Which parts of drafting a post on Substack do you love, hate, or want to see changed?
The Substack product team, and your fellow writers, are here to help!
Today we’re hosting Office Hours with two special guests: Nick and Jasmine from the Substack Product team. They’re leading a new effort to improve the tools we provide writers to create posts on Substack, and would love to hear your thoughts!
Imagine you are in your writer dashboard and go to make a post. Better yet, go in and start to make a post.
As you are writing and creating a post, we’d like to know:
Which of Substack’s writing tools could you not live without?
What aspects of drafting a post leave you incredibly frustrated?
If you could ask the product team for one brand new feature for this drafting page, what would it be?
We encourage you to use the 🤍 button to let us know which writers you agree with.
Nick and Jasmine will be here from 9 am - 10 am PST / 12 pm - 1 pm EST gathering feedback and responding to requests.
Hi Nick and Jasmine! I’d say my most desired drafting feature would be simple text wrap for images. There are lots of times I want to insert a smaller image into the post without disrupting the flow of text.
I just want to mention that the clean and easy nature of Substack is a gorgeous thing. Whatever I/we ask for, I wouldn't want it to muck up a good thing.
Totally agree. As a freelance writer, I have written TONS of client newsletters using Constant Contact, MailChimp, etc. and I LOVE Substack just as it is. It's clean and easy to read. 99% of my subscribers are reading on mobile (which is likely the case for most people now) so building a newsletter with fancy things like text-wrapping of images ends up being moot anyway.
I think the answer here is, what is the community telling us it wants the most? Pick some, not all. (You have a good feel for what we keep telling you, I think.)
I agree - but you can also do this by setting up a draft post as a template, and copying and pasting it into a new post - not ideal but better than starting from scratch
Yes! Just start a new post and set it up as you want your template to be, then just don't publish it, and it'll sit there in your draft posts for you to copy and paste when you need it
I think The Links suggestion below about using a draft post as my template will actually solve my problem. I don't really want templates and a zillion options for formatting - I moved to Substack from Mailchimp and I like the simplicity here!
I might be in the minority, but anything that smacks too much of the worst parts of social media (marketing, spam) rather than writing I could do without. Might seem a minor thing, but the clean interface (as opposed to, say, WordPress) is a great asset for focusing on writing.
I wonder if you could use the Recommended Links feature, which creates a sidebar of sorts and then have different categories to organize your posts with links to those posts under each category. I think I saw someone do that. Maybe it was Woodruff.substack.com - not sure, will have to check.
Thanks. I was looking too. It's https://woodruff.substack.com/. He even uses some links on the right side to go to 'draft' pages (so they don't show as published pages). Pretty clever.
I've tried this, but as a reader, when I click Subscribe on a section, it's totally unclear what I'm subscribing too -- the original newsletter or the section newsletter or both?
The thing that got me excited about Substack was its simplicity. I can appreciate that we need some tweaks here and there. But please, let's not crap it up with MS Word's overcomplicated publishing options and functionality. It started out as a place to write and publish without too much hassle. I hope it stays a reasonable facsimile of that.
Anything that increases discoverability would be a huge asset, as both a reader and writer. I know you do the shout-out threads, which I appreciate, but I wonder if that filters for a particular kind of writer.
Yes yes! I am trying but it’s hard. Most of y’all are so famous…not me! I’m sharing my newsletters everywhere. But it’s very hard. Not ready yet for paid. Just started and it’s a real learning process and takes me up to 4 hours to put out each daily newsletter.
- Sidebars, could be useful if users are serializing novels or doing an essay/blog series
- Integrate Twitter, Tik Tok, and Instagram videos like YouTube so you can play the videos straight from Substack like you can with YouTube.
- If a person uses a GIF as their top image on the post, that GIF could be displayable as a button on their Substack page and social media button instead of a black and white Substack logo.
- Embedded survey/polling questions.
(Sorry if this comes across as nitpicky. I really do love the platform!)
The Twitter link feature is probably bad for the quality of my Substack, but it saves so much time! And after reading 10 000 useless Tweets about bullshit, I want to brag about that I found 5 useful ones.
Hi guys! So I actually created a post today where I was seeking some specific feedback from my subscribers. I ended up creating a survey in SurveyMonkey, but it would be really cool if there was a way to capture specific responses either via a poll/survey or some other means besides asking for people to comment below.
It would make me less reliant on Instagram. This is a big reason Instagram is so useful for me — their polling feature in Stories is great for audience engagement and feedback.
I would like tiny polls that I can include under a paragraph without it taking up too much space. Just something people can click on while reading, because if you get the readers to do something, they are much more likely to hang around. It's basically digital handclapping to brainwash the audience to believe you're their leader.
1. For me, as someone who is just starting out with my Substack, I'm curious what my audience might be interested in for my next editions or what they liked/didn't like about previous ones. I think a polling feature could help get that feedback more easily than maybe the comments section because most people wouldn't want to comment with something like "I like this/I don't like that" but a poll would give them a chance to provide that feedback.
2. I like embedded in the post. At least in my experience most people don't make it down to the comments. But I can definitely see an argument for having it in the comments too.
Polling will be an absolute game changer for me. I can't stress that enough.
I find myself obsessing about my paid subscriber numbers. But that can be counterproductive for the long-term health of my newsletter business.
Instead, I'm hoping for my readers to rank each of my posts say from 1 to 10 so that I can get feedback on what they enjoy reading and not. Preferably the poll should be within the post so that the maximum number of readers rank it. With happy readers, I believe the newsletter will grow by itself. And if they're unhappy, then at least I can try to dig deeper and see why they ranked a particular post poorly.
Just found a better workaround for this than dots.
I figured tabs would be better, though the Substack editor won't let you type a tab. However... if you type your text in a text editor (notepad, word, etc.) you can put your tabs in there, then copy-paste the whole thing into Substack and the tabs will be preserved.
There is one caveat, though: if your first line starts with a tab, THAT tab will be lost. So just be careful to start your first line at the margin (even if it's just with one period).
Add tags or categories, so that readers can access old articles. This should be a basic feature…can’t tell you how much frustration that causes our readers. Thanks.
Yes, stylistic. And often, kind of jokey. I might use a word struckout and then use a different word next to it, to imply to the user that perhaps I have two thoughts on a topic or maybe just to have fun with words. Not sure if that explains it well?
I agree. That would be great. Our images are intrinsic to what we write, and if we could embed Instagram links into our newsletter, it would help our newsletter greatly.
I would also love an "undo" feature. If a mistake is made while composing a post, to be able to quickly "undo" changes would be very helpful, rather than having to go into the draft history to retrieve past draft versions.
The ability to embed YouTube playlists as well as single videos would be really nice. In some of my posts, I create playlists and I can't link them out in a friendly way. My current hack-workaround is to tweet it out and link to the tweet
I like Substack as a platform a lot, but Substack as an interface has the "IKEA problem." IKEA is great for making furniture if you know nothing about furniture making at all and have no tools but becomes worse for you as your skills and equipment increase. You don't *need* a power driver to create an IKEA desk, but if you *have* a power driver it doesn't help you because you can't use the power driver even if you want to.
For someone who "just wants to write" and has absolutely no technical know-how, Substack's interface is pretty close to perfect. It does the minimum with almost no pre-existing knowledge required, and that's about it. I've had some success writing in Word (or other Word-like processors) and then copying it into Substack from the clipboard, but that seems to be the only concession to a little more sophistication in production, and even that approach is quite kludgey.
If you think of options as being on the spectrum from "IKEA" to "hand-coding CSS and HTML" that you should work from opposite ends of the spectrum. Take minor steps from both ends of the spectrum instead of starting from the simplest and complexifying. For example, if you could include a REST API (or any API for that matter) that did just two things (download HTML from a post, upload HTML to a draft) that would be a start from the complex side. People like me would be able to do a lot of the complex work on our own systems and that complex work could help your devs build a better system, most likely at no cost to you. I suspect that many of your devs would also like to work on something super geeky like that.
I'm happy to talk to anyone who would like more information. You can see that I write *on Substack* on these very issues at https://osiris.substack.com.
In this complex age of chronic disinformation great idea David re: being able to embed an HTML into ones writings which can be used as reference points such as using footnotes in writings.
Nick and Jasmine: For starters, thank you for taking this time today to gather feedback to aid Substack in being a stronger user-friendly platform and hopefully a safer one too. Which brings me around to my thoughts here. I have been away from writing code for too many years and everything has evolved expotentially since then. Therefore, would it be possible to write code in order to catch disinformation being published on this platform especially on the important subjects of public health and the politicized "Q" topics?
There are two low-hanging fruit that I would use HTML for (and do in similar environments). First, being able to write directly in HTML or debug in HTML allows me to see what formatting problems exist more clearly, and--more importantly--incorporate templates more easily. Because I also make PDFs for printing, I programmatically convert from the text I write to a PDF, and right now there is an unnecessary intermediary step that can introduce errors of displaying the text in a browser, copying it and pasting it into the text box. Simply being able to copy in HTML or better yet upload it, I could bypass that step and more easily automate my processes.
The second thing I would use HTML for is more sophisticated formatting. People have already mentioned strikethrough, which would be easy with raw HTML, but so is just about everything. Having a combination of ordered and unordered lists in outline format is really easy to do in HTML, and many writers have learned to display unicode characters like math symbols using HTML (or LaTeX, but we don't want to go there) alone.
Bottom line, because HTML is such a universal language display standard it doesn't really matter what you originally write your text in, you can almost always get it reliably converted to HTML. Basic HTML (i.e. no CSS and no javascript) enables almost everything most writers would want to do.
That would be another route to go. A third possible option would be to have a Markdown module, which basically is the same as having an HTML module, but a little more user-friendly.
The reason I would consider advocating for an API is that it might allow people to develop tools that you could adapt for use in Substack. For example, I do most of my writing in Vim (I know) and what I would do is develop a plugin for Vim that would allow me to upload my drafts to Substack. If I were someone who liked Word, and I am sure someone using Substack does, I would do the same for Word, or Evernote, or whatever. You could end up with people creating tools for your platform without you doing any work.
And there's nothing wrong with that. IMHO, the important thing with writing is that you are comfortable using the technology that you use. Most of the people I advise (I'm a professor) use Word, and I'm pretty familiar with it. The only reason I wouldn't develop an add-on for Word is my Java is non-existent.
Is there a reason you don't have an HTML edit function? Does it make life hard for you? Or is it an attempt to discourage writers from messing things up? Or to put it another way what would be the downside of an HTML edit function?
I absolutely love how easy it is to drag and drop my own images. I also like how pasting a YouTube URL makes a perfect video display. Substack’s handling of media is really nice, and I hope they keep making it easy to add these kinds of elements for different media types. So far, everything I have wanted to use has been as smooth as my great aunt’s buttery potatoes.
As I'm boycotting Youtube, the same feature for Odysee, Rumble and Bitchute would be nice. Now basically everyone interesting is on Odysee, so I alway link there and don't have to worry too much about removed videos that happens on Youtube all the time.
I also want Gettr links treated like Twitter links.
1) Ability to embed Tiktok videos like with Youtube and Vimeo videos. It's a huge source of videos.
2) Make it clearer for readers who are logged out in their browser/device that they need to log back in if they want to pay. Some readers want to become paid but can't figure out because when they click "subscribe" all their see is the "enter your email field" and they don't know what else to do since they're already subscribed to the list.
3) Crypto should have it's on category on the leaderboards, rather than be spread all over finance, business, and tech.
4) I'd like the ability to separate sections with the three stars * * * that they have in books, rather than just the lines.
5) A way to embed surveys/polls natively inside newsletter, rather than link out.
Being able to create and then use a template for threads and posts would be super.
On each, I copy and paste, "Paid subscriptions make this reporting possible," in headline 4 then I have a custom button that says, "Subscribe if you like, pay if you can."
If I could make a template that would have that already there, it would be extremely helpful.
I'm not going to say it has been a smashing success but about 25 percent of my total email distribution list is paying something with most buying annual subs.
Well I just added it. I really would like Substack to realize we all HATE ASKING FOR MONEY and self promotion. All their resources just overwhelm me and I procrastinate more. I would love if they just built the marketing and asking for money into the system (like your buttons) so we can feel a little hands off from it. This is why every media outlet has a separate marketing and PR department-- self promotion is horrible.
We all love to ask people questions about themselves. We are trained to NOT be part of the story. I think it even hurts credibility to have that "ask" in the article.
I'm going to put "Paid subscriptions make this reporting possible" at the top of every free email and post to get the point across in a passive aggressive way :)
Two requests in particular: Give us a way to center text, and give us the option for a Spotify playlist that displays more than the first song. Thanks for your help!
I e=want option for color to bring attention. Blue would be perfect. Or underline. I don’t like the link color. I feel like I always have to point to it. Blue is usually a color used for links
This is a small issue, but I would like the ability to center text. I write fiction and often separate sections of text within chapters with three asterisks (* * *). It looks wrong and distracting set against the left margin. Is there some workaround or keystroke I’m not aware of? Thanks.
I 100% agree with Secret Money Manager. You can screenshot Excel spreadsheet but it ends up looking very amateurish. Having native table functionality would be very helpful for me.
Sometimes I am able to put a caption under pictures, other times I can't. Is there a particular method I should use? My preference is to add captions in smaller type size than the main text of the post.
Have been using Substack for 2 months now and never noticed it. I used to do it with a H6 heading under the image. It's better if you enable the caption text holder by default so that people can see. I'm surprised that I never noticed this before!
I would like to see the ability to add social media buttons at the end of a post. "Follow on Twitter" or whatever so people can get reminders in their preferred venue
As long as this is not too "in your face". One of the reasons I like Substack is because it's not like all the other sites. It seems designed from the ground up for writing, rather than hype and metrics and games.
It'd be great to be able to duplicate a previous post (like "duplicate slide" in Powerpoint), so that you could duplicate, edit, and keep formatting, etc. Also, please add tags.
Hi - I missed this today! +1 for Strikethrough. And an option to centre align the text (or at least pull quotes, if not all text) would be super helpful. I'm all for not having too many formatting options - the minimalism is why I love Substack!
Putting two images side by side is also not possible at the moment. Sometime you just want people to be able to compare. They have to scroll up and down.
It would be great if there was a Like button we could add ourselves (like the “share this post” and “leave a comment” buttons).
Right now, the button is small and it is at the end of the article. This makes it is easy to forget and can skew a writer’s perception as to whether their community enjoyed a specific post or not.
Likes are not the primary focus (quality writing is) but they are are a good and useful metric nonetheless.
Besides that, I am loving Substack! Keep up the great work.
Overall, I think Substack posts are very easy to format and put up, and the final result (after some trial and error!) is a neat, clean newsletter that is easy to use.
But I do wish we could have a little more flexibility in layout, specifically in the following two ways:
1. I would like to be able to centre text
2. Right now images can only be placed as separate image 'blocks' that are automatically centred. Is it possible make image placement a bit more flexible, with text wrapping for instance?
This comes into play when writing fiction too. In how we sometimes want to lay out conversation, or nest stories. Sometimes centred text just looks better, or serves to highlight a block as distinct from the rest.
My name is Rishi, I write 10+1 Things: 11 interesting things curated by a human, not an algorithm.
Things I would love to see:
1. Support for markdown text. I write my drafts in markdown. So everytime I paste the draft into the editor, I spent a lot of time formatting.
2. Support for text wrapping of images.
3. A readability score or some score based on Substacks algorithm to see how readable the post is. I think this is crucial as people read mostly from their email client.
Thanks again for the diverse set of topics every week on this thread!
I love how easy it is to insert images, and I get frustrated by the lack of some simple editing tools (like changing the justification of the text, sub- and superscript)
I'd like to be able to send out content at different times to paid and unpaid subscribers (I haven't gone paid yet but I'd like the option when I do!)
I am publishing journals - my diary - and have often written in different colored ink. I'd like to capture that as part of my publication. Different font colors.
One tool that would is the use of a limited number of hashtags inside the article that would automatically show a popup of the same hashtags inside other articles that we have written at investrly. Longer term maybe hashtags across the community to connect the network more.
In the meantime we continue to invest early in substack as our newsletter of choice and hope you will continue to share our message:
Yeah, it would be really cool if the Substack home page functioned like Tweetdeck. The column to the left is a feed of newsletters you follow. The middle column is suggested newsletters to check out, and the right column is tags you follow.
Might have missed this earlier, but a template we can save (with body templates for headers, text, icons etc) so that we can reuse structures for different newsletters would be amazing ❤️
Paula here from Stained Page News. I write about books, and probably 90% of my images are book covers. I would be THRILLED to be able to align left photos with text wrapping instead of having them hang out centered and awkwardly tall. 🙏
Apologies for missing this. Will (manually) put it on my calendar for next week. Would be ideal for me if you included a calendar invite compatible with Mac calendar.
My primary feature request is for an inline spell check. Google Docs does this incredibly well, so seamlessly that I didn't realize there was no spell check when I sent out my first issue. My workaround at the moment is once I've finished a post, I copy / paste just the text into a Google Doc and look for the highlighted issues there, and pop back into my post and fix them one by one.
Minor feature requests for the editor:
* Find / Replace
* A center text button
* A strikethrough option (sometimes strikethrough is really effective)
* MAYBE a "scratchpad" feature? Now I keep my half-formed ideas external to Substack, but it would be nice to keep them somewhere in Substack that doesn't have the danger of accidentally posting to my readers.
Hello all. I believe I read about a mentorship program and/or the possibility of a one-on-one phone call with a member of the Substack staff...? Would love to sign up for one or both of those as soon as possible from your end, if it is still available. I haven't officially started my newsletter yet, although it is up there at crimeandpunishment.substack.com
Joan, I like that URL. It is long, but it tells me what you write about (assuming your argument is that crime and punishment are the reason the poor stay poor).
Hi Nick and Jasmine, thanks for hosting this topic today. I create my drafts in Google Docs, then copy over to Substack. I find it frustrating to achieve the same 'look and feel' given the limited composition tools in Substack: e.g. setting lefthand margins, choice of fonts, font styles / formats, paragraph first line indentations, etc. Will you be expanding our options / tools anytime soon? My understanding is that initially Substack limited everything in order to maintain tight control over the UX in general...
And, please do not leave out those who use their mobile devices for writing. Many times after creating a Word doc with formats of indents and the like when pulled up on mobile device everything is a hot mess. If there could be a way to fix this in Substack a lot of time and frustrations could be alleviated. :-)
It's a feature that I would use every post. The first section of each edition is a draft chapter from my next book and having these indentations makes the chapter easier on the eyes. Thx,
Hello! I often get notified my posts are past the limit and have to trim them before I can hit publish. Is there are way to work around this, even if it means my posts get truncated in Gmail?
Yes, I do use a lot of photos. The warning made me think I wouldn't be able to post it if I exceed the limit. But my post can be any length, it will just be trimmed in email and people will be able to click to read more?
Sorry-more info….I had to split it and copy re-inserting gifs, etc . But what happened was that my readers did not really see part 1 and part 2, so never read both.
Hi and thanks for doing this! I LOVE the footnotes, but often find the tool to be buggy-- especially when copy and pasting things into (or out of) the footnotes, deleting a footnote, or otherwise working directly in the footnotes. Often my text ends up being (irrevocably) deleted... I've learned my lesson and mostly draft my footnotes outside of Substack to be added as a final step.
As others have mentioned, it would be great to be able to have pictures along-side text. I also love the idea of a sidebar that could be included in the email-- a place where I could link to other posts I've written, or where readers can purchase the book I'm reading. This might not even need to be a "sidebar" so much as an elegant way to separate a small amount of promotional text (text that is still longer than will fit on the buttons!)
Come to think of it, these images also don't display on the website when you've clicked to read the specific chapter. Only in the main menu when you're looking at all of the chapters. I guess I could include them in the body of the chapter but they'd feel awkward and out of place there.
The images are uploading, no problem. They are displaying on my side on the website. But my email subscribers do not, I think, see them, unless they come to the website. It's not a huge deal, but I take time to create meaningful chapter designs which tie in an element of the story, and I don't think many of my readers are seeing them.
Thank you all for doing this! I love the source citing feature. I would love an "un-do" feature for text while editing as well as option to change size, font, etc. Would also love a preview post option for those solid OCD moments.
YES!! Exactly. Reading my mind. Normally I will write/edit articles in Google and then paste into Substack. But last time, found it much more timely to edit directly in the draft feature, but was missing some key elements to do so effectively. Thank you Nick.
like text un-do in a google doc. So if you add a section, or cut and paste into the Substack draft, and you wanted to undo what you just did, could do so.
Hi Nick and Jasmine! I’d say my most desired drafting feature would be simple text wrap for images. There are lots of times I want to insert a smaller image into the post without disrupting the flow of text.
I second this one!
Yes!
oh please yes.
Agreed!
+1 to this. I didn't see this and already included this point in mine.
Yes, yes, yes, and YES! ;)
Agreed!
yepp
I just want to mention that the clean and easy nature of Substack is a gorgeous thing. Whatever I/we ask for, I wouldn't want it to muck up a good thing.
Totally agree. As a freelance writer, I have written TONS of client newsletters using Constant Contact, MailChimp, etc. and I LOVE Substack just as it is. It's clean and easy to read. 99% of my subscribers are reading on mobile (which is likely the case for most people now) so building a newsletter with fancy things like text-wrapping of images ends up being moot anyway.
Keep up the great work Substack-team! Thank you!!
Agreed!
I think the answer here is, what is the community telling us it wants the most? Pick some, not all. (You have a good feel for what we keep telling you, I think.)
Love: how easy it is to embed tweets and other media. So easy and clean!
Want: the ability to save a template so I don't have to copy and paste the different sections of my newsletter into a new post every time.
I agree - but you can also do this by setting up a draft post as a template, and copying and pasting it into a new post - not ideal but better than starting from scratch
Can one do that as it is right now? Save a draft post as a template?
Yes! Just start a new post and set it up as you want your template to be, then just don't publish it, and it'll sit there in your draft posts for you to copy and paste when you need it
Oh! I didn't realize there was a copy function in that respect. Thanks, Links!
Oh, that's a really good idea! So obvious and yet... :)
Very much second the template idea
Agreed with the template idea! Or the ability to save a signature!
Or... the ability (like in mailerlite) to 'copy' an existing post so you can reuse it as a frame to write a new one.
Yes! I have to copy and paste and no paid subscribers so many features aren’t available to me which is kind of silly.
I think The Links suggestion below about using a draft post as my template will actually solve my problem. I don't really want templates and a zillion options for formatting - I moved to Substack from Mailchimp and I like the simplicity here!
Being able to duplicate a post would be useful for me!
For the love of God, add tags!
I might be in the minority, but anything that smacks too much of the worst parts of social media (marketing, spam) rather than writing I could do without. Might seem a minor thing, but the clean interface (as opposed to, say, WordPress) is a great asset for focusing on writing.
Tags have nothing to do with social media.
Yes!
I just mean to organize my own posts. So, a reader could read a category of post -- then click to read more posts like it.
I wonder if you could use the Recommended Links feature, which creates a sidebar of sorts and then have different categories to organize your posts with links to those posts under each category. I think I saw someone do that. Maybe it was Woodruff.substack.com - not sure, will have to check.
good idea regardless
Thanks. I was looking too. It's https://woodruff.substack.com/. He even uses some links on the right side to go to 'draft' pages (so they don't show as published pages). Pretty clever.
I use sections to categorize my single newsletter(moviewise) into 4 categories:
https://moviewise.substack.com
Yea, I don't want separate newsletters. I think that would confuse the reader?
I've tried this, but as a reader, when I click Subscribe on a section, it's totally unclear what I'm subscribing too -- the original newsletter or the section newsletter or both?
Now THAT is an interesting idea, tagging your work with that of other writers/publications.
The thing that got me excited about Substack was its simplicity. I can appreciate that we need some tweaks here and there. But please, let's not crap it up with MS Word's overcomplicated publishing options and functionality. It started out as a place to write and publish without too much hassle. I hope it stays a reasonable facsimile of that.
Agreed, Lloyd!!
A bit too simplistic imo
hahaha. I almost started crying.
please, no
Anything that increases discoverability would be a huge asset, as both a reader and writer. I know you do the shout-out threads, which I appreciate, but I wonder if that filters for a particular kind of writer.
Yes yes! I am trying but it’s hard. Most of y’all are so famous…not me! I’m sharing my newsletters everywhere. But it’s very hard. Not ready yet for paid. Just started and it’s a real learning process and takes me up to 4 hours to put out each daily newsletter.
Great. See my comment below.
I love the simplicity of the editing tools.
Some suggestions:
- Strikethrough text
- Tags (ability to add 3-5)
- Allow for images to be side-by-side with text
- Sidebars, could be useful if users are serializing novels or doing an essay/blog series
- Integrate Twitter, Tik Tok, and Instagram videos like YouTube so you can play the videos straight from Substack like you can with YouTube.
- If a person uses a GIF as their top image on the post, that GIF could be displayable as a button on their Substack page and social media button instead of a black and white Substack logo.
- Embedded survey/polling questions.
(Sorry if this comes across as nitpicky. I really do love the platform!)
I like the idea of sidebars. Some of my posts connect to others, so being able to put a link to those in an eye-catching sidebar would be useful.
Strikethrough would be great!
Sidebars! Yes, that would be cool :)
I'm not a big fan of the gigantic links to Youtube videos, but it would be nice to have the same option to Odysee, Rumble and Bitchute too.
It would also be nice if Gettr links showed up like Twitter links.
Henrik, that's a great suggestion about Gettr! I second that. The more exposure the better!
The Twitter link feature is probably bad for the quality of my Substack, but it saves so much time! And after reading 10 000 useless Tweets about bullshit, I want to brag about that I found 5 useful ones.
Wonderful list. Strikethrough please! And image wrap!!! …praise Jesus!
I want to wholeheartedly second the first four things on this list.
No general preference for the rest of it just as I don't tend to embed much content.
Of course! Thank you for having these and being so responsive.
Hi guys! So I actually created a post today where I was seeking some specific feedback from my subscribers. I ended up creating a survey in SurveyMonkey, but it would be really cool if there was a way to capture specific responses either via a poll/survey or some other means besides asking for people to comment below.
A polling feature would be amazing on Substack!
It would make me less reliant on Instagram. This is a big reason Instagram is so useful for me — their polling feature in Stories is great for audience engagement and feedback.
Seconded
+1
I would like tiny polls that I can include under a paragraph without it taking up too much space. Just something people can click on while reading, because if you get the readers to do something, they are much more likely to hang around. It's basically digital handclapping to brainwash the audience to believe you're their leader.
Thanks for the response Nick!
1. For me, as someone who is just starting out with my Substack, I'm curious what my audience might be interested in for my next editions or what they liked/didn't like about previous ones. I think a polling feature could help get that feedback more easily than maybe the comments section because most people wouldn't want to comment with something like "I like this/I don't like that" but a poll would give them a chance to provide that feedback.
2. I like embedded in the post. At least in my experience most people don't make it down to the comments. But I can definitely see an argument for having it in the comments too.
Polling will be an absolute game changer for me. I can't stress that enough.
I find myself obsessing about my paid subscriber numbers. But that can be counterproductive for the long-term health of my newsletter business.
Instead, I'm hoping for my readers to rank each of my posts say from 1 to 10 so that I can get feedback on what they enjoy reading and not. Preferably the poll should be within the post so that the maximum number of readers rank it. With happy readers, I believe the newsletter will grow by itself. And if they're unhappy, then at least I can try to dig deeper and see why they ranked a particular post poorly.
Text alignment! Centre align especially.
Yes, please!
Please, I beg of you, allow me to centre text. Less urgent but also needed is the ability to add a footnote within an image caption. Thanks.
Well, you write a poem across a page. Not left, right, or centered like a document. https://annekaufman.substack.com/p/a-collection-of-poems-or-prose
I used periods to put the words where I wrote them originally.
Just found a better workaround for this than dots.
I figured tabs would be better, though the Substack editor won't let you type a tab. However... if you type your text in a text editor (notepad, word, etc.) you can put your tabs in there, then copy-paste the whole thing into Substack and the tabs will be preserved.
There is one caveat, though: if your first line starts with a tab, THAT tab will be lost. So just be careful to start your first line at the margin (even if it's just with one period).
Not perfect, but better than dots ;)
Add tags or categories, so that readers can access old articles. This should be a basic feature…can’t tell you how much frustration that causes our readers. Thanks.
Sections work like categories, but it is not the best.
Sections? Man I am so unschooled in this.
https://on.substack.com/p/new-sections
Thank you!
Anne, so am I...
Add the option to apply Strikethrough to text please!
Second!
Third!
👏🏼 Yas!
Yes, stylistic. And often, kind of jokey. I might use a word struckout and then use a different word next to it, to imply to the user that perhaps I have two thoughts on a topic or maybe just to have fun with words. Not sure if that explains it well?
Can make graphic the writer’s writing process. And as mentioned, for humorous purposes.
I love how simple the UI is, and I appreciate that very much.
I would like to be able to embed Instagram links, as an artist who speaks about their latest works through the newsletter.
I agree. That would be great. Our images are intrinsic to what we write, and if we could embed Instagram links into our newsletter, it would help our newsletter greatly.
Thanks, I really appreciate that! :)
I have tried often, and again just now, but it doesn't embed. I don't see anything when I paste the link, not even the link itself.
I've tried too and it doesn't embed like Twitter -- it would look great if it could.
You have to use the link with just the post extension in the url (e.g. https://www.instagram.com/p/CRUKpczLpke) and no other details.
That worked! Thanks, Nick. This will help a LOT. :D
I would also love an "undo" feature. If a mistake is made while composing a post, to be able to quickly "undo" changes would be very helpful, rather than having to go into the draft history to retrieve past draft versions.
Yes!!!
Yes, the arrow buttons are what I'm looking for. Thanks!
I learn something new every day ... :)
Good to know--thank you, Bailey!
The ability to embed YouTube playlists as well as single videos would be really nice. In some of my posts, I create playlists and I can't link them out in a friendly way. My current hack-workaround is to tweet it out and link to the tweet
Oh, this would be very cool!
I like Substack as a platform a lot, but Substack as an interface has the "IKEA problem." IKEA is great for making furniture if you know nothing about furniture making at all and have no tools but becomes worse for you as your skills and equipment increase. You don't *need* a power driver to create an IKEA desk, but if you *have* a power driver it doesn't help you because you can't use the power driver even if you want to.
For someone who "just wants to write" and has absolutely no technical know-how, Substack's interface is pretty close to perfect. It does the minimum with almost no pre-existing knowledge required, and that's about it. I've had some success writing in Word (or other Word-like processors) and then copying it into Substack from the clipboard, but that seems to be the only concession to a little more sophistication in production, and even that approach is quite kludgey.
If you think of options as being on the spectrum from "IKEA" to "hand-coding CSS and HTML" that you should work from opposite ends of the spectrum. Take minor steps from both ends of the spectrum instead of starting from the simplest and complexifying. For example, if you could include a REST API (or any API for that matter) that did just two things (download HTML from a post, upload HTML to a draft) that would be a start from the complex side. People like me would be able to do a lot of the complex work on our own systems and that complex work could help your devs build a better system, most likely at no cost to you. I suspect that many of your devs would also like to work on something super geeky like that.
I'm happy to talk to anyone who would like more information. You can see that I write *on Substack* on these very issues at https://osiris.substack.com.
In this complex age of chronic disinformation great idea David re: being able to embed an HTML into ones writings which can be used as reference points such as using footnotes in writings.
Nick and Jasmine: For starters, thank you for taking this time today to gather feedback to aid Substack in being a stronger user-friendly platform and hopefully a safer one too. Which brings me around to my thoughts here. I have been away from writing code for too many years and everything has evolved expotentially since then. Therefore, would it be possible to write code in order to catch disinformation being published on this platform especially on the important subjects of public health and the politicized "Q" topics?
There are two low-hanging fruit that I would use HTML for (and do in similar environments). First, being able to write directly in HTML or debug in HTML allows me to see what formatting problems exist more clearly, and--more importantly--incorporate templates more easily. Because I also make PDFs for printing, I programmatically convert from the text I write to a PDF, and right now there is an unnecessary intermediary step that can introduce errors of displaying the text in a browser, copying it and pasting it into the text box. Simply being able to copy in HTML or better yet upload it, I could bypass that step and more easily automate my processes.
The second thing I would use HTML for is more sophisticated formatting. People have already mentioned strikethrough, which would be easy with raw HTML, but so is just about everything. Having a combination of ordered and unordered lists in outline format is really easy to do in HTML, and many writers have learned to display unicode characters like math symbols using HTML (or LaTeX, but we don't want to go there) alone.
Bottom line, because HTML is such a universal language display standard it doesn't really matter what you originally write your text in, you can almost always get it reliably converted to HTML. Basic HTML (i.e. no CSS and no javascript) enables almost everything most writers would want to do.
That would be another route to go. A third possible option would be to have a Markdown module, which basically is the same as having an HTML module, but a little more user-friendly.
The reason I would consider advocating for an API is that it might allow people to develop tools that you could adapt for use in Substack. For example, I do most of my writing in Vim (I know) and what I would do is develop a plugin for Vim that would allow me to upload my drafts to Substack. If I were someone who liked Word, and I am sure someone using Substack does, I would do the same for Word, or Evernote, or whatever. You could end up with people creating tools for your platform without you doing any work.
"Word" user here David.
And there's nothing wrong with that. IMHO, the important thing with writing is that you are comfortable using the technology that you use. Most of the people I advise (I'm a professor) use Word, and I'm pretty familiar with it. The only reason I wouldn't develop an add-on for Word is my Java is non-existent.
Is there a reason you don't have an HTML edit function? Does it make life hard for you? Or is it an attempt to discourage writers from messing things up? Or to put it another way what would be the downside of an HTML edit function?
Is this an example of HTML that you have tried and didn't work, or something that you would like to get to work?
I would like to be able to create a template for my newsletter(s).
Another great idea. I completely second this. There are two of us writing our newsletter, so being able to create a template would be very helpful.
OMG, I would love to have the ability to create a template - would save so much time to focus on writing...
Hi! Thanks for asking.
- More fonts
- Image Wrap
- Text Boxes to call out certain things
Embedding surveys or polls would be cool too
I love the idea of polls!
I absolutely love how easy it is to drag and drop my own images. I also like how pasting a YouTube URL makes a perfect video display. Substack’s handling of media is really nice, and I hope they keep making it easy to add these kinds of elements for different media types. So far, everything I have wanted to use has been as smooth as my great aunt’s buttery potatoes.
As I'm boycotting Youtube, the same feature for Odysee, Rumble and Bitchute would be nice. Now basically everyone interesting is on Odysee, so I alway link there and don't have to worry too much about removed videos that happens on Youtube all the time.
I also want Gettr links treated like Twitter links.
Hey!
Product improvement ideas:
1) Ability to embed Tiktok videos like with Youtube and Vimeo videos. It's a huge source of videos.
2) Make it clearer for readers who are logged out in their browser/device that they need to log back in if they want to pay. Some readers want to become paid but can't figure out because when they click "subscribe" all their see is the "enter your email field" and they don't know what else to do since they're already subscribed to the list.
3) Crypto should have it's on category on the leaderboards, rather than be spread all over finance, business, and tech.
4) I'd like the ability to separate sections with the three stars * * * that they have in books, rather than just the lines.
5) A way to embed surveys/polls natively inside newsletter, rather than link out.
Thank you!
Yes to number 2. Maddening.
Thank you Jasmine, I appreciate that! 💚 🥃
Being able to create and then use a template for threads and posts would be super.
On each, I copy and paste, "Paid subscriptions make this reporting possible," in headline 4 then I have a custom button that says, "Subscribe if you like, pay if you can."
If I could make a template that would have that already there, it would be extremely helpful.
Love this concept. So much better than asking directly!
I'm not going to say it has been a smashing success but about 25 percent of my total email distribution list is paying something with most buying annual subs.
Well I just added it. I really would like Substack to realize we all HATE ASKING FOR MONEY and self promotion. All their resources just overwhelm me and I procrastinate more. I would love if they just built the marketing and asking for money into the system (like your buttons) so we can feel a little hands off from it. This is why every media outlet has a separate marketing and PR department-- self promotion is horrible.
I essentially ask people stuff for a living yet asking for money is very, very hard.
We all love to ask people questions about themselves. We are trained to NOT be part of the story. I think it even hurts credibility to have that "ask" in the article.
I'm going to put "Paid subscriptions make this reporting possible" at the top of every free email and post to get the point across in a passive aggressive way :)
Or maybe Paid subscriptions make it possible for me to continue this work... ? Thanks for sharing your thoughts/idea on this, too!
I really like your line, subscribe if you like, pay if you can... a good way to put it :) Can I borrow that?
Sure. Steal away.
If you want to see how it is used, https://www.arkansasnewsroom.com/p/entergy-files-complaint-against-city/comments
Two requests in particular: Give us a way to center text, and give us the option for a Spotify playlist that displays more than the first song. Thanks for your help!
If you have time, scroll down to Hip-Hop Starter Set here. Just one line rather than five or six songs.
https://murphyslaw.substack.com/p/podcasts
The same list displayed just fine with a bigger widget on Twitter and Facebook.
I love the draft process. wish list: adding colors to the text?
I e=want option for color to bring attention. Blue would be perfect. Or underline. I don’t like the link color. I feel like I always have to point to it. Blue is usually a color used for links
This is a small issue, but I would like the ability to center text. I write fiction and often separate sections of text within chapters with three asterisks (* * *). It looks wrong and distracting set against the left margin. Is there some workaround or keystroke I’m not aware of? Thanks.
This is silly but I use periods. ...........to put the text where I want it. Inelegant.
I have thought about doing that as well.
I very rarely need this feature but it has struck me a few times that it would be helpful.
I'd like to see a table feature as there is in Word.
Deleting an image can cause bugs sometimes so that's worth exploring.
The option to align text and change font would also be useful although I appreciate that standardized font may be a feature of Substack.
Thanks! 🙂
I don’t think those translate well into the various email readers people use.
I 100% agree with Secret Money Manager. You can screenshot Excel spreadsheet but it ends up looking very amateurish. Having native table functionality would be very helpful for me.
Hi Jasmine. I write a financial newsletter so a table is how I display portfolio and financial information.
I do actually screenshot from Excel but thank you for the suggestion too.
Sometimes I am able to put a caption under pictures, other times I can't. Is there a particular method I should use? My preference is to add captions in smaller type size than the main text of the post.
Hey Jasmine!
Have been using Substack for 2 months now and never noticed it. I used to do it with a H6 heading under the image. It's better if you enable the caption text holder by default so that people can see. I'm surprised that I never noticed this before!
I wasn't aware of that, thanks.
I would like to see the ability to add social media buttons at the end of a post. "Follow on Twitter" or whatever so people can get reminders in their preferred venue
As long as this is not too "in your face". One of the reasons I like Substack is because it's not like all the other sites. It seems designed from the ground up for writing, rather than hype and metrics and games.
Agreed. Just a small "toolbar" at the bottom with whichever logos the writers want to add would be ideal.
Thank you!
Yeah, I would prefer a logo button. I tried the custom buttons but didn't like the look. Right now I just write out links.
Alternatively, you can add an image of social media logo and link it to your account.
I thought that without paid subscribers I couldn’t put more than 1 button. I haven’t been able to as of yet.
It'd be great to be able to duplicate a previous post (like "duplicate slide" in Powerpoint), so that you could duplicate, edit, and keep formatting, etc. Also, please add tags.
Thanks, Katie!
Would also like to see:
- Task Lists / Checklists.
- Inline code.
- Tables!
- Automated linking on footnotes URL's.
- Strikethrough.
- Emoji support!
HTML tables would make my life so much easier!
Hi - I missed this today! +1 for Strikethrough. And an option to centre align the text (or at least pull quotes, if not all text) would be super helpful. I'm all for not having too many formatting options - the minimalism is why I love Substack!
Putting two images side by side is also not possible at the moment. Sometime you just want people to be able to compare. They have to scroll up and down.
It would be great if there was a Like button we could add ourselves (like the “share this post” and “leave a comment” buttons).
Right now, the button is small and it is at the end of the article. This makes it is easy to forget and can skew a writer’s perception as to whether their community enjoyed a specific post or not.
Likes are not the primary focus (quality writing is) but they are are a good and useful metric nonetheless.
Besides that, I am loving Substack! Keep up the great work.
If you gave me strikethrough and polling, I'd be happy (for at least a year 😝)
Sarcasm. (Serious answer.)
I would use strikethrough to correct something.
Overall, I think Substack posts are very easy to format and put up, and the final result (after some trial and error!) is a neat, clean newsletter that is easy to use.
But I do wish we could have a little more flexibility in layout, specifically in the following two ways:
1. I would like to be able to centre text
2. Right now images can only be placed as separate image 'blocks' that are automatically centred. Is it possible make image placement a bit more flexible, with text wrapping for instance?
Yes, this could definitely work.
Yes! 🙌🏽
This would be great for starters. If it were possible to add a way to indent text, that would be great.
This comes into play when writing fiction too. In how we sometimes want to lay out conversation, or nest stories. Sometimes centred text just looks better, or serves to highlight a block as distinct from the rest.
Hi!
My name is Rishi, I write 10+1 Things: 11 interesting things curated by a human, not an algorithm.
Things I would love to see:
1. Support for markdown text. I write my drafts in markdown. So everytime I paste the draft into the editor, I spent a lot of time formatting.
2. Support for text wrapping of images.
3. A readability score or some score based on Substacks algorithm to see how readable the post is. I think this is crucial as people read mostly from their email client.
Thanks again for the diverse set of topics every week on this thread!
Love,
Rishi
What I like about the current editor:
1. Ability to embed tweets easily.
2. Simplicity of the design
Hey Nick! The option like you shared would be suffice!
I think as a start point atleast you can allow pasting of markdown into the editor. If the editor can convert, that would be enough in my workflow!
Yes Nick, for sure. Please!
I love how easy it is to insert images, and I get frustrated by the lack of some simple editing tools (like changing the justification of the text, sub- and superscript)
I'd like to be able to send out content at different times to paid and unpaid subscribers (I haven't gone paid yet but I'd like the option when I do!)
Hey there! A tiny thing: I wish I could italicize subtitles for post headings!
I want to post in the colors I find in my journals!
I am publishing journals - my diary - and have often written in different colored ink. I'd like to capture that as part of my publication. Different font colors.
Sort of: more like to mention books or titles of films.
One tool that would is the use of a limited number of hashtags inside the article that would automatically show a popup of the same hashtags inside other articles that we have written at investrly. Longer term maybe hashtags across the community to connect the network more.
In the meantime we continue to invest early in substack as our newsletter of choice and hope you will continue to share our message:
empowering you to invest early in your future. 🌐 https://investrly.substack.com/welcome
Yeah, it would be really cool if the Substack home page functioned like Tweetdeck. The column to the left is a feed of newsletters you follow. The middle column is suggested newsletters to check out, and the right column is tags you follow.
Alignment, if there could be left, right, center, justified alignment that would be super helpful.
Might have missed this earlier, but a template we can save (with body templates for headers, text, icons etc) so that we can reuse structures for different newsletters would be amazing ❤️
Paula here from Stained Page News. I write about books, and probably 90% of my images are book covers. I would be THRILLED to be able to align left photos with text wrapping instead of having them hang out centered and awkwardly tall. 🙏
Apologies for missing this. Will (manually) put it on my calendar for next week. Would be ideal for me if you included a calendar invite compatible with Mac calendar.
My primary feature request is for an inline spell check. Google Docs does this incredibly well, so seamlessly that I didn't realize there was no spell check when I sent out my first issue. My workaround at the moment is once I've finished a post, I copy / paste just the text into a Google Doc and look for the highlighted issues there, and pop back into my post and fix them one by one.
Minor feature requests for the editor:
* Find / Replace
* A center text button
* A strikethrough option (sometimes strikethrough is really effective)
* MAYBE a "scratchpad" feature? Now I keep my half-formed ideas external to Substack, but it would be nice to keep them somewhere in Substack that doesn't have the danger of accidentally posting to my readers.
Otherwise, it's going well!
Hello all. I believe I read about a mentorship program and/or the possibility of a one-on-one phone call with a member of the Substack staff...? Would love to sign up for one or both of those as soon as possible from your end, if it is still available. I haven't officially started my newsletter yet, although it is up there at crimeandpunishment.substack.com
Thanks!!!
Joan, I like that URL. It is long, but it tells me what you write about (assuming your argument is that crime and punishment are the reason the poor stay poor).
Does "one heck of a URL" translate to "not good" or "could be a lot better"? Any comments will help ! Thank you
It reminds me of a novel I once read.
Indeed!
Hi Nick and Jasmine, thanks for hosting this topic today. I create my drafts in Google Docs, then copy over to Substack. I find it frustrating to achieve the same 'look and feel' given the limited composition tools in Substack: e.g. setting lefthand margins, choice of fonts, font styles / formats, paragraph first line indentations, etc. Will you be expanding our options / tools anytime soon? My understanding is that initially Substack limited everything in order to maintain tight control over the UX in general...
Thx,
George (The Strategy Toolkit newsletter)
And, please do not leave out those who use their mobile devices for writing. Many times after creating a Word doc with formats of indents and the like when pulled up on mobile device everything is a hot mess. If there could be a way to fix this in Substack a lot of time and frustrations could be alleviated. :-)
YES! It is so frustrating to have to use a laptop to write and comment.
I agree. I find myself going back and forth with my MacBook and my iPad.
Indentations would be tremendous
It's a feature that I would use every post. The first section of each edition is a draft chapter from my next book and having these indentations makes the chapter easier on the eyes. Thx,
Hello! I often get notified my posts are past the limit and have to trim them before I can hit publish. Is there are way to work around this, even if it means my posts get truncated in Gmail?
Yes, I do use a lot of photos. The warning made me think I wouldn't be able to post it if I exceed the limit. But my post can be any length, it will just be trimmed in email and people will be able to click to read more?
Mine did not go out
Ok awesome. I'll give it a try!
Oh I didn't know this! Can you remove the warning sign then since it also made me cut out big chunks of my longer pieces.
I schedule mine to go at 5:30 am and 3-4 days ago I woke up at 6;30 to see my post had not been delivered. No notice, nothing at all.
Sorry-more info….I had to split it and copy re-inserting gifs, etc . But what happened was that my readers did not really see part 1 and part 2, so never read both.
Hi and thanks for doing this! I LOVE the footnotes, but often find the tool to be buggy-- especially when copy and pasting things into (or out of) the footnotes, deleting a footnote, or otherwise working directly in the footnotes. Often my text ends up being (irrevocably) deleted... I've learned my lesson and mostly draft my footnotes outside of Substack to be added as a final step.
As others have mentioned, it would be great to be able to have pictures along-side text. I also love the idea of a sidebar that could be included in the email-- a place where I could link to other posts I've written, or where readers can purchase the book I'm reading. This might not even need to be a "sidebar" so much as an elegant way to separate a small amount of promotional text (text that is still longer than will fit on the buttons!)
Thank you for all you do!!
First of all, I really like the simplicity and design. It is very elegant and everything that's currently there is well laid-out.
One other thing which is very specific to my current project is that I would like a typewriter-style, courier-new-esque font to become available.
Also, if the thumbnail images for a new chapter could be included/displayed in the emails, it would be ideal.
Thank you for providing such a wonderful resource for writers and readers alike.
I think I can make it work like that. Thank you!
Come to think of it, these images also don't display on the website when you've clicked to read the specific chapter. Only in the main menu when you're looking at all of the chapters. I guess I could include them in the body of the chapter but they'd feel awkward and out of place there.
The images are uploading, no problem. They are displaying on my side on the website. But my email subscribers do not, I think, see them, unless they come to the website. It's not a huge deal, but I take time to create meaningful chapter designs which tie in an element of the story, and I don't think many of my readers are seeing them.
Agreed-simple is always better!
Are you considering adding hashtags so that we can find specific content more easily?
I would really appreciate this. Tnx.
Thank you all for doing this! I love the source citing feature. I would love an "un-do" feature for text while editing as well as option to change size, font, etc. Would also love a preview post option for those solid OCD moments.
YES!! Exactly. Reading my mind. Normally I will write/edit articles in Google and then paste into Substack. But last time, found it much more timely to edit directly in the draft feature, but was missing some key elements to do so effectively. Thank you Nick.
like text un-do in a google doc. So if you add a section, or cut and paste into the Substack draft, and you wanted to undo what you just did, could do so.
Re preview post- yes! Exactly. Thank you!