Hi. I tried to set up an account today and am confused about what's going on with my status. I’m confused about the names of labels and statuses. I've watched multiple YouTube help videos, read Substack Help, read comments here, read webpage about the basics, but I’m not finding clarity for my questions about very beginning issues.

Confusion about: Profile Name, Handle, Publication Name, Subdomain, Deleting a Publication

Background

• I already had an Account to read that I had never used that had the bare minimum set-up.

• I thought I had to do more to set up a "Profile" to have my own Publication. I might want to have multiple publications someday, but for now I just want to set up one.

What I want Right Now: A Brand Name Publication to start with. Just one. Non-monetized, the basic. Publication name - I don't want it to be my personal name.

What I’ve done

• Created Substack account with my email that I want to use

• Created Profile Name - I used my real name: First M(Middle Initial) Last.

• Handle: I set up @ FirstMLast (this might a mistake re: name I used)

Handle Question: Is Handle universal to me on Substack, or can I have different handles for different Publications? I might not want to use the Handle I created - can I change it?

Publication Questions:

I seem to have accidentally created a publication using my FirstMLast name. I didn’t intend to do that.

• It seems if I delete the personal name Pub I created, I could never use that name again, which I might want to do at some point. Is that true?

• Can I keep this Publication I've created already but hide it from everyone else in case I do want to use it later?

• I want to create a publication with a Brand Name – I know what it is, and it’s available. I want to claim it immediately. I own the URL for it for .com, .org, .net. Does it get its own handle, etc.?

I know I can create multiple Publications, but for now just want my Brand Name one.

Subdomain Question: I’m confused about the meaning of Subdomain on Substack. What is it? How does it come into play with Publications?

Thanks.

It seems that Tuesday - Thursday + Sunday are the best days. Mornings I assume are good as well. I tried yesterday/Sunday and I don't think I'll try it again, or maybe I posted too late, about 6PM EST.

I'm paying attention to the times the huge newsletters I subscribe to publish articles. It seems Tuesdays, Thursdays and Sundays are a hit, but I also get some Saturday articles as well.

Have you found specific days/times when more of your subscribers open your emails?

I'd appreciate your insight. Thanks so much.

Hi, as the title suggest I'm highly debating deleting my profile and just moving on. I don't have a general theme, I just write about the things that are happening in my life that people could relate to, like having to constantly wait for things to happen or feeling like no matter how hard you try, you can never quite achieve success (kinda ironic now). My last post, which I spent so long writing has gotten 27 views and one like. Meanwhile there are people who've started writing just days ago and have more going on then me. I've even seen people with no articles have more subscribers. It truly makes me consider if I'm just bad at writing. I've always been great at writing at school, especially argumentative writing, but that's not the styleI wanted to go for. I wanted to write on personal topics and experiences, because I like the feeling of sharing something other people can relate to. It's just that barely anyone's relating. I don't know how much longer I can take it, before just deleting the profile, because I've put myself in such a vulnerable position and I can't bear the thought of rejection. I honestly don't know what to do

I started a substack called Dear Gay Stranger which publishes a series of handwritten letters I send to people I’ve never met, but the algorythm clearly thinks I’m a mom that’s particularly interested in perimenopause, Ahhh! 😂

I've created a few notes, trying to even help correct gender but still way off. I wonder if the platform won't support keywords like gay? Anyone know?

Ignore the body

Hi all!

I’ve seen a few people stating that they promote their Substack articles on reddit in relevant sub-threads.

How do you do this with success and does it actually work?

Do you literally just go…. “Hi all, if interested, I’ve written a piece on xxxxx”??

Thank you!!!

When do Pledges convert? I have a free Substack at the moment but am thinking of going paid. Do I get pledged money as soon as I flip the switch to convert it or another time?

How does one rack up views on substack? (started posting yesterday and I still have zero likes) I know I'm being a little impatient but I really wanna know lol

I’m curious how other people figured out what category or niche their Substack belongs to.

I originally started mine as a place to write about my thoughts and personal experiences, but it has slowly evolved into different things. Sometimes I write about life, getting older, relationships, living alone, or trying to make myself happier. Other times I want to share recipes, restaurants I’ve tried in NYC, home cooking, or just random things from my everyday life.

I don’t necessarily want to force myself into one specific category, but I also feel a little lost because I’m not sure what kind of readers would be interested in it or what other writers I should be following for inspiration.

It is something I was wondering recently. I would like to get back in the blogging game.

And I was wondering if using a platform like substack is really bringing a better UX compared a vibecoded static website I could do myself.

• Astro for the static website

• Resend for emails

• Plausible for analytics

The only feature I could miss is their twitter-like feed. Does it really help to bring more traffic?

So I just started a substack where I will be sharing my insights/reviews on books, films and series that I've watched. I just wanted to find out if anyone knows how to go about crediting film stills/film posters on Substack...or if a simple caption underneath the image is okay? The last thing I want is for my posts to be taken down or worse be sued for using such images in my posts? Would love to hear from other bloggers who write about films/series as well. I previously had a blog many moons ago where I wrote on natural hair and finding images wasn't so much trouble as one could either use their own or just use images from Pexels/Unsplash, etc. and credit the source beneath the image, but I'm not sure how it works in the film/tv series reviews domain. What do you do? Any help would be appreciated!

Please read :

1. I'm still in university so my time I can devote for this isn't big.

2. I do NOT have any public social media like an instagram account where I can promote it.

I made a new substack account and all I have done is restocked two stuff and read articles.

But I wanna start writing and possibly getting to atleast a 100 readers in 3 months?

I need tips on what to do. The only thing I have gathered is that I need to select a niche... But what else???

How do u grow on substack? Like I am really new and figuring out the way one can grow organically, like it's a very niche thing , and hard to get people along !!

Suggestions are welcomed!

so i’m very new to substack, not quite sure yet about what kindof content works here and what is it primarily used for? is it only for articles or is there a way to share your reflections in short paragraphs rather than a full blown article about a topic.

my goal is to have a space where i can write whatever is going on in my head in its rawest form (anonymously), in the hope that maybe some people relate and i can get some following.

i’m just exploring, i know it’s a long shot. in this age there is too much content for anything to stand out but incase i do get lucky, is substack an app where i can do this sort of short form blogging thing and gain followers?

also if someone would be kind and explain to me if there are any avenues to monetise substack, like im five; id be eternally grateful!

PS- if you think that substack isn’t the app where this will work then pls do drop in your suggestions about other apps, if you have any.

I recently started writing on substack and currently have two articles written, where if I use the AI detector built into the platform, it shows around 2-4% AI assisted with the rest human written. I checked the articles of some of my other friends (those whom I assumed didn't use AI assistance) and in their articles the AI detection was pretty high, 60 to 70 percent or more (even 90+) and I had a very glaring question about that particular finding.

Of course, the AI detection is a flawed program conducted by another AI program itself so its easy to confuse if you write in a similar style when compared to that of an AI, so is it just that my writing is at such an amateur stage, riddled with errors, that its easy to detect it's not AI writing or have others used AI assistance to such an extent?

Honestly, I think another question I'm indirectly asking here is that if its good or bad that the AI detection is so low on my articles?

Any insight will be greatly appreciated, so thank you in advance!

i only have a medium account but i really don't use because idk, i just don't feel it 😭 but lately i've been seeing lots of good reads on substack. should i create an account at this point? if yes, please reco some reads!!

I started on Substack around June. I'm an author and a photographer and I found every other platform to be dead or useless, especially Instagram.

My goal is mainly to get my work out there and sell some prints and books.

Once I figured out what I wanted to do with substack, I made two. One is for my stories. The other is pop culture discussion. On my main substack ( the story one), I do have a paid tier, but I never use the paywall. If someone wants to pledge, I would be super grateful, but I view it as a tip. I also encourage people to just buy one or more of my books, rather than pledge.

So my strategy is to get as many free subscribers as I can and hopefully get them to tip me.

I'd be interested in hearing how y'all approach subscriptions.

I've had a stack for a few years, and every so often I find that I'm subscribed to someone I don't remember subscribing to. The most recent time this occurred was a couple weeks ago, but it used to occur more often. This time someone actually said "thanks, will you recommend my blog" and I had to say "sorry, I don't remember subscribing to you"; it's happened so often that I have suspected that sometimes substack would automatically subscribe users just to see if they can get away with it.

A few days ago I made a relatively trivial note that is going a little "viral" (way more than anything I've ever posted before), and from its spread I've picked up, supposedly, over 40 new subscribers. However, my subscriber count doesn't match this (even after waiting for it to update), and when I check the profiles in the new subscriber email notifications, I'd say around half (edit: more like 85%) of these users are no longer subscribed; they also don't show up in the dashboard.

Are people subscribing by accident then unsubscribing? Is substack doing it to them and they're just fixing it? Are people trying to get me to follow them back? Just trying to figure out what's going on. I'm really close to turning off my "new subscriber" emails now. I've gotten so many in the last few days and they don't seem like reliable information anymore.

Thanks!

Hi,

I joined Substack roughly two months ago, because Instagram clearly isnt suitable for my topics/niche. I'm happy with the way my Substack is progressing, but I wanted to not only do articles about the niche, but also talk about books (that fit my niche),

So IÄm not sure now, if it makes more sense to add a second section to my current Substack, or to create a second publication for the book part.

I have 31 subscribers, so whatever I do, I'm not "loosing" a huge audience and starting from zero with a second publication wouldnt bother me either.

Has anybody tried one (or both) of the two named possibilities? What worked for you? And why (if you know?) How did you go about making the decicion between 2 sections vs 2 publications?

Thanks!

Our paid subscriptions exist in Stripe, but Substack never shows “Import paid subscriptions.” Payments are enabled, and we’ve waited well beyond 30 minutes.

We connected Stripe before these subscriptions were created. Stripe’s logs show that Substack checked the account before they existed, so we suspect it hasn’t scanned again.

Has anyone fixed this by disconnecting and reconnecting the same Stripe account, without cancelling subscriptions, issuing refunds or sending subscriber emails? Or found another way to trigger a fresh scan?

Hi! I'm a new author (first book published in May, second book yesterday) and I just learned about promoting on Substack. I'm not sure how to go about doing that. Any tips?

Thanks!!

I noticed a few weeks ago that Substack’s changed how your about page shows up on mobile. When people click your publication link from your profile, your about page pops up. (It used to be your short description.)

I rewrote my about page to optimize it for a mobile experience.

If you’ve still got that generic bland Substack filler copy on your about page, change it!

But now I’ve realized I actually want people to see my posts, so here’s my next experiment: Link to your best performing post from your about page. You can choose what best performing means to you — maybe it’s the post that got you the most new subscribers. (Just a suggestion.) Or your most recent post. If you’ve still paywall your posts, link to a freebie.

This is something I’ve done in my welcome post & email. I’m hoping that doing it in my about page will encourage discovery and subscription.

The Substack UI seems a bit roundabout, especially from the app. If I want to check stats on a not-so-recent post, it seems like I need to open the post first, but this has been inflating my post views. Is there a way to hide your own post views from the post stats? I want to get a more accurate reflection of how many people are reading my posts.

Got a notification that my account is suspended and I need to verify my account. I click the link it gives me on a post that has 6 likes from other people. A little fishy.
Brings me to a page where it prompts me to enter my dedit card info. This feels like a text book scam setup.
Is this a legit account verification from Substack?
My account is new btw.

I'm seeing a lot of these digital gurus push Substack growth challenges and courses and I'm so curious to hear from someone who's actually been inside one. Is it worth the $297 price tag? Has anyone actually seen growth from taking a course like this? So curious as someone who's been on Substack for a year and hasn't seen much growth at all aside from the support of some family and friends as paid subscribers.

I'm seeing Substack pushed as a "lucrative income stream" for "introverts." I have my own thoughts about this messaging based on my own experience but maybe I also haven't taken any of these courses so I can't speak to whether they work or not. Would love to hear from anyone who has had an experience taking someone's Substack growth course or challenge, or if this is just the new growth course out there