“Do whatever brings you to life, then. Follow your own fascinations, obsessions, and compulsions. Trust them. Create whatever causes a revolution in your heart.”
― Elizabeth Gilbert,
Hello!!
Welcome back to Your Friday Email - Stay Creative on Substack.
It’s a bumper edition week this week and if you need even MORE you can head to the menu of my other Substack tips posts. Because it’s so long, I’ve broken it up with some ‘lovely pause pictures’ for you.
This email exists in it’s own ‘section’ here so if you’d rather not receive updates on Substack and how to create t/here you can head to your desktop and follow the instructions to change that. I’ve popped screen shots at the end of this email/post on how to do it. (*)
On the ‘Slow Lived Growth on Substack’ Podcast this week (audio above)
(Listen above… ) a whistle stop tour of my Substack journey and how I’m curating my Substack experience to get GOOD balance and maintain my creative practise on and offline.
I don’t have a transcript but it also includes;
Considering value for you and your readers.
Community
Being a reader/ consumer
I touch on running two publications under the same writer profile
My Substack sections and running two Substack accounts too.
How I feel about unsubscribes 💌 🌻 - link to post on rejection.
“Should I do that too?” - Comparison traps, knee jerk reactions and sitting with it.
Curating YOUR own creator and reader experience.
A hack for your sanity!
This week one of my dashboard metrics turned green. My shoulders dropped and I breathed a sigh of relief. Those grey metrics are NO fun for this visual creative.
(my over seas artist friend) and I were chatting about our distaste at ‘the new dashboard’ driven by ‘external success metrics’ and when I woke up the next day she’s sent me a SUPER easy hack to avoid it.All you do is bookmark your ‘posts’ URL - you should have no reason to head to the dashboard if you don’t want to see those stats shouting at you. Phewf!
If I could design my own Substack, I’d have the world map as my dashboard along visual with some testimonials - that’s the essence of what motivates me here - kind words, deep connection writing in flow for a purpose.
Everyone is different of course but if you’re a sensitive soul or not keen on striving for growth metrics you might want to try it?
How to…make a podcast in Substack
I go into much more depth about this in my course but if you want to voice note/ podcast/ share audio here it’s a great way for your readers to feel connected to you.
My top tips
- You podcast has it’s own ‘section’ which as I’m learning is a very good thing.
- You can record the audio externally and upload or record straight into the desktop.
- You get to see lots of cool stats like where people are listening from and how they choose to listen.
- You can just be quite casual (well I am) and just voice note your subscribers - no intro/ outro/ edits or music unless of course you want those things… it makes recording audio so so accessible.
It’s also a really great way to grow WITHIN the Substack network which was one of your questions this week.
Look 👀
Things I LOVED this week on Substack
It really made me laugh this week on Notes as
co-founder wrote a note about his electric toothbrush. There (we)? are alloverthinking hard about what would make a lovely engaging note for our community and all the while we are invited just to say “something” ? Anything? Although I appreciate the odd hap hazard share on notes, I must admit the considered writing on Notes is something I am absolutely here for and why I don’t use much other social media now. 🤹🏽♀️ 🦸♂️I had a lovely chat with a few folks over on Notes when I asked what their biggest struggle here was… the answers are so insightful if you fancy a read…
I also love this Note about ‘going paid’ from my IRL pay I
forcedencouraged to join Substack
And I had to mention the lovely
who shares a beautiful lesson in STAYING true to herself this week and reversing/ re-pivoting her move to paid. 🧜♀️And finally - You are going to LOVE this one… A Substack Library - whaaaaa! How on earth am I going to get off Substack and read books again? 🧝🏻♀️
I think it’s SO important for us to curate our individual experiences here.
After managing ALL the feelings on social media over the years we have a chance to make, curate and creative something new here.
More in the podcast above but my biggest takeaway from being here 14 months is that I don’t need to subscribe to everyone. I don’t want Substack (or anything actually) to feel like a competition.
My only experiences of competitions as a kid were winning creativity competitions and loosing all the sports ones. Those experiences imprint somewhere and make us BELIEVE certain things to be true.
Learn Substack with me?
I’m a huge advocate for learning the way you want to learn and giving yourself the space and time to embed a creative practise.
When I hosted my first masterclass ‘Get Creative on Substack’ 1 back in March, lots of you came along and the theme running through the heart beat of most people who attended were they were they were Creatives who also like to write.
I held the masterclass simply because I wanted to share my knowledge.
What works for me isn’t necessarily what will work for others but (and it’s a fancy but), in sharing my perfectly imperfect creative journey it felt important to invite others to consider the same.
I was (and am) just genuinely passionate about getting more creatives to see the incredible power of this platform. I loved how easy to use it was and how beautiful to navigate too.
I now offer one to one strategy sessions on starting and staying creative with Substack or perhaps you fancy coming along to my FREE open office hours for creativity on zoom 12-1pm, 23 June.
(I have nothing to sell to you in the session - it’s genuinely just a session of me holding space in thanks to my lovely online communities).
This weekly email of ‘Substack Tips’ was born out of sharing more of my knowledge about the platform, the tech side, the mindset side and encouraging you to use it in a creative way because there’s one thing the world needs more of - your art!
I’ll repeat this on a loop - we can throw away the rule book and just create - this must be THE most creatively FREE platform on the internet?
I have a FOLLOW on online workshop this month on 19 June at lunch time here in the UK called ‘Mailing List Magic’ and I am SO excited to teach it.
It’s good for you if you’ve been here a little while and you’re looking to grow from within the network here.
Here’s some stats you might be interested in;
There are 30million (and growing) monthly visitors here each month and over 1million people pay for subscriptions.
46.57% of all visitors are from the USA, while visitors coming from the UK (5.9%) and Canada (5.77%) come in second and third position, respectively.
The gender breakdown of site visitors is 62.6% male and 37.4% female.
31.74% of website visitors are aged between 25 and 34, while the second most popular age range is 35 to 44 (19.23%). 2
I’ll cover strategy (you’ll write yours for the next two years in the workshop), ways to grow and find your ‘right people’ and answer ALL your questions.
You can read more and book here. (same day replay available)
Here are some other folks and articles that will help you consider your own Substack without leaving the platform
Interesting posts by Sub Pub- my husband shared one of his with me and it’s not something that I’d usually come across in my ‘slow lived echo chamber’.
- & host a monthly podcast all about their Substack journey. I listened to their latest episode last week and thought it was brilliant - they are such cheerleaders for each other and genuinely care about each other’s unique talents.
This post by
- I adore Charlene’s words and feel like I’m right there with her having a cuppa and an oaty biscuit on the Shetland Isles - this post was perfect timing for me.
Over on Youtube
If you search anything to do with Substack on YouTube you’ll get lots of hits about growth and monetisation.
If your goals are quieter and you’re just enjoying the process of creating here here’s some links to videos I think you’ll enjoy. If you enjoy a screen share you’ll like some of these and often although Substack tutorial posts are great I think we do need the video examples to help compute it.
Here’s Substack’s YouTube channel - it’s GREAT when you need a screen share or want to dive into interviews with folks who have incorporated paid subs in their publication
My Slow Lived Growth on Substack YouTube Playlist is here - I’m adding to it with short tutorials every week. I need lots of practise and support 🙉 so please consider subscribing and sharing my videos. This week’s is about how to consider what free email/ web and what paid email/ web folks receive if you sent to your whole list with a paywall inside.
Louise over at Confessions Of A Terrified Creative made this Youtube video on how she’s grown her email list using Substack
This is an interesting video from ‘Convert Kit’ about why they rate the long game and building right here on Substack.
This hour long video is a couple of years old but Abigail over atThis Needs Hot Saucetalks about growing and shaping a newsletter without a social media following and so much more.
Substack of the Week
I adored this from
-
and a new and delightful writer to my eyes this week
My Mentors and Teachers
I get asked this question a lot and honestly I’ve learnt from so many people over the years. There is wisdom everywhere.
My understanding is mentors and teachers can hold up a mirror to your brilliance but it’s still yours. It’s your gift and your soul’s calling.
They can provide cheerleading and accountability, help you to see and work on blind spots but you still have to show up for yourself and push through the tricky bits in your own time.
You can’t just be a brain in a body - your brain and body are the same tool and they ask a lot from you. If your nervous system feels fried, chances are you need more time in nature or to search at a deeper level for intrinsic reward in your life and work.
If you feel wrapped up in that painful place of comparison and obsering what others are doing and how it (appears to be) working, chances are you need to hit the unfollow/ unsubscribe button a WHOLE lot more.
Our path is our path, it belongs to us and when we’re on it - everything feels aligned. I know this because I walk it. It’s not easy but I do and yes I unsubscribe a lot. It’s not personal it just makes sense.
I’m my own mentor and teacher on Substack because I’m genuinely geeky about it and as a creative thinker I’m all in for connection, for my writing craft and for the growth of my business to sustain my ‘Big Dreams’. I’ve spent hours and hours here since starting and I am just genuinely in awe of the writing here.
Looking forward to chatting in the comments if you have questions/ things to share this week?
Perhaps you have a win or you’ve gotten over a block or you’ve finally posted that post? I’d love to hear from you in the comments.
Maybe your week has been more frustrating or slow or you’ve felt blocked - perhaps it’s all part of the beautiful creative journey we’re on?
If this work I do serves you in any way please feel free to share it and use it in ways that set your creativity on fire.
Sending sparkles,
Claire x
🌸 💌 Join my membership here on Substack. When you upgrade to ‘paid’ here on Substack, there are so many gifts already waiting for you including (new for June) 5% off all my online workshop and courses.
(*) PS - As promised, if you’re figuring out sections or want to unsubscribe from this or another section a writer hosts you’ll need to know how to manage your subscriptions to different sections within one newsletter.
Head to the newsletter you want to manage your subscriptions settings in… click on the burger menu on the far right next to your profile picture, in the drop down click ‘manage subscription’ in the white box (as shown).
Then you’ll see a list of options for the sections the creator has set up.
You can unsubscribe from any of them there;
Replay available but NB the Get Creative on Substack masterclass was recorded before Notes was brought in.
Source - https://sellcoursesonline.com/substack-statistics - I’m not sure where the gender split comes from as I don’t remember being asked do you?
Your Friday Email (and podcast) - Stay Creative on Substack