Your Substack Strategy Handbook A-Z
With my expert insights, tips, and links to key resources
Your very own Substack Strategy Handbook
This Substack Strategy Handbook includes clear explanations, my top tips as the leading Substack Strategist, and links to deeper dives for each topic. It will save you from being misled by out-of-date, AI-driven, unproven information and advice.
It will (probably) change your Substack life.
After mentoring over seven hundred Substack writers one-on-one and tens of thousands on Substack Writers at Work, I’ve identified the most common questions about Substack’s terms, features, and technical aspects.
I’ve distilled them here for you. There will be others, of course, but knowing these will help you so, so much.
The Substack Strategy Handbook is a big thank you to paid subscribers and members of the Mastermind Membership. My goal is always to help you grow and achieve all your goals on Substack.
Note: If you’re super brand new to Substack, I recommend watching this first: Understand the Substack Ecosystem (in 4 minutes). Paid subscribers and Mastermind members can also access Substack in 23 Minutes: From Newbie to Knowledgeable to Ready to Grow.
A
About page:
Substack’s About page About-your-Substack or About-your-subscribers-page. Here’s what Substack says about the About page: “This page should explain in detail the benefits of reading your publication.”
It’s not about you; it’s about how they’ll be transformed or benefit from your Substack.
It should include:
A photo and a welcome.
The benefits of reading your Substack, what subscribers will take away, and how they’ll be transformed by it (not what you do, e.g., not "I write about...")
Exactly what free and paid subscribers get (e.g., posts, workshops, voice memos, etc.) and why those matter
Headings and bulleted lists of what they get and how often you’ll email them:
Paid subscribers get... (both what they get, e.g., posts, and what they’ll get from it, e.g., responsibly reported journalism)
Free subscribers get…
A bit about you (only insofar as it relates to your newsletter)
A photo of you or your pets or something that represents you
Examples (Note: these are on the longer side):
Poet Maggie Smith’s About page is ideal in terms of content, the way she addresses her readers, and the formatting (headings, bullets, etc.). It's a great About page and I love the way she 1) sets up her philosophy and what the title means to her (graph 1), 2) answers the question 'Why this newsletter and why now?" (graph 2), 3) goes into what subscribers get and then the About Me sections, and 4) gives testimonials. Very clean.
Inevitably, when my clients really dive into their About page and figure out who they are on Substack, they attract engaged subscribers and soar—creatively, professionally, and personally.1
Archive:
Where all your published posts live and can be accessed by your subscribers.
Access: https://your Substack URL/archive
You can paywall your archive: Dashboard > Settings > Payments. Scroll down to Set archive date. Decide on how far back you want to paywall previous posts–2 weeks is the default
Top tip:
This is an automatic paywall, which means your subscribers are going to hit it and likely get annoyed. We want to paywall deliberately.
Definitely read The Gentle Art of Paywalling on Substack.
Audio:
Substack offers three types of audio:
Audio posts (from the dropdown menu when you go to post), which will stream to your podcast if you have one set up on Substack
Audio embeds, which can appear anywhere in your post
Voiceover, which will appear on the top of the post, can be paywalled, and will also stream to your podcast
Audio embeds and voiceovers1q2 are located on the menu bar of your post (look for the earphones)
For more, see Substack Audio (in 4 minutes).
B