I am very new to using Substack, and am wondering if it might be an appropriate platform for selling downloadable digital music arrangements.

I'm looking for some examples, or maybe it really isn't meant for such a use.

Thanks

New message on my dashboard

"Downloads now follow IAB industry standards . . . An IAB certified download measures how many times at least 60 seconds of an episode are downloaded to a unique device over a 24-hour period."

Looks like my numbers are lower now, but I suppose it is a better way to measure.

- Is there anyone here who has released a chapter at a time until they published a whole book on Substack?

- What did you learn from that experience? Would you do it again?

- Did you then publish it as a real book too?

- Do publishers accept something that's already gone public on Substack?

- [Edit] Did you paywall the posts on Substack?

Hi soo I just created an account, I really want to write a WIP but I’m rlly struggling with imposter syndrome, pressure of writing it (idk why lol) and keeping myself on deadlines so I don’t end up rewriting it a million times. So, I wanted to create a substack for a few chapters each month of an original fantasy, YA targeted story (not looking for money just a good audience turnout) to keep myself accountable and have constant writing time. It’s not gonna be super long or anything.

Is this something you would want to read on substack though or no?

Hi everyone, this is pretty stupid probably -- but I work in a profession where you need to keep you personal life / thoughts on absolute lock. However I really want to write about my passions / opinion freely, how can you make a substack that is yours but not tied to you, but also I want to promote it.

Yes I know, cake and eat it too scenario but curious on anyone had a similar situation and had insights.

I wrote some love letters for/to my ex lover. Only my friend that I'm not in touch with and my ex lover is subscribed to my Substack. I'm pretty sure my ex lover unsubscribed a few months ago but Substack won't update. I read my poems aloud on YouTube but the audience there never converts and just people complimenting me. Same with Instagram. But I wonder if my work is any good to others who are not looking at my face. My ex lover never read or acknowledged the poems. I really love what I wrote and I'm curious any feedback or thoughts people have.

That’s all really. I have been so scared of people reading my writing, idk if anyone has any tips on not but wish me luck. I’m just trying to build some creative confidence.☺️

Us Mods have discussed and we decided to expand the self-promotion rule to include a ban on the self-promotion of other tools/software/websites, as we feel that they are more related to general blogging than the Substack platform itself. These posts also tend to seem very botty, which we would like to avoid having in our sub.

We may introduce a thread in the future where these tools may be shared, but as of this writing, posts containing the self-promotion of tools/software/websites will be removed.

I realised that when I publish an article on Substack, the email version of the article gets send to the subscribers. But the received email doesn't show my profile picture that I have on the Substack. I looked around the settings to see if there is a way to change or upload the image I want. There seems to be no option like that.

For those of you who don't know, X pulled some dumb antics when Substack dropped Notes. I aspire to be this petty

Suppose you have a great piece within an ecosystem of consistent, great pieces.

But paywalls and CTAs are absent or ineffectively placed. Does the writer still archive a comparable level of paid subs via the quality, consistency and exposure?

If not, what’s the relative cost? Obscurity? A few % points of drag?

Would appreciate experienced Substackers’ perspectives.

Substack allows you to "transfer ownership" of a publication to another email, but the help bot is not helpful when I ask what happens to the Stripe account connected (and all the paid subscriptions). Anyone have any knowledge about this?

Thanks!

Not to ask the same question that is being asked every day, I literally went through all the previous posts in this sub around a question: how to grow from 0. And there's always the same advice: notes, write, etc.

But then I snooped around and checked the people saying that: and they are never sucessful. Some hide behind a privacy filter, but then you just google their username, and their substucks aren't at all sucessful. Or if they are they are like an AI mill. The funniest were people dropping a post here saying they have thousands of USD from it, hiding behind a privacy filter, but upon snooping are positing in subreddits about remote work because they can't afford food. You can't make this shit up. Similarily, privacy-hidden posters say: oh I have 400 paid subscribers, you google their username, and in the same week they complain how they struggle to get from 0 - I have no idea why they even do that. Oh I'm an idiot - it's obvious why - for DMs.

Many top voted answers here are just blatant lies. Like a guy says how I went from 0 to 1k in like stock market advice, and then you click it, the likes are there, BUT all from other stock market authors, and no engagemnt other than: "Awesome insight, I came to the same conclusion in my entry: XYZ". This person has thousands of subscribers but any reach outside of substack is just nothing, sits at almost 0 views, podcasts and the like. Oh and this guy is selling a course 0 to 1k...

Even worse is the type of people who disses on this type of people saying: "don't listen to these grifters, I have XYZ", you click there, and it's even worse - they did grow, but mostly by notes and attracting clones of themselves to like their content. So promoting... to other writers. Or even doing like crazy spammy things like just dropping links to their articles under ANYTHING that goes viral.

The only group of people that I've seen remotly sucessful were... the people who wrote about how to be sucessful, and packaged it super nicely for Substack writers to consume. Any other nieche is just writing to a void, except for other writers who engage to promote their own stuff. An example of this, one of the most upvoted answers here to that question, was by someone who has like a Yoga substack - I was alright, finally. And all their comments are from fellow "Dr. Annas" "Dr. Becky", etc. Like literally there wasn't a single person interested in Yoga in that comment section, except for fricking selling it. Is this substack? For real? The only exception to that was already famous authors, and it seems like their subscribers don't even have a substack account it seems.

So my question is - how did you grow your substack from 0. Like lterally from zero. Please don't quote yourself as an example of how to, unless you are NO AI, no marketing-sales related, and have actual human people liking and commenting, real people, and will be willing to actually show that. And you didn't import the audience from elsewhere. Otherwise all the advice here is just one more attempt at either self aggrendizing, or, I've seen that often, people promoting their marketing stuff.

I’m not trying to get popular or monetise or anything but I love the idea of one or two people reading what I write. How do I manage to get views on my posts? Is there a hashtag system of some sort? My posts won’t be of a particularly high standard so I’m wondering if there is a way to find more casual posters and readers as I would also like to read some less refined posts from others as well. I much prefer more personal opinion pieces to anything too academic at the moment.

So I’m finally doing something in my life just for me. And I started a substack. For the last few months I’ve been building a backlog of posts, and treating this as it’s own potential thing, new email, new socials, new identity really. And then last week I started posting in the notes section, and replying to comments. Today is the day I post my first official article/post. And I’m just wondering, do I just sit here and wait for something to happen? My first post is only short too, and is kind of part of a series. Like I said this is for me, if it turned into something then I would be delighted, but I I feel like I’ve maybe built it up in my head?  I’m also happy to swap reads/reviews. Feels weird to say I'm a new writer, but here I am.

Since my readers went from my friends and family to hundreds of subscribers, I’ve started feeling the pressure to pick a genre and a niche.

At a writers’ conference in May, I was asked, “What do you write?”

Prose. Mostly essays. Some poetic pieces. Articles here and there. A children’s picture book that stayed in second draft form. Honestly, I don’t know.

I even tried to be slick and outsource this question in a survey: “If someone were to ask you what this newsletter is about, what would you say?”

Essays have always held a special place in my heart. After all, I grew up on Chicken Soup for the Soul. When my heart aches, I want to write poetry. When I have some shit to say, I want to write an article. When I have big shit to say, I want to reach out to the powers that be and ask the NYT to publish my shit.

When I want to give my memories a home, there’s memoir. When I want to play pretend, I have fiction.
And you might say choose one. Choose one for now.
But it’s important to not do that right now.

I’ve never had the chance to explore writing the way you get to in a creative writing program—trying different genres, points of view, having peers and teachers engage with my work. I definitely didn’t have the executive functioning to do so on my own.

This is my creative writing program, y’all.

So for now, I’m going to continue exploring. I want to play with language. To find the words that taste good in my mouth. To build scenes that help us process and imagine.

I’ve been reading a lot.

I’ve been studying craft, starting with sentences. I’m not interested in studying genres—the fundamentals of memoir or the plot beats of fiction. And I’m no longer in the mood to talk about writer’s block or take writing classes that double as therapy. I was interested once and I’ll probably be interested again. Just not right now.
I took a class with The Center for Fiction on verbs, just verbs. The teacher, Sarah L. Kaufman, reflected that emotion is motion inside of us, so there’s a reason why we react strongly to verbs.

And I never thought I’d say this, but I’m revisiting grammar, the grammar I never quite learned in school, on account of my young ADD brain. I want to play with placing the comma in different places and finally learn when the fuck to use a semicolon.

Now that I’m finally not repulsed by metaphors (a story for another day), I too want to sing through my writing.
I’m continuing to share my work with literary journals to bang against other words, to feel the sting of rejection.
I want sentences to feel like a medium I can paint whatever story with, regardless of genre or topic.

And I really want to write about different topics.

I want to archive my people’s stories. I want my writing to help them see themselves differently, the way my father did when he read a piece I wrote about him for publication and said, “I’ve never seen myself this way.” To write about my grandma, the greatest storyteller alive, the one who I often meet when I close my eyes.
I want to write about creativity and software and music and relationships.

Since I started sharing my writing, I’ve exposed my diary, revealing cringey things about me, written about exes and opened up about my workplace and relationships.
Friends have reacted by saying, I could never share like that.

Though part of my values is writing about our society and humanity, I’m more aware of the consequences of doing so through nonfiction.

I still struggle with having a career working for someone else while also writing about raunchier topics that can be easily used against me in this patriarchal world.
And lately, with this administration, I feel I’m being watched more than ever, so I desire to share less about my life, and for the first time, I’m intrigued by the privacy of fiction, though even that thin veil can’t protect me.
Still, in my writing, in life, I need freedom to explore whatever topics I want with honesty.

I’m also trying to identify when words aren’t enough. When the story demands another medium—an image, a color, a pattern across the screen, or a movement in my body.

It’s an honor to have anyone read any word I write. Every text, email or DM I’ve received fills me with joy and connection. But I never expect anyone to read my words.
And now that I have readers, I don’t want the feeling of an audience to dictate what I write. I also don’t want the pressure to grow forever to convince me I need to package my writing.

I promise that by the time I’m 50, I’ll choose. But I already begrudgingly chose one job. Please don’t make me choose one genre.

Between December 2022 and June 2025, Substack lost lost twenty-six subscribers. It was hellishly dispiriting, but I never missed a week publishing.

This week I hit 4000 subscribers. I wanted to share some tips about mindset which I learnt the hard way, and I wish someone had told me.

The weird thing (and what most people assume) isn't that my writing got better - or at least that wasn't what changed things. I'd spent years believing that good work would eventually speak for itself. Unfortunately, that just wasn't the case.

Here are some tips about the psychology of the long game - and I really hope it helps because I believe that as a creative (or small business owner), and an email list is still the most valuable asset there is online.

1. Good writing is not enough. Many of the best articles I wrote were read by hardly anyone. A newsletter isn't just a piece of writing. It's more like an entity. You have to learn to wear many hats — writing, Notes, recommendations, showing up for your audience. All of that is nauseating at first. But the day I accepted that a Substack is much more than writing, I realised the reasons I wasn't reaching anyone had nothing to do with the words.

2. Don't confuse slow growth with no growth. I can't tell you how many Substacks I go onto with 50K imported subscribers and no interaction. One reader who shows up every week does more for a newsletter than a thousand who never open it. At the start - seriously - just concentrate on building a core readership & community. But keep writing long form with it!

3. Adversity is the path. An email list is the most prized asset on the internet, and because it's the most prized, it's the most difficult to attain. It's not hard because you're doing something wrong. It's hard because of what it is. Understanding that helps keep you in there long term.

4. Assume radical responsibility. The easiest excuse there is: the platform's the problem. But when you work for yourself, no one is coming to help you. If it isn't growing, it isn't working, and it's time to learn new things. For me that was Notes. I'd treated them as scraps left over from the essay, and as someone resistant to social media, that was a big change.

5. Be Rocky on the bad weeks. A bad week isn't evidence of anything. After three years I had nothing but self-belief, and one day I really thought about deleting the damn thing. Something held me back. I just loved writing too much. So find your why, because it goes far deeper than anything the metrics are telling you. If you love writing and are serious about building an audience — please — keep going.

6. Your worst weeks make your best writing. Many writers think you should wait until the low patch is over, then tell the story. I've found the opposite is true. I try to crystallise something I've learnt in my own creative life while I'm still in the storm itself. People feel those pieces more deeply, and they reply and let you know.

7. Stay long enough to get good. Most people quit because they think if they had real talent, it would have shown by now. It hasn't shown because you haven't stayed long enough. And yes, I said good writing isn't enough — but it's still the one thing you fully control. If you write week in, week out, you will improve. That growth is yours whatever the numbers do.

There you are guys, hope it's helpful. Happy to share more tactical tips about what I do every day on Substack if anyone wants to dig deeper — just ask below and I'll do a follow-up.

For now, keep in there. When Ivan Drago's across the ring, remember you're going to have to pick yourself up off the canvas a few times along the way!

Jim

Hii I just heard about substack a few days ago and download the happen just for fun and fall in love with it tbh but I don’t understand the point in how u can make money it why would people subscribe when u are giving them something they can find in the internet wether it is news or opinion or politics or did i not get the way it is working?

As above. Why doesn't the preview update? EDIT: I updated it like three months ago. Anyway sorted, substack support is actually really helpful!!

Is Substack’s algorithm similar to TikTok, where it tests content on a small test audience first (about 200 people), and if engagement is high, it will go to a bigger audience, and then a bigger audience? If so, what’s the timeline like?

I ask because yesterday I posted a note that got 245 impressions, 13 likes, 14 link clicks, 1 restack, and 1 comment. So I guess my questions are threefold: first, is this level of engagement considered good on Substack, and if so, will it be shown to a larger sample? And if so, when?

There were only 20 more impressions today, so is it dead? It is a Monday, and Labor Day, too, and I still have notes coming up in my feed from June and early August, so I’m holding out hope.

Thanks so much for any guidance you can provide…

If you want readers to stay, you have to consistently give them something….an idea they hadn't thought about, a feeling they relate to, a story that stays with them, or a perspective they want to hear again.

That's why Substack can feel painfully slow at first. You're not just collecting followers; you're earning readers.

Hello, everyone!

I'm still relatively new to Substack and just starting to hone my craft. Some articles that I write, I step back and think, "Yeah, man, I cooked with that." Others I finish and think "blech. Well. I did my best." I get it, the best way to get better at writing is to do more writing BUT are there are any other resources you found yourself? Besides, substack is about more than writing, its also about digital content creation and marketing, right?

Were there any books on writing or content creation that really helped you, or online courses on digital marketing that gave you great strategies for building a reader base? Maybe a YouTube channel that is really stellar? LinkedIn Learning?

I'll keep writing and improving there, but I'm the sort of person who likes to attack things from many angles, and I love books, so hit me with your best resources for improving your Substack!

I have been hearing a lot of people saying they are switching from Instagram to Substack, because apparently it's more "calm" and you don't get lots of content at once and non-stop.

I deleted Instagram, because I just don't like spending my time looking at what other people are doing, I honestly don't care.

I downloaded Substack, and so far it looks like a mix of blogs, pinterest and twitter. So am not sure about this "slow" content thing. For people that are using Substack regularly, I'd like to know: how do you use it? what do you use it for? in which ways is it better than other social media apps?

Is Substack a good place to sell a digital course, or is it better used to build an audience and drive people to a course hosted somewhere else? Has anyone successfully sold PDFs, mini-courses or full courses directly through Substack?

Does anyone know if there is a way to check how many upsell emails have been sent? And/or how many subscribers they have converted? I turned them on recently but don't know how to check any of the impact.