Have questions about publishing, growing, or going paid on Substack?
The Substack team, and your fellow writers, are here to help!
To help organize conversations over the last couple of months, we’ve opened up theme discussion threads on creating community, launching paid subscriptions, collaboration, products like subscriber referrals, and more. Today we’re opening one general thread for any questions about how Substack works. What questions are top of mind as you get started, grow, and earn money?
Our team will answer questions and share insights with you in the threads today from 10 a.m.–11 a.m. PST / 1 p.m.–2 p.m. EST. We encourage writers to stick around after the hour and continue the conversation together.
What's your favorite topic that we covered in themed office hours (https://on.substack.com/s/office-hours)? What areas do you need support going forward?
🟧 I would love to know how can I improve my newsletter’s discoverability in “Explore.” When I search terms that I would expect my newsletter to come up in, it’s either very low in results, below similar news letters with far fewer subscribers, or not there at all. Thanks!
🧠- I think the Office Hours that covered building community and how to find/collaborate with other writers were great-especially valuable for new writers just coming to the platform.
✏️ - What have y’all found to be the most effective ways to grow your publication? Do y’all have any tips about how I can make my newsletter stand out from everyone else?
✏️ - I’m new to writing my articles, and I feel like I’m struggling to find my “voice”/unique style. I have an overall format that I’m trying to stick to, but I want my writing to feel a bit more personal and laid-back. How can I go about finding my unique style of writing?
✏️ - A really hard part of running my Substack is trying to find new people to join. So far, I haven’t earned any new subscribers, and I’m not really sure how to go about reaching people (I’d like to avoid posting on social media if I can). What have y’all found to be the most effective way of finding and reaching new subscribers? I’ve tried using Notes as well as uploading voiceovers of my articles to YouTube/podcast and linking them back to my newsletter, but I haven’t found either of them to be effective.
🟧 - Do you by any chance have plans of adding email templates in the future? There are a lot of common things I tend to include in my emails, and it can get a bit tedious having to go back into previous emails and copy/paste them into newer ones. I know I could technically write a template post that I can duplicate every time I want to make a post, but it would be so much easier if this was its own dedicated option (maybe even with the ability to have a default template that applies every time I create a new post or even just the ability to select a template every time).
I'd be curious to know what percentage of free subscribers typically convert to paid for people. Have been modelling launching a paid tier in a spreadsheet and this is currently my biggest unknown - I've heard some people reach as high as 17% - though others 7%. (Both much higher than I would have guessed!)
🟧 I'd like to see Substack do more to find ways of helping newer Substacks to reach out to their particular target audience. On previous Office Hours I have suggested making the 'Explore' topics much more specific and detailed.
For example, my own Substack is one for serious intellectual discussion of political and cultural undercurrents in Western society but people would never find that using the current bland 'Politics' tab. They'd much more likely be looking for daily news type stuff or angry polemic type stuff.
Jun 29, 2023·edited Jun 29, 2023Liked by Katie @ Substack
I love reading other people's posts on how they've grown their Substacks--and the back and forth on self-promotion and publicity.
For those who want to grow their audience and get over self-promotion-itis, come to the Publicize Your Substack workshop on July 6 at 7 pm CT on Zoom. The replay will be available. You can access it separately if you don't want to become a paid subscriber.
Here's why Taylor Swift thinks you should attend or watch the replay:
July 6, 2023 | 60 minutes | 7 pm CT | Zoom | Replay will be available
» For writers at any stage of their writing careers and Substacks
In this workshop, you will
-understand the difference between internal and external publicity on Substack and which are most effective;
-get the lowdown on how Substack’s Notes, cross-posts, mentions, guest posts, referrals, and recommendations work and how to use them;
-be cured of two common writer ailments—self-promotionitis and anti-publicityosis;
-get a template for a media pitch and media status sheet (for when you’re ready);
-“master” Substack’s SEO feature;
-lay out your posts, so they speak to readers (and other Substackers and the media); and
-discover ways to launch your books and give them a long life on Substack (instead of being remanded to the backlist after a year).
Where the information I’ll share with you comes from
-My conversations with the amazing people who run Substack—I want to share with you the advice they’ve given me.
-My own experience building two Substacks, each with over a thousand subscribers and growing.
-Business icons and marketing gurus. Over the past three years, I’ve taken a lot of marketing and entrepreneurship courses and now use terms like call to action (CAT, actually) and content without irony. Yup—something I never thought I’d do. Weirdly, I’ve enjoyed it, and believe it or not, my soul hasn’t withered.
-My study of creative writers and other writers on Substack who’ve been successful and provide a service and community for readers.
🟧 why is the content of my substack not indexed by google and searchable? Even if I put in my publication name and a verbatim phrase, if that phrase isn’t in the title of the post, I can’t find it. Substack search is slightly better for my purposes but if someone online doesn’t know what substack is and wants to find the time I wrote about X, they aren’t going to find it by searching google. Is there a rationale behind this and/or a way to rectify this?
✏️ - How many posts per week is 'too much' for paid subscribers? I'm about to add an additional 2 posts for primos in addition to my weekly post, but don't want to spam people with too much content. I'm already feeling sheepish about being in their inbox to begin with. I don't want to overstay my welcome.
My questions never get anssered because it seems I arrive late even though I'm following the times in the emails. But trying again - Does Substack claim any ownership of any kind once your content has been published to the platform? Such as, if it tell an extended story on Substack and then sell movie rights or a book to a publisher?
Firstly, thank you for creating such a great and supportive creative platform.
I am wondering two things: is there a way that non-subscribers could also have access to the “like“ button at the end of articles? Many people tell me that they love my work, but only subscribers can “like” it, and I only have a modest number of subscribers. Lots of “likes “ would help create momentum and potentially generate more subscribers.
Secondly, is there a way that articles could be published first to subscribers via email, well before they appear on the website as a whole? At the moment, I suspect some people feel there’s no need to subscribe because everything is available online instantly.
🧠Hey all, I recently wrote a post about the Substack Life Cycle. I previously wrote about applying the Product Life Cycle to substack strategy, but this changes some of the ideas in the product life cycle and makes it specific to Substack.
People in comments have found this as a helpful roadmap and they have been able to map their own progress onto my idea for the Substack Life Cycle.
If you are interested in growing your substack, in going paid, in trying to figure out how to use the substack tools to grow and map your path into the future, this article is for you! I hope it helps!
Substack is so great in so many ways. I've loved using it. Just one request: At some point can the design of the block quote function be reconsidered? The dense blue line is the one inelegant element on any Substack page and it's really jarring. Thanks!
🟧 It would be great if “Math” could be added as a topic. My substack does not fit into any of the categories currently. Is that a category that might be added in the near future? This would help readers find my substack.
@substack Can we reduce the number of clicks from when a subscriber enters their e-mail till they get back to the content? Right now it's closing in on 6 screens trying to push more and more stuff. There's got to be a better way!
I've started a substack section 'This Week, Those Books' that I really want to grow. One of the suggestions I've seen is to ask to be recommended by fellow substackers, but would welcome any and all advice on how to contact them and ask this big favour.
✏️ This is my first office hours and I feel like I'm about to have a panic attack trying to read everything. I can't figure out what to answer or how to follow the threads. It seems like a confusing mess of information. It also seems like there are a ton of gems in here if I could find them.
Any suggests for me? How do you follow this process? How do you know what to answer and how to find answers to your questions?
I love being able to publish an audio file with my bird posts (https://mygaia.substack.com/s/wild-birds). Is it possible to show a short movie in a similar way?
✏️I've noticed some Substack writers using the Buy me a Coffee tool to supplement paid subscriptions. Has anyone here tried it, and if so, what do you think?
Quick question: is there a simple way to respond directly to a private message from a subscriber? I looked around on Ecosia and all through my Substack dashboard and couldn't see anything regarding this :)
🟧 May I ask for a feature request for a sitemap to help index Substack posts in Google? Currently I copy paste each post URL into Google Search Console manually for indexing, but I would love to just submit a sitemap once and have my new posts show up in search automatically. Thanks for your consideration!
I’d very much appreciate a Substack Reads for individual areas of interest: politics, books, art, photography, etc. A hundred versions of Substack Reads! These could themselves, in the comments, become valuable resources for people hungry for specific recommendations. One more point: country-specific recommendations. UK politics, Scottish politics, US politics etc.
✏️ I've been posting consistently, being authentic with my voice and my stories. I've managed to get a few subscribers, and while I have no interest in going paid before I hit a good amount of subscribers, what can I do to keep growing? I feel a bit stuck.
Hey everyone! What would you say is the single thing you did to spur the most Substack growth? Everyone always says consistency, “share with your friends”, etc., but does anyone have any specific and creative ways they’d like to share? Thank you!
Does Substack have a way of sorting articles/posts by geography? My recent interview with a Singaporean business owner would be more relevant to Singaporeans than Americans, for example. (lononaut.substack.com)
Because my primary Substack is free, I am in the process of rolling out some sections that would be subscriber only.
But it would be really helpful if I knew how many people subscribed to each section. I can tell roughly be looking at how many people open it, but I as I try out new sections, I'm trying to better track which ones are getting traction.
fwiw, my current paid to free ratio is 3.4%. Which I guess is okay given that until the last couple of weeks, paid subscribers didn't get anything extra.
🟧 I'm curious at the limitations, if any, on uploading videos to Substack to embed in newsletters (versus uploading the videos to YouTube and linking in a substack newsletter) - is there a storage and/or file size limit?
✏️ Does anyone have any examples of "notes" in action on their substack? All the Substack newsletters on the topic have been too vague/esoteric and haven't really given me a sense of how the function works or what to do with it. Would love to see some tangible examples of what it's for.
🧠 Quick tip for these busier Office Hours threads: If you're focusing on a specific comment, right click on the comment's timestamp and open the comment in a new thread. That will bring you to a page with only that comment and its replies, and the page won't jump around from all the activity in other comment threads.
Office Hours have gotten much better in recent months with the breakout into different pages, but when it's all on one page some other suggestions here might be helpful: https://mostlypython.substack.com/p/using-substack
🟧 - I've been thinking about the Audience Overlap section of the Subscriber Report. Ever since it started, I've gotten the same six Substacks, most of which I've already collaborated with (like trading recommendations). If the idea of the product is to spark new collaborations, I'd love if that list was more dynamic. For example, rather than showing only all-time overlap, how about overlap by country? Or overlap in new subscribers? Or overlap with most engaged readers? Wow, I've never written the word "overlap" so many times in a row, but here we are!
🟧 Would it be possible to add access for writers to the Writer’s Dashboard through the reader app?
I love the reader app too. Writer’s Dashboard access through the app would let me write and revise articles without needing to open a web browser, login, etc.
I often write/revise on my phone while waiting at kid school pickup, violin pickup, etc., and quicker access would be great! Thank you for considering my request.
🧠 Maybe this is obvious to everyone but me. Frankly, I'm disappointed in myself for not thinking of it sooner. But, I thought I'd offer a wee cautionary tale about the effect of the images we select to accompany our social shares.
This week, I wrote a piece on how we as individuals might go about addressing political extremism (https://elizabethbeggins.substack.com/p/look-out). While I really tried to offer a balanced approach, I chose an image that included a major, left-leaning publication with a photo of our current president.
A friend shared the post to FB and someone she knows made a negative comment based on that image. They never saw the content below the photo, and as far as I know, never read the piece, because they assumed they would disagree with the content. The irony!
Anyway, I realize I made the wrong choice, and it reminded me to think harder about my images in general and how they might be interpreted, especially if they appear out of context. Perspective is everything, right? And, we all come with our own biases. Good to keep that in mind if you're trying to broaden your audience, or - uh - not p*ss people off right out of the gate.
🟧 I haven't actually looked to see if this is possible, but can the "lead" image be changed post-publish? I think yes? I hope so! :)
🟧 I noticed that footnotes in a browser are links, but footnotes in the app are not. Is there any plan to implement footnotes as links in the app as well?
And thank you as always for the many ongoing improvements. :)
What can be done to move the platform to a more robust format such as Word? Who has to be lobbied to achieve that improvement and how long might it take to accomplish that. Taking a survey of the writer group might help decide if this is worthwhile.
I've been learning my way around the new dashboard (thanks Substack for the monster lift I'm sure that ended up being for some of you!) and realizing:
✏️As with my computer and phone, I'm sure I'm only tapping into a fraction of what's available there. Would be helpful for me to read which features others find to be most valuable/practical for them.
🟧 Staying w/ the dashboard theme (now, I'm suddenly hearing Meatloaf in my head), am I missing the memo on how to see who has Restacked posts? I keep wanting that info to be available by hovering over the icon, a la Facebook, but in the absence of that, am I meant to be digging into individual subscribers and using filters somehow?
✏️ Do you limit comments on free posts to paid subscribers as a way to push for more paid subscribers? Several Substacks that I read do that. My paid subscribers are already my most active commenters.
My increase in subscribers has been slow but gradual on Substack probably due to my gradual learning of the ropes over the last two years. I had brought a number of subscribers over from my WordPress site and MailChimp email collector of about 300. I am now up to about 440. See my latest post: https://www.inmindwise.com/p/the-reality-of-decision-making-and
Thanks for your reply Vinh. Your comment shows as,"Vitual Hockey Scout" because of this, I don't know you also write about music. I only see that if I click on you. Someone may not do that if they think you only write about hockey. I don't see a way around it. It seems like you only get one MAIN name, which sort of becomes your public name when your on other spaces. I hope what I'm saying makes sense. I appreciate your help.
I missed the hours! Anyways, I find it hard to get my first subscribers and grow. I have been posting at least once a week in the past month or so, with no new subscribers other than friends and family. Any tips?
What's your favorite topic that we covered in themed office hours (https://on.substack.com/s/office-hours)? What areas do you need support going forward?
To help organize the conversation, please use one of the following emojis when you start a new comment.
🧠 - when sharing strategy or advice for fellow writers
✏️ - when asking questions or seeking feedback from fellow writers
🟧 - when asking a question you hope the Substack team can help answer
Use your emoji keyboard or simply copy and paste the emoji at the beginning of your comment.
🟧 I would love to know how can I improve my newsletter’s discoverability in “Explore.” When I search terms that I would expect my newsletter to come up in, it’s either very low in results, below similar news letters with far fewer subscribers, or not there at all. Thanks!
🧠- I think the Office Hours that covered building community and how to find/collaborate with other writers were great-especially valuable for new writers just coming to the platform.
✏️ - What have y’all found to be the most effective ways to grow your publication? Do y’all have any tips about how I can make my newsletter stand out from everyone else?
✏️ - I’m new to writing my articles, and I feel like I’m struggling to find my “voice”/unique style. I have an overall format that I’m trying to stick to, but I want my writing to feel a bit more personal and laid-back. How can I go about finding my unique style of writing?
✏️ - A really hard part of running my Substack is trying to find new people to join. So far, I haven’t earned any new subscribers, and I’m not really sure how to go about reaching people (I’d like to avoid posting on social media if I can). What have y’all found to be the most effective way of finding and reaching new subscribers? I’ve tried using Notes as well as uploading voiceovers of my articles to YouTube/podcast and linking them back to my newsletter, but I haven’t found either of them to be effective.
🟧 - Do you by any chance have plans of adding email templates in the future? There are a lot of common things I tend to include in my emails, and it can get a bit tedious having to go back into previous emails and copy/paste them into newer ones. I know I could technically write a template post that I can duplicate every time I want to make a post, but it would be so much easier if this was its own dedicated option (maybe even with the ability to have a default template that applies every time I create a new post or even just the ability to select a template every time).
I'd be curious to know what percentage of free subscribers typically convert to paid for people. Have been modelling launching a paid tier in a spreadsheet and this is currently my biggest unknown - I've heard some people reach as high as 17% - though others 7%. (Both much higher than I would have guessed!)
🟧 I'd like to see Substack do more to find ways of helping newer Substacks to reach out to their particular target audience. On previous Office Hours I have suggested making the 'Explore' topics much more specific and detailed.
For example, my own Substack is one for serious intellectual discussion of political and cultural undercurrents in Western society but people would never find that using the current bland 'Politics' tab. They'd much more likely be looking for daily news type stuff or angry polemic type stuff.
How many followers should you have before you start charging for subscribers? Asking for a broke ass friend, who would be me.
Ooh, my first office hour!
✏️ I would like to know whether anyone has grown their subscriber base solely through using Substack: posting, commenting.
I love reading other people's posts on how they've grown their Substacks--and the back and forth on self-promotion and publicity.
For those who want to grow their audience and get over self-promotion-itis, come to the Publicize Your Substack workshop on July 6 at 7 pm CT on Zoom. The replay will be available. You can access it separately if you don't want to become a paid subscriber.
Here's why Taylor Swift thinks you should attend or watch the replay:
https://www.writersatwork.net/p/workshop-july-6-publicize-your-substack
Hope to see you!
Details:
Publicize Your Substack! (But not in an icky way)
July 6, 2023 | 60 minutes | 7 pm CT | Zoom | Replay will be available
» For writers at any stage of their writing careers and Substacks
In this workshop, you will
-understand the difference between internal and external publicity on Substack and which are most effective;
-get the lowdown on how Substack’s Notes, cross-posts, mentions, guest posts, referrals, and recommendations work and how to use them;
-be cured of two common writer ailments—self-promotionitis and anti-publicityosis;
-get a template for a media pitch and media status sheet (for when you’re ready);
-“master” Substack’s SEO feature;
-lay out your posts, so they speak to readers (and other Substackers and the media); and
-discover ways to launch your books and give them a long life on Substack (instead of being remanded to the backlist after a year).
Where the information I’ll share with you comes from
-My conversations with the amazing people who run Substack—I want to share with you the advice they’ve given me.
-My own experience building two Substacks, each with over a thousand subscribers and growing.
-Business icons and marketing gurus. Over the past three years, I’ve taken a lot of marketing and entrepreneurship courses and now use terms like call to action (CAT, actually) and content without irony. Yup—something I never thought I’d do. Weirdly, I’ve enjoyed it, and believe it or not, my soul hasn’t withered.
-My study of creative writers and other writers on Substack who’ve been successful and provide a service and community for readers.
🟧 why is the content of my substack not indexed by google and searchable? Even if I put in my publication name and a verbatim phrase, if that phrase isn’t in the title of the post, I can’t find it. Substack search is slightly better for my purposes but if someone online doesn’t know what substack is and wants to find the time I wrote about X, they aren’t going to find it by searching google. Is there a rationale behind this and/or a way to rectify this?
✏️ - How many posts per week is 'too much' for paid subscribers? I'm about to add an additional 2 posts for primos in addition to my weekly post, but don't want to spam people with too much content. I'm already feeling sheepish about being in their inbox to begin with. I don't want to overstay my welcome.
My questions never get anssered because it seems I arrive late even though I'm following the times in the emails. But trying again - Does Substack claim any ownership of any kind once your content has been published to the platform? Such as, if it tell an extended story on Substack and then sell movie rights or a book to a publisher?
Firstly, thank you for creating such a great and supportive creative platform.
I am wondering two things: is there a way that non-subscribers could also have access to the “like“ button at the end of articles? Many people tell me that they love my work, but only subscribers can “like” it, and I only have a modest number of subscribers. Lots of “likes “ would help create momentum and potentially generate more subscribers.
Secondly, is there a way that articles could be published first to subscribers via email, well before they appear on the website as a whole? At the moment, I suspect some people feel there’s no need to subscribe because everything is available online instantly.
Thank you.
🟧 - will Substack hold another Substack Grow program or something similar?
🧠Hey all, I recently wrote a post about the Substack Life Cycle. I previously wrote about applying the Product Life Cycle to substack strategy, but this changes some of the ideas in the product life cycle and makes it specific to Substack.
Read it here: https://gibberish.substack.com/p/the-substack-life-cycle
People in comments have found this as a helpful roadmap and they have been able to map their own progress onto my idea for the Substack Life Cycle.
If you are interested in growing your substack, in going paid, in trying to figure out how to use the substack tools to grow and map your path into the future, this article is for you! I hope it helps!
✏️ I am curious to learn from other writers - does your open rate drop as your subscribers grow? How do you deal with that? What are your strategies?
Personally, I feel as a reader that I'm a bit over-subscribed and I'm definitely not opening/reading all the newsletters these days.
Substack is so great in so many ways. I've loved using it. Just one request: At some point can the design of the block quote function be reconsidered? The dense blue line is the one inelegant element on any Substack page and it's really jarring. Thanks!
🟧 It would be great if “Math” could be added as a topic. My substack does not fit into any of the categories currently. Is that a category that might be added in the near future? This would help readers find my substack.
I've just passed the one-year mark for my Substack, and renewals from paying subscribers are coming in.
My question is, are they being automatically renewed or being asked to renew and given a choice?
@substack Can we reduce the number of clicks from when a subscriber enters their e-mail till they get back to the content? Right now it's closing in on 6 screens trying to push more and more stuff. There's got to be a better way!
✏️ i’d be quite curious of how to embed or share other types of media ie videos in our threads
✏️ and 🟧
I've started a substack section 'This Week, Those Books' that I really want to grow. One of the suggestions I've seen is to ask to be recommended by fellow substackers, but would welcome any and all advice on how to contact them and ask this big favour.
✏️ This is my first office hours and I feel like I'm about to have a panic attack trying to read everything. I can't figure out what to answer or how to follow the threads. It seems like a confusing mess of information. It also seems like there are a ton of gems in here if I could find them.
Any suggests for me? How do you follow this process? How do you know what to answer and how to find answers to your questions?
I love being able to publish an audio file with my bird posts (https://mygaia.substack.com/s/wild-birds). Is it possible to show a short movie in a similar way?
✏️I've noticed some Substack writers using the Buy me a Coffee tool to supplement paid subscriptions. Has anyone here tried it, and if so, what do you think?
Hey guys! 🟧 Question for the team. Is there a way to see how many of my subscribers came from a specific Substack network feature (e.g. Notes)?
Quick question: is there a simple way to respond directly to a private message from a subscriber? I looked around on Ecosia and all through my Substack dashboard and couldn't see anything regarding this :)
🟧 May I ask for a feature request for a sitemap to help index Substack posts in Google? Currently I copy paste each post URL into Google Search Console manually for indexing, but I would love to just submit a sitemap once and have my new posts show up in search automatically. Thanks for your consideration!
✏️ I am adding “Bonus Materials” to my substack at A Piece of the Pi: mathematics explained. https://apieceofthepi.substack.com/
What content do readers enjoy the most that I might include in this area? Any suggestions?
I’d very much appreciate a Substack Reads for individual areas of interest: politics, books, art, photography, etc. A hundred versions of Substack Reads! These could themselves, in the comments, become valuable resources for people hungry for specific recommendations. One more point: country-specific recommendations. UK politics, Scottish politics, US politics etc.
✏️ I've been posting consistently, being authentic with my voice and my stories. I've managed to get a few subscribers, and while I have no interest in going paid before I hit a good amount of subscribers, what can I do to keep growing? I feel a bit stuck.
Hey everyone! What would you say is the single thing you did to spur the most Substack growth? Everyone always says consistency, “share with your friends”, etc., but does anyone have any specific and creative ways they’d like to share? Thank you!
🟧 Why are links no longer able to be embedded such that we can get social previews on links?
Does Substack have a way of sorting articles/posts by geography? My recent interview with a Singaporean business owner would be more relevant to Singaporeans than Americans, for example. (lononaut.substack.com)
Because my primary Substack is free, I am in the process of rolling out some sections that would be subscriber only.
But it would be really helpful if I knew how many people subscribed to each section. I can tell roughly be looking at how many people open it, but I as I try out new sections, I'm trying to better track which ones are getting traction.
fwiw, my current paid to free ratio is 3.4%. Which I guess is okay given that until the last couple of weeks, paid subscribers didn't get anything extra.
🟧 I'm curious at the limitations, if any, on uploading videos to Substack to embed in newsletters (versus uploading the videos to YouTube and linking in a substack newsletter) - is there a storage and/or file size limit?
✏️ Does anyone have any examples of "notes" in action on their substack? All the Substack newsletters on the topic have been too vague/esoteric and haven't really given me a sense of how the function works or what to do with it. Would love to see some tangible examples of what it's for.
🧠 Quick tip for these busier Office Hours threads: If you're focusing on a specific comment, right click on the comment's timestamp and open the comment in a new thread. That will bring you to a page with only that comment and its replies, and the page won't jump around from all the activity in other comment threads.
Office Hours have gotten much better in recent months with the breakout into different pages, but when it's all on one page some other suggestions here might be helpful: https://mostlypython.substack.com/p/using-substack
🟧 - I've been thinking about the Audience Overlap section of the Subscriber Report. Ever since it started, I've gotten the same six Substacks, most of which I've already collaborated with (like trading recommendations). If the idea of the product is to spark new collaborations, I'd love if that list was more dynamic. For example, rather than showing only all-time overlap, how about overlap by country? Or overlap in new subscribers? Or overlap with most engaged readers? Wow, I've never written the word "overlap" so many times in a row, but here we are!
🟧 Would it be possible to add access for writers to the Writer’s Dashboard through the reader app?
I love the reader app too. Writer’s Dashboard access through the app would let me write and revise articles without needing to open a web browser, login, etc.
I often write/revise on my phone while waiting at kid school pickup, violin pickup, etc., and quicker access would be great! Thank you for considering my request.
🧠 Maybe this is obvious to everyone but me. Frankly, I'm disappointed in myself for not thinking of it sooner. But, I thought I'd offer a wee cautionary tale about the effect of the images we select to accompany our social shares.
This week, I wrote a piece on how we as individuals might go about addressing political extremism (https://elizabethbeggins.substack.com/p/look-out). While I really tried to offer a balanced approach, I chose an image that included a major, left-leaning publication with a photo of our current president.
A friend shared the post to FB and someone she knows made a negative comment based on that image. They never saw the content below the photo, and as far as I know, never read the piece, because they assumed they would disagree with the content. The irony!
Anyway, I realize I made the wrong choice, and it reminded me to think harder about my images in general and how they might be interpreted, especially if they appear out of context. Perspective is everything, right? And, we all come with our own biases. Good to keep that in mind if you're trying to broaden your audience, or - uh - not p*ss people off right out of the gate.
🟧 I haven't actually looked to see if this is possible, but can the "lead" image be changed post-publish? I think yes? I hope so! :)
🟧 I noticed that footnotes in a browser are links, but footnotes in the app are not. Is there any plan to implement footnotes as links in the app as well?
And thank you as always for the many ongoing improvements. :)
What can be done to move the platform to a more robust format such as Word? Who has to be lobbied to achieve that improvement and how long might it take to accomplish that. Taking a survey of the writer group might help decide if this is worthwhile.
I've been learning my way around the new dashboard (thanks Substack for the monster lift I'm sure that ended up being for some of you!) and realizing:
✏️As with my computer and phone, I'm sure I'm only tapping into a fraction of what's available there. Would be helpful for me to read which features others find to be most valuable/practical for them.
🟧 Staying w/ the dashboard theme (now, I'm suddenly hearing Meatloaf in my head), am I missing the memo on how to see who has Restacked posts? I keep wanting that info to be available by hovering over the icon, a la Facebook, but in the absence of that, am I meant to be digging into individual subscribers and using filters somehow?
Thanks!!
✏️ Do you limit comments on free posts to paid subscribers as a way to push for more paid subscribers? Several Substacks that I read do that. My paid subscribers are already my most active commenters.
✏️ - Hi, can anyone help me with the referrals program? I cannot find it on my settings and want to understand it
My increase in subscribers has been slow but gradual on Substack probably due to my gradual learning of the ropes over the last two years. I had brought a number of subscribers over from my WordPress site and MailChimp email collector of about 300. I am now up to about 440. See my latest post: https://www.inmindwise.com/p/the-reality-of-decision-making-and
Thanks for your reply Vinh. Your comment shows as,"Vitual Hockey Scout" because of this, I don't know you also write about music. I only see that if I click on you. Someone may not do that if they think you only write about hockey. I don't see a way around it. It seems like you only get one MAIN name, which sort of becomes your public name when your on other spaces. I hope what I'm saying makes sense. I appreciate your help.
Hi i have trouble finding this! What do you mean when you say its live office hours?
I missed the hours! Anyways, I find it hard to get my first subscribers and grow. I have been posting at least once a week in the past month or so, with no new subscribers other than friends and family. Any tips?
Thanks!