We’re focused on building simple tools that help you grow your audience and earn an income directly from subscribers, on your own terms. Over the last two months we have rolled out a handful of new features to support you as you get started, grow, and earn money on Substack.
🟧I think it would be nice if people on substack had a channel icon displayed next to their name, if they have one. That way it would be easier to see which readers have their channel.
One thing I'd like to be able to do is to curate a better index - I've had to create one as a standalone entry https://therunoutgrooves.substack.com/p/index to group editions by the year of the album's release. I'd love to have an index as an option like Archive, Home and About at the top and have something a little more dynamic.
I am a little confused about "restacks!" How does this work? I know we used to be able to cross-post, but I am not quite sure how the restack feature works and I am afraid to try it until I know. Does it send it out to our list? I am specifically talking about full posts, not notes. Thanks!
Hey Substack, for each of my emails/posts, there are around 20 emails that do not go through, but I have no way of knowing which ones they are. Are they bad email addresses? Are they dropped? Is there a problem I should know about? How should I handle this? How can I identify them? Should I delete them, or leave them alone? Please advise -- thank you.
It could be a good idea to make the feature that automatically asks you to subscribe once clicking on an article optional. I know there is a no thanks button, but by making the feature a toggle I think some people could get more views. This is because I feel like a lot of the time when people click on an article and see that pop up, they automatically assume they have to pay and close out without realizing there is a no thanks button. I know I’ve done that before.
The editable embed post arrived just when I needed it, but is missing one crucial feature: could it be possible to choose a different thumbnail? I'm running a 12-week course on crapness and creativity, and will start using (smaller) embeds as a menu to previous lessons - but it would look a lot better if I could customise the images. Thanks!
🟧 I unfortunately can't stay around today (might come back at the end) but, after trying to figure things out one at a time I'm wondering if anyone hires themselves out as a Substack expert. I'd happily pay for someone to get on Zoom, share my screen, and answer many of my questions at once. Gotta say I've been using computers for 30+ years and I love Substack but find it remarkably unintuitive (or else I'm not as intuitive as I used to be!!) Most of my questions are simply what's going to show up where based on what's put in the publication settings and post settings (and the difference between how posts and pages show up on phones and desktops.) I also just set up a new Section which has complicated things even more. Any experts out there wanting to make a few bucks to consult?
Nice that I can now add my historical novel, Of Wind and Wolves, to my profile. Great new feature, especially for indie authors who increasingly publish books right here on Substack!
🟧-- When we post or restack on Notes, it takes us back to the top of the feed. I know it's on the dev team's radar, but I'm curious if there's been any movement on implementing a fix?
🟧 a question for the Substack team--have you all considered rolling out an option for readers to pay for individual paywalled posts? I know I'm not the first person to float this idea, but I'm about to post a series of travel guides and would prefer to give people the option of picking and choosing what they want to pay for rather than forcing a monthly subscription. I think it would also be a useful feature for food writers who post paywalled recipes. And I'm sure there are lots of other cool uses that I am not thinking of!
(also, side note--I came to this thread on the app, but the link from the main office hours page redirected me to a web browser rather than keeping me in the app...and I wasn't signed in in the browser, so couldn't post my comment. I'm now retyping it on my laptop, but just wanted to make you all aware that that is happening in the app because it is v annoying!)
New user here. I'm one week old. When you import your previous blog content into Substack, where does it go? On top of your previous posts (I have 4), to the bottom, or somewhere else?
Unless I am missing the preference on the website, I would like to see the ability to switch between dark or light backgrounds (subsequently change in text coloring) through a user preference, and not necessarily the author’s theme of their posts.
This would help those that do not easily read text with dark backgrounds and white text coloring but instead can more easily see black text on white backgrounds.
🟧 - apologies if this is documented elsewhere but is the default for Substack Notes posts that every Substack member gets access to all Notes but can then mute or otherwise customize their feed?
✏️ - I just wanted to say thank you to the people who suggested that I download the Substack app last week. I've mainly been using it on desktop but the app has been a great way to explore other writers and get started with Notes. Thanks!
SEO: I've been using the SEO customizations and also have a subodmain for my newsletter (https://newsletter.visualstorytell.com), but still my post visibility is low. When I search for my post titles nothing comes up in results even after sharing on social.
Outside question: I often feel my posts are getting lost in the black hole of chronological order. Yea I can feature a few posts but the rest of them are gone. Post inter-linking can only help so much. SEO visibility to posts is still sketchy per above.
what about adding new categorization options?
I see 2 simple ways:
Passive: using a word cloud.
Active: allowing writers to customize their categories by tagging posts.
Thank you for all the great improvements that just keep coming! I am trying to keep up with using them all. Meanwhile, I do have a question/suggestion...
I publish two Substacks, and would like to be credited as the publisher/administrator of each. Instead, it seems I can only be credited as the "owner" of one of them, so I have to choose which one I want to lead as my brand. Then, I am listed only as a "contributor" on my other publication.
That is not accurate, but also, it gets even more confusing because when I have to choose how I want to attribute a post that has more than one collaborator, I end up last on the list, even though I am the lead. I get shown as a contribor and my guests get shown as having the byline.
This poses a real problem for me since I am the one doing the work and want to be credited and known as such, not for vanity's sake, but because these two publictions are my job. I need the platform to reflect that I am the one doing the work and should be the one people are paying to subscribe to.
🟧 This is an "old product" question (maybe I should use a brown square instead?): When I occasionally drill down into subscriber stats, I see: Email opens (all time) and Emails opened (all time). In my case, the numbers for my most engaged subscriber are 627 and 61, respectively. The latter number is the total number of emails I've sent. What on earth is the former number supposed to represent? I know this person is not sitting at their computer opening and closing my 61 essays repeatedly. Lol.
✏️ hey folks, those of you with Substacks with different sections, how did you roll those out? Did you start a section and add a post to it at the same time, and would that mean that your subscribers automatically get it? I'm flirting with the idea of opening sections to expand the scope of my newsletter, but I'm not sure how to properly do it. Suggestions?
🟧This is so overwhelming for me. Is there a way to simplify things? I admit I'm not the best with this tech stuff. Here's my question. Firstly am I on today's office hours right now? (apr 27?) I understand you are trying to cater it to be more specific so thank you and I will try to give it a go. My question is how to reach people who I think would be interested in my newsletter and vice versa. I suppose I would have to sum up what exactly my newsletter is about. I guess it's an exploration of the human condition. Topics like what is this place, meaning the universe. My last one was entitled, Revolving or evolving.
I am trying to write my first post and cannot locate the place "text" begins, or how to upload a written piece and post it: is there any way to be newer than that?
🟧 I'm still having an issue with the text-to-speech on my posts. Katie replied to my inquiry about it and said anyone reading in the app can use the text to speech features. I double checked my posts on the app and the option for text-to-speech was not there, as in the headphone icon did nothing when I clicked on it. This morning I texted a friend who has a Substack that I listen to via text-to-speech on a regular basis. He checked my posts and said the text-to-speech option is not working. How can we fix this? Thanks.
🟧 (reposed with emoji marker) It could be a good idea to make the feature that automatically asks you to subscribe once clicking on an article optional. I know there is a no thanks button, but by making the feature a toggle I think some people could get more views. This is because I feel like a lot of the time when people click on an article and see that pop up, they automatically assume they have to pay and close out without realizing there is a no thanks button. I know I’ve done that before.
✏️ I'm starting a new section on my Substack called "Backstage" which will feature paid content. I realize most of us have Substacks with a mix of paid and free posts—those of you who have found a way to make it work, what advice or tips or insights can you share? What features or functions within Substack have you found to be most effective in driving paid subs?
I'm not sure the usual "this Substack takes a lot of work to produce pls support me!" works since it's so overused.
🟧 I’d love to do a more visual, images-driven post on recent travels to Morocco. What are my options with Substack? Right now, I write text and drop in an image (it drops straight in, no tllting left or right, nondrop shadow, etc.). However, I can’t use this format of straight images stacked one below the other for a visual travel story. It’ll look sloppy and boring. Any other options here? Mostly I do text heavy posts but this one begs for less text and more pictures in my mind’s eye. Thanks!
✏️I’d love to know how you keep a handle on your editorial calendar—when and what you publish.
Substack team, editable post embeds are a great feature! Are you thinking of offering any in built tools to help plan our editorial calendar? Sorry, I could not get your logo to appear at the beginning of my question!
🟧 Hello! I would like to move over my 4 month course to Substack! Fun! Is there any way to charge a fixed feed that corresponds to a fixed amount of time as a paid subscriber? So I would like to make this 6 months for the course. I will host other events as well like viewing parties and discussion groups. Again, may be limited in time. Thank you!
🟧 - Hoping I can get an answer on this one this week. My own Substack posts don't come up in search when I put in all the right keywords, or even the title verbatim. I'm not even at the bottom of the list. Not there at all. I'm new here and small, but what does it take to show up in a simple search? Would really help if strangers can find me who might be interested in my topics. Thanks for the time!
🟧 Hey Substack team, I appreciate all of the new development, I know that all of this stuff takes time and energy and there doesn't seem to be a lot of you... That being said, I've been asking the same question for many weeks now and my support issue still have not been fixed and support has gone crickets on me. Is there someone who can help me resolve the issue where my podcast art, looks broken on all of my podcast episodes? I've been in limbo since I put in a support ticket in February, and I really don't know what else to do. Is there someone who can help me resolve this bug?? Here's a link to an episode so you can see what I'm referring to https://makingthisup.substack.com/p/episode-51-singer-gigi-rowe-on-seeing-9f1
⛽ Question re contacting people who are just readers on Substack (ie haven't started posting on their own site yet). Is there a way to contact them via Notes? Sometimes you see a Substack "what's going on" message in their Notes tab that you can reply to...and sometimes that doesn't show?
🟧 Hi, shouldn't I get notified when a subscriber unsubscribes? I noticed by chance that a subscriber was gone, but I never got any notification. I think I saw another writer on Substack asking the same.
🟧 Has the Substack team every considered making a special product for local journalism? Roy Woods Jr made some very moving comments about local journalism in the last 5 minutes of his presentation last night at White House correspondents dinner (available on YouTube).
Hi there. If we create a new section in our account and want to add specific existing subscribers to it, is there a way to do that? Or what is the best practice?
Is there a way to tell if a specific paid user is sharing our content with other users? Either by IP logs or multiple clicks etc? Our paid subs get access to unique and insider info for political related topics, I just had one user unsubscribe and admit he's seeing paid posts through a shared account.
We're going to try something new this week! Start your comment with an emoji to signal who you are looking to talk with at Office Hours.
✏️ - when asking questions or seeking feedback from fellow writers
🧠 - when sharing strategy or advice for 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.
Hey everyone,
The Substack team is signing off for today. We encourage you to stick around and continue the conversation with fellow writers.
Next week we'll return for Shoutout thread. We hope you'll join us: https://lu.ma/shoutout
See you soon,
Katie, Bailey, Sam, Zoe, Dayne, Seth, Jonathan, and Bruno
🟧I think it would be nice if people on substack had a channel icon displayed next to their name, if they have one. That way it would be easier to see which readers have their channel.
One thing I'd like to be able to do is to curate a better index - I've had to create one as a standalone entry https://therunoutgrooves.substack.com/p/index to group editions by the year of the album's release. I'd love to have an index as an option like Archive, Home and About at the top and have something a little more dynamic.
🟧 1) Will it be possible to use @mentions in comments?
2) Will it be possible to use the excerpt feature on comments?
3) Will it be possible to indent dialogue?
Thanks!
I am a little confused about "restacks!" How does this work? I know we used to be able to cross-post, but I am not quite sure how the restack feature works and I am afraid to try it until I know. Does it send it out to our list? I am specifically talking about full posts, not notes. Thanks!
Hey Substack, for each of my emails/posts, there are around 20 emails that do not go through, but I have no way of knowing which ones they are. Are they bad email addresses? Are they dropped? Is there a problem I should know about? How should I handle this? How can I identify them? Should I delete them, or leave them alone? Please advise -- thank you.
It could be a good idea to make the feature that automatically asks you to subscribe once clicking on an article optional. I know there is a no thanks button, but by making the feature a toggle I think some people could get more views. This is because I feel like a lot of the time when people click on an article and see that pop up, they automatically assume they have to pay and close out without realizing there is a no thanks button. I know I’ve done that before.
Me likey anything editable. 👍
Web chat— haven’t used. Don’t know benefits. 🤔
Will promote like crazy when book is finished. Sounds promising. 😊
Would love more info on the rest. 🙏
I write humorous essays. The latest one garnered fab comments. “A great read Full of laughs.”
The editable embed post arrived just when I needed it, but is missing one crucial feature: could it be possible to choose a different thumbnail? I'm running a 12-week course on crapness and creativity, and will start using (smaller) embeds as a menu to previous lessons - but it would look a lot better if I could customise the images. Thanks!
🟧 I unfortunately can't stay around today (might come back at the end) but, after trying to figure things out one at a time I'm wondering if anyone hires themselves out as a Substack expert. I'd happily pay for someone to get on Zoom, share my screen, and answer many of my questions at once. Gotta say I've been using computers for 30+ years and I love Substack but find it remarkably unintuitive (or else I'm not as intuitive as I used to be!!) Most of my questions are simply what's going to show up where based on what's put in the publication settings and post settings (and the difference between how posts and pages show up on phones and desktops.) I also just set up a new Section which has complicated things even more. Any experts out there wanting to make a few bucks to consult?
Nice that I can now add my historical novel, Of Wind and Wolves, to my profile. Great new feature, especially for indie authors who increasingly publish books right here on Substack!
🟧-- When we post or restack on Notes, it takes us back to the top of the feed. I know it's on the dev team's radar, but I'm curious if there's been any movement on implementing a fix?
🟧 a question for the Substack team--have you all considered rolling out an option for readers to pay for individual paywalled posts? I know I'm not the first person to float this idea, but I'm about to post a series of travel guides and would prefer to give people the option of picking and choosing what they want to pay for rather than forcing a monthly subscription. I think it would also be a useful feature for food writers who post paywalled recipes. And I'm sure there are lots of other cool uses that I am not thinking of!
(also, side note--I came to this thread on the app, but the link from the main office hours page redirected me to a web browser rather than keeping me in the app...and I wasn't signed in in the browser, so couldn't post my comment. I'm now retyping it on my laptop, but just wanted to make you all aware that that is happening in the app because it is v annoying!)
New user here. I'm one week old. When you import your previous blog content into Substack, where does it go? On top of your previous posts (I have 4), to the bottom, or somewhere else?
AQC
howtoeatanddrink.substack.com
Editable post embeds 👍🏻 nice upgrade
Web chat 🌀 haven't found much use for chat yet
Promote my 📖 will be great once I publish! Serializing memoir here for now ⬇️
Boost upsell and founding tier 👌🏻
Subscriber report 👍🏻 👍🏻 👍🏻
SEO 🙃 nice to have, but I wish "SEO" would die
Guest posts ⭐️⭐️ let's do it!
AN ORDINARY DISASTER
A serialized book-length memoir of a man thrashing against—
and then learning to live with the fact that we are _all_ alone.
https://bowendwelle.substack.com/s/memoir
Unless I am missing the preference on the website, I would like to see the ability to switch between dark or light backgrounds (subsequently change in text coloring) through a user preference, and not necessarily the author’s theme of their posts.
This would help those that do not easily read text with dark backgrounds and white text coloring but instead can more easily see black text on white backgrounds.
Regards.
🟧 - apologies if this is documented elsewhere but is the default for Substack Notes posts that every Substack member gets access to all Notes but can then mute or otherwise customize their feed?
✏️ - I just wanted to say thank you to the people who suggested that I download the Substack app last week. I've mainly been using it on desktop but the app has been a great way to explore other writers and get started with Notes. Thanks!
I love the books-in-profile thing! Thank you for that, Substack!
🟧 Great features. I have two questions:
SEO: I've been using the SEO customizations and also have a subodmain for my newsletter (https://newsletter.visualstorytell.com), but still my post visibility is low. When I search for my post titles nothing comes up in results even after sharing on social.
Outside question: I often feel my posts are getting lost in the black hole of chronological order. Yea I can feature a few posts but the rest of them are gone. Post inter-linking can only help so much. SEO visibility to posts is still sketchy per above.
what about adding new categorization options?
I see 2 simple ways:
Passive: using a word cloud.
Active: allowing writers to customize their categories by tagging posts.
Thoughts?
I just tried the new embeds feature and it's brilliant. It makes it really easy to create a round-up post that won't take up the whole page!
Hello!
Thank you for all the great improvements that just keep coming! I am trying to keep up with using them all. Meanwhile, I do have a question/suggestion...
I publish two Substacks, and would like to be credited as the publisher/administrator of each. Instead, it seems I can only be credited as the "owner" of one of them, so I have to choose which one I want to lead as my brand. Then, I am listed only as a "contributor" on my other publication.
That is not accurate, but also, it gets even more confusing because when I have to choose how I want to attribute a post that has more than one collaborator, I end up last on the list, even though I am the lead. I get shown as a contribor and my guests get shown as having the byline.
This poses a real problem for me since I am the one doing the work and want to be credited and known as such, not for vanity's sake, but because these two publictions are my job. I need the platform to reflect that I am the one doing the work and should be the one people are paying to subscribe to.
How can we resolve this?
Thanks!!
Thank you Patricia!
🟧 Love the platform but support is really slow. I‘m still waiting on a response to a ticket I submitted on Tues, and this is par for course.
I want to grow with the platform but it’s really hard when you don’t have support to fix technical issues.
Is there any plan to expand the support team? 🙏🙏🙏
🟧 This is an "old product" question (maybe I should use a brown square instead?): When I occasionally drill down into subscriber stats, I see: Email opens (all time) and Emails opened (all time). In my case, the numbers for my most engaged subscriber are 627 and 61, respectively. The latter number is the total number of emails I've sent. What on earth is the former number supposed to represent? I know this person is not sitting at their computer opening and closing my 61 essays repeatedly. Lol.
✏️ hey folks, those of you with Substacks with different sections, how did you roll those out? Did you start a section and add a post to it at the same time, and would that mean that your subscribers automatically get it? I'm flirting with the idea of opening sections to expand the scope of my newsletter, but I'm not sure how to properly do it. Suggestions?
I just started using Substack. Where would I find resources to help my newsletter look more professional looking?
🟧This is so overwhelming for me. Is there a way to simplify things? I admit I'm not the best with this tech stuff. Here's my question. Firstly am I on today's office hours right now? (apr 27?) I understand you are trying to cater it to be more specific so thank you and I will try to give it a go. My question is how to reach people who I think would be interested in my newsletter and vice versa. I suppose I would have to sum up what exactly my newsletter is about. I guess it's an exploration of the human condition. Topics like what is this place, meaning the universe. My last one was entitled, Revolving or evolving.
I am trying to write my first post and cannot locate the place "text" begins, or how to upload a written piece and post it: is there any way to be newer than that?
I just started using substack, where are the resources to make my news letter look more professional?
🟧 I'm still having an issue with the text-to-speech on my posts. Katie replied to my inquiry about it and said anyone reading in the app can use the text to speech features. I double checked my posts on the app and the option for text-to-speech was not there, as in the headphone icon did nothing when I clicked on it. This morning I texted a friend who has a Substack that I listen to via text-to-speech on a regular basis. He checked my posts and said the text-to-speech option is not working. How can we fix this? Thanks.
🟧 (reposed with emoji marker) It could be a good idea to make the feature that automatically asks you to subscribe once clicking on an article optional. I know there is a no thanks button, but by making the feature a toggle I think some people could get more views. This is because I feel like a lot of the time when people click on an article and see that pop up, they automatically assume they have to pay and close out without realizing there is a no thanks button. I know I’ve done that before.
✏️ I'm starting a new section on my Substack called "Backstage" which will feature paid content. I realize most of us have Substacks with a mix of paid and free posts—those of you who have found a way to make it work, what advice or tips or insights can you share? What features or functions within Substack have you found to be most effective in driving paid subs?
I'm not sure the usual "this Substack takes a lot of work to produce pls support me!" works since it's so overused.
Here's an example of the type of paid content I'm planning (this is the first one published yesterday!) >> https://themuse.substack.com/p/no-mixed-emotions-about-the-rolling
🟧 I’d love to do a more visual, images-driven post on recent travels to Morocco. What are my options with Substack? Right now, I write text and drop in an image (it drops straight in, no tllting left or right, nondrop shadow, etc.). However, I can’t use this format of straight images stacked one below the other for a visual travel story. It’ll look sloppy and boring. Any other options here? Mostly I do text heavy posts but this one begs for less text and more pictures in my mind’s eye. Thanks!
✏️I’d love to know how you keep a handle on your editorial calendar—when and what you publish.
Substack team, editable post embeds are a great feature! Are you thinking of offering any in built tools to help plan our editorial calendar? Sorry, I could not get your logo to appear at the beginning of my question!
Thanks! Anu anuprabhala.substack.com
🟧 Hello! I would like to move over my 4 month course to Substack! Fun! Is there any way to charge a fixed feed that corresponds to a fixed amount of time as a paid subscriber? So I would like to make this 6 months for the course. I will host other events as well like viewing parties and discussion groups. Again, may be limited in time. Thank you!
🟧 - Hoping I can get an answer on this one this week. My own Substack posts don't come up in search when I put in all the right keywords, or even the title verbatim. I'm not even at the bottom of the list. Not there at all. I'm new here and small, but what does it take to show up in a simple search? Would really help if strangers can find me who might be interested in my topics. Thanks for the time!
Hello, why might my total views have gone down every day for 3 days? Not kidding. i was up to 850 and now back down to 760...
🟧 Hey Substack team, I appreciate all of the new development, I know that all of this stuff takes time and energy and there doesn't seem to be a lot of you... That being said, I've been asking the same question for many weeks now and my support issue still have not been fixed and support has gone crickets on me. Is there someone who can help me resolve the issue where my podcast art, looks broken on all of my podcast episodes? I've been in limbo since I put in a support ticket in February, and I really don't know what else to do. Is there someone who can help me resolve this bug?? Here's a link to an episode so you can see what I'm referring to https://makingthisup.substack.com/p/episode-51-singer-gigi-rowe-on-seeing-9f1
✏️ Excited for the new embed post feature - would love to see how others are using it. Especially those doing round-up posts.
⛽ Question re contacting people who are just readers on Substack (ie haven't started posting on their own site yet). Is there a way to contact them via Notes? Sometimes you see a Substack "what's going on" message in their Notes tab that you can reply to...and sometimes that doesn't show?
The editable post embeds are a nice touch. Is the founding tier page customisable or is it merely a separate link that you can share?
🟧 Hi, shouldn't I get notified when a subscriber unsubscribes? I noticed by chance that a subscriber was gone, but I never got any notification. I think I saw another writer on Substack asking the same.
How do I edit the title of my post? I tried the editing tool and it doesn't change it, even tho it says it did? Help?
🟧 Has the Substack team every considered making a special product for local journalism? Roy Woods Jr made some very moving comments about local journalism in the last 5 minutes of his presentation last night at White House correspondents dinner (available on YouTube).
Hi there. If we create a new section in our account and want to add specific existing subscribers to it, is there a way to do that? Or what is the best practice?
Is there a way to tell if a specific paid user is sharing our content with other users? Either by IP logs or multiple clicks etc? Our paid subs get access to unique and insider info for political related topics, I just had one user unsubscribe and admit he's seeing paid posts through a shared account.
Thank you
🧠 Thanks for new profile editing that allows us to promote our books. Very helpful and easy to do!