Substack EXPLAINED
How to set up your Substack account and start a Substack publication. The correct way!
Has Substack been on your mind? Here is my deep dive into Substack if you want to get started:
SUBSTACK VS A SUBSTACK
Substack is a platform which allows you to create newsletters, blogs, and podcasts; it also offers paid subscriptions to your content.
A Substack is a publication on the Substack platform which is a combination of a newsletter with a blog. Substacks can be free or offer paid subscriptions.
SUBSTACK HANDLE VS PUBLICATION NAME
When you sign up to Substack, you choose your handle and get access to your Substack account. Inside your account, you set up your publication and give it a name. This publication is the commonly known Substack newsletter which people can subscribe to.
Example:
My Substack handle is ‘alextanton’ whereas my publication’s name is ‘Our Midlife Method’.
*Fun facts: you can change the publication name whenever you want and you can have more than one publication.
SUBSTACK PUBLICATION VS REGULAR NEWSLETTER
Substack has taken the concept of a newsletter to the next level. Technically, you do write it and send it out to your email list just like an old school newsletter.
The difference is that a Substack newsletter, despite being sent out to your email list, lives on your Substack Publication Page and essentially becomes a blog post which you can link to and go back to rather than being lost and forgotten in someone’s inbox.
*Fun fact - you can edit a Substack publication after it’s sent out. Edits won’t show in the inboxes but the online version of the newsletter which lives on your page will get edited. This way, you can keep updating content on your Substack and not feel overly precious about a piece of content you are sending out.
SUBSTACK NOTES VS SUBSTACK CHAT
You can compare Substack Notes to Instagram Threads. Every signed-in user can post a note and comment on other notes. Your Substack Home page will display a feed of notes written by people you follow.
Substack Chat can be compared to a Facebook Group. You can only start a chat if you have a publication. It’s an interactive space where you message with your subscribers and they can message you back. This is something to bare in mind for those of you who are moving away from Instagram Channels for the ‘lack of interaction’ reason.
FOLLOWER VS SUBSCRIBER
Substack Followers can follow accounts, not publications. I.e. someone who follows you will see your notes in their feed but won’t get your Substack publications in their inbox. Followers list, which includes both who follows you and who you are following, is public by default and cannot be hidden. Following is FREE.
Substack Subscribers will automatically follow you and receive your publications in their inboxes. You have control over the privacy settings of your subscriptions. You can choose which subscriptions you want to make public and which ones you want to keep private. SUBSCRIBING might be free or paid.
SUBSTACK PUBLICATION PAGE VS WEBSITE
There actually isn’t much difference. When you look deeper into settings, you’ll realise that Substack can become your website, your online portfolio or a fully functioning blog. The default pages are: Home, Notes, Archive (your publication posts) and About but you can add as many custom pages as you want and play with design.
*Fun fact - you can customise your Substack domain for a small fee to completely personalise your website.
PROFILE PICTURE VS PUBLICATION LOGO VS PUBLICATION WORDMARK
You add your profile picture when you create your Substack account. In my case, it’s my face which is associated with my handle ‘alextanton’.
The publication logo is ideally square, it will appear on your Welcome Page and Substack Home pages pointing readers to your publication so make it stand out! See example of my logo over here.
Publication wordmark is rectangular and will appear on top of your publication page in the navigation bar, replacing your publication name - see example of my wordmark over here.
PUBLICATION WELCOME PAIGE VS WELCOME EMAIL
The Welcome Page is for new readers who haven't visited your publication before. To view your publication's welcome page, add "/welcome" to the end of your Substack URL - https://alextanton.substack.com/welcome
You can edit the text under ‘publication short description’ which is located in the Basic Settings of your publication, just below the publication name.
Substack gives you two types of Welcome Emails: (1) a welcome email for new subscribers and (2) a separate welcome email for imported subscribers - this is useful if you are moving to Substack from another email marketing platform (see Final Notes below).
If you would like to take a look at a Welcome Email format, sign up to my Substack over here and it will instantly land in your inbox.
GROWING ON SUBSTACK
The easiest way to explain Substack is to compare it to a marketplace. There is Etsy for handmade items, there is Vinted for preloved clothes and there is Substack for newsletters.
All these platforms deliver great results in terms of growth because a marketplace customer is a warm lead. Let me explain. A person searching through Etsy or Vinted is a potential customer who wants to buy something. And a person searching through Substack is a new potential reader who is looking for something new to read.
Growing on Substack doesn’t only depend on you driving traffic to your email list sign up, promoting your newsletter on your socials and converting your followers into Substack subscribers.
Substack offers a built-in audience where Substack users can discover your newsletters and subscribe to your content. You can also collaborate with other writers by cross-promoting your publications on each others posts and profiles and share your posts to notes which, as we said above, reach not only your subscribers but also followers.
FINAL NOTES
I hope this explains Substack to those of you who have found it a little bit fiddly to set up. There is still a lot to uncover - branding, email settings, paid subscriptions, importing your current email list and moving your old newsletters to Substack. Leave a comment on Instagram if you’d like PART II.
Alex
Thank you for the top-level view. I still don't understand handles. I started a year or 2 ago with a substack.com registration and handle. Today I just tried to post a comment on a substack publication, but it kept asking for a handle name and I wanted to use the same handle everywhere. When I entered my default handle it says "that handle is already in use." So, does substack.com force you into creating unique handles for every substack publication you follow? If so, that is insane and will inhibit my participation. I like one handle that I use across whole substack domain, just as I have one handle for Youtube, one for twitter, insta, etc. How can I accomplish that?
I'm a septuagenarian in need of a strong coffee laced with Bailies! I've read Alex's explanation, but I'm confused, and it's not anything to do with the aging process. I subscribed to Northern Gravy and found myself here. Where am I? What is this place? Should I be here—I only possess an imaginary PhD in life experience. I've had short stories published since I started writing during the pandemic. I'm no Tolstoy but I'm combining my writing with my artwork in the hope of getting it published. Should I be putting stories on here? Going for coffee, wondering if I'll find my way back here.