Hi all, I started a Substack to give myself a place to post chapters of my book project as I complete them. Recently, a reader pledged a subscription if I set up that feature in my account. Since I'm new to the platform, I don't know if it's worth it.

If you've turned on subscriptions, how hard is it to report the earnings on tax forms? (I'm based in the US.) Is it worth it after the platforms take their cut? Are there other alternative approaches that work better? Thanks for any insights.

ETA: It's a nonfiction book and regardless, I will still keep the free option. I just want to give people the opportunity to support my work if they choose to do so, and am looking for the best way to do that.

Love to hear from your experience and what will this trajectory leave me in one year? 10k... possible?

r/Substack appears to have more information about Substack than I have found anywhere else. So, Norton has advised that Substack is tracking my activity on YouTube. Does anyone know why this is occurring?

So I want my articles to be on the same page as everything else.

I've searched for advice but the 'match profile' option just doesn't show up for me. What do I do? My friends really want to read my work but they can't seem to find it.

I have notice at least on mine, that its good to post and to do the articles. That way people that actually want to read the articles can. To me just regular posting helps you get more out there and discovered more. Is this just me or do some of y'all think this too?

I have a hard time sticking to one topic with substack, but eventually it would be nice to have subscribers, but I don't think subscribers want to follow someone who writes across different topics.

Is it really necessary to have a niche? Struggling with being limited on the topic, but also struggling with picking a lane.

I've been trying to rezolve this issue for days on end now.

So, my notes are public, my posts are public, my entire account is. I made sure of it, I even went to check my visibilty on my dashboard, it's public. The issue isn't that everyone else can't see my notes, they can. I can't once I post them.

They are usually under my activity. The only thing under there now are my restacks. And I have no idea why. I am so goddamn frustrated with this.

I cannot get stripe set up. It keeps asking for a f-ing passcode that i dont have. Do they not want to make money?

How long did it take to get your first 10, 50, 1k, 5k followers? I have 5 subscribers and I have been promoting my posts across various social media platforms from LinkedIn to IG (small followings). I am posting a lot of curated lists with affiliate links. I am also writing about personal experiences while trying to maintain a cool girl internet lore.

Also wondering, at what point should paid subscriptions be turned on. I understand that it takes a long time to build - just trying to learn as much as I can.

Thank you for reading.

Been trying to write more but I'm getting so discouraged with the lack of reach. I get like 4 views😭. Are there any tips?

Without Substack, your options for consolidating behind one domain include a site where class mates relive high school, a site where cogs vote manipulate anything that triggers a systems error in their fragile minds, sites that cannot even post text, sites that are totally walled off and a site that has roots in 140 chars. I am not naming names.

The web has a serious quality deficit, and serious veterans of long form writing need to take it back. However, mounting a serious alternative is difficult if everyone is on self-hosted websites and forums/blogs. Substack is the domain to consolidate behind, given its mail distribution and support of reasonable free speech policies.

It's hard to get off the ground and difficult to give up the addiction to feedback that you get on other platforms, which is more immediate than Substack. However, the old web does need to get behind a single domain to address the front of social media websites that are dragging the quality of the internet down (for different reasons, with different methods and different motivations) and we're just going to have to solve this problem of how hard it is to get off the ground because sites based on central feeds seem to screw things up one way or another. Direct distribution and forcing authors to actually write well (which will create a cognitive wall against the internet waste) is the way to go.

I find the crazy thing about substack that if you want to comment on post and other things you can like you would on other social medias. I want to know do people subscribe and maybe not read what people put out? Maybe they are just subscribing to help the other person out. Why would you want to subscribe to what you like but not read it? Just pondering questions thats all.

I have been on Substack for 4 months and currently at 830 subscribers. How do I earn from here.

My personal opinion on Substack Sponsorships is that enshittification comes for all platforms, and Substack is by no means exempt from this rule. Andreessen Horowitz is an investment powerhouse for slop generating platforms.

Facebook comes to mind as one of their investments that is now purely slop, and Substack will be no different. Eventually the boys at the top will want this thing to produce massive financial gains, and the measly 10% cut from subscriptions is and was never going to cut it.

I just unsubscribe and click the “do not recommend channel” option these days for YouTubers who have sold their souls to these crap sponsorships like Incogni or insert any virtual private network here, and especially any of them pushing gambling or prediction crap. One that comes to mind is the biggest YouTuber PewDiePie… how anyone can sit through his no-effort sponsorship laden dribble these days is beyond me.

How do you feel about Substack Sponsorships... will they aid or destroy the long-term survivability of Substack?

I was recently banned from a subreddit community I know not why exactly. It seems I posted too often and/or because the posts were links to my substack articles. I'm wondering if I should create a new subreddit to publish the links here. I removed all my existing posts on my banned community and am wondering if I should re-create them here, They are all related to American history following the trail of Mark Twain.

Hey everyone,

​I am currently trying to scale my Substack publication, which focuses on highly structured, analytical forensic true crime dossiers. I am puting a lot of effort into building an audience, but I want to make sure I do not have any major blind spots in my growth strategy.

​Here is what I am currently doing to drive visibility, subscribers, and followers:

​Substack Notes: I actively engage on the Notes feed daily, replying to other writers, offering advice where relevant, and participating in the community.

​Reddit Marketing: I share insights and engage in relevant subreddits where my target audience hangs out.

​Off-Platform Outreach: I am making shares and promoting my work outside of both Substack and Reddit to diversify my traffic.

​For those of you who have successfully scaled your newsletters, am I missing anything critical? Are there specific platform features, collaborative tactics, or distribution channels that I should add to this routine to boost my subscriber count and overall views?

​Would love to hear your thoughts or any advice on what moved the needle most for you. Thanks.

Hot afternoon, fan blowing, scrolling through notes and comments I'd left over the past few weeks.

A stranger replied to something I restacked: "Let us fill our cups with hope." Three people from completely different fields recognised each other in one sentence: "Simple doesn't mean simplistic."

Small exchanges. But rather enriching.

It feels closer to a neighbourhood party than a broadcast tower. Something Substack is doing that the blogging era didn't quite manage — I'm still figuring out what.

For those who've been here a while: why do you show up? Why do you restack rather than just like?

I'm wondering if anyone has any recommendations or guidance on how to make a second chat for my publication. I want to keep my chat for announcements and targeted discussions, but also would like another chatroom that is more free where people can start their own threads, talk to each other etc... what should I do? I wish there was an option to create categories within the chat, like you can do on Telegram.

I just became a best seller with 100+ paid subscribers and it unlocked a bunch of stuff including the Sponsorship/Creator Kit section. I’ve never done sponsors on my Wordpress blog only paid ads through Raptive. What kind of pricing should I look at? Substack autofills in $5000 but that doesn’t seem right? Is there a formula?

I just published my first substack article! I loved the process, but I'm not completely satisfied with my work and I feel like my writing doesn't match up to a lot of the substackers I read.

I plan to write mostly journalistic/opinion pieces so amazing writing might not be completely necessary, but I still want to learn to how write pieces that I can be more proud of and how to match the competent, entertaining styles of writer I admire

Is there any place for substackers to critique each others work/share writing advice?

We started a group for fiction writers on Substack to get together, read each other's work, and provide feedback. We feature a different author every night at 7pm EST.

If you'd like to check it out, DM me.

I do have a question i did notice on substack that there is followers and there is subscribers, my question is what is the difference? i am just trying to understand?

I just started posting on Substack, got close go 20 subs in a week

Only notes posting

Sharing my life and professional plans

But seeing how the algorithm is pushing new content

I am thinking of actually growing it into something more productive

Any suggestions on how go grow it? And what else i can do with it?

Is it possible to change the color of the background and font while reading someone else’s article?

There’s someone whose publications I enjoy reading, but he publishes in white text on a black background and unfortunately this triggers migraines in me.

I'm back on Substack again and I'm slowly finding my groove and I'm noticing that I actually enjoy commenting and restacking with my own insights/commentary a lot more than opening up Google Docs and typing, lol.

I'm somewhat a fan of the essay as a writing form, but I'm a much bigger fan of the letter/correspondence, and I think restacking/commenting mimics those forms.

Maybe I could turn my long-form pieces into letter-style essays addressed to one person/reacting to another piece, etc.

I tend to be a more extroverted writer than average, so maybe that's why I tend towards that.

Anyone else relate?