is a social scientist and professor of global politics at University College who who writes The Garden of Forking Paths on Substack. He offers advice on using Substack as an intellectual proving ground, the secrets of writers from the Middle Ages, and where to look when you are creatively stuck.
, and more share insights on how they test ideas, build a community and forge new opportunities on Substack.
Now we are turning it back to you, the Substack community, to hear your insights and ideas for the future of academic and intellectual idea sharing on Substack. How do you use your Substack to gain traction on ideas? What’s worked and what hasn’t?
I was really happy to be included in Substack’s roundup of academics. My life has changed dramatically since sharing the creative writing expertise I’ve been teaching at Northwestern for fifteen years and applying it to how creative writers can succeed on Substack. My family says I seem happier. (Seriously.) I feel like I’m really helping writers create careers for themselves on Substack. Creative writing programs are great for some things, but they don’t teach people to be professional writers. They teach them to teach creative writing and write books for a market that’s very small. You’re getting a much better education writing on Substack, assuming you go all in and use it as an opportunity to learn from the excellent writers around you.
As an academic, what I love about Substack is the ability to (1) reach non-academic audiences and (2) write about things that extend beyond the scope of my research projects. Academic articles and books are time intensive; with a newsletter, you can share learnings quickly and briefly. I love that freedom to explore something in, say, 500 words and share it with an interested audience!
I have a new book coming out in August. To publicise my substack, I've made share to include the substack in my bio - and - I created a QR code for my substack which is placed below my bio, so readers will be able to easily scan the code, and go directly to my stack.
I've created tabs for my new book and for my last book on my homepage for readers to able to jump directly to them.
I've adapted a button to bring the reader directly to the book in order to pre-order it - and I include a piece using the section dividers in every post reminding readers the best way to support an author of a forthcoming book is via pre-orders.
I also put an endnote on the new book along with the cover art and blurb.
I offer as a Founding member benefit a signed, personally dedicated copy of one of my books (limited offer!).
This recent ungated post gives examples of all of the above:
🧠 I’ve been using my substack to also work towards a long term project of writing a broader book. The newsletters help break down and explore topics or chapters I might otherwise of not investigated. Its been great for cataloguing also do any of you promote your substack on other platforms?
I love seeing academic work be made more publicly available through Substack! I'm really excited to catch up with what these folks are publishing here.
When I share research on Unruly Figures, I think the best thing I do is note when we're not sure about something! I try to be clear when there are conflicting narratives of a historical moment, rather than further a single narrative, even if I think it's the most likely. I try to be open about the fact that reseachers and experts are not perfect but are usually doing their (our) best.
Hi! I'm a PhD candidate in social anthropology at the University of Cambridge and I write a newsletter on visual culture. Having a newsletter has helped me with 1) sharing my research as it's taking place, especially to the very people I work with and it's based on and 2) experimenting with ways of writing and thinking broadly about visual culture beyond my PhD topic. All in all it's been a great experience so far and the engagement has been really stimulating.
I use Substack in two ways: 1) to explore new topics in a relatively low-stakes writing form, and 2) to work out long-term research projects for paid subs.
It also helps me to refine a writing voice which is far less jargony and more accessible.
A worthwhile (and I would say necessary) focus for Substack might be to make it easier for scholars of the Global South to gain more traction and opportunities on the platform. There are two concerning trends I pick up from Substack which perpetuates the current imbalances in academia: feature academics are mostly from the North (the majority American), and payments are not available for the majority of writers from the South.
I believe there is a great opportunity for Substack to enhance its foothold in an emerging democratised academic culture here!
I will also add that b/c I know my experience as a an academic can make my voice a bit DENSE, I write my posts and then often use GrammarlyGO's "Give me suggestions for improvement" generator to revise for clarity, brevity, and such. It is pretty good about saying things like, "This is dense. You need an example here to help readers understand." Also, free idea to the @substack crew, get a plug-in or make your own for this kind of thing. (Not AI writing-generating omg, but an improvement generator via prompting questions.) https://app.grammarly.com/
Hey there! I have two newsletters; one is more academic and research-based. I’m a creative writer and PhD candidate but I study English/creative writing and write about ecology, trauma, wildland fire and colonization. This is such a basic question! I I tend to use a lot of academic sources in my writing and often have trouble with footnotes/citations on Substack. It seems to take me forever to get them to work, or I will get one footnote/citation to work and then I won’t be able to do it again. What is the *actual* way to place citations in Substack? I don’t want to have a bunch of hyperlinks, especially if I am using academic sources.
Also, for academics or PhD candidates who have high teaching and courseloads, how do you manage your time, especially if some of what you’re writing about isn’t necessarily part of your studies and involves a lot of “outside” research (for instance, studying English but also writing about science, which involves a lot of focused attention and synthesizing). TIA!!
I have a question about reader engagement. What do you do when your (free) subscribers' list is growing, but you never see comments or other types of engagement with your posts?
I have significantly high open rates, but very few of my subscribers ever leave a comment under any of my posts. Nor do they respond to polls asking what content they'd like to receive from me. Thanks in advance.
This is sort of off-topic I guess, but I'm an academic (in science research and education at a large university) and my Substack is me essentially hiding from academia, using this as a release and means to write and pursue what I always wanted to do. There are many things I love about my job, but there are many things that bring stress and uncertainty. Taking the time to escape to a weekly place of writing fiction has been incredibly liberating and enjoyable.
🧠/✏️ Hey, my first time participating in one of these events. I write America Explained, a newsletter which combines my academic work as a historian of the United States with my work as a political commentator. I guess I have a sort of funnel method where I try to use my work talking about topics of broad interest in the news to attract the people who really want a deep dive and are interested in history and more academic takes.
I've find appearing on other media/platforms is really important for driving subscriber growth but it gets time-consuming. I'm trying to keep a good flow of content in the newsletter while also at the same time stepping up appearances in other media to get people to the Substack. Success at the latter can also be hugely variable - I write for big outlets like The Guardian but very few people bother to come look for my newsletter afterward reading a column. Twitter, to be honest, was my biggest source of outside-Substack subscribes, but the link throttling seems to be damaging that. Do we know exactly what the deal with that is right now - is it still happening?
I struggle with reaching out to people inside the Substack network. Notes seemed promising but mostly when I post on there it feels like nobody is really engaging with it. Maybe I haven't tried it enough. Do people have any tips on that?
As an academic, there's also this issue with maintaining credibility within your academic networks, which can get in the way of marketing aggressively. I personally see no distinction between writing for The Guardian and writing for Substack in terms of credibility and the author's relationship to the market, but hustling for paid subscriptions for a personal newsletter can be frowned upon - some academics don't even think writing for newspapers is appropriate. Mostly I've been ignoring this for a long time - I've had a fairly successful podcast, another medium that is often looked down upon, and been proud of it - but I also can't turn my main professional social media accounts into a non-stop newsletter hustle. More inside-Substack tools for reaching out would really help - or maybe I just need some tips on using them better.
🟧 would it be possible to have embed like a tag in our bios so that we can link to a group. Also in terms of chat and notes with some of us who are earlier in our publications would it be possible to have groups so we can engage with similar individuals more regularly than when we engage on threads like this.
I've had reasonable success in building a free subscriber base. But I've struggled more to convert them to paid subscribers. I've been pondering holding Zoom events or some other sort of live interaction with my paid subscribers only, and I'm wondering if there is a way to message just paid subscribers?
✏️ Not an academic myself, but if there are any academics on Substack who write about pre-Columbian cultures and religion I'd be interested in checking out your work.
I am a writer and I feel that the more I write the more publicity I will get for my work. I like the concepts of testing ideas, building community and using Substack as an intellectual proving ground for when you are creatively stuck, as well as offering it to build passive income. However, Journalism is a highly competitive affair, even more so these days since we have the Internet. The Internet is the problem because you have writers as young as high schoolers who are hoping to cash-in with what they hope to produce as writers. Can you imagine an experienced Journalist exchanging ideas with a high school student, even if the high school student manages to get subscribers to upgrade?
I always wonder at what stage other academics test their work on Substack. Is it during the writing of an academic journal article, or after it has been published? Maybe this is a question on the ethics of sharing original research?
✏️ Hi everyone, Here's my conundrum: My MA is in Environmental Education and Communication. I teach sustainability communication, creative nonfiction, and publishing prose at a Canadian university, and I'm a freelance writer. With my free subscriptions, I'd like to help writers write memoir and nature writing (primarily), but eventually I'd like to make Substack a revenue stream through paid subscriptions as well. I haven't been on here for long, and so far I've been writing mostly about writing, but I also want to write about sustainability communication topics. These can be very timely, and relevant to climate change, biodiversity loss, etc. Soooo, do I somehow combine these topics into a single Substack or do I need to separate them into 2 separate Substacks? When my teaching gets busy, I struggle to keep posting to one Substack. I don't want this to take over my entire life. I don't know. I'd really appreciate your thoughts and/or creative solutions. https://robertalaurie.substack.com/?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=web&utm_campaign=substack_profile
🟧 - ADMIN QUESTION: My Media Assets do not include an image of my Title and Beginning sentences of my post, which I have seen elsewhere. Is this something I need to request or should it be automatically created? I have 3 blank images, one with my signature colour and all with my Title and Substack logo. I also notice they are not live links to my writing which is disappointing.
🟧 Substack is a great innovative platform but, as several others have commented, it does have some work to do in making its highlighting of 'top writers' a bit more thoroughly researched.
I have been contributing essays of political and cultural commentary to a wide range of prestigious journals in the UK, USA and Australia for fifteen years now. But because they are occasional rather than prolific and spread thin across many outlets, my name has not become as well known as I would have wished.
So I came to Substack a couple of months ago as a way to gradually bring all my writing together- in one oeuvre so to speak. (My essays have always tended to be musings on political and cultural undercurrents in the 21s century West, rather than topical daily news-based and so they do not need to have such a short shelf-life as that type of journalism.)
Hope I can qualify as an "intellectual" in Substack-terms!
Hey friends! I am newer to SUBSTACK. My open date is over 60% which I think is great but now I’m trying to grow. How do I get exposure on SUBSTACK and thoughts for marketing off the app too?
At the outset, I should say that my status, as an academic, is debatable. I hava a law degree from NYU law school in NY, but I have no masters or doctorates. My LSAT was 732. My Wechsler IQ is 147. On the Wechsler, there is 15 points per standard deviation and so my IQ is more than 3 standard deviations above the mean, which means that 99.81 pecent of the population is beneath me. It might seem a bit nutty or snobbish to recite one's scores, but I am the progeny of a particularly weird hot house of striving, climbing intellectual, or pseudo intellectual, divas from hell.
MY objectives:
1) I want to network with other people who appreciate the fabricatoin of new and provocative ideas
2) I write about a multiplicity of subjects and I realize this is frowned upon as this era stresses specialization, but very often the finest cognition results when subject matter from different disciplines are conjoined. For example, Heisenberg's Uncertaintly principle, normally thought to be relevant only to physics, was a great boon to existentialist philosophy. Freud may have been a doctor, but he was like few other doctors who write or practice today as he plumbed the depths of anthropology, literature and art in developing his ideas re the psyche.
3) I need help and assistance in disseminating my stuff.
4) Unfortunately, I am constantly modifying my ideas. For example, I have one piece which is a furoius, and I think rather sterling defense of abortion, and I have antoher piece decrying abortion. How do I maintain a readership when I exhibit so many diffrent ideological tendencies.
5) I would like to give you examples of my work on substack, but I don't know if that would contravene one of substack's rules. Ergo, I will perhaps give you the web addresses of some of my substack posts in a succeeding post. Stay Tuned.
Hi all! I have been on and off about whether or not I want to get an MFA or Ph.D. I appreciate going to info sessions at university but I also struggle knowing their admissions department views me as a number for the business instead of helping out with answering more personal and real life questions. (I.E. how do you raise kids and pursue a higher degree? What are the costs associated with relocation? How are marginalized communities gathering and operating in academia? How do you negotiate housing? How do you juggle writing for your communities vs writing for academia? What happens when your cohort annoys you?)
I would love to know of any academics (specifically who identify as BIPOC and/or LGBTIQ2A+) who are writing on this topic.
🟧 Katie and team: Are there any plans for something like Interest Groups in the Explore function (voluntary sign-ups on shared topics like PhD students on Substack, Humanities research, etc) ? Academia has a lot of rules, and an interest group could help with mentoring junior scholars to see how their Substack choices will support an academic career. Can you make it easier for us to find each other and collaborate on things like joint statements to tenure committees about how to read this work on a cv?
For me I want to promote outreach for academia where we can communicate with those interested in our fields but without the technical depth of journal publishing. We spend so much time reading and writing so by sharing our thoughts on notes or through publications we highlight our own interpretations and gain others insights. If you want to read about my academic journey, research techniques or work in STEMMB my substack is https://askjordon.substack.com/p/developing-your-research-5
✏️ I would like to add a video to a Substack post so it is playable directly in my post. Is that possible now?
I applied to the Substack page https://airtable.com/shr01OF9E34tJ2ICn and asked to join a beta test for this function, but I haven’t heard from Substack.
✏️hello all! I’m new to Substack and being absent from social media (by design) is well , sort of kicking me in the behind now that I want to put my work out there . I have no following . Or email subscribers besides a handful. Thank you for your feedback ! Namasted
🟧 Hey Substack, I work for a company looking to create a Substack that focuses on CRM. We'll have articles that our team has written that helps with CRM troubleshooting, tips and tricks, latest news, etc. I was wondering if you can provide me with any success stories and how much revenue and subscribers companies have gotten from creating a Substack and using it for their marketing efforts?
I started getting spam comments a few days ago. I started substacks about a year ago and didn't notice any such spam comments until lately. Do I have to live with them, or can they be prevented? I'd prefer not to have to remove each one myself.
Also, the pinned message here by Katie says to use one of 3 icons or emojis when we start a new comment, but I don't see where to get them from.
Great and insightful article. I'm a newbie on Substack so anyone interested in new books being featured on Podcast ... well check out Yellow Shelf. Thanks & Cheers!
✏️ one of the things I have noticed lately on Substack is the wide range of styles and especially word counts. I’m curious whether people think this is going to continue or whether there may be some pressure toward convergence upon a mean? I’m not against folks seeing and emulating alternatives, especially in the case of TLDR. Just curious.
Thank you for offer this writer’s life line. It helps me thrive. I just got introduced to the Florida State Poets Association community with a profile and six of my people in their July / August issue.
I write a Substack that is geared towards other academic writers and I’m always highlighting other folks who write about professional development topics for academics. Please share your Substacks so I can follow! Here’s mine: https://publishnotperish.substack.com
✏️ This is such an interesting thread of comments. I'm a retired academic and Emeritus Prof of Nursing and I split my 'stack between nursing related posts and more personal stuff - reading, gardening, nature etc. I have no idea if my followers come to read the nursing stuff or the personal stuff, or who might be a 'professional' follower. Is it possible to work out or do I have to maybe ask in a future newsletter? I don't want to have two separate stacks as I'm more than my old professional identity, but it would be good to get a sense of who makes up my followers.
I might be atypical, but I'm not expecting or even trying to earn money from my Substacks. What I care about is disseminating my ideas and preserving them for the future. Am I alone?
Hi! I'm an Economics PhD and I write Nominal News (www.nominalnews.com) where I discuss many current economic (which is not just interest rates) issues and what the academic field of economics actually has discovered about them. There is a big lack of communication from academic economists to the public and even to policy makers since these type of actions are not rewarded. I hope to change that by bringing the latest and the greatest on any social issue.
One thing I'm sometimes concerned about is the length of my pieces. They almost always end in the 2500 to 3000 word length spot. Do other writers think this is too long?
I am a writer and I feel that the more I write the more publicity that I will get for my work. I am not against using Substack as a vehicle to test idea or building community or even as an intellectual proving ground for when you are creatively stuck. The problem is that the Internet is such a large and unwieldy vehicle that you will end up with getting ideas that could jeopardize your position as a writer. Plus a Journalist role is oftentimes to operate as a moderator in discussions to report the facts in an objective manner. Can you imagine an experienced professional interacting with a high school student or a person with less credential?
🟧 My current Substack offers advice to creative writers. I'm thinking about adding a second Substack that will engage with timely sustainability/environmental communication issues such as how to talk about climate change, the biodiversity crisis, etc. Writing advice and communication analysis/advice are not unrelated, but they are different enough that I think it might be better to make them two Substacks. Are Substacks by the same author linked somehow? I'm seeing a whole lot of additional work by making them separate, but maybe they somehow support each other? Are there effective ways to cross-promote?
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 was really happy to be included in Substack’s roundup of academics. My life has changed dramatically since sharing the creative writing expertise I’ve been teaching at Northwestern for fifteen years and applying it to how creative writers can succeed on Substack. My family says I seem happier. (Seriously.) I feel like I’m really helping writers create careers for themselves on Substack. Creative writing programs are great for some things, but they don’t teach people to be professional writers. They teach them to teach creative writing and write books for a market that’s very small. You’re getting a much better education writing on Substack, assuming you go all in and use it as an opportunity to learn from the excellent writers around you.
https://on.substack.com/p/academics-resource-substack
As an academic, what I love about Substack is the ability to (1) reach non-academic audiences and (2) write about things that extend beyond the scope of my research projects. Academic articles and books are time intensive; with a newsletter, you can share learnings quickly and briefly. I love that freedom to explore something in, say, 500 words and share it with an interested audience!
Some tips I'd like to share:
I have a new book coming out in August. To publicise my substack, I've made share to include the substack in my bio - and - I created a QR code for my substack which is placed below my bio, so readers will be able to easily scan the code, and go directly to my stack.
I've created tabs for my new book and for my last book on my homepage for readers to able to jump directly to them.
I've adapted a button to bring the reader directly to the book in order to pre-order it - and I include a piece using the section dividers in every post reminding readers the best way to support an author of a forthcoming book is via pre-orders.
I also put an endnote on the new book along with the cover art and blurb.
I offer as a Founding member benefit a signed, personally dedicated copy of one of my books (limited offer!).
This recent ungated post gives examples of all of the above:
https://brainpizza.substack.com/p/stress-and-personality
Here's the QR code: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/shane-o-mara-6952608_i-have-a-qr-code-activity-7070017681583693825-QmnW?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop
🧠 I’ve been using my substack to also work towards a long term project of writing a broader book. The newsletters help break down and explore topics or chapters I might otherwise of not investigated. Its been great for cataloguing also do any of you promote your substack on other platforms?
I love seeing academic work be made more publicly available through Substack! I'm really excited to catch up with what these folks are publishing here.
When I share research on Unruly Figures, I think the best thing I do is note when we're not sure about something! I try to be clear when there are conflicting narratives of a historical moment, rather than further a single narrative, even if I think it's the most likely. I try to be open about the fact that reseachers and experts are not perfect but are usually doing their (our) best.
Hi! I'm a PhD candidate in social anthropology at the University of Cambridge and I write a newsletter on visual culture. Having a newsletter has helped me with 1) sharing my research as it's taking place, especially to the very people I work with and it's based on and 2) experimenting with ways of writing and thinking broadly about visual culture beyond my PhD topic. All in all it's been a great experience so far and the engagement has been really stimulating.
I use Substack in two ways: 1) to explore new topics in a relatively low-stakes writing form, and 2) to work out long-term research projects for paid subs.
It also helps me to refine a writing voice which is far less jargony and more accessible.
🟧
A worthwhile (and I would say necessary) focus for Substack might be to make it easier for scholars of the Global South to gain more traction and opportunities on the platform. There are two concerning trends I pick up from Substack which perpetuates the current imbalances in academia: feature academics are mostly from the North (the majority American), and payments are not available for the majority of writers from the South.
I believe there is a great opportunity for Substack to enhance its foothold in an emerging democratised academic culture here!
https://ruhanfourie.substack.com
🧠
I will also add that b/c I know my experience as a an academic can make my voice a bit DENSE, I write my posts and then often use GrammarlyGO's "Give me suggestions for improvement" generator to revise for clarity, brevity, and such. It is pretty good about saying things like, "This is dense. You need an example here to help readers understand." Also, free idea to the @substack crew, get a plug-in or make your own for this kind of thing. (Not AI writing-generating omg, but an improvement generator via prompting questions.) https://app.grammarly.com/
Loving this! The potential for faculty, alt ac, and independent scholars is huge 😃
Hey there! I have two newsletters; one is more academic and research-based. I’m a creative writer and PhD candidate but I study English/creative writing and write about ecology, trauma, wildland fire and colonization. This is such a basic question! I I tend to use a lot of academic sources in my writing and often have trouble with footnotes/citations on Substack. It seems to take me forever to get them to work, or I will get one footnote/citation to work and then I won’t be able to do it again. What is the *actual* way to place citations in Substack? I don’t want to have a bunch of hyperlinks, especially if I am using academic sources.
Also, for academics or PhD candidates who have high teaching and courseloads, how do you manage your time, especially if some of what you’re writing about isn’t necessarily part of your studies and involves a lot of “outside” research (for instance, studying English but also writing about science, which involves a lot of focused attention and synthesizing). TIA!!
I have a question about reader engagement. What do you do when your (free) subscribers' list is growing, but you never see comments or other types of engagement with your posts?
I have significantly high open rates, but very few of my subscribers ever leave a comment under any of my posts. Nor do they respond to polls asking what content they'd like to receive from me. Thanks in advance.
This is sort of off-topic I guess, but I'm an academic (in science research and education at a large university) and my Substack is me essentially hiding from academia, using this as a release and means to write and pursue what I always wanted to do. There are many things I love about my job, but there are many things that bring stress and uncertainty. Taking the time to escape to a weekly place of writing fiction has been incredibly liberating and enjoyable.
🧠/✏️ Hey, my first time participating in one of these events. I write America Explained, a newsletter which combines my academic work as a historian of the United States with my work as a political commentator. I guess I have a sort of funnel method where I try to use my work talking about topics of broad interest in the news to attract the people who really want a deep dive and are interested in history and more academic takes.
I've find appearing on other media/platforms is really important for driving subscriber growth but it gets time-consuming. I'm trying to keep a good flow of content in the newsletter while also at the same time stepping up appearances in other media to get people to the Substack. Success at the latter can also be hugely variable - I write for big outlets like The Guardian but very few people bother to come look for my newsletter afterward reading a column. Twitter, to be honest, was my biggest source of outside-Substack subscribes, but the link throttling seems to be damaging that. Do we know exactly what the deal with that is right now - is it still happening?
I struggle with reaching out to people inside the Substack network. Notes seemed promising but mostly when I post on there it feels like nobody is really engaging with it. Maybe I haven't tried it enough. Do people have any tips on that?
As an academic, there's also this issue with maintaining credibility within your academic networks, which can get in the way of marketing aggressively. I personally see no distinction between writing for The Guardian and writing for Substack in terms of credibility and the author's relationship to the market, but hustling for paid subscriptions for a personal newsletter can be frowned upon - some academics don't even think writing for newspapers is appropriate. Mostly I've been ignoring this for a long time - I've had a fairly successful podcast, another medium that is often looked down upon, and been proud of it - but I also can't turn my main professional social media accounts into a non-stop newsletter hustle. More inside-Substack tools for reaching out would really help - or maybe I just need some tips on using them better.
🟧 would it be possible to have embed like a tag in our bios so that we can link to a group. Also in terms of chat and notes with some of us who are earlier in our publications would it be possible to have groups so we can engage with similar individuals more regularly than when we engage on threads like this.
I've had reasonable success in building a free subscriber base. But I've struggled more to convert them to paid subscribers. I've been pondering holding Zoom events or some other sort of live interaction with my paid subscribers only, and I'm wondering if there is a way to message just paid subscribers?
✏️ Not an academic myself, but if there are any academics on Substack who write about pre-Columbian cultures and religion I'd be interested in checking out your work.
✏️How do you manage 2 Substacks? Is it worth it to split your time between 2, or is it better to have a single Sustack that covers 2 related passions?
I am a writer and I feel that the more I write the more publicity I will get for my work. I like the concepts of testing ideas, building community and using Substack as an intellectual proving ground for when you are creatively stuck, as well as offering it to build passive income. However, Journalism is a highly competitive affair, even more so these days since we have the Internet. The Internet is the problem because you have writers as young as high schoolers who are hoping to cash-in with what they hope to produce as writers. Can you imagine an experienced Journalist exchanging ideas with a high school student, even if the high school student manages to get subscribers to upgrade?
✏️
I always wonder at what stage other academics test their work on Substack. Is it during the writing of an academic journal article, or after it has been published? Maybe this is a question on the ethics of sharing original research?
✏️ Hi everyone, Here's my conundrum: My MA is in Environmental Education and Communication. I teach sustainability communication, creative nonfiction, and publishing prose at a Canadian university, and I'm a freelance writer. With my free subscriptions, I'd like to help writers write memoir and nature writing (primarily), but eventually I'd like to make Substack a revenue stream through paid subscriptions as well. I haven't been on here for long, and so far I've been writing mostly about writing, but I also want to write about sustainability communication topics. These can be very timely, and relevant to climate change, biodiversity loss, etc. Soooo, do I somehow combine these topics into a single Substack or do I need to separate them into 2 separate Substacks? When my teaching gets busy, I struggle to keep posting to one Substack. I don't want this to take over my entire life. I don't know. I'd really appreciate your thoughts and/or creative solutions. https://robertalaurie.substack.com/?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=web&utm_campaign=substack_profile
✏️ What strategies have you all found useful for ensuring that you are putting out consistent weekly content?
✏️ What strategies have you found for converting unpaid to paid subscribers?
🟧 - ADMIN QUESTION: My Media Assets do not include an image of my Title and Beginning sentences of my post, which I have seen elsewhere. Is this something I need to request or should it be automatically created? I have 3 blank images, one with my signature colour and all with my Title and Substack logo. I also notice they are not live links to my writing which is disappointing.
🟧 Substack is a great innovative platform but, as several others have commented, it does have some work to do in making its highlighting of 'top writers' a bit more thoroughly researched.
I have been contributing essays of political and cultural commentary to a wide range of prestigious journals in the UK, USA and Australia for fifteen years now. But because they are occasional rather than prolific and spread thin across many outlets, my name has not become as well known as I would have wished.
So I came to Substack a couple of months ago as a way to gradually bring all my writing together- in one oeuvre so to speak. (My essays have always tended to be musings on political and cultural undercurrents in the 21s century West, rather than topical daily news-based and so they do not need to have such a short shelf-life as that type of journalism.)
Hope I can qualify as an "intellectual" in Substack-terms!
Hey friends! I am newer to SUBSTACK. My open date is over 60% which I think is great but now I’m trying to grow. How do I get exposure on SUBSTACK and thoughts for marketing off the app too?
Hello fellow academics:
At the outset, I should say that my status, as an academic, is debatable. I hava a law degree from NYU law school in NY, but I have no masters or doctorates. My LSAT was 732. My Wechsler IQ is 147. On the Wechsler, there is 15 points per standard deviation and so my IQ is more than 3 standard deviations above the mean, which means that 99.81 pecent of the population is beneath me. It might seem a bit nutty or snobbish to recite one's scores, but I am the progeny of a particularly weird hot house of striving, climbing intellectual, or pseudo intellectual, divas from hell.
MY objectives:
1) I want to network with other people who appreciate the fabricatoin of new and provocative ideas
2) I write about a multiplicity of subjects and I realize this is frowned upon as this era stresses specialization, but very often the finest cognition results when subject matter from different disciplines are conjoined. For example, Heisenberg's Uncertaintly principle, normally thought to be relevant only to physics, was a great boon to existentialist philosophy. Freud may have been a doctor, but he was like few other doctors who write or practice today as he plumbed the depths of anthropology, literature and art in developing his ideas re the psyche.
3) I need help and assistance in disseminating my stuff.
4) Unfortunately, I am constantly modifying my ideas. For example, I have one piece which is a furoius, and I think rather sterling defense of abortion, and I have antoher piece decrying abortion. How do I maintain a readership when I exhibit so many diffrent ideological tendencies.
5) I would like to give you examples of my work on substack, but I don't know if that would contravene one of substack's rules. Ergo, I will perhaps give you the web addresses of some of my substack posts in a succeeding post. Stay Tuned.
Hi all! I have been on and off about whether or not I want to get an MFA or Ph.D. I appreciate going to info sessions at university but I also struggle knowing their admissions department views me as a number for the business instead of helping out with answering more personal and real life questions. (I.E. how do you raise kids and pursue a higher degree? What are the costs associated with relocation? How are marginalized communities gathering and operating in academia? How do you negotiate housing? How do you juggle writing for your communities vs writing for academia? What happens when your cohort annoys you?)
I would love to know of any academics (specifically who identify as BIPOC and/or LGBTIQ2A+) who are writing on this topic.
🟧 Katie and team: Are there any plans for something like Interest Groups in the Explore function (voluntary sign-ups on shared topics like PhD students on Substack, Humanities research, etc) ? Academia has a lot of rules, and an interest group could help with mentoring junior scholars to see how their Substack choices will support an academic career. Can you make it easier for us to find each other and collaborate on things like joint statements to tenure committees about how to read this work on a cv?
For me I want to promote outreach for academia where we can communicate with those interested in our fields but without the technical depth of journal publishing. We spend so much time reading and writing so by sharing our thoughts on notes or through publications we highlight our own interpretations and gain others insights. If you want to read about my academic journey, research techniques or work in STEMMB my substack is https://askjordon.substack.com/p/developing-your-research-5
I wish to grow my newsletter. What should i do? https://open.substack.com/pub/intricacyecstasy/p/is-excitement-fading-away?r=83k7r&utm_medium=ios&utm_campaign=post
✏️ I would like to add a video to a Substack post so it is playable directly in my post. Is that possible now?
I applied to the Substack page https://airtable.com/shr01OF9E34tJ2ICn and asked to join a beta test for this function, but I haven’t heard from Substack.
✏️hello all! I’m new to Substack and being absent from social media (by design) is well , sort of kicking me in the behind now that I want to put my work out there . I have no following . Or email subscribers besides a handful. Thank you for your feedback ! Namasted
🟧 Hey Substack, I work for a company looking to create a Substack that focuses on CRM. We'll have articles that our team has written that helps with CRM troubleshooting, tips and tricks, latest news, etc. I was wondering if you can provide me with any success stories and how much revenue and subscribers companies have gotten from creating a Substack and using it for their marketing efforts?
I started getting spam comments a few days ago. I started substacks about a year ago and didn't notice any such spam comments until lately. Do I have to live with them, or can they be prevented? I'd prefer not to have to remove each one myself.
Also, the pinned message here by Katie says to use one of 3 icons or emojis when we start a new comment, but I don't see where to get them from.
🟧 - I want the meaning of a word to show up when a reader hovers over it or selects. Pretty much like how a Grammarly add-on works. Is that possible?
Great and insightful article. I'm a newbie on Substack so anyone interested in new books being featured on Podcast ... well check out Yellow Shelf. Thanks & Cheers!
✏️ one of the things I have noticed lately on Substack is the wide range of styles and especially word counts. I’m curious whether people think this is going to continue or whether there may be some pressure toward convergence upon a mean? I’m not against folks seeing and emulating alternatives, especially in the case of TLDR. Just curious.
Thank you for offer this writer’s life line. It helps me thrive. I just got introduced to the Florida State Poets Association community with a profile and six of my people in their July / August issue.
Page 39 - Chris Bodor poems and profile
https://indd.adobe.com/view/69e804bb-04a5-43f8-ba35-2da0a8e7b138
I write a Substack that is geared towards other academic writers and I’m always highlighting other folks who write about professional development topics for academics. Please share your Substacks so I can follow! Here’s mine: https://publishnotperish.substack.com
✍️ What are the benefits of using your platform to share my book or to publish my book on your platform?
What are the benefits of posting a book or publishing a book on Substack?
✏️ This is such an interesting thread of comments. I'm a retired academic and Emeritus Prof of Nursing and I split my 'stack between nursing related posts and more personal stuff - reading, gardening, nature etc. I have no idea if my followers come to read the nursing stuff or the personal stuff, or who might be a 'professional' follower. Is it possible to work out or do I have to maybe ask in a future newsletter? I don't want to have two separate stacks as I'm more than my old professional identity, but it would be good to get a sense of who makes up my followers.
I have a book ready to be published. How would I publish on sub track and what are the benefits?
I might be atypical, but I'm not expecting or even trying to earn money from my Substacks. What I care about is disseminating my ideas and preserving them for the future. Am I alone?
Hi! I'm an Economics PhD and I write Nominal News (www.nominalnews.com) where I discuss many current economic (which is not just interest rates) issues and what the academic field of economics actually has discovered about them. There is a big lack of communication from academic economists to the public and even to policy makers since these type of actions are not rewarded. I hope to change that by bringing the latest and the greatest on any social issue.
One thing I'm sometimes concerned about is the length of my pieces. They almost always end in the 2500 to 3000 word length spot. Do other writers think this is too long?
Thanks!
I am a writer and I feel that the more I write the more publicity that I will get for my work. I am not against using Substack as a vehicle to test idea or building community or even as an intellectual proving ground for when you are creatively stuck. The problem is that the Internet is such a large and unwieldy vehicle that you will end up with getting ideas that could jeopardize your position as a writer. Plus a Journalist role is oftentimes to operate as a moderator in discussions to report the facts in an objective manner. Can you imagine an experienced professional interacting with a high school student or a person with less credential?
✏️ - Have any substack academics started a second substack publication?
If so, I’m looking for any advice or opinions or experiential wisdom you have about what it’s like running more than one substack publication... i.e.,
What issues/struggles did you have when you started your second publication?
What positives/negatives did you experience when you started your second publication? Etc etc
🟧 My current Substack offers advice to creative writers. I'm thinking about adding a second Substack that will engage with timely sustainability/environmental communication issues such as how to talk about climate change, the biodiversity crisis, etc. Writing advice and communication analysis/advice are not unrelated, but they are different enough that I think it might be better to make them two Substacks. Are Substacks by the same author linked somehow? I'm seeing a whole lot of additional work by making them separate, but maybe they somehow support each other? Are there effective ways to cross-promote?