪👏🙏🏻
Hey everyone, I’ve been enjoying the platform for quite a bit (4 months) and I wanted to see what is the best way to grow my Substack subscriptions outside of following and commenting on other writer’s stuff. I don’t want to shamelessly plug my newsletter on Twitter or Instagram, but I really want to grow this newsletter in a year or two. Thank you
I wonder if it wouldn't be a fun idea for there to be Office Hours monthly based on different themes. Wellness and Health, one day. Sports, another. International Relations and Politics, another, etc. It would help grow our own communities before reaching out to others?
I'm so glad to finally make the hours! I have it on my calendar all the time and can never make it. I have been writing my substack since this summer and am focusing on consistency. I only have about 33 subscriptions but they are devoted readers. I'm so grateful for that. It keeps me accountable. I recently read about Anne Kadet and how she keeps her Substack free with no pay wall but asks for donations. I love that. I think that's the route I'll go because of what I write - stories about the spiritual journey and growth. Everyone should be welcome!
I'd love to hear everyone's thoughts on how you navigate time and structure within your process? And, does the framework you create to support you ever have the opposite effect (and what do you do then)?
My mind is definitely focused on process right now with my eyes fixed on the bi-weekly publishing goal I set for the rest of the year. Right now, I'm noticing that the timing and publishing structure I set to keep me accountable and focused is actually making me feel rushed and panicky instead to the point where I can't think or focus.
I love the new media assets and have been using them on IG (https://www.instagram.com/shanewriter/ or search @shanewriter) - they look so much more professional and polished than the screenshots I'd been using before.
The Android app is very nice too - occasionally comments don't load so well, but that seems intermittent rather than persistent to me.
Hi there! I was interested in adding new links in my navigation bar as a way to sort/organize posts I've published. But then it seemed like I had to create a new section for the link to work. Then when I got to sections, I had a choice between additional newsletters and additional pages. Could you explain the difference between these two? Newsletters vs. Pages? I think Newsletters is what I want to organize posts, but if I do this, then won't my subscribers have to subscribe to multiple newsletters when they sign up for my posts? Ideally all my posts would appear on the home page, but I would use the navigation bar as categories to group similar posts...
I want to thank Nikhil Rajagopalan for answering my questions two weeks ago about how to add links to my Substack navigation bar. Following his instructions, I've completed doing one of those - a link for my online courses related to my Substack, Introvert UpThink, and I plan to add one more navigation link to a FAQ page about Introverts.
The result is that these two additional navigation links will facilitate organic traffic and upsells.
Almost too late to the hour, but hello! I write about how social media is changing the way we interact with place. I have had a blog for years, but have decided that I’d like to start afresh and more seriously, and after months of deliberating on name etc have started here on Substack 👋 I’d love to know whether publishing via the (fantastic) app will be available any time soon? And equally keen to read through all these comments and see if I can find fellow writers with similar interests. Best wishes from a rainy east coast of Scotland 🌧️
Hey everyone! I started my fitness nutrition newsletter a few months back. Things are going great. I'm getting good feedback, but I'd really like to get more people interacting. Any tips?
Hello fellow substackers! Have any of you had success posting on Reddit? Any suggestions? I'd love to grow my readership and I've heard this is a good strategy.
Hi! Thanks so much for building this amazing platform and to continue to engage with us writers 🙏 I can’t stop recommending it to others!
Probably this has already been asked or suggested, but I find it would be good to allow readers to make single donations to writers, regardless of subscribing. I know some people set that up and then link it in the posts to another platform but it will be super if donations were integrated in Substack as an alternative or complement to paid subscriptions.
Something that came up for me this week is that I have several scheduled drafts that I wanted to double check the publication settings on, and I couldn’t do that without unscheduling them first. Not a big deal but it was kind of frustrating having to unschedule and reschedule every single post just to make sure a box was checked/unchecked.
1. I love how discoverability is working on the platform. It’s super encouraging as I grow my lists.
2. Is there a way to upload a file for a giveaway item? Have I missed this or is it not a option? I’ve been redirecting people to download from my Gumroad store so far.
I confess I'm slightly confused by the gift referral program. I know once we opt in, Substack has a schedule to send them out to subscribers. But are we able to do that ourselves, either to our entire list or to folks we select? Thanks!
I really enjoy these catch ups. Everyone is so supportive.
I’ve been on a bit of a journey with my newsletter and have been really brave this week and posted for the first time about it on LinkedIn. It was scary! But great!
I had been getting a little despondent with very few subscribers so far so hopefully this will help. Your positivity keeps me going.
If this was live, guess I missed it. I just started the 633 Newsletter about a guy with a book who is helping prison inmates and their loved ones, written after he had his wrongful sentence vacated by an appeals court. I'm Substack's new biggest fan.
PAID SUBSCRIPTION SECTION - Finally got my business account, Venmo and stripe connected so I'm also working on different subscriber levels. Paid subscribers start at $9 All of them include gifts boxes from really basic cards with small packets of loose leaf tea. Idea being that I can host a virtual tea salon for people who can't always attend these things in real life due to COVID risk. Here's my question: Yes I will need to charge for postage. But how do I price things for overseas mailings. There's a section that I've forgotten how to find on pricing but it's not clearly connected to the monetization feature. Is there a blurb explaining how to price gifts for subscribers?
I am curious how you see podcasts and voice-overs working together. I currently provide a "read-aloud" for each of my posts. Do you see the voice-over that I can upload directly to the article as a replacement to the podcast episode I would otherwise upload separately? It's only confusing b/c the podcast then becomes a second post. What's your recommendation?
Is there any chance the Substack team can also create a feature to do template blocks? I’d love to create ads, highlighted thoughts, etc. from a template that I don’t have to reinvent every time I make a post!
1.Riffs on news (reading widely internationally and across the partisan divide and trying to think about news in a different and more independent way)
2.Riffs on the artistic/intellectual web
3.In-depth book reviews
4.A short story
5.A long-form essay. (This week's is a reported piece on an Afghan-American who endured three months of Taliban captivity.)
It's been a real pleasure to work on this and to get immersed in the Substack community. I feel like I've been waiting for something like Substack to come along since about 2005 (and instead we get a 15-year wasteland of Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, etc). It's really been wonderful to begin exploring everybody's work.
Hello Substackers! I switched my blog posts here recently and am learning and loving the change and community. I share a weekly writing prompt for folks learning to use writing as a tool for healing and wholeness. Some of my readers are exploring writing as a spiritual practice. (You define spiritual and I’ll help with the practice.) Others are writing through grief, which is how I started down this road 20 years ago with a writing group of fellow bereaved mothers. Glad to be here, and thanks for office hours! My question: is there a way to see who unsubscribed if they aren’t paid? I had a reader unsub by mistake.
One of my favorite takeaways from Grow was using custom dividing bars to enhance your newsletter's visual theming. I've been using custom dividers for awhile, but I noticed that Substack's templates insert the default gray ones (for example, in the headers and footers). It'd be awesome if there was a way to upload your custom divider in the backend, so it'd be inserted into your emails in place of the default one.
Hi everyone! I thought I posted this already but can't seem to find it anywhere in the thread. I launched my Substack two months ago and added a paywall in September. I've managed to get over a hundred free subscribers, which is thrilling. I've also managed to get some paid subscribers, many of whom are friends (very kind of them). But I'm wondering how I might reach people I don't actually know. My Substack is called "I Had No Idea This Would Happen," and I write about recovery and being a single mother by choice. It's self help for people who aren't into self help.
I started my SS about a year ago. I write The Influence, a newsletter about soft power. From Netflix, K-pop and McDonald's to Biden and SCOTUS. Basically, I talk about all those cultural and political things that affect how we see the world and how the world sees us! I am looking to grow my readership and would love some tips! Also, looking for new things to read :)
I have a small group that supports each other. We are the Iowa Writers Collaborative, and there are 14 of us, and when one of us does well, we all do well. https://iowawriters.substack.com/
I am a newbie in terms of settling down to write regularly. I do not see a down-side to Substack. I get the feeling that the platform surprises anew even its creators with unforeseen possibilities. Dynamic and interesting. I write as a Jew about Israel and Judaism for non-Jews. Jews are welcome too of course.
How diverse of a publication is best? My blog, at https://alltrades.substack.com/ covers stories about engineering, the environment, economics, and effective altruism, but under those umbrellas, many flavors of post exist. For instance, I've published 4 posts about different types of fungi, including ones in symbiosis with leafcutter ants, ones threatening hikers in the PNW, how the next pandemic might be fungal in nature, and most recently about carnivorous fungi. I love writing, and I've been on a bit of a tear recently in this subject, but I worry that people will be surprised or confused when they read my other posts about engineering, for example. How many areas of focus is too many? I'd love to hear your thoughts.
Who's new here? Reply to this comment and let us know what's on your mind.
We're excited to meet you.
Lots of new writers who joined us today, welcome to all! Great to see the rest jumping in and encouraging fellow writers to get started.
We host this thread each Thursday for writers to connect and help get your questions answered. In the meantime, our resources are here for you.
https://substack.com/resources
See you next week,
Katie, Jasmine, Wyatt, Cain, Kamil, and Jamil
Hello all, and happy Office Hours! Here’s a little bit of encouragement from one small newsletter to all of you: no matter how tired, frustrated, numb, or bored you feel with your writing (and believe me, we all feel that way sometimes!), I'm here to say KEEP GOING. No matter who you are, no matter what you write about, you have a community hoping to form around you. You have someone out there who loves what you do, even if they don't know how to tell you. So write! And keep writing! Share so they can find you! It may take a little time, but I guarantee that the more you share, the more the right people will find you and surround you. Keep going, keep writing, and DON'T GIVE UP!
Feeling down? Share below so we can lift you up. Feeling good? Who can YOU encourage today? 🌿
In the hope that this might help some folk....
The way I see it, there are three parts to the process of writing a newsletter:
1) Circling The Writing
2) Writing
3) Editing
"Circling The Writing" is when you're kinda chewing over an idea, and it feels a bit like you're procrastinating. But you're not! (Unless you really are. 😁But I reckon you're probably not.) And - you're doing the dishes, you're tidying a room, you're going for a walk, you're staring out the window with an expression that makes your loved ones think you've fallen asleep with your eyes open. ALL THAT STUFF. And it's important! Without this kind of wandering round and round the writing, looking at it from all angles and letting your brain play with ideas without panicking, you won't know what to write about and you'll just sit there, unable to start.
So here's the thing: if you're just sat there, in 2) - "The Actual Writing" - and absolutely nothing is happening inside and outside, and the cursor on your blank screen is flashing away and the panic is bubbling up... then get up, walk away and retreat to 1)! Go back and Circle The Writing, until the ideas are flowing.
It's not "giving up." It's not "defeat." It's not "being a failure as a writer."
It's just part 1 of the 3-part process of getting this work done.
And sometimes you just have to go back and forth between all three stages, again and again, until the whole thing is working in the way it should. This really happens. To *everyone*. (Including seasoned journalists - who then go away and do some more research, find more people to interview, more facts to dig up, etc.)
Hope that helps!
I’m new here! Im very intimidated to actually post to my Substack. I’ve changed the title about six times and I just feel so inadequate! Is everyone on Substack a professional writer or podcaster? Is this even a platform for complete novices like me?
Joined Substack less than 24 hours ago, so I have no idea what I don't know. Yet. Looking forward to diving in!
Just used BOTH pull quotes and block quotes in my latest article on Substack 🤗
They add a lot more visual dynamics to the text.
Thank you! 🥳
When A House Is A Tragic Character⤵️
https://moviewise.substack.com/p/when-a-house-is-a-tragic-character
It has been more than two months now since I started my newsletter and I’m interviewing my 10th artist tomorrow! I’ve got a lot of good feedback and improvements advice since then! I didn’t imagined it would grow like this! I just have one recommendation for the Substack Team, it would be the possibility to create pre-filled buttons directly in the settings of the newsletter (without having to change the text every time)!
Also, yesterday, I made my first thread asking for the small artist people are listening to these days!
If some of you want to share it with me feel free to write here or directly by DM on Instagram for the shy ones :
https://smallears.substack.com/p/open-your-ears-share-the-small-artist/comments
It would be awesome if, in the magazine format, we could invert the sidebar from "most popular articles" to the manually curated links.
Sometimes most popular articles are NOT evergreen...
One of the newer Substack features I really like are the "new subscriber" emails that show what other newsletters a reader subscribes to. It got me thinking: Could Substack show me how much audience overlap my newsletter has with others?
For example, let's say Newsletter X has 50 subscribers in common with Newsletter Y. The authors might not know each other, or be recommending each other, but if they saw that in their Stats sections, now they'd have a reason to connect and cross-promote, potentially growing both their readerships.
From the beginning, I adopted the model that offers all my subscribers equal access to my content. So far, I'm happy for the way it's worked for me. I have 700 total subscribers and 52 paid subscribers. It may just be laziness that makes me take this approach. I leave it to the conscience of my readers on whether or not to pay and I don't have to think about figuring out some other approach.
My main challenge these days is questioning whether or not my production model is sustainable. I write weekly personal essays and I'm running out of stories. I have no idea what's going to happen when the stories are all told... What happens if the well runs dry. I have a hard time facing the fact that every artist must go through "fallow" times, but my weekly production mindset has not allowed for that. I ask myself "What would it be like to take a break?" -- I'm scared I could never start again... Just some thoughts. All the best to all of you. I love Substack. Hal
It's Thursday again. Where are all my fiction friends at in the comments? Make sure you head over and check out https://fictionistas.substack.com. We wouldn't want anyone to miss out on the most amazing, crazy party of fiction writers on the planet.
We can try to answer as a community any questions about how amazing and crazy it gets, and there is a growing catalogue of helpful articles about the world of writing fiction on Substack.
I’m curious what everyone is doing with their newsletters during the holidays / month of December? It’s usually a pretty dead month and I don’t know if I want to wait to share some of my best posts in January?
I am a writer and poet who has journaled and written most of my life about my experiences of growing up as an orphan - essentially living all my childhood in "boarding homes". I think there may be value for me and others if I create a Substack about these experiences,
Please pardon me for going a bit off topic but I think this post might be helpful to some. I wrote about my stalled or unfinished projects this week with the hopes that it might help me either put them to rest, permanently, or else motivate me to finally finish some of them. I think the admission might be enough to motivate me to move forward with some. Do you have have unfinished projects that are troubling you? Maybe talking about this will help.
https://howaboutthis.substack.com/p/curious-realizer-whats-in-your-creative
P.S. - just short of reaching 500 subscribers!
Loving the Android app! Or, rather I’m loving that my readers who use Android now have an app. Really helps their reading experience and makes it easier to leave comments and have a conversation. Great work, Substack team!💪👏🙏🏻
Hey everyone, I’ve been enjoying the platform for quite a bit (4 months) and I wanted to see what is the best way to grow my Substack subscriptions outside of following and commenting on other writer’s stuff. I don’t want to shamelessly plug my newsletter on Twitter or Instagram, but I really want to grow this newsletter in a year or two. Thank you
I wonder if it wouldn't be a fun idea for there to be Office Hours monthly based on different themes. Wellness and Health, one day. Sports, another. International Relations and Politics, another, etc. It would help grow our own communities before reaching out to others?
I'm so glad to finally make the hours! I have it on my calendar all the time and can never make it. I have been writing my substack since this summer and am focusing on consistency. I only have about 33 subscriptions but they are devoted readers. I'm so grateful for that. It keeps me accountable. I recently read about Anne Kadet and how she keeps her Substack free with no pay wall but asks for donations. I love that. I think that's the route I'll go because of what I write - stories about the spiritual journey and growth. Everyone should be welcome!
I'd love to hear everyone's thoughts on how you navigate time and structure within your process? And, does the framework you create to support you ever have the opposite effect (and what do you do then)?
My mind is definitely focused on process right now with my eyes fixed on the bi-weekly publishing goal I set for the rest of the year. Right now, I'm noticing that the timing and publishing structure I set to keep me accountable and focused is actually making me feel rushed and panicky instead to the point where I can't think or focus.
I love the new media assets and have been using them on IG (https://www.instagram.com/shanewriter/ or search @shanewriter) - they look so much more professional and polished than the screenshots I'd been using before.
The Android app is very nice too - occasionally comments don't load so well, but that seems intermittent rather than persistent to me.
Hi there! I was interested in adding new links in my navigation bar as a way to sort/organize posts I've published. But then it seemed like I had to create a new section for the link to work. Then when I got to sections, I had a choice between additional newsletters and additional pages. Could you explain the difference between these two? Newsletters vs. Pages? I think Newsletters is what I want to organize posts, but if I do this, then won't my subscribers have to subscribe to multiple newsletters when they sign up for my posts? Ideally all my posts would appear on the home page, but I would use the navigation bar as categories to group similar posts...
I want to thank Nikhil Rajagopalan for answering my questions two weeks ago about how to add links to my Substack navigation bar. Following his instructions, I've completed doing one of those - a link for my online courses related to my Substack, Introvert UpThink, and I plan to add one more navigation link to a FAQ page about Introverts.
The result is that these two additional navigation links will facilitate organic traffic and upsells.
Thanks again, Nikhil!
Almost too late to the hour, but hello! I write about how social media is changing the way we interact with place. I have had a blog for years, but have decided that I’d like to start afresh and more seriously, and after months of deliberating on name etc have started here on Substack 👋 I’d love to know whether publishing via the (fantastic) app will be available any time soon? And equally keen to read through all these comments and see if I can find fellow writers with similar interests. Best wishes from a rainy east coast of Scotland 🌧️
Hey everyone! I started my fitness nutrition newsletter a few months back. Things are going great. I'm getting good feedback, but I'd really like to get more people interacting. Any tips?
Hello fellow substackers! Have any of you had success posting on Reddit? Any suggestions? I'd love to grow my readership and I've heard this is a good strategy.
Hi! Thanks so much for building this amazing platform and to continue to engage with us writers 🙏 I can’t stop recommending it to others!
Probably this has already been asked or suggested, but I find it would be good to allow readers to make single donations to writers, regardless of subscribing. I know some people set that up and then link it in the posts to another platform but it will be super if donations were integrated in Substack as an alternative or complement to paid subscriptions.
Any thoughts?
Thanks!!
Something that came up for me this week is that I have several scheduled drafts that I wanted to double check the publication settings on, and I couldn’t do that without unscheduling them first. Not a big deal but it was kind of frustrating having to unschedule and reschedule every single post just to make sure a box was checked/unchecked.
Hey! Two things for the Substack team!
1. I love how discoverability is working on the platform. It’s super encouraging as I grow my lists.
2. Is there a way to upload a file for a giveaway item? Have I missed this or is it not a option? I’ve been redirecting people to download from my Gumroad store so far.
Thanks!
I confess I'm slightly confused by the gift referral program. I know once we opt in, Substack has a schedule to send them out to subscribers. But are we able to do that ourselves, either to our entire list or to folks we select? Thanks!
Hi everyone.
I really enjoy these catch ups. Everyone is so supportive.
I’ve been on a bit of a journey with my newsletter and have been really brave this week and posted for the first time about it on LinkedIn. It was scary! But great!
I had been getting a little despondent with very few subscribers so far so hopefully this will help. Your positivity keeps me going.
Thank you
If this was live, guess I missed it. I just started the 633 Newsletter about a guy with a book who is helping prison inmates and their loved ones, written after he had his wrongful sentence vacated by an appeals court. I'm Substack's new biggest fan.
PAID SUBSCRIPTION SECTION - Finally got my business account, Venmo and stripe connected so I'm also working on different subscriber levels. Paid subscribers start at $9 All of them include gifts boxes from really basic cards with small packets of loose leaf tea. Idea being that I can host a virtual tea salon for people who can't always attend these things in real life due to COVID risk. Here's my question: Yes I will need to charge for postage. But how do I price things for overseas mailings. There's a section that I've forgotten how to find on pricing but it's not clearly connected to the monetization feature. Is there a blurb explaining how to price gifts for subscribers?
I am curious how you see podcasts and voice-overs working together. I currently provide a "read-aloud" for each of my posts. Do you see the voice-over that I can upload directly to the article as a replacement to the podcast episode I would otherwise upload separately? It's only confusing b/c the podcast then becomes a second post. What's your recommendation?
I looooove the new paid features!
Is there any chance the Substack team can also create a feature to do template blocks? I’d love to create ads, highlighted thoughts, etc. from a template that I don’t have to reinvent every time I make a post!
Hi all,
Plugging for my Substack Castalia - https://castaliajournal.substack.com/
Every week includes:
1.Riffs on news (reading widely internationally and across the partisan divide and trying to think about news in a different and more independent way)
2.Riffs on the artistic/intellectual web
3.In-depth book reviews
4.A short story
5.A long-form essay. (This week's is a reported piece on an Afghan-American who endured three months of Taliban captivity.)
It's been a real pleasure to work on this and to get immersed in the Substack community. I feel like I've been waiting for something like Substack to come along since about 2005 (and instead we get a 15-year wasteland of Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, etc). It's really been wonderful to begin exploring everybody's work.
All best,
Sam
Hello Substackers! I switched my blog posts here recently and am learning and loving the change and community. I share a weekly writing prompt for folks learning to use writing as a tool for healing and wholeness. Some of my readers are exploring writing as a spiritual practice. (You define spiritual and I’ll help with the practice.) Others are writing through grief, which is how I started down this road 20 years ago with a writing group of fellow bereaved mothers. Glad to be here, and thanks for office hours! My question: is there a way to see who unsubscribed if they aren’t paid? I had a reader unsub by mistake.
One of my favorite takeaways from Grow was using custom dividing bars to enhance your newsletter's visual theming. I've been using custom dividers for awhile, but I noticed that Substack's templates insert the default gray ones (for example, in the headers and footers). It'd be awesome if there was a way to upload your custom divider in the backend, so it'd be inserted into your emails in place of the default one.
Hi everyone! I thought I posted this already but can't seem to find it anywhere in the thread. I launched my Substack two months ago and added a paywall in September. I've managed to get over a hundred free subscribers, which is thrilling. I've also managed to get some paid subscribers, many of whom are friends (very kind of them). But I'm wondering how I might reach people I don't actually know. My Substack is called "I Had No Idea This Would Happen," and I write about recovery and being a single mother by choice. It's self help for people who aren't into self help.
Hello everyone!
I started my SS about a year ago. I write The Influence, a newsletter about soft power. From Netflix, K-pop and McDonald's to Biden and SCOTUS. Basically, I talk about all those cultural and political things that affect how we see the world and how the world sees us! I am looking to grow my readership and would love some tips! Also, looking for new things to read :)
This is moving fast! Are there any folks in Europe or Asia here? I'm an American in Bucharest, Romania right now.
*scans crowd for illustrators* Hi all!
I have a small group that supports each other. We are the Iowa Writers Collaborative, and there are 14 of us, and when one of us does well, we all do well. https://iowawriters.substack.com/
I’ve mentioned this in a previous Office Hours, but it would be great to be able to search Substacks by recent activity.
I'm new :-)
I am a newbie in terms of settling down to write regularly. I do not see a down-side to Substack. I get the feeling that the platform surprises anew even its creators with unforeseen possibilities. Dynamic and interesting. I write as a Jew about Israel and Judaism for non-Jews. Jews are welcome too of course.
How diverse of a publication is best? My blog, at https://alltrades.substack.com/ covers stories about engineering, the environment, economics, and effective altruism, but under those umbrellas, many flavors of post exist. For instance, I've published 4 posts about different types of fungi, including ones in symbiosis with leafcutter ants, ones threatening hikers in the PNW, how the next pandemic might be fungal in nature, and most recently about carnivorous fungi. I love writing, and I've been on a bit of a tear recently in this subject, but I worry that people will be surprised or confused when they read my other posts about engineering, for example. How many areas of focus is too many? I'd love to hear your thoughts.
I just started my garden-focused newsletter in August (rootsandvines.substack.com)
Is consistency the only way to progress on here?; what are some other ideas? @katie