At Substack, we believe great writing is valuable. We’re focused on building simple tools that help you grow your audience and earn an income directly from subscribers, on your own terms.
Learn about the latest tools we’ve built for and with writers to help you do your best work. Please chime in, in the comments section, with your feedback.
Video embeds
Communicating with your subscribers may go beyond the written word. Writers and creators on Substack use images, audio files, video, and more to tell stories and share information. So we’ve made it simpler than ever to publish videos directly to your subscribers with native video embeds.
The new video embeds allow you to insert original video anywhere in any post type. This expands our video offerings beyond video posts, which offer a theater experience for viewers, putting a single video front and center, plus using a video icon for recognition on the homepage.
When creating a new post, drag a video file from your computer into the editor. After the video is loaded, select a thumbnail, and then insert the video into the post.
Read more: How do I embed a video in a Substack post?
Cross-post to web
Cross-posting is a simple way for you to share another publication’s post with your audience. Add your commentary on a post published by another Substack writer, share the post with your subscribers via email, and now publish to your publication homepage. Before this update, cross-posts were only sent via email, but now you can display these posts on your homepage next to your archive posts.
Cross-posts are great for resharing posts you were featured in, launch posts from your favorite new writers, or simply writing you enjoy and want to share with your audience.
Additionally, you can now schedule cross-posts. This can be helpful if you are out of office and looking to maintain your editorial publishing cadence without much extra work.
Read more: How can I share another publication’s post with my subscribers?
Data visualization
Data visualization helps break down complex topics and bring a story to life. To make including this information easier for writers, we have added support for Datawrapper embeds. These new embed types will enable writers to seamlessly insert interactive charts, maps, and tables into posts.
After you’ve created a chart, map, or table on Datawrapper, copy the shareable link and paste it into your Substack post.
Read more: How do I embed Datawrapper charts in a Substack post?
E-book embeds
Substack offers a direct line of connection between authors and their most passionate supporters. E-book embeds allow authors to drag and drop Kindle (KPF/KFX), ePub, and PDF file types into Substack posts.
This is a great perk for paid subscribers that you can add to your welcome email, for example.
Read more: How can I attach a file to my Substack post?
New in Substack Notes
Handles
It is now possible for publishers and admins of Substack publications to claim a unique handle. Handles make it easier than ever to share your Substack profile or mention fellow readers and writers in your posts and Notes.
Note: We are rolling this feature out in waves, and handles are not yet available to subscribers.
Claim your handle now by heading to your Settings page and selecting “Claim handle.”
Read more: What are Substack Handles?
Share your notes as images
Share Notes you love on social media or in a post in a simple, beautiful way.
On the web, simply click the share icon, then “Save as image” to download a graphic you can use to share a note on social media or in your own publication posts.
Add a Notes tab to your publication
You can now make your notes visible from your publication homepage on the web.
Go to your dashboard, then the Notes section in Settings, and enable the toggle. Writers can then choose which of the publication’s contributors have their notes appear in this feed.
App updates
The latest app update includes a number of features that were previously available only on the web, including:
Mentions. Start typing the @ symbol to mention a person by name. You can mention anyone with a Substack profile.
Paid replies allow writers to limit replies to only their paid subscribers. Our hope is this new tool will help you encourage good-faith discussions on Notes, while also offering new value to your paying subscribers.
Rich text composer allows you to format in bold, italics, strikethrough, bulleted and numbered lists, quotes, and code.
Search now allows you to look for profiles in addition to publications.
Notes tab on the publication page lets visitors quickly jump from your posts to view your notes.
We’ve also made it easier to subscribe to writer’s you love in the app with added subscribe buttons throughout the Notes space.
As always, please feel free to leave feedback and ideas in the comments.
What’s new on Substack