118 Comments
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Andrew Smith's avatar

I have to say that yet another benefit to posting every day is that this tends to become evident. My brain simply won't produce things outside of the format I've come to hone over the last 150 days in a row, and I'm grateful to have this figured out/on auto pilot for now, so I can think more deeply about other stuff (like my topics).

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Lisa Brunette's avatar

That’s impressive. You don’t find that daily posts are too much for readers?

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Andrew Smith's avatar

Sure, but I'm not looking for all readers. I'm looking for a very specific set of folks out there who don't mind hearing from me every day (or just skip a few days and dive in when they see something interesting).

There's no single right answer here.

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Silvermine AI's avatar

Some yes. But the angle matters. Daily snacks/news vs Weekly deep dives.

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Jeyner Gil Caga's avatar

What does angle mean?

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Silvermine AI's avatar

100%. I’m able to focus better when I have a consistent framework for writing

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Jenovia 🕸️'s avatar

The ‘Duplicate To Drafts’ is life changing!!!!

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Olivia Rafferty ✨'s avatar

i keep forgetting it exists!!

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Nathan Slake's avatar

Yeah, same, hah. I've never used it!

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Jenovia 🕸️'s avatar

It’s so helpful with my Caught In My Web 🕸️series. I do the same format every time and it has saved me sooo much time. I highly recommend if you do a regular format.

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Marion Dorval's avatar

Right, it saved my health! :)

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Jenovia 🕸️'s avatar

My favorite feature ❤️‍🔥

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George G's avatar

While I prefer to have an original photo to go with each post, I often end up using the Unsplash stock photo gallery built into Substack. Its a reliable backup.

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Silvermine AI's avatar

I use this every day. Thank you.

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Jennifer Em's avatar

I use stock photos most of the time, because my own photography is very subject-specific. If I have an original photo or my own that's on topic and hasn't already been used, I use my own. Most of the time, that's not the case. The stock photos are an excellent tool.

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Jennifer Em's avatar

*of my own

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Emily Cox, MSW's avatar

Never heard if it, thanks!

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Lisa Brunette's avatar

Good to know! Haven’t tried it.

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Kevin McSpadden's avatar

My only commentary is that, even for fiction writers, I find the journalism-style of 1-2 sentence paragraphs to be appreciated. I read a lot of my substacks via email or on the phone, so long paragraphs can be difficult to keep track of.

Adding pictures also helped transform my substack. https://kevinmcsa6.substack.com/

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Nathan Slake's avatar

I tend to agree. I've seen some people say the opposite and that they can't bring themselves to write in shorter paragraphs, but I think that's them not wishing to adapt to the medium. Personally, I find the reading experience on screen is, for whatever reason, easier when in smaller chunks.

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Douglas Sun's avatar

Much truth to what you guys say. It’s that wall of text effect. If you don’t break it up, it’s literally hard to read.

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Corey Smith's avatar

I was thinking about publishing my book reports from third grade, all written neatly in cursive. I, of course, am not serious and am only writing this comment to throw my face on this page in a desperate attempt for somebody to notice me and perhaps check out my words, maybe even like them. Who knows? Crazier things have happened. Anyway, it's been real. I've got changes to track.

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Katie @ Substack's avatar

We look forward to your book reports

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Corey Smith's avatar

Woohoo!

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Lloyd Miner's avatar

now I want to see some examples of beautiful handwriting. I think I failed penmanship (what it was called in my day)

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Corey Smith's avatar

Yeah, penmanship, those were the days.

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Yvonne McClaren's avatar

this escalated quickly! Cursive, I still write cursive in my journals ! Ingrained in me like times tables

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Corey Smith's avatar

I prefer cursive, but I always seem to forget it exists. Besides, my handwriting, no matter how I hold a pen, is terrible. It has declined since grade school.

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Latham Turner's avatar

my brain only works in cursive nowadays. Writing in print feels unnatural.

I even started dreaming in cursive, as I watched my thoughts being written in the air in cursive letters. Now if I could just remember how a capital Q should look.

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Tim Hay's avatar

Curses, it's the Cursive Curr. An-Cures Aweigh"!!

(Actually, the basic word here - - cursive - - is difficult to play with.

Whadda ya got that's better? Tim

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E. Jean Carroll's avatar

I like the book report idea, Corey!

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Corey Smith's avatar

Nice. Now I am definitely doing it. I'll keep you posted.

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Kristin Long's avatar

The tip about duplicating to drafts is a game-changer! My newsletter has a fairly simple format, but this tip saves me significant time in formatting that I can then spend on writing. As a mom of toddlers trying to squeeze in a project for myself, every minute saved is significant. :)

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Abdulrahman.'s avatar

I’m yet to engage with the newsletter.. I’ll look into that! How do you rate the engagement through it vs through a regular post?

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Chris Dalla Riva's avatar

Can we get better tools for charts and tables? Right now I have to screenshot which doesn’t look pretty

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Nathan Slake's avatar

Didn't know about this. Thanks Katie.

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Chris Dalla Riva's avatar

I did not. Let me try to use this. Is it also possible to embed HTML in an article?

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Katie @ Substack's avatar

Not today

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Robert Billyard's avatar

I run charts and tables through Photoshop 2019 where you can greatly enhance them. Photoshop is very worthwhile for illustrations you download for your articles. Snipping Tool allows me to copy content without any compromise in quality.

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Megan Crist's avatar

I would love a text wrapping feature to put images wherever we want *in* the words. I don't love the disconnect that comes from vertical images taking up so much space between paragraphs or the extensive negative space to each side of an image when I scale an image down. Please consider. 🖤

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Nathan Slake's avatar

Would also love this!

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Roman S Shapoval's avatar

Who else here posts once per week?

I've found it to be effective, as I create longer format, research-based articles.

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Nathan Slake's avatar

I'm a once-a-week guy, too. I like the rhythm of it, plus I hope that it doesn't feel overwhelming for those on the receiving end.

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Marc Typo's avatar

Once a week at the the same time every time

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Marion Dorval's avatar

Same here, sometimes twice a week. There's no rule, we just have to match our own rhythm so that we get readers who appreciate this frequency. Our community will naturally have similar reading habits as us... (ie : introvert people like me and my fellows like to dive into deep readings, and not being overwhelmed by oversharing. :) )

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Roman S Shapoval's avatar

Thank you Marion! Good point on our community having similar habits...I always knew it, but now that you say it...it clicks! Thank you. How long have you been writing on here?

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Marion Dorval's avatar

Almost 2 years now! :)

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Bryce Seto's avatar

This is really nice, and fun! I’ve enjoyed learning how to treat my Substack as my own publication and getting its own style. It’s messy and chaotic but that’s also me. Some really awesome formats and ideas to work on here.

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Erika Tovi's avatar

This is a helpful post, thank you!

Quick note: looks like Leslie Stephens’ “Morning Person” is linked to a different newsletter by accident. 😌

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Katie @ Substack's avatar

Good catch. I just updated the post. Thank you, Erika!

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Erika Tovi's avatar

Of course!

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Lev Parikian's avatar

Thanks so much for including Six Things in this!

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Ben Monaco's avatar

Nice breakdown

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sebastian hox's avatar

Can we get new fonts? :P

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Katie @ Substack's avatar

I can pass along the request

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Marc Typo's avatar

Duplicate to drafts?! 🤯 This will save me so much time. Instead of dragging and dropping my custom dividers from the mess of my downloads - they now have somewhere to live. Thank you!

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juliana, phd's avatar

As someone just getting started, I appreciate this little series on how-to. Even if my substack is meant to be sort of a free-style journal, I still like knowing what potentially works or doesn't work if I even want to take into a less-free-style place!

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