Everything You Need to Know About Substack in January 2025
Our new feature…
Each month, I share everything you need to know about Substack, so you don’t have to think about the platform and can focus on writing and creating your amazing Substack.
Your January 2025 Substack Update:
What’s New on Substack
What’s Most Confusing (a.k.a. Substack explained…)
What’s Coming on Substack
What’s Changed
What to Pay Attention To
What Substack Is Paying Attention To
+ Your Viral Notes Report (what is and isn’t getting traction on Notes)
All subscribers get the first bit (what’s new); paid members get absolutely everything. Go all-in on your Substack in 2025 but not with silly tricks and scams. Join a community of amazing people going all in on their Substacks too. Have fun. Be real. Get expert help doing what you love on Substack.
What’s New on Substack
Read-aloud voices!!!!!!
I would never normally unleash six exclamation points, but we have read-aloud choices, my friends. Read-aloud choices.
If you love audio the way I do and your favorite Substack writer refuses to record the audio of their posts, you no longer have to suffer through Substack’s AI voiceover of yore. You get to select your AI voice of choice.
I love Oliver. That description (direct, neutral tone) doesn’t do him justice. He’s dignified but not at all stuffy, smart without being pretentious, and a cool guy I might want to hang out with. My rankings: Oliver, Taylor, Stewart, end stop. Cora, Victoria, and Casey (who despite her digital youth isn’t particularly punchy) sound like robots pretending to be humans pretending to be robots pretending to be humans.
Having great read-aloud voices puts Substack up there with The New York Times, whose AI voice is second only to The New Yorker’s.1
To select your Substack read-aloud voice, go to Dashboard > Settings > Branding (it’s the last one). Some Substacks seem not to have the option; I have no idea why.
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Being a top-5 Substack might actually matter now:
The Leaderboard of the top Substacks appears on Notes now, so it could lead to more discoverability to be in the top five or so of each category.
(Top Substacks = most subscribers + most paid subscribers + most engagement +/- accelerated growth, supposedly)
It appears on the desktop and in the app but only in categories that are also Substack categories (e.g., Literature and Culture, not Self-care and Author Interviews).
To find the leaderboard in a category, go to Notes on the app and click the category you want on the navigation bar. On the desktop, go to your profile picture in the upper right. On the dropdown menu, go to Explore. On the navigation tab, click on your category (the first category you chose in your settings). On the right of the page, you’ll see the Leaderboard. Scroll down to See all.
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Carousels—kind of
On the desktop, Notes features carousels. In the app, it’s still a gallery. I’ve never understood the appeal of carousels, but they do spark scroller participation.
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What’s Most Confusing on Substack
(a.k.a. Substack explained…)