Your Substack Is So Much More Than Just a Newsletter
It's not bad to remind your readers of that
Three quick things:
Welcome, to Substack! He’ll be sharing his immense wisdom and writing—“wordcraft and worldcraft.” Yet another opportunity to learn from the best. A must-subscribe.
Warning: There are a whole lot of people out there teaching writing, many without the chops to be doing so. Go to the master teachers on here. There are others, of course, but here are four:
Junot Díaz for fiction,
- for the short story,
- for memoir, and
- for nonfiction and all things creativity.
If you benefit from Writers at Work, it’s fair to pay for what you receive. An annual subscription allows me to continue to bring you the best guidance based on advice from Substack so you can have agency over your career.
Onward!
More than just a newsletter
Substack is amazing on so many levels. It’s so much more than just a newsletter. It gives us our own personal media outlet. We get to write, publish, send our work to our readers, and earn an income doing so—all without being at the mercy of gatekeepers, advertisers, and Zuckerbergian algorithms.
So many Substack writers are creating multi-dimensional magazine-ish offerings for entire communities of subscribers. But subscribers may not know that. As more readers come to Substack, many (or all) won’t know what Substack is or that being a subscriber means having access to an archive, resources, and other like-minded readers.
When we post, we do so with our whole Substacks in mind; our subscribers don’t read us that way. They get us in dribs and drabs. Our posts arrive as emails in their inboxes between an unpleasant reprimand from their boss and an advertisement for a sale on denim at the Gap.
Remind them they’re part of something
An easy way to remind them they’re not just the recipient of a newsletter is to make them aware of the vast library of posts we’ve written for them. When loneliness sets in on a rainy Sunday morning, we’re here. A lot of them will miss posts or have joined your email list months or years after a post was published.
This is different from the ‘Related posts’ and a hyperlinked list. It’s a gift, i.e., I dug into the archive and got you these because I knew you’d want them for _______ reason. Maybe it relates to something in the news or something you’ve seen in the comments or on Notes. Or just something you don’t want them to miss out on. Two very special posts.
In a post, recommend two of the best posts in your archive.
Don’t go overboard; only send two. Two is a choice; three is a menu.
Yes, you should revise them. We aren’t churning out schlock on here; we’re taking every opportunity to become better writers. Going back to older posts will give you the distance you need to truly revise.
Send your subscribers something special. Don’t send the ones that are “Top” on your homepage. Those posts are there for everyone to see. Dig into your archive.
Tell them why you’re sending each one.
Remind them that the comments are always open, assuming you know how to use the comments well.
Don’t link only to paid posts. That’s manipulative and creepy.
Don’t link only to free posts because, well, a writer’s gotta eat.
Do it twice a year at most.
Don’t just hyperlink text. (See below for an illustration of what I mean.) Copy the URL of the post you’re linking to and paste it on your new post. It will create an image. You can adjust the size (large, medium, small) by hovering over the upper-righthand corner. It’s maddeningly hard to catch the three lines that give you the option to size the image, but, well, Substack’s tech is ever-evolving.
Appreciate your work when you do this. So many of us toil away on here only to feel like a post goes out and… We’re creating an archive and it’s nice to be reminded of that.
A model for you to use
Below, I give you a model for how this post might look.
The title is A Gift for You: Two ways to sharpen your writing and become a better storyteller. The original title was Two Must-Reads from Writers at Work, but that’s asking them to do something for me, i.e., read. We want this to be for them.
A Gift for You
Two ways to sharpen your writing and become a better storyteller
Today, I bring you two posts that will sharpen your writing style and storytelling acumen.
Writers at Work is much more than just a newsletter; it’s a community and a hub where you can dip into the archives to sharpen your Substack and your writing.
These two posts will help you
1. Sharpen your writing style
Here. We. Go. These nine tips are my gift to you—based on twenty years of being a freelance writer at The New York Times and elsewhere, fifteen years teaching in some of the best creative writing MFA programs, and (yes) a year spent copyediting my memoir Pathological even though it came out from a big-five publisher (yup, to get it perfect, you have to do it yourself).
2. Become a better storyteller
This post gives you three tips on how to write any narrative on Substack—short story, narrative essay, serial novel. The advice comes from one of the best storytellers of all time: Charles Dickens.
The comments are always open if you want to share your thoughts and wisdom with us. If not, just enjoy!
I’m so glad you’re here,
Sarah
(Note: These aren’t just throwaway examples; they’re two of the most helpful posts to be found in the W@W archive, folks. I originally wanted to send three posts, but as I say, less done better is more.)
Play with this. As with all my guidance, especially when I meet with writers to help them grow their Substacks, I bring it to you with the caveat that the only thing that leads to success on Substack is that you be wholly yourself on here and produce great writing that goes deeply into a topic.
Meanwhile, appreciate your subscribers and all your hard work, sharpen your writing style, become a better storyteller, go forth, and do your best writing.
If your Substack isn't growing or you're unsure how to leverage its potential, it's time to get guidance from the leading Substack Growth Strategist who's guided thousands of writers and creators to success—choose between my Single Substack Strategy Intensive or Strategic Substack Growth Package.
“Two is a choice; three is a menu.” Definitely writing that line down. Your work here is so helpful. We get enough feely writer stuff from the folks at Substack. I love that you mean business about exactly HOW to implement a variety of things.
Thanks for this and all you do. I appreciated the tactical nature of this post and the show and tell of it!! 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻
Question: I’m wrestling with the fact that I don’t seem to be able to embed my substack on my website. I have a larger ecosystem there than substack alone can handle. I want to use both... I don’t want people on my site to not see stuff that’s here and I don’t want to duplicate every single post. (Unfortunately I’m already doing that w my podcast which substack won’t allow me to simply automate here without stopping my main current hosting platform, Captivate, which has the bells and whistles I need).
Thanks for any thoughts you might have!