Are you looking for a writing solution that will save you money while letting you publish and monetize your posts? Fortunately, you’ve come to the right place.
Here, we discuss how to start writing on Substack. This ultimate beginner’s guide is sure to get you off on the right foot. We’ll also discuss another great tool you might need in case you’re unable to create emails on your own.
Why People Work With Substack
Substack is a newsletter service that provides a simple interface for making money from emails you publish throughout the web. This intuitive interface sets Substack apart from other email marketing platforms and makes it appealing to writers of all skill levels.
The Substack app is a great option because it doesn’t need ad sales or editors to spread your message. For example, new writers can simply choose a topic and use Substack to build their portfolio while looking for their audience.
Leaders in the industry use the app to write down their thoughts and turn them into notes which are then delivered to their subscribers. Creators use it to gain money from their loyal followers through various social media accounts.
While it does have publishing guidelines, Substack isn’t too strict with regard to censorship which has led to both controversial writers and ground-breaking journalism. To make a long story short, Substack is an excellent tool for people who wish to publish anything.
If you decide to join Substack, you’ll be joining the 1 million people with paid subscriptions for Substack every month.
What You Should Know About Substack
Before you get started on your Substack journey, here are a few things you need to know about this platform.
It’s an Email Marketing Service
At its most basic form, Substack serves as a platform for email marketing, which means you need to put in time to build your subscribers. While there is a chance for Substack to pick up your newsletter and promote your business, this is unlikely to happen.
Getting a shout-out from Substack won’t happen unless you put in a lot of work first. Substack has also become popular because it can bypass algorithms. Not needing to worry about mastering an algorithm means you can focus on your passion for writing instead of laboring over keyword placement and research.
Use It as You Would Use Other Newsletter Platforms
While it is different from other conventional mailing services, Substack does use a similar process. Because of this, self-promotion is important — you’ll need to work twice as hard to build engaged readers through your social media channels.
Be sure that you share all your newsletters and work through Facebook, Twitter, TikTok, and Instagram. You can also take advantage of SEO through your blog to increase traffic on Substack. However, there’s no substitute for doing more work if you want to achieve better distribution and autonomy.
Substack Brings Out the Best of Social Media
It may feel daunting to write newsletters, especially if you publish them for everyone to see but no one gets back to you. Even if you don’t hear back from people, just getting a like on your newsletter says a lot and should give you the encouragement you need to keep going.
Additionally, there’s a comment section at the bottom of every newsletter, which can foster healthy interactions and discussions among the community. The comment sections allow you to speak to other writers, get to know them, and talk about your thoughts and suggestions with one another.
There Are Limited Analytics on Substack
Many traditional email services like ConvertKit and MailChimp will usually provide a well-detailed report of your analytics, including the buttons and hyperlinks that a subscriber uses as well as their country of residence.
These email service providers can give marketers everything they need to improve their conversion rates. Analytics is one area where Substack is lacking, although there are a few helpful tools, such as:
- Tracking the number of readers
- Seeing where traffic comes from
- Other kinds of metrics
How to Start Writing on Substack
If you’re ready to get started with Substack, here’s a quick and simple step-by-step process that can help you get writing.
- Head over to their website and click on “Start Writing” at the top right corner to create your account.
- You can sign in using Twitter on the next screen, where your followers will be able to receive email notifications for the launch of your newsletter. This can be a great step to take if you have engaged followers on Twitter.
- In the next pages, you’ll need to fill out your writer bio (this isn’t the same as your publication synopsis) and email. While you can write for various publications, your bio will be linked to your profile. Conversely, your publication synopsis only talks about a particular newsletter.
- Click “Continue” to make your first Substack publication. You don’t need to know what you want to write about just yet, since you’ll be able to go back and edit your publication bio at a later stage.
- A more important part of the process at the moment is considering your Substack URL since it can get difficult to swap out links once you share them. You can simply use your social media handle or you can rebrand your Substack newsletter.
- If you already have a mailing list, Substack can help you import email addresses through CSV files, but if you don’t, you can skip this step.
- When you’re done with the steps above, your Substack newsletter will be complete! But before you make any effort to promote it, be sure to customize a few pages first.
- Go to your dashboard on Substack, then click the “Settings” button to find all your pages, automated messages, as well as themes that you will want to edit before doing anything else. Here are just a few things you might want to look into:
- Your publication name and synopsis for your call-to-action.
- Add tags on your publications to help Substack feature it.
- Fill out your About page where you can introduce yourself, your publication, and how often you want to send out your newsletters. You can also use it to persuade your audiences to subscribe to you.
- You can create a welcome email, which is the first thing your subscribers will read. Use this as an opportunity to thank new members of your mailing list.
- Set colors to match your brand and identity.
- Now, head over to the “Publication Details” tag, where you’ll find the settings for your email header, footer, and banner. Be sure to create a customized banner that represents your brand. You can also use a call-to-action on your headers and footers so you won’t have to ask people to share or subscribe.
When you’re done customizing your pages, you’re now free to create as many emails as you want. Make sure that you do these things ahead of time to ensure that you get the most out of your Substack account.
How to Get Copywriting Services
Maybe you’re already sold on the idea of using Substack as your newsletter service but don’t have the time to do the heavy work yourself. This is where Panda Copy can make things much easier for you.
Panda Copy provides you with the extra time and flexibility you need by writing everything you need for your emails. With quick turnaround times of around 24 to 48 hours, this copywriting service can help you get a lot done in just a few days.
With Panda Copy, you’ll enjoy a smooth and stress-free experience — just leave everything to their team of dedicated and trained copywriters.
Visit their website to sign up to get consistent, high-quality content in as fast as two days.
