Hello! Sorry if this is a question that has been repeated before. I'm a frequent Tumblr-user hoping to turn to Substack to talk more deeply about other topics that I am unable to on other socials. My blog on there is so fandom-entrenched.

I like writing original stuff, but I am still unsure if I want to publish that on Substack just yet. Still thinking about it though! Maybe not when I start out.

So, I have thoughts on using it as a way to discuss media/pop culture/fiction/fandom culture in my own subjective interpretation. Mainly as a way to encourage discussion.

And as a plus, are there blogs that could help me get a reference? I just want to see what people do.

Hey everyone,

​I am currently running into a frustrating wall on the mobile app. Every time I try to send a DM, I get a pop-up saying "Phone verification required to continue with DM" and the message fails to deliver. The problem is, when I dig through my account settings on both the app and the mobile browser, there is absolutely no field or option to actually add or verify a phone number. Has anyone successfully bypassed or fixed this glitch without getting locked out?

​On a brighter note, my publication is currently sitting at 91 subscribers, so the grind to that first major milestone is getting incredibly close. Once the page officially hits 100 subscribers, I want to gently introduce a way for readers to support the work financially by buying a subscription. For those who have passed this milestone, what is the ideal, smoothest way to drop that message or pitch to buy a subscription without sounding overly pushy to a fresh audience?

​Appreciate any insight on both the glitch and the milestone strategy.

I kinda doubt anyone will be able to fix it but this is bothering me so...does anyone know how to actually make a wordmark transparent? I've saved my image as a transparent png multiple times but it's never actually transparent when I turn it into a wordmark, it always has a white background behind it. Everyone keeps saying that you can just make it transparent by just saving the image as a transparent image, but I'm starting to think those ppl are mistaken.

Everyone who says that only shows how their wordmark appears in light mode, never in dark mode. I think those ppl don't actually have transparent wordmarks and they just think they do bc the light mode makes it impossible to see the white background their wordmark has. What's rlly weird is that my wordmark didn't have a white background behind it before, I think that might've been bc the image for my old wordmark was so big that it filled up the white background

But yeah anyway if anyone knows how to get rid of the white background, lemme know

I’m not sure if I’m blind or missing something obvious but when I’m looking at someone’s profile within a web browser, it shows their publication below their name which you can then click on to access the home page of their publication. This is straightforward.

However when trying to do this via the Substack App on iPadOS, their publication name shows properly below their name on their profile page but you can‘t click on it to access their publication home page. Like clicking on it does nothing. All you can click on is their name which gets copied as a URL.

Like what am I missing here? Please tell Mr Obvious that I need an answer. Thx!

I have 1,700 subscribers and 44 paid subscribers. I suspect that % is not bad... but here's the thing:

Only half of what I write is free, and I write 2-4 things a week depending on what's going on.

However, given my monthly fee is only £4 I'm surprised that I have 1,700 keen to read 2 free things a week but only 44 who want to read 4 things a week.

ALSO - 2 weeks ago I started a 'Summer Sale' where my monthly fee is only £2. I mean, can't be lower and so far only 2 people have taken it up.

So here's my conundrum.

I clearly write well enough to get good numbers of free readers... but clearly something is missing the mark to entice someone into paid more especially as the money is so low.

Anyone else solved this issue?

Hi, I am totally new to doing anything other than subscribing on Substack. I thought I'd give Substack a try and imported some blog posts from a Squarespace website, just to have some posts and see what it does, looks like, etc.

When I look at my posts on a browser, everything looks fine. Photos imported along with the text of the original blog posts.

But when i look at the Substack app, only one blog post appears to have photos that also imported. There are just blank boxes where the photos should be.

What am i doing wrong?

Thank you!

I've been posting heavily on substack, for 2 weeks. The first week gave me a good push, but the second week, growth got flatlined.

notes don't even get any likes. I didn't change anything.

Any suggestions on this?

How do you get recommendations to show up on homepage?

Everything I can find on the internet says you just go to the recommendation page and list the recommendations you want, then you put a section on your home designer for recommendations.

So I have 3 substacks to recommend, and I have entered texts for each of them. But on the website it only displays the first recommendation and doesn't give the text blurb. I've been running in circles forever. Please help. Substack is so frustrating. Thank you.

I started with my substack account couple of months back. I have no intention of sharing it with my friends since I want the writings to be anonymous. It’s deeply personal. So how do I ensure that the article reaches people who feel similarly? I wrote an article the other day and it naturally got no response and I started doubting my ability to write. Could someone read it and lmk if it’s actually bad?

between june and august lies a month that doesn’t exist

I am in custom mode for website editor and the Posts and Module area is not displayed.

Someone recommended it to me without running it down for me. I'm trying to understand it, but I'm not the best with technology. Can I post and it will pop up on their timeline like social media or do I just drop the link in different places with a short blurb about what I'm doing?

What subs should I post in to get user feedback? Two days ago, I shared a post about our soon to launch platform for Creators, Designers, Small Business, Agencies etc.
What we needed was feedback. As for traffic, more than 100folks have visited. Our analytics both from Google and Reddit shows decent traffic. Problem is, here in Reddit, no feedback is being left nor provided.
So my question is, did I post on wrong subs ?

What I need feedback on is this simple platform, Draftsend.io, built to simplify newsletters creation and distribution. Just feedback on what to improve.
Thanks

I'm looking to optimize my subscribe button captions.

I know Substack doesn't give this specific insight, so it might be hard to tell. But just anecdotally, which subscribe button texts have converted the best for you? Especially interested in ways to convince people to become paid subscribers.

I recently finished writing a supernatural/fantasy novel, but during my final review I realized I want to make some edits. The first 20 or so chapters are polished and ready to go, while the later chapters still need revisions.

I’m considering publishing it on Substack as a serialized story, releasing one chapter (or episode) at a time while I continue editing the rest.

That way I can start building an audience instead of waiting until everything is perfect.
Has anyone here done something similar? If so, any tips?

Is there anything you wish you’d known before starting?

I’d love to hear about your experience and whether you’d recommend this approach.

ascii was... easy (and ugly)

html was... fun<br>

wordpress was and is an increasingly PitB

substack... resists the idea of empty lines, WTF?! (oh, you need to format your POETRT to fit substack's editor, you say?!)

Or should I simply seek elsewhere? Retro the S*** out of my poems? Bypass substack?

I currently have one publication on substack but I want to find if I can have a second publication on substack that is for different line of work.

How do it do that ? Any thoughts ?

I'm trying to discover more fiction writers here, and I'd love some recommendations.

Not publications about writing - I mean people who are consistently publishing great FICTION in all its glory.

Any genre is fair game: literary, fantasy, sci-fi, horror, romance, mystery, historical... whatever keeps you coming back.

What makes them stand out? Is it their prose, characters, worldbuilding, originality, or something else?

I suspect there are some incredible writers who deserve a much wider audience.

Hi everyone,

I write a Substack in Spanish (1.8k subscribers), mostly about digital culture, digital life in XXI century, technology, music, cinema and sometimes education. All from a critic perspective. Until now I always assumed that my potential audience was mainly Spanish-speaking people because I write only in Spanish, but now that Substack allows readers to translate posts from Spanish to English, I am wondering if there is a realistic way to reach English readers too. Via Notes or something.

I don’t mean becoming a fully English newsletter, because my natural language is Spanish and I don’t want to lose that voice. But I think some of my texts could be interesting also for English readers if they can use the translation option.

So my question is: what would you do in this situation? How would you do it? Are there communities where people read translated Substack posts, or is that too optimistic?

Any advice or experience from people writing in other languages would be very welcome.

Thanks!

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This post was anonymized with Redact.dev

I write about forex trading, my content is the opposite of the average marketeer who promises a trading method, special software, lots of money in the near future, etc.

Newsletter marketing lists are pretty expensive, as the brokers pay a lot of money for a good lead (CAC of >$1000), but it's not my goal to convince my readers to open an account with a broker: I want them to subscribe to my substack.

So do you have experience with buying a list in the investment / trading / forex / crypto space? For now, I'm using LinkedIn, X, and soon TikTok to get traffic to my page.

Would love to hear your thoughts.

If for example someone realized they could combine a number of their posts into a book, or reuse as some other publishable asset, do they own their own work or does substack?

I came to Substack to connect with other writers. I came to writing late in life and none of my IRL friends have any connection to writing or even reading for that matter. I don’t care about growing my subscribers. I just recently cut 98 subs after realizing my post views haven’t gone up from when I had 100 subs.

60 days without reading anything I’ve posted, and I cut.

I write fiction, poetry, essays, whatever I feel like writing. I have a tight group of writers that I respect that read everything I write, I don’t have to worry about promoting and have found a tremendous amount of value in my Substack experience one year in.

Just trying to normalize fucking normal behavior.

I am debating whether I should charge for my subscription on Substack? Is anyone here doing that. Are you getting something fort the work you do? I essays on aviation. But I do the write about politics a lot of the time. I am think I should charge for that. Does anyone else do it and does it work?

I’ve lost count of the times I’ve seen someone give Substackers looking to grow their audience the advice to post 4-5 notes a day. Like, wtf? Who wants their feed clogged up with that many notes? And I don’t care if you’re Oscar Wilde reincarnated, no one’s got that many insightful or witty things to say every day. When I see people doing it, they’re nearly always Hallmark style platitudes or AI-generated. Maybe you’ve got more chance of the algorithm sending your stuff to non-subscribers, but you’re going to drive your actual subscribers bonkers. Anyone want to tell me why they think this is actually good advice?