1162 Comments

The engineer who built duplicate posts (in a hackathon!!! in his own self-initiated time!) is in this thread so I'm sure he appreciates all this love from y'all

It's awesome to us how we get so many great ideas and product tips from you all here in office hours. Duplicate posts is an example of a feature that likely shipped because of how you all share with us here week over week, and everyone's experience will benefit from it, so thank you <3

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Thank you all for joining us today at Office Hours! It's our second to last of the year. These Thursday threads have become a special part of our team's week. We look forward to closing out the year strong with you next week.

In the meantime, we invite you to continue the conversation with fellow writers in the thread and visit our resources.

https://support.substack.com/

https://substack.com/resources

See you next week,

Katie, Bailey, Chris, Clyde, Christina, Andrew, Annie, and Evans

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Today I want to celebrate that I got my publication Recommended by 2 great authors! 🥳

Devaraj Sandberg (writes on bodywork to handle tough emotions) and Gary Sharpe (healing, trauma and the nervous system).

I consider this a great achievement.

Help me to celebrate! 👏👏👏

I have written articles that range from Developing Assertiveness, to Dealing with Rude People, to Being a Workaholic.

While I still look to clearly define my niche ;)

https://livmkk.substack.com/

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These threads are dangerous for me. I end up subscribing to so many amazing new Substacks.

I love it though — treasures everywhere!

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Hello all, and happy Office Hours! Here’s a little bit of encouragement from one small newsletter to all of you: sometimes the best way to motivate yourself to move forward is to remember the things that inspired you when you were first getting started on this writing journey. So let's share with each other! Who or what were your writing influences or inspirations? Who or what made you want to weave wonder with your words? And who or what keeps you motivated today? Let's lift each other up by surrounding ourselves with gratitude for the things that keep us journeying onward. No matter what, keep going, keep writing, and most importantly: DON'T GIVE UP! 🌿

P.S. Just in case we don't "see" each other here before the holidays: have an absolutely beautiful, peace-filled, and gracious holiday season! I hope that no matter how it looks for you--whether there is fun, grief, nostalgia, joy, anxiety, or some mixture of all of these--that you find above all a measure of hope, a little ember to carry with you through into the new year. Love to all, and I am thankful for your presence here in this little corner of the digital world! ♥️

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Hello to all. Just wanted to say that I love the Duplicate to drafts feature - saves me time for at least one of my weekly posts where I reuse the same format every week!

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For those interested in Guest Posts:

"moviewise: Life Lessons From Movies" Cordially Invites You To Share Your Movie Recommendations

Be Our Guest! 🤗

https://moviewise.substack.com/p/be-our-guest

Share with the world your most impactful, most wonderful, and most profound movies.

Simply answer these two questions:

1) What movie do you find meaningful?

2) What Life Lesson (useful message or insight about life) have you learned from watching this movie?

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Hi everyone! I’m Mike and I write about science and wonder and stuff that makes you go “WOW!”.

This is kind of a general tip, and maybe an obvious one so, apologies if so. But it’s about something I see so many new Substack writers not doing, and missing a huge opportunity. It’s this:

*EDIT YOUR WELCOME EMAILS.*

These are the first emails anyone will get when they sign up to read your Substack. They are therefore part of the first impression they’ll get of who you are, what you do and why you’re worth reading. They mean *so much* to your branding. But if you leave them unedited, with just the standard text that Substack has put into them – well, that email will be fine, and contain all the relevant info, but it also won’t sound like YOU. It will entirely fail to sound like you.

(It’ll also fail to point them towards your best stuff, or tell them a story that immediately makes them laugh, or any number of incredibly powerful things you can do to make a winning first impression.)

Substack already recommends you personalise these emails – for example, https://on.substack.com/p/setting-up-your-substack-for-the under “Housekeeping”. But to me, it’s as vital as what’s on your About page. If you spend all that energy to get them to sign up and then their first, damaging impression of your work is “meh, that’s boring” - was it really worth all that effort?

So – as a matter of priority, edit your welcome emails. Go to Settings > Basics > “Welcome email to free subscribers” and click on the Edit button. Make it sound like you. Be surprising and weird and warm and fun. Make it an amazing introduction that will totally make them love you from the starter’s pistol, while *also* making them aware of everything great you’ve done so far, and maybe what else you have to offer, if you have a paid Substack.

(And then, hey, go do the same for “Welcome email to paid subscribers.” And then look for other emails you can edit – there are some under Payments. Anywhere else you can customize? Go find it!)

Sounding unique and interesting from the get-go is *incredibly* important in this newslettering lark. And this is an easy win. Go edit those emails and make a rock-star entrance.

Ta.

(ps. I have a few other tips for newcomers here: https://everythingisamazing.substack.com/p/dont-start-a-newsletter-and-other)

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Thanks for adding the "duplicate" feature! I've been copying and pasting for over three years. This will make things a bit easier for me. And a big THANK YOU to the whole Substack team for all the hard work y'all put into making the platform better and better.

Last week, we had a meetup of the Fictionistas (https://fictionistas.substack.com/), a group for fiction writers on Substack. There were ~20 writers attending. We talked through a "wish list" for features we most want to see integrated into Substack. Here are five we hope Substack Claus will bring us soon...

- Search (Within a Substack)

- Post Tagging

- Text Centering, Indent, and Underlining

- Image Alignment / Text Wrap

- Text Alerts for New Posts (For international users who prefer WhatsApp to Email)

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An important part of your craft as a writer is to continually ask yourself, “why am I doing this?” Sadly, the internet does not favor or promote sober self-reflection; what the internet wants is for everything to conform to its values, guidelines, and rules. If you, like me, wish to act against this tendency, read on; I have some suggestions.

Ask yourself: are you writing because you have a fire deep inside—an unquenchable burden that must be let out? Or are you writing merely because you want to be seen as a writer? The world is cumbered with so much writing these days; why should you contribute to the pile? Are you writing from an internal necessity, or just to play the game?

The game isn’t real. It doesn’t matter. It doesn’t make any difference how many subscribers, likes, hearts, or comments you get, or what kind of badge you have. Don’t let the internet’s silly “engagement metrics” affect how or why you write.

Don’t let Twitter’s trending topics dictate what you write about; in fact, just get off Twitter altogether. Don’t write about the same thing everyone else is writing about. Why should you? Other people already have that topic covered. What do you have to say that’s original? Don’t write about whatever is the hot topic of the day, either—that’s a guaranteed way for your writing to get forgotten in a month or two.

Break all the Substack rules. Don’t write to a schedule; only write when you have something of value to say. Turn off your comment section; your readers can reach you via email if they really want to. Write super-long posts that will get clipped in Gmail. Don’t cross-post or “mention” other writers; doing so advances Substack’s agenda, but does nothing for your own craft. If you cite another author, simply write their name; there’s no need to turn it into a link, and why do you need to let them know you cited them? Give your posts obscure titles that don’t work well with SEO; in fact, abandon the whole SEO treadmill altogether. You are better than that. All that fluff and sparkle is like a neon billboard at Thoreau’s Walden pond. It’s just a distraction from your writing.

Do you want to be a writer, or do you want to “make a living as a writer”? Ask yourself, why should anyone give you money? The only way you can earn it is by writing something so amazing that no one can look away. Get rid of paid subscriptions. Would you still write if you weren’t getting paid? If so, good. It’s better to give your best stuff away for free anyway.

Give yourself permission to be weird. If you are known for writing about one thing, write about something else every once in a while. Don’t worry about unsubscribes. Remember, you are writing for yourself and no one else. Well, maybe for one or two literary heroes. That’s fine—but even they don’t get to tell you how to do it.

Substack is a very good publishing platform, with the best text editor available on the web. But why should it be anything else? Why is Substack trying to be a social media site? We all know social media is a wasteland—why would we want to turn the best publishing platform into a wasteland? Resist Substack’s ongoing mission creep. Use it for what it is good at, nothing more.

And of course, if none of this makes sense for your current situation . . . ignore it! Don’t listen to me! I’m nobody! Just don’t let anyone make the rules for you. You are the god of your little corner of the blogosphere. Do whatever makes sense to you. Follow your own vision, your own muse. I promise you’ll have more fun.

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I'd love to hear thoughts on whether posts that are "too long for email" perform less well or whether there is some other drawback to having longer posts.

Or does it make no difference at all?

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Hi all! I have a small newsletter, under 200 readers. Since I know there are many of us growing from this humble beginning, I wanted to share some of my stats and reflections for my three month ‘stackiversary. Would like to network with other small-ish writers via the comments and hear how things are going for you. We can learn from each other!

https://open.substack.com/pub/jenzug/p/three-month-stackiversary-and-insights?r=6er4f&utm_medium=ios&utm_campaign=post

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Just want to say how exciting it is to see so many new writers here! Whether you're new to writing, or new to Substack, or both, WELCOME!

A little advice.

1. The community usually has the answers to your questions. Make friends and ask questions. Or, ask questions and then make friends. This is an awesome community.

2. Writers who write on the same topics aren't your competition, they're your potential collaborators. Reach out to those writers, leave thoughtful comments on their posts, see if you can do something together, and grow your community.

3. Don't obsess over going viral. The best way to grow is to put out consistent material. Like compound interest, it takes time, but the results are really powerful.

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Hi everyone! I recently transitioned my blog - https://www.whereonplanetearth.com - to Substack and I am really loving it here. I travel full time and write short travel stories and recommendations from wherever I am at (currently at the airport of Lima Peru en route to Brazil!). I'd love to connect with other travel writers on here!! ❤️

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reading through these comments is an absolutely incredible (and mostly guilt free) way of procrastinating from the writing i'm supposed to be doing, and for that gift, dear substack employees and friends, I wish to thank you all.

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Hey everyone, okay so this isn't a shoutout thread but I'm going to shout out anyway. If you like fiction, you might like this one by Meg Oolders:

https://stockfiction.substack.com/p/the-girl-with-the-donut-fingers

She writes stories based on photos. Nice!!

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I wanted to take some time today to say that, though i've been heavily recommending Substack to my writing coaching clients for the past year (and anyone who will listen, really) because of the ease of use, the overall commitment to creating a strong writer and reader experience, the community feel, and the dedication of the Substack team to helping writers grow (etc, etc), it wasn't until this week that I realized why it was giving me so many warm fuzzy feelings.

Outside of all the really strong practical reasons to love this platform, what I'm starting to feel is something that I've missed for so many years. This is beginning to feel like a renaissance of the glory days of blogging - when damn good writing was more than enough.

As a writer:

I was an early, early adopter of Wordpress, and have being doing this writing online thing for a very long time. I had almost forgotten what it feels like to write without being constrained by a 2200 character IG caption count, or to write for the sake of writing and sending those words out in the world to people who WANT to read my writing (not just to feed the never-ending social media machine).

I'm slowly reprogramming my brain from the WRITE.ALL.THE.THINGS.FOR.FREE mentality and dismantling the belief that my words alone are enough reason to request and accept financial support.

What do you mean, I don’t just need to churn out an exhaustive string of posts and graphics and reels and then morph the words into a funnel of products and programs to support my life? You're saying that the words alone, ALL BY THEMSELVES, are worthy of compensation? Holy hell, imagine that.

And yes, perhaps this should be obvious for a human who has made a living from words (I'll never get over the wonder of that) for a few decades, but it wasn't obvious at all. I had bought into the myth entirely that just writing alone wasn’t enough to be worthy of payment. Hook. Line. Sinker.

I'm beginning to unravel that inside this space, and it feels damn good.

As a reader:


Does anyone else remember the day Google Reader was no more? When suddenly we couldn’t just navigate to one place and read all the words from all of our favorites? I think that felt like the day that blogging took its final breaths for me. Then we all found ourselves on Facebook and Instagram and starting podcasts (and, and, and - lather, rinse, repeat). It’s not that I didn’t keep on reading the words of people I love, it’s just that it got more complicated, and we started writing (and reading) differently.

But lately, as more and more of my long time fave writers (and newly found gems) find their way here, and as the Substack network continues to lead me down the rabbit hole of brand new brilliance, my Substack home page is starting to feel a little like Google Reader did in the good ole days. I can navigate to one place and find essay after essay of suburb writing that I’ve personally curated to fill me up with inspiration or motivation or education or amusement.

(perhaps not good for my productivity, but that's another story for another day)

I’m a month post breakup, and lately all I want to do is write about my history with romantic love. Not pithy posts that are chopped up enough to fit into a caption box. Not quick riffs that fit within my chosen niche or target market. Not spending hours making eye catching graphics to attempt to win the battle with the algorithm. And certainly not trying to figure out reels and Tiktoks.

What I want to do is write (and write and write and write), long form, loose and unconstrained, pour out my heart and hold it out gently. I want to have a space to share this writing where I know—without a doubt—that the people reading have chosen to be there because they see something in my work worth sticking around for.

I don’t have a huge readership here. There are more eyes on my work if I share it on social media or to my email list. But writing here feels good. Writing here feels like writing used to feel. And god damn, I’ve missed that.

xo, jlb.

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Here is a question I have for everyone: How do you stay consistent? What do you do to cultivate a regular stream of content to put out? What do you do when your well is getting dry?

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Hey! I was just wondering what’s going on with the stats page? I did a post yesterday that got a lot of attention, but numbers on the stats dashboard are very low. I see there’s a note about email opens, but it isn’t just email opens - web traffic is low really low too. For example, it is currently reporting around 3000 hits on my most recent post, but the analytics on my tweet linking to the post claim it has had over 8000 clicks...! So just wanted to flag this in case there’s an error you haven’t spotted. Cheers!

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Hey all! Just started my substack and writing about my journey with learning to code.

Would love to connect with other writers and do some cross collabs, any advice on the best way to do this? Or even where to find other writers who cover coding as well? Thanks!

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Hello beautiful people! I am new to the community, and have been writing on Substack for a few months. I am enjoying reading all the comments. Thanks for encouragement and congrats to those of you that have achieved milestones.

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This is a concern of mine and I hope I can explain it without stepping on toes. I really hate it when I'm reading a Substack post and I come to, "To keep reading..." and realize I've hit a paywall.

Can we please, out of courtesy, indicate at the very top that this is for paid subscribers only?

I understand the marketing objective, the 'tease' to get readers to subscribe, but honestly it only infuriates me. I'm never in the mood to subscribe after the author has stopped me from reading a story I was just getting into.

Can we talk about this? It happens a lot, and I can't be the only one who finds it offensive. Thanks for any input.

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Love that you added the feature that allows us to lock the "archive", but we still need to address the use of the word "archive". It absolutely cements the idea that this is "old stuff", and so I find reades aren't likely to value it or refer to it, which makes putting it behind a paywall less effective than it should be. It's not as bad as the old name for a newspaper's previously used clippings and photo files (the "morgue")...but it comes close.

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Being able to duplicate posts is a great benefit- especially for someone like me that consistently uses the same format. Thank you for this!

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Just wanted to share that I completed a short fiction serial of almost 15k words with audio! It was quite an undertaking but I learned a lot and am excited to start the next serial once it’s done.

Anyone else celebrating milestones today?

What did your year look like?

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I love connecting with others through a guest post or now the fab cross-posting. Shoutouts today for their guest posts: Alicia Kenworthy of Catalectic--fab post on Process, Nicci Kadilak of Nicci's Notes--fab post on "When the words wash away", Michael Mohr who did a fab post On Literature and Rebecca Holden of Dear Reader I'm Lost who wrote about Journals. Let's connect, guys! xo ~ Mary And I added a PS in another comment: The fab Moviewise did a guest post for me here: https://marytabor.substack.com/p/the-art-of-the-screenplay

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Couple of recommendation feature-related requests:

1) When a new subscriber flows through to recommended Substacks, can we have it so that the blurb of the "recommender" is what the potential subscriber sees? Rather than the blurb provided by the publication themselves? E.g., if somebody subscribed to a new Stack, and I was recommended, the new subscriber would see the blurb "for" me, rather than the blurb "by" me. The recommendation from the other writer is much more powerful than my self-promotion.

2) When considering a subscription to a Substack, would it be possible for the potential subscriber to see how many other Stacks recommend that publication, and who they are? E.g., if somebody was considering subscribing to my pub, they'd see: X number of Substacks recommend Field Research, including writers, A, B, and C.

Thanks!

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I started on Substack a few weeks ago and would love to connect with other writers @moviewise I’ll be in touch 🙂

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Hello, I'm brand new to substack (created my first post yesterday). Very excited to be part of this community.

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Hi everyone! I usually slide into others' comments here instead of posting my own. Today I figured I'd try it this way!

My newsletter is A Bit Much, https://abitmuch.substack.com, reflections on living life as "a bit much" and encouragement for you to embrace all of your quirks and passions.

I'm interested in cross-posts/collabs, especially in the realms of personal growth, health, and empowerment. Let's talk!

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Hi writer pals! I'm doing a Muppet Christmas Carol-inspired series for Outsourced Optimism and for Christmas Present, I've been thinking a lot about the gifts we can give ourselves this year. Particularly, permission.

So- in case you are also feeling the tension of the holiday season and the end of the year- I just wanted to offer a few permission slips. If you're like me, it's easier when someone else gives them to you:

- permission to take your foot off the gas, to slow down, to leave things undone

- permission to sprint, to decline the obligations and honor the momentum you've created

- permission to be proud, to celebrate, to appreciate everything you did do this year (career and otherwise)- even if it's not everything you wanted to do

- permission to feel optimistic and hopeful, even if it feels unreasonable or foolish

- permission to feel the disappointment, the exhaustion, the frustration, even as you are grateful

- permission to lean into comfort

- permission to release and redefine and reinvent

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Hello, fellow Substackers. I love these sessions! Not only do I learn so much from them, I always--I mean always-- find new writers to follow!

One of the joys of Substack!

So, my question: What is cross-posting? I use cross-posting if I copy my published blog post onto another site of mine, but I don't understand how it works here at Substack. What are we cross-posting, and where? Thanks for any help. These new-fangled options are coming bullet fast. I can't keep up!

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Hi everyone ⭐️ I’m writing from little old Ireland. I love substack & have found it to be brilliant to create a wonderful supportive community. Looking forward to meeting ye all & supporting you in anyway I can. My substack is:

https://livingandlaughingwithlou.substack.com

Please feel free to communicate with me as I’d love to cross support in anyway I can ⭐️🫶⭐️

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Loving the cross-post feature!! I get to share my favorite writers once a week if I don’t have a publication ready. Very helpful for maintaining a publication schedule while also sharing awesome stories!!

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I’d love to connect with more substack writers here....my link is: https://livingandlaughingwithlou.substack.com

I’m in Ireland. I’ve written my first book & I’m presently touring it: Granny Nancy - Irelands Oldest Lady Who Lived, Loved & Laughed for 107 Years. Love you connect with others in any capacity to grow our communities together 🫶

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Substack team - I’d like to start another newsletter with a specific name and that name is already in use. When I check out the publication, I can see that the account hasn’t posted in more than a year and there is only one post. Is it ever likely that dormant newsletters may be cleared and/or taken names freed up?

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Oh, Just realised what Duplicate to Drafts is. Wonderful. I write a regular series called Experiments in Style, and I am always having to copy and paste a big chunk from a previous post. Yesterday I even installed an extension so I could 'write' the chunk using just a keyword. But that had no formatting, so this is MUCH better. In case you're wondering what Experimenting with styles means in my case, here is some info: https://terryfreedman.substack.com/p/experimenting-with-styles

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I have an issue with the app which is trivial but disproportionately frustrating - is there a way of making comments editable in the app? I'm only able to edit a comment on the computer - it would be great to be able to correct missed typos if I'm out and about.

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Marketing. It's the one thing I can't wrap my head around regarding my writing. What can I do to attract more readers? I have to add value to my newsletter, but I'm not sure how.

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Please could we have a live character counter attached to the subject field when drafting a post? It would save precious clicks even if I ignore what it says and go with an over-long subject line anyway 🙄

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Hi everyone -- I've been a Stacker since February, but this is the first time I've been able to make office hours. That day-job thing, right? I write short, observational essays of universal relevance drawn from experiences in my daily life, and I usually try to find a way to highlight something good, even in the midst of a funky situation.

My QUESTION relates to cross-posts and recommendations. I've had a few people (two I know personally, one I don't) recommend my page, but I'm feeling confused about what my response should be. Is the expectation that recommendations are quid pro quo, like they are with Instagram stories? Do we risk irritating our readers with information that isn't what they signed on to receive? I want to understand the full cycle of how this works, and I'm afraid I'm a bit slow on the uptake. Thanks!

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I'm working on a beginner's guide to SEO & Substack -- are there any questions about SEO or issues with tools that people have questions about and would want answered in a guide?

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Hi all, first time joining here, seems like a great community and useful advice! :)

I have a question about these Discussion Threads, both for this chat and how I use them with my subscribers.

Is there a way to organise Threads/Chats to expand/collapse levels, so you can separate original posts from replies?

For example: I joined this chat 20 mins after it started, there are already almost 400 comments. I'd like to be able to view just the top-level original "posts" without the "replies/comments" that are threaded below them. That way, I could skim through the main topics, then decide which one(s) I'm interested in joining by expanding them. Right now it's a lot of scrolling. Am I missing something?

Thank you!!

Kim

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A Happy Holidays to all of us Substackers! And a HUGE thanks to the Substack crew for continuously adding new features!

Since hubby and I publish five articles, two separate podcasts, and a Sunday summary every week, the "duplicate" feature has been a godsend for me!

I write everything in my Ulysses app first (Mac/iOS only), and now with the duplicate feature, I just delete sections from the previous post and copy/paste the copy from Ulysses.

Saves me so much time since I now have a "template" for our posts.

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Really glad to see the duplicate posts to drafts tool! That'll be a big time-saver!

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I am retired and write as a hobby. I published a free newsletter on substack.com. I share original poems. I have about 20 subscriptions. I have been very honest and open with my issues on some posts. In other posts on the newsletter titled “Legends of My Own Mind,” I have offered my political opinion. I have written about Positive Relationships as well as the music of three generations of my family. I write about spirituality which is a favorite topic of mine. Every edition has a relevant original poem. Please advise me on how to grow my subscriptions,

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Has anyone been playing with making "custom buttons?" I'm in the process of launching my Substack about politics and culture, and I got in the habit of including a "song of the day" that peripherally relates to what I'm writing about...anyone else experimenting with buttons?

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I am so excited about being able to duplicate posts and the ease of guest posting. I just have to figure out how to easily do the guest posting in a way that maintains the integrity of my blog and helps me and another writer.

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Substack team, I wanted to ask about linking to an unpublished post. I'd like to prep my social media posts for a Substack post that will come out in the future. But when I tried this last using the link provided in the "Post URL" under "Settings", it just linked back to my main page. Disaster! I last tried this some months ago and I've been afraid to try it again. Is there a way to do this so that I can get a link that will reliably start working once I publish?

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Hi everyone! I'm Mariah and I write Heartbeats, a weekly letter to soothe the Sunday scaries full of self-reflection prompts and inspiration to spark creativity. I'm wondering about the new guest post feature and ideas you might have for topics or themes to invite other writers to contribute?

In January, I'm planning to launch a "featured artist" interview once a month to highlight an up and coming artist (I believe everyone's an artist!) and give some behind-the-scenes perspective on craft and works in progress. If you might be interested, please send me a message. I'd love to connect!

Lastly, what tips do you have for fostering a true sense of community and reciprocity with your readers? I really want my writing to be a conversation starter, not a monologue. Thanks for your help, so happy I found Substack!

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