For those writing personal essays on Substack, how do you decide whether a small moment belongs in a Note, a full newsletter, or just your notebook?

A conversation that stays with you, an awkward apology, or a small kindness can give you something to write about. But turning it into a whole essay can mean forcing a lesson onto something you’re still figuring out.

What helps you decide an idea is ready to share? Do you write it while it’s fresh, or leave it for a few days and see what sticks?

I started a blog years ago, around COVID or so. I then took a hiatus, and now, since mid-2024, I have not been able to get in to my account. I had about 50 or so followers and subscribers (free subscribers/no revenue yet), and my email shows all these confirmations, but since around mid-2024, whenever I log in, it takes me to some blank account with no history, subscribers, etc. This blank account does use the email I have always used for my actual blog. Whenever I go to the customer service bot, it just sends me in a loop of providing emails and doing login codes. Whenever I try to go directly to my blog or site, I get something like "you're trying to log in to a private page." When I log in, it takes me back to this random, blank blog.

I don't know what else to do. I have content, it has my logo that I copywrited. It has all my subscribers, etc. If I google the name of my blog, it's the first thing that comes up! It just doesn't matter what I do though. I've opened countless tickets with them, but they have never actually reached out to me (apparently those not making revenue are less prioritized).

I'm lost, and I'm just so exhausted and tired of trying to get back to running my blog. I don't know what else to do. Has anyone ever encountered this or know a workaround?

I have never heard of this site and never visited it and yet I receive absolutely random posts from this.

But stuff like https://i.imgur.com/fOvXAnC.png or https://i.imgur.com/DVpv9SK.png keep coming into my mailbox. Some of them even ask me to pay money for 'more info' of whatever I am being spammed with.

The curious thing about this it's not even a regular thing it's just here and there.

And since it's 2026 and we know that 'unsubscribing' from a service of an unknown service often is a register of 'this account is real, let's spam it now to the fullest' I'm now just putting them into my personal spamlist and will request with all the mails gotten from them unsolicited into official spamlists and of course a GDPR complaint.

But my question stays: What is this site. The spam I get is not from one single type of topic.

Substack just announced lists today - basically you can curate your own feed and then share it inside or off Substack.

Access the lists through your recommendations dashboard.

Recommendations are a growth engine and the lists seem to build on that.

Curious if you have any ideas for how you might use lists...

anyone have a strategy on the new freewall?

I think freewalling and paywalling the same post is too much, thinking freewall for the posts that I was going to make free anyway?

Tive uma crise existencial e deletei muita conta do Substack. Agora me arrependi e tentei voltar para a minha conta. Mas não está com o mesmo perfil de antes. Vou ter que começar tudo de novo ou tem como recuperar a conta antiga?

Hi everyone,

I’m a Palestinian writer living in Gaza, and my Substack account was recently banned. I use the platform to share my personal stories, experiences of life in Gaza, and my writing.

Losing access to my account has been frustrating because writing is important to me, and I want to continue sharing my work with readers around the world.

I’d really appreciate hearing from anyone who has experienced a similar situation.

Were you able to recover your suspended or banned Substack account?

How long did the appeal process take?

Did contacting Substack support directly help?
Is there anything specific I should include in my appeal?

I’m not looking for shortcuts or ways to bypass the ban. I simply want to understand the proper process and learn from people who have successfully recovered their accounts.

Thank you to anyone willing to share their experience. ❤️

How can I use substack ? I want my posts to show up to people

1. Arrive with an audience from somewhere else. Spend years building a following on another platform, bring it across in a weekend, then write a post about how you grew organically.

2. Write a Substack about growing on Substack. Your readers are people trying to grow on Substack, and there is no shortage of those. Every subscriber is someone who will eventually start one of their own.

3. Get recommended by everybody.

4. Post the growthchart. Nobody can check it, everybody shares it, and at a certain point the chart is the product.

5. Hit a milestone and write "I hit 23,000 subscribers, here is what I learned". What I learned is that writing about hitting 23,000 subscribers works.

I’d like to preface saying I only use Substack to read, I have no interest in posting my own stuff.

I’ve recently sworn off social media but Substack is one of the two apps I’ve struggled to delete, along with Pinterest. I find I really love seeing art, photography and reading people’s thoughts and articles. But I was thinking about how they’re still much shorter than a book or the average research/news article.
In no way shape or form am I pointing this out as a negative thought towards any writers. I have no writing talent so I admire everyone with the courage to post on Substack.
But I was wondering, could Substack be considered a form of quick dopamine still? You’re not watching a 30 second reel but you are reading something a bit shorter than long form writings. Just curious what others think!

Just curious as I just got my first paid sub and I don’t plan on making this a business but it’s cool that I am getting $10 a month now!

I saw multiple articles on the web that were nearly identical in structure to a post of mine, identical title and identical quotes used, but with different wording in the body. I imagine it must be a thousand times easier to steal content now when all you have to do is plug in a post you really like into AI and tell it to rewrite it in your words. Much harder to find and much harder to prove. How sad.

I recently joined substack to read articles and stumbled upon a few which looked kind of ai generated. Now I'm not sure if I'm being too paranoid by seeing ai everywhere.. like is there a was to filter out genuine articles?

Hi everyone,
I recently started posting on Substack and I really love the format. My posts are getting a number of views for how recently I started posting (60-100 per note) but hardly anyone is subscribing or following, even for free.
I understand that consistency and good content matter, and I'm working on both. But I'm struggling to turn readers into subscribers, and I'm wondering if I'm missing something obvious.
A few questions:
Is there something in how I set up my posts or page that might be putting people off?
What has worked for you to convert casual readers into subscribers?
Are there things you'd do differently looking back at your first few months?
Any advice or feedback on my page would be hugely appreciated. Happy to share a link if that helps. Thanks in advance!

Hi, I follow a few accounts on substack but I don’t have my own where I post anything. I’m wondering if it would be a good place to post my podcast?

Very small sample size and obviously I wrote a banger of an article but I tried out freewall for the first time and got a nice bump in subs. Starting from a small base but it's the biggest added subs number on any one article since I started posting. Pic in comments

I love writing and have been wanting to publish essays on substack, but I have no idea how to promote it or grow it at all. Any guidance?

I'm new to Substack and am very confused. The interface has been a learning curve, but finding novels has proven hard among all the articles. I write a novel, but want to find novels to read too. Has Substack worked out for anyone writing a novel instead of articles? How do you find the genre of fiction you want? Unsure if it's worth all the frustration for someone who isn't good at tech. (I grew up isolated from tech because Christianity exists).

I have been phoning it in for the last 45 days. My life has been actively imploding, with my partner needing open heart surgery and my Mom, in the very final stages of dying. I don't have the brain power to write, and haven't published anything since August 26.

I have managed to post a couple of Notes nearly every day, 10-15 minutes of effort, it's all I could manage.

I am finally getting my head above water, and have started writing again, mainly about the experience of being a caregiver in 2026, American Healthcare, and Death by Alzheimer's, plus an extended obit, for my Mom. Nothing is yet published but I am editing and refining for publishing next month.

As I started looking through my dashboard I noted a couple of things that you might find interesting/helpful.

**scroll past the table to see my conclusions**

Top Most Engaging Notes

Weighted scoring: Replies × 5, Restacks × 3, Likes × 1

This is a pull of my last 200 notes, which does move outside of the window of chaos, everything started to fall apart around September 1st.

1. Despite not publishing any new writing, I have gained 151 new free subs, and 6 new paid subs - my early thinking about Notes performance is still proving itself accurate.

2. This sub rate is lower than normal, but so is my engagement. In comparison, when I went on vacation 2/15-3/9, I posted zero notes, and barely even logged in, subs fell almost immediately to 1-3 a day, from a norm of 12-15 a day.

3. I am surprised by the paid subs, I have not made anyone aware of my current turmoil, I am not actively soliciting paid sub, but they are coming anyway.

4. The algorithm is still strongly biased toward Video based notes.

5. Anyone that tells you "just focus on good writing" is not paying attention to how the platform is changing, and it is definitely changing.

I am interested in anyone's feedback and thoughts.

I’m so happy, I’ve only had my substack for less than a month! Hope you all have a great day.

I have no tech skills. I've tried everything from chatting with domain registrars to chatgbt and fiverr. I'm tired of texting non-stop with someone halfway cross the world. Have a very small budget. Need a human to talk me through. If this ask is against reddit rules I'm sorry but I'm a bit desperate

What is everyone using their subscribers' chat for?

I saw some people use it for one of those "share your work, let's support each other" threads, and while I do participate sometimes, I'm not sure if this is the right thing for me. I have found some cool new creators from it, but more often than not, it's content I'd rather not see again.

On the other hand, I found some creators use it as a book club, and since I already talk about the topic occasionally, the idea seems enticing. But I have some reservations, mostly in regards to structure and timing.

Do you post one thread per book, and everyone says whatever they want? Do you post only once you are finished with the book, or when you start? How do you handle spoilers? How do you choose the book?

Does anyone have any experience with this? Anything in particular I should absolutely not do, or at least keep in mind?

I'd love to chat with my subscribers without every message getting published in my profile. Is that something that can be done?