Using Substack
How do I read these posts of yours then?
When I announced I was moving my blogging endeavours to Substack I got a few different reactions. Some of you were already using Substack and kindly expressed pleasure at seeing me here and welcomed me to the platform. Some of you came along to check it out and join up (bless you all) and some of you were understandably confused about what the heck this Substack thing even was.
Well if you are one of those in the dark, I’m going to attempt to shed a little light based on what I know, so far…
When I first stumbled across Substack it was described as ‘Wordpress meets Mail chimp’ and that’s what intrigued me. I wanted to get back into writing blog posts again, but Blogger was no longer sending out posts by email making it hard for anyone to receive my efforts. It’s also incredibly difficult to comment on Blogger these days, so I would have no real way of knowing if anyone was out there at all. I had effectively been cut off from those of you I had formed connections with and any real way of making new ones.
So Substack is a way for me to hopefully re-connect.
So how does it work?
Substack allows me to have a ‘publication’, basically a place on the web that people can visit, like a blog, where you can read my ‘newsletters’ (like blog posts). My ‘publication’ is also called Cherry Heart and I write these Cherry Heart newsletters using my ‘profile’ called Sandra Paul.
If you choose to ‘subscribe’, you will join my subscriber list and Substack will send my newsletters (posts) to you via email. Just like the hey day of Blogging.
If you would like to write a comment1, Substack will also ask you to create a ‘profile’ with a few basic details, just as we often created a profile in Blogger or Wordpress to streamline commenting on various blogs back then too. It means I get to recognise people who comment and builds those connections I want, plus it’s a crucial step in helping to avoid the avalanche of spam that is such a problem on Blogger.
Personally I love it because it’s the closest thing I’ve found to that old blogging community. A place where you can curate a lovely list of newsletters you enjoy reading, you can easily comment on their posts and share things you’ve enjoyed.
So that’s the basics. What else do you need to know?
Under the bonnet
This is all lovely, but of course Substack don’t do this purely out of the kindness of their heart, because that’s not how business works. There is more to it, of course.
Writers on Substack also have the choice to invite people to become paid subscribers. Then they can choose how much of their work is available for free and how much they would like to share just with the supporters who pay them. Substack then takes a percentage of this subscription fee.
Not everyone who has a publication on Substack chooses to use paid subscriptions, but some do. You don’t have to pay for subscriptions if you don’t want to. You can choose to only subscribe to free publications, or to free newsletters from publications that create a mix of free and paid content. Or you may find publications you want to pay for.
Again, this is great for me as I do not currently intend to charge for my writing, but I do not wish to pay to be able to do it either, as I would need to with many existing blogging platforms. This model allows Substack to let me do what I’m doing here and share it with you for free. (So far! 🤞)
There’s an app for that…
Of course, there is a Substack app.2 I don’t know if you ever had a blog reader, or RSS aggregator (like Feedly, Bloglovin’ etc) for reading blogs, but this is a similar way of accessing and reading all the newsletters ('posts' in the app) from Substack publications that you subscribe to. There is an ‘inbox’ where any new newsletters will collect up and you can easily comment on them from there too.
I’m not a big fan of cluttering up my phone with endless apps, but I do have this one. I don’t use email on my phone, so I generally prefer to use the app to read new posts. It’s nice to catch up on a Sunday morning over coffee.
The headlines so far…
I hope this has all made sense so far and has been a good starting point if you wanted to give reading on Substack a whirl. Here’s a summery of the options for reading my posts on Substack…
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You can visit my publication and read my existing newsletters/posts there at any time without the need to sign up to anything, but you’ll need to check back periodically to see if there is anything new.
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Or, you can choose to visit once to subscribe and then get all my new newsletters/posts delivered directly to your email address.
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Or you could even, subscribe and download the app and read all my new newsletters/posts and comment directly from there.
If you want to know more about using the app, keep reading. Otherwise you might want to cut to ‘finding your people on Substack’…
More about the app…
From what I can glean from my time there, it seems that Substack has undergone quite a few changes in recent years and seems to be set to continue to do so. A big example of this seems to be the addition of Substack’s attempt at social media, which is found in the app.
It seems to consist of the ability to merely ‘follow’ someone (a profile), and something called ‘notes’.
These ‘notes’ are found on the ‘home’ tab and are much more like social media posts. They are usually shorter pieces of text, pictures or where people share quotes from newsletters/posts they have read, or share (re-stack) links to entire newsletters they have enjoyed. It can be a good way to find new newsletters to read and for people to spread word about your publication.
This ‘home’ tab is much more akin to a ‘discover’ style tab. There are sections along the top where you can refine what is shown to you. ‘home’ shows you notes that Substack thinks you might like, ‘following’ only notes from those people you choose to ‘follow’ (more on this in a moment) and there are also sections for ‘culture’ ‘sport’, ‘politics’ and so on. Like anything of this nature you can come across all sorts of things here, some that appeal, some that decidedly do not.
I found it useful in the beginning when I was looking for interesting things to read, but as you also inevitably end up seeing things you'd rather not see, and by this time I've curated a good list of subscriptions I enjoy, so I have less use for it. Sometimes I do still dip into the notes from people I follow, as I am more likely to find things of mutual interest there.
The good news is, this area is easy to avoid if it doesn't appeal to you. You can adjust the app settings so it will always open on the 'inbox' tab, and then just avoid the 'home/notes' tab.
Back to following…
As I mentioned, in the app you are given the option to ‘follow’ a profile. This is different from ‘subscribing’ to their publication.
When you subscribe to someone (or to a publication) you are agreeing to receive their newsletter/posts by email (or in the app). But you will also automatically become a follower, which means you will see their ‘notes’ in your ‘home/following’ tab as well.
When you follow someone you will only see their notes, but you don’t automatically become a subscriber so you won’t receive their newsletter/posts by email.3
I suppose following is intended to be a more casual ‘getting to know you’ type of relationship, if you later decide you like the cut of their jib, you can then commit to subscribing.
I’m sorry if I’m labouring this point, but I found it confused the heck out of me when I first was trying to get my head around the place, so thought maybe it was worth making clear!
Now, that's done, let’s find you something else to read...
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| Using the Substack app |
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| My Sandra Paul 'profile' page and Cherry Heart 'publication' page - in the app |
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| Finding the 'profile' page and 'home' tabs on a browser |
Finding your people on Substack
One of the tricky things when you join one of these types of platforms can be finding things you are interested in, ‘your people’ as they say. Something I’ve enjoyed about Substack so far is how straight forward I found this to do. It’s also much easier from the app, but it’s not impossible without it. Here’s some things to try:
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If you are on the app, venture into the ‘home’ tab and have a look around (It’s here if you are on a browser). It can be a bit hit & miss but use the search function to look for some key terms and you should find at least a couple of things to get you on the right track. I also browsed the ‘art’ & ‘culture’ tabs, which were about the closest categories to craft and creativity that I could find.
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Have a look at the publications or ‘reads’ on other people’s profiles. Check out mine if you like. If you’ve found someone you have something in common with, they might read things you may be interested in too.
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When you do decide to subscribe to a publication you will often be given a list of recommendations of other potential publications to subscribe to or people to follow. This is useful as the list created by whoever runs the publication, not by an algorithm. Have a look at the summaries for each one and see if any appeal to you. (Untick any that don’t.)
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Once you have subscribed to a few publications, looked at their recommendations and ‘reads’ you could start checking out their notes in the home/following tab. People often re-stack (share) thing they have read and liked and you can often find at least an interesting read, and maybe a new subscription that way.
- As you are highly likely to be looking for crafty type content of the sort I enjoy, I can also recommend visiting Kathryn Vercillo's publication and having a good root around in her Threadstack Directory. She's compiling a list of creative newsletters covering knit/crochet/sewing/embroidery/spinning and similar topics. Talk about the perfect starting point!
Well I do hope that has been useful! I’ll open the comments for this post for a little while, in case you do have any questions and I’ll answer below. Remember you’ll need to check back here to see my replies though.
S x
Or when you subscribe.
You’ll need a profile to use this too.
Although to add to the confusion, they may decide to post a ‘note’ sharing their ‘newsletter’, which you could end up clicking on and reading anyway.
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Thanks so much for your message, it’s so appreciated!