A rundown of the latest product improvements to help Substack writers succeed—from increasing account security to launching new leaderboard categories.
I really appreciate all the work that you all do here at Substack. The fact that you listen to your users, while at the same time maintaining your ideals and guiding philosophy is fantastic.
I definitely want to say thank you to the development team for implementing 2FA. As a software engineer I know what an absolute pain security can be to implement correctly, but as a writer I'm also keenly aware of how upset I would be if someone hacked my account and deleted all of my hard work. If you're a writer on Substack, please, even if you think it's a big pain, go enable 2FA and protect all of your efforts!
Id like to add humor to my tags, but I don't want to be shifted out of the history category. Last time I added another tag, I had to get help (thanks!) to get back into my main category. Yeah, I know... History... humor... history.. does not compute.
Sorry for the confusion. Our tagging systems needs help! Go ahead and add humor and we will make sure you don't get switched out. If you have any issues, message me or Katie.
I'd sure like to see a NATURE category in the leaderboard. It's half of what our Substack is about, and I'd love to find others writing about it as well.
Really enjoy all the constant product upgrades and product innovation and brainstorming about it and hoping for others.
With regards to the Leaderboards could we please have new categories like "Future" and "Artificial Intelligence." What I am finding is there are so many Newsletters buried in the technology card, people are getting buried and therefore getting less exposure.
It's leading to a less equal reading experience and incentive structure for certain kinds of tech writers. I noticed this especially when a Newsletter hasn't recommended any other Newsletter and you get the choice of what your interests are 5 related Newsletters, there's just way too much overlap. Thus the categories don't feel equal or varied enough in matching the reader UX for different kinds of male or female readers of different ages. Over time this will literally skew your reader demographics and bias the flow somewhat for Creators.
The Recommendation feature is a major win. I wish I could click on a button and it would import my blurb and I could choose to insert one of my existing recommendations at the end of my Newsletter (I'm sure you are already working on this). I also wish there was a (just once per) weekly Web and App "notification" that recommended me a few Newsletters based on which leaderboard category I read the most that week.
Sent out today's Hit Points and I'm not getting email notifications for likes or comments. Have checked dashboard settings and they're set up correctly. Have checked spam too, nothing. Anyone else?
Bigup to the product folk! I know you had a frustrating moment with that double-send bug, but I hope you can keep the overall amazing quality of your product in context: Substack is still so far-and-away the best newsletter platform around. You folks rule.
Question: Is there any way (existing or planned) to add large lists to newsletters? My post for this week is currently looking like it will be (gulp) 37 pages—close to 50,000 words—long. Most of that is a long list. I might just link out to a spreadsheet, but I hate asking people to leave the platform. Any advice would be much appreciated.
Thanks for all the constant improvements and updates. I cannot say enough about the ease of using Substack. I have a question about 2fa -- I cannot find "account security" in my account settings. What heading is it under? Or is it a heading? Ooo, and one more question. Does the video embed mean that we can insert video into the middle of our post where it might make more sense than being up top?
Hi Randee, it's under your account settings > so you need to click on your avatar and head to "account settings" rather than dashboard, then scroll down and you should see it there. Let us know if you still can't find it!
Hi! Thank you. I did find it, but I am only able to answer one of the security questions that you offer. Is there a reason that they are not the typical questions? The ones we have memorized our answers to?
Speaking of bugs. Importing emails has been broken for days now. It can take hours (or even days) for emails to be added to the subscribers list. This is extremely frustrating. Could someone please look into this and fix it? And I know I'm not the only one who's run into this issue.
1) I did not receive notification that you'd responded to my comment (I got one on the website, but I usually get an email--which I prefer--and none came in for this).
2) Clicking the heart under your comment doesn't work?
EDIT: Once this reply got posted, my heart appeared! Weird delay.
EDIT2: Comment notification finally arrived in my inbox... 3 hours later :o
Thanks for flagging this. Our team is looking into it.
On the note of importing emails, I shared an update with Geoffrey below:
In an effort to reduce spam, there have been some recent updates to email uploads. Our team is working to make it clear what happens when you upload a list and how long it will take going forward.
I understand the need to reduce spam--we all want that. But many of us fiction writers rely on Bookfunnel to grow our lists, and that means importing emails from CSV files. So this could be an issue if there is too much delay in the process.
BTW, one way around this would be to release an API so we could have integration with Bookfunnel (and other sites). That would avoid the CSV step entirely. I realize this would take time to develop, but hopefully it's something you already have in the works?
In an effort to reduce spam, there have been some recent updates to email uploads. Our team is working to make it clear what happens when you upload a list and how long it will take going forward. Thank you for your patience, more to come Geoffrey, Lloyd, and Alex!
Has any thought been given to bundling newsletters? For example 3-4 music writers could unite & offer a combined package of all individual letters at 1 rate. It could be a good way for writers to boost reach & income.
I’ve never been involved with a platform so committed and responsive to their writers. You anticipate our needs before we even know what we need! Thank you for
exceeding expectations in every category from security to an incredibly intuitive interface. I continue to be blown away.
I really appreciate all the work that you all do here at Substack. The fact that you listen to your users, while at the same time maintaining your ideals and guiding philosophy is fantastic.
I definitely want to say thank you to the development team for implementing 2FA. As a software engineer I know what an absolute pain security can be to implement correctly, but as a writer I'm also keenly aware of how upset I would be if someone hacked my account and deleted all of my hard work. If you're a writer on Substack, please, even if you think it's a big pain, go enable 2FA and protect all of your efforts!
Thanks for the nudge
any chance anchor links are on the roadmap for the editor?
👀 We will share this request with the team, Bill!
I second this emotion
Finally a place to coalesce with like-minded humans. My first choice was a volcano lair but the Humor tag will do. Thanks Substack
Id like to add humor to my tags, but I don't want to be shifted out of the history category. Last time I added another tag, I had to get help (thanks!) to get back into my main category. Yeah, I know... History... humor... history.. does not compute.
Sorry for the confusion. Our tagging systems needs help! Go ahead and add humor and we will make sure you don't get switched out. If you have any issues, message me or Katie.
Thank you, Bailey and Katie!
These are awesome, thank you! I love how involved the Substack team is and how you care so much about your users!
I'd sure like to see a NATURE category in the leaderboard. It's half of what our Substack is about, and I'd love to find others writing about it as well.
Taking note! We are continuing to listen to writer category requests and monitor what we see writers tagging their publications with on the back end.
Taking note as well - thanks!
Really enjoy all the constant product upgrades and product innovation and brainstorming about it and hoping for others.
With regards to the Leaderboards could we please have new categories like "Future" and "Artificial Intelligence." What I am finding is there are so many Newsletters buried in the technology card, people are getting buried and therefore getting less exposure.
It's leading to a less equal reading experience and incentive structure for certain kinds of tech writers. I noticed this especially when a Newsletter hasn't recommended any other Newsletter and you get the choice of what your interests are 5 related Newsletters, there's just way too much overlap. Thus the categories don't feel equal or varied enough in matching the reader UX for different kinds of male or female readers of different ages. Over time this will literally skew your reader demographics and bias the flow somewhat for Creators.
The Recommendation feature is a major win. I wish I could click on a button and it would import my blurb and I could choose to insert one of my existing recommendations at the end of my Newsletter (I'm sure you are already working on this). I also wish there was a (just once per) weekly Web and App "notification" that recommended me a few Newsletters based on which leaderboard category I read the most that week.
It would be nice to have templating system. I write news digest and it's not very simple to copy/paste "header" and "footer" every time.
I think this may help, under Settings, under Publication Details:
"Email banner, header, and footer settings (edit)
Set up content that appears in the email version of posts, but not on the web. This includes an optional banner image"
Me too! Templates or 'duplicate post' features would be awesome!
2FA is a game changer! Thanks for building and keeping the features rolling in!
Sent out today's Hit Points and I'm not getting email notifications for likes or comments. Have checked dashboard settings and they're set up correctly. Have checked spam too, nothing. Anyone else?
Count me in, Nathan.
Bigup to the product folk! I know you had a frustrating moment with that double-send bug, but I hope you can keep the overall amazing quality of your product in context: Substack is still so far-and-away the best newsletter platform around. You folks rule.
Question: Is there any way (existing or planned) to add large lists to newsletters? My post for this week is currently looking like it will be (gulp) 37 pages—close to 50,000 words—long. Most of that is a long list. I might just link out to a spreadsheet, but I hate asking people to leave the platform. Any advice would be much appreciated.
Thanks for all the constant improvements and updates. I cannot say enough about the ease of using Substack. I have a question about 2fa -- I cannot find "account security" in my account settings. What heading is it under? Or is it a heading? Ooo, and one more question. Does the video embed mean that we can insert video into the middle of our post where it might make more sense than being up top?
Hi Randee, it's under your account settings > so you need to click on your avatar and head to "account settings" rather than dashboard, then scroll down and you should see it there. Let us know if you still can't find it!
Hi! Thank you. I did find it, but I am only able to answer one of the security questions that you offer. Is there a reason that they are not the typical questions? The ones we have memorized our answers to?
Speaking of bugs. Importing emails has been broken for days now. It can take hours (or even days) for emails to be added to the subscribers list. This is extremely frustrating. Could someone please look into this and fix it? And I know I'm not the only one who's run into this issue.
Hi Alex, sorry that happened for you. I am flagging with our team to further investigate.
Thanks Katie. Two other bugs I just noticed, BTW:
1) I did not receive notification that you'd responded to my comment (I got one on the website, but I usually get an email--which I prefer--and none came in for this).
2) Clicking the heart under your comment doesn't work?
EDIT: Once this reply got posted, my heart appeared! Weird delay.
EDIT2: Comment notification finally arrived in my inbox... 3 hours later :o
Thanks for flagging this. Our team is looking into it.
On the note of importing emails, I shared an update with Geoffrey below:
In an effort to reduce spam, there have been some recent updates to email uploads. Our team is working to make it clear what happens when you upload a list and how long it will take going forward.
I understand the need to reduce spam--we all want that. But many of us fiction writers rely on Bookfunnel to grow our lists, and that means importing emails from CSV files. So this could be an issue if there is too much delay in the process.
BTW, one way around this would be to release an API so we could have integration with Bookfunnel (and other sites). That would avoid the CSV step entirely. I realize this would take time to develop, but hopefully it's something you already have in the works?
same problem here
He's not. It's been happening to me, too.
In an effort to reduce spam, there have been some recent updates to email uploads. Our team is working to make it clear what happens when you upload a list and how long it will take going forward. Thank you for your patience, more to come Geoffrey, Lloyd, and Alex!
I see, that makes sense. Thanks for the update!
Has any thought been given to bundling newsletters? For example 3-4 music writers could unite & offer a combined package of all individual letters at 1 rate. It could be a good way for writers to boost reach & income.
We've heard the request before and don't have any plans to do this at the moment.
Ok, fair enough!
I’ve never been involved with a platform so committed and responsive to their writers. You anticipate our needs before we even know what we need! Thank you for
exceeding expectations in every category from security to an incredibly intuitive interface. I continue to be blown away.
+1 to that. It's nice to see such active involvement.