Once again, I am deeply grateful to the Substack team for your continued commitment to growth.
I have Recommendations to thank for 10K new readers (nearly half of my 22.4k list).
I have a few feature requests I am hoping you will consider:
1) Recommendations listed on your homepage: Can you please add the ability to select which five recommendations are featured on our homepage? I currently have the homepage display disabled because I cannot control who is listed, and I would want to prioritize my top five.
2) Recommendations blurbs: Since we can only display three on our landing page, it would be awesome if Substack would create a separate Endorsements page where people can see all of your blurb recommendations (with the ability to uncheck any you don’t wish to be visible). This would not only encourage new readers to sign up but would also bring new potential readers to those providing the blurbs via the links in their citations.
3) Unrelated to growth, but PLEASE add the ability to embed videos from non-YouTube platforms such as Rumble, Odysee, and bitchute.
Thank you for everything you are doing on behalf of writers and readers!
I agree with this – especially the third request. In addition to those platforms, could we have the ability to embed videos from places like Gyazo?
I suppose I could just create a small YouTube channel if all else fails. Seems like such a waste, though – and YouTube's advertising really turns me off.
Thanks, Daniel! Creating a YouTube channel wouldn’t work for sharing videos from other platforms. I share hundreds of videos across my posts and have to go through a lot of trouble to take a screenshot of the video, embed the image, and then manually link each one. It would save me and many other Substackers a lot of time if we could simply paste in the url like we can do with YouTube videos.
I'll second that emotion! I'm sitting on an upublished-archive of over 300 podcasts. And I'd love to see Substack spend more effort on podcasting tools for audio and video creators.
Thank you, Libor, and congratulations on joining Substack. I am sorry, but that is an offer I cannot entertain. I must maintain the integrity of my blog and also cannot open up the floodgates to similar requests.
"User driven" is a really good point ... it is like each of our substacks has a 'human algorithm' (aka: you and me) to recommend what we feel is important, which bakes authenticity and trust into all of it.
I hope the growth engine keeps innovating along these lines!
Yeah! Recommendations work great, despite they require that the fellow authors focus on growth too. In short, it is a teamwork exercise, which works best in partnership.
Recently, I got two recommendations from 2 great authors I love! 🥳
Devaraj Sandberg (writes on bodywork to handle tough emotions) and Gary Sharpe (healing, trauma and the nervous system).
They work wonderfully.
And I have written a short article to celebrate this (with some recommendations on how to get recommendations ;)
Recommendations are great but really only work when someone signs up to your newsletter. It could do more to push recommendations to existing subscribers to your Substack.
Once subscribers get to know you they are much more likely to subscribe to your recommended substacks.
That's very true, Martin. I have heard Sachin Monga (Head of Product @ Substack) saying that the team plans to leverage Recommendations in multiple ways in the future. I hope this is on their radar sooner rather than later (which I am sure it is the case, given the impact recommendations had on big author growth).
P.s.: Substack also sends an email to your existing subscribers some time after a new recommendation (unless the author does not disable it). I do not think it is very effective, though. Even because all Substack subscriptions are mixed together in one email.
I completely agree with you, recommendations are great but they are most effective when they reach existing subscribers. That's why pushing recommendations to our existing newsletter subscribers is crucial. It helps to build trust and familiarity with our readers and makes them more likely to subscribe to the recommended publications.
I also think promoting recommendations on our Substack is a great idea. It allows our subscribers to easily discover other valuable content within the same niche.
So, let's focus on promoting our recommendations to our existing subscribers, and also on our Substack. This way we can maximize the impact of our recommendations and help our readers discover even more valuable content.
Recommendations have been really helpful for my Substack for sure. Yet slow going! My stack is definitely growing, both with free and paid subs, but recommendations are sluggish. Not sure why. I did get a bigger one recently and that’s been helping!
I completely agree with you, recommendations are a great way to support each other and grow our audiences. It's all about teamwork and partnership. I'm glad to hear that you have received recommendations from some great authors in your niche. I'll definitely check out Devaraj Sandberg and Gary Sharpe's work.
I also love your idea of writing an article to celebrate and share some tips on getting recommendations. I think that's a great way to spread the word and help others in our community.
I would love to recommend each other's publications to our audiences. Would you be interested in that? Let me know!
"Recently, I got two recommendations from 2 great authors I love! " Seriously. I am very happy for you. Just understand that this, like everything else, will be watered down or diluted over time. Whatever value it has for you (for humanity I mean) is only going to last until it gets "taken over," or dumbed-down etc. I mean, I am happy for you.... But, it is not gonna las'
That said, you might want to turn on paid subscriptions anyway; I've found that many people are looking to support you as a writer (or the project overall) as opposed to doing so to get more/different content.
Personally, I don't think there's anything wrong with that approach. It's no different from any other blog, after all. The nice part is that you're not shelling out in advance for a web hosting service, a mailing service, or any of those other things.
I also aim to keep mine free, but I may in the future, when I'll have more subscribers, turn on a paid tier voluntary option where people may choose to chip in some cash. About pledges, I recently had this lovely surprise where someone signed up and pledged to pay for it - I really wasn't expecting it and it made my day.
I think there are a lot of different approaches to content management that would work. I feel kind of awkward charging money for people to read my comments on a video game. However, having a paywall for commenting can help a lot with moderation; perhaps I'll see some paid subscriptions as time goes on.
I do believe that there are people out there who are willing to contribute a bit of money for writing that they enjoy. Part of the trick is finding them – but a bigger part of the trick is being consistent and giving them a reason to support you.
Thanks for all your do. Just a few things on my wish list.
1) Top thing continues to be better SEO. Awareness isn't quite there, even with custom domain. ... And in my Google Core Vitals, every page is listed as Needs Improvement due to LCP > 2.5s.
2) I always edit the post URL — would like for it to either be longer and/or tell us in real-time how many characters we're at
3) Ability to make Offer for X months, such as 50% off for three months. And like someone else wrote, $1 for first month, etc. I've seen where many of my free trials have signed up, read a story, then unsubscribed.
4) Ability to customize Subject Line in email so it's not the same as the headline, thus repetitive when the email is opened.
I believe you can customize the subject line by changing the blurb in the publishing preview menu. I think the emails my subs receive match the copy I manually set for social share!
The Substack team has done a great job helping Coffee Times to drive up subscribers nos and I am deeply appreciative. My publication has gone from unknown to thousands of subscribers in a short time. Keep up the good work guys.
I write about leadership issues. I am building a library on subjects like team building, communication, motivation etc. I think it would help my readers if they could access past articles easily. Might it be possible to organize a library under categories like those just mentioned?
I very much like your business model and what you are doing.
It would be great if a cross-post showed up in the cross-poster's feed.
As it stands, it seems that when someone cross-posts one of my posts (as Chris Ryan recently did for my interview with him → https://decidenothing.substack.com/p/e13-coming-out-and-letting-go-with it goes to their subscribers, but doesn't show up on the feed of posts on their own Substack page... I realize this is as designed, just saying, here's an upvote for somehow including cross-posts as web posts and in the Substack app.
thanks for this and for all the work you're doing to help writers like me get going on Substack. Recommendations, Mentions, and Cross-posting have all helped and been useful so far. Looking to do more of this in the new year. I'll also be posting material from my book in progress—it will be interesting to see how my audience responds to that.
tying my wagon to Substack's rising star
essentially betting my career on it being the future of media
wagmi
I’m with you on this! 🔥🔥🔥🫰🙌❤️
Michael Mohr
‘Sincere American Writing’
https://michaelmohr.substack.com/
Good call.
Once again, I am deeply grateful to the Substack team for your continued commitment to growth.
I have Recommendations to thank for 10K new readers (nearly half of my 22.4k list).
I have a few feature requests I am hoping you will consider:
1) Recommendations listed on your homepage: Can you please add the ability to select which five recommendations are featured on our homepage? I currently have the homepage display disabled because I cannot control who is listed, and I would want to prioritize my top five.
2) Recommendations blurbs: Since we can only display three on our landing page, it would be awesome if Substack would create a separate Endorsements page where people can see all of your blurb recommendations (with the ability to uncheck any you don’t wish to be visible). This would not only encourage new readers to sign up but would also bring new potential readers to those providing the blurbs via the links in their citations.
3) Unrelated to growth, but PLEASE add the ability to embed videos from non-YouTube platforms such as Rumble, Odysee, and bitchute.
Thank you for everything you are doing on behalf of writers and readers!
I agree with this – especially the third request. In addition to those platforms, could we have the ability to embed videos from places like Gyazo?
I suppose I could just create a small YouTube channel if all else fails. Seems like such a waste, though – and YouTube's advertising really turns me off.
Thanks, Daniel! Creating a YouTube channel wouldn’t work for sharing videos from other platforms. I share hundreds of videos across my posts and have to go through a lot of trouble to take a screenshot of the video, embed the image, and then manually link each one. It would save me and many other Substackers a lot of time if we could simply paste in the url like we can do with YouTube videos.
I'll second that emotion! I'm sitting on an upublished-archive of over 300 podcasts. And I'd love to see Substack spend more effort on podcasting tools for audio and video creators.
🔥🔥🔥🔥💯
Excellent growth numbers 🙌🙌🙌
Thank you, Michael! 🙏
🙏💜🙌
Thank you, Libor, and congratulations on joining Substack. I am sorry, but that is an offer I cannot entertain. I must maintain the integrity of my blog and also cannot open up the floodgates to similar requests.
Lenny's right; recommendations are an absolute game-changer. Doubly so, since they're user-driven instead of by an algorithm.
I'm curious to hear more about the "growth engine" currently in development!
"User driven" is a really good point ... it is like each of our substacks has a 'human algorithm' (aka: you and me) to recommend what we feel is important, which bakes authenticity and trust into all of it.
I hope the growth engine keeps innovating along these lines!
I hope so too! There's a ton of social proof built into them that would never happen if it was automated.
Totally. I’m trying to get more recommendations
I love it when a kind, smart, energetic bunch of brilliant humans (i.e. SUBSTACK) has my back!!!
Yeah! Recommendations work great, despite they require that the fellow authors focus on growth too. In short, it is a teamwork exercise, which works best in partnership.
Recently, I got two recommendations from 2 great authors I love! 🥳
Devaraj Sandberg (writes on bodywork to handle tough emotions) and Gary Sharpe (healing, trauma and the nervous system).
They work wonderfully.
And I have written a short article to celebrate this (with some recommendations on how to get recommendations ;)
In short, "Just ask"!
https://livmkk.substack.com/p/just-ask
Recommendations are great but really only work when someone signs up to your newsletter. It could do more to push recommendations to existing subscribers to your Substack.
Once subscribers get to know you they are much more likely to subscribe to your recommended substacks.
That's very true, Martin. I have heard Sachin Monga (Head of Product @ Substack) saying that the team plans to leverage Recommendations in multiple ways in the future. I hope this is on their radar sooner rather than later (which I am sure it is the case, given the impact recommendations had on big author growth).
P.s.: Substack also sends an email to your existing subscribers some time after a new recommendation (unless the author does not disable it). I do not think it is very effective, though. Even because all Substack subscriptions are mixed together in one email.
I completely agree with you, recommendations are great but they are most effective when they reach existing subscribers. That's why pushing recommendations to our existing newsletter subscribers is crucial. It helps to build trust and familiarity with our readers and makes them more likely to subscribe to the recommended publications.
I also think promoting recommendations on our Substack is a great idea. It allows our subscribers to easily discover other valuable content within the same niche.
So, let's focus on promoting our recommendations to our existing subscribers, and also on our Substack. This way we can maximize the impact of our recommendations and help our readers discover even more valuable content.
Let's recommend each other.
Recommendations have been really helpful for my Substack for sure. Yet slow going! My stack is definitely growing, both with free and paid subs, but recommendations are sluggish. Not sure why. I did get a bigger one recently and that’s been helping!
^^^
Michael Mohr
‘Sincere American Writing’
https://michaelmohr.substack.com/
Awesome Livio!! 🔥🔥
I completely agree with you, recommendations are a great way to support each other and grow our audiences. It's all about teamwork and partnership. I'm glad to hear that you have received recommendations from some great authors in your niche. I'll definitely check out Devaraj Sandberg and Gary Sharpe's work.
I also love your idea of writing an article to celebrate and share some tips on getting recommendations. I think that's a great way to spread the word and help others in our community.
I would love to recommend each other's publications to our audiences. Would you be interested in that? Let me know!
my publication: https://chainletter.substack.com/
An article on how to get more recs could be helpful!
"Recently, I got two recommendations from 2 great authors I love! " Seriously. I am very happy for you. Just understand that this, like everything else, will be watered down or diluted over time. Whatever value it has for you (for humanity I mean) is only going to last until it gets "taken over," or dumbed-down etc. I mean, I am happy for you.... But, it is not gonna las'
If we cling to the good, then we cling to the bad.
If we cling to the bad, then we cling to the good.
But we can still enjoy these moments fully, until they are here.
And I find writing a good way to celebrate. Remember. And let go.
In the end, everything subsides.
https://livmkk.substack.com/p/everything-subsides
I aim to keep my substack always free for all… am I doing this wrong?
Nope! It's your newsletter to run as you see fit.
That said, you might want to turn on paid subscriptions anyway; I've found that many people are looking to support you as a writer (or the project overall) as opposed to doing so to get more/different content.
This is true ❤️❤️❤️
Check out Anne Kadet (Cafe Anne) she’s successful and doesn’t require paid subs ❤️🔥
Personally, I don't think there's anything wrong with that approach. It's no different from any other blog, after all. The nice part is that you're not shelling out in advance for a web hosting service, a mailing service, or any of those other things.
I also aim to keep mine free, but I may in the future, when I'll have more subscribers, turn on a paid tier voluntary option where people may choose to chip in some cash. About pledges, I recently had this lovely surprise where someone signed up and pledged to pay for it - I really wasn't expecting it and it made my day.
I think there are a lot of different approaches to content management that would work. I feel kind of awkward charging money for people to read my comments on a video game. However, having a paywall for commenting can help a lot with moderation; perhaps I'll see some paid subscriptions as time goes on.
I do believe that there are people out there who are willing to contribute a bit of money for writing that they enjoy. Part of the trick is finding them – but a bigger part of the trick is being consistent and giving them a reason to support you.
Ohhhh that sounds very cool. I’m going to look into that!
Thanks for all your do. Just a few things on my wish list.
1) Top thing continues to be better SEO. Awareness isn't quite there, even with custom domain. ... And in my Google Core Vitals, every page is listed as Needs Improvement due to LCP > 2.5s.
2) I always edit the post URL — would like for it to either be longer and/or tell us in real-time how many characters we're at
3) Ability to make Offer for X months, such as 50% off for three months. And like someone else wrote, $1 for first month, etc. I've seen where many of my free trials have signed up, read a story, then unsubscribed.
4) Ability to customize Subject Line in email so it's not the same as the headline, thus repetitive when the email is opened.
I believe you can customize the subject line by changing the blurb in the publishing preview menu. I think the emails my subs receive match the copy I manually set for social share!
I believe that's correct. However, if I keep the social headline the same as the story headline, then it's duplicate. And most of the time I do.
Well done Substack! Excellent pat on the back I just read.
But for real, Substack keep posting just commenting on here has gotten me more subscribers than anything else I’ve tried.
Great read. Trying to process all
Awesome work folks. We've benefitted from this. ARR is up 100% since we took part in Substack Grow in June. Thanks again!
Hopefully both Go! & Grow return for 2023.
🫰🫰🫰🔥
David and Team, thank you so much for this update. Anything and everything you can do to help get engaged readers to convert is essential work!
🔥🔥🔥
The Substack team has done a great job helping Coffee Times to drive up subscribers nos and I am deeply appreciative. My publication has gone from unknown to thousands of subscribers in a short time. Keep up the good work guys.
I write about leadership issues. I am building a library on subjects like team building, communication, motivation etc. I think it would help my readers if they could access past articles easily. Might it be possible to organize a library under categories like those just mentioned?
I very much like your business model and what you are doing.
It would be great if a cross-post showed up in the cross-poster's feed.
As it stands, it seems that when someone cross-posts one of my posts (as Chris Ryan recently did for my interview with him → https://decidenothing.substack.com/p/e13-coming-out-and-letting-go-with it goes to their subscribers, but doesn't show up on the feed of posts on their own Substack page... I realize this is as designed, just saying, here's an upvote for somehow including cross-posts as web posts and in the Substack app.
Ah yes I’d like this too
thanks for this and for all the work you're doing to help writers like me get going on Substack. Recommendations, Mentions, and Cross-posting have all helped and been useful so far. Looking to do more of this in the new year. I'll also be posting material from my book in progress—it will be interesting to see how my audience responds to that.
I’m trying to get more recommendations
I'll recommend your ‘Stack next time I post—if I ever get around to writing it. Ugh.…
Thanks man!! 🙏🙏
❤️❤️🔥🔥
Recommendations has been a huge help, thank you Substack!
🫰🫰
Really like writing on Substack and the continuous improvements you guys are throwing at us. Big fan since the day I started my newsletter.