These are some notes I made on the YouTube video Masterclass: Everything bloggers and creators need to get started on Substack.
Nov 10, 2023If you take one thing from this masterclass, it’s this: just start. We cover a lot in the masterclass, but publishing your first post and sharing it with your audience, wherever they are, is the best thing you can do today. You can iterate on the rest of your publication as you go. Over the course of an hour, I covered:
- What a Substack is
- How to earn money
- Getting started in four steps
- A tour of the settings and the dashboard
- How to bring your community with you
Christina Loff spent her career working with writers, artists, and independent business owners. Part of her job has always been to give the best advice to help creatives grow their businesses, own their audiences, and make a living doing what they love. In her two years at Substack, she’s helped writers like Joanna Goddard, Evan Ross Katz, Gabrielle Blair, and more build a direct relationship with their audience and earn an independent living the Substack way. In her masterclass, she packages up everything bloggers and creators need to know to get started. Learn more:
https://on.substack.com/p/masterclass…
Get started: https://substack.com/christina
5:29 Shaun King’s substack. He has a podcast in addition to his newsletter.
Your podcast. Bigger and better. Substack Link.
Substack makes it simple to start a subscription podcast. You can distribute to Apple and Spotify, build a home for your community, and grow your audience right here.
“We moved to Substack because the platform enables us to develop Pack Your Knives into more than a weekly podcast, expand our offerings beyond the weekly recap, and build a community hub for all things Top Chef.”
– Kevin Arnovitz, Pack Your KnivesMore than a podcast.
Each podcast episode can become a bigger, richer experience by adding supporting multimedia material around it—writing, images, transcripts, or bonus audio and video content.A direct relationship with listeners.
On Substack, you’re not podcasting into a void. Email subscriptions create direct relationships with listeners. Comments and community threads connect subscribers.Monetize through devotion.
Share free episodes broadly via email, web, in the Substack app, or via RSS feed to all major podcast players—and add extra perks for paying subscribers all in one place.“Adding my podcast to Burnt Toast has been such an important way to build my community and make my work more accessible to a wider audience… Since I launched my podcast, my total list has grown by 30 percent and my paid subscribers have nearly doubled.”
– Virginia Sole-Smith, Burnt ToastGreat podcasters are on Substack.
From food and culture to politics and crypto, Substack is a home for podcasts by both seasoned hosts and new talent.
The Fifth ColumnMedia veterans Kmele Foster, Michael Moynihan, and Matt Welch decided to bring their weekly show from Patreon to Substack in spring 2022 in order ensure they own their content, IP, mailing list, and payment information.
Virginia Sole-SmithVirginia Sole-Smith launched a podcast on Substack to complement her weekly essay on parenting through diet culture and fatphobia, along with monthly Q&A episodes for paid subscribers.
MartyrMadeResearcher and writer Darryl Cooper created The MartyrMade podcast, a hit podcast covering “tragic and epic” stories from the past.
Eric NewcomerAs part of his deeply reported Substack publication about Silicon Valley, Eric Newcomer hosts a weekly podcast called Dead Cat. The podcast has thousands of listeners per episode.
Andrew SullivanAndrew Sullivan added a podcast to his publication, The Weekly Dish, to deepen the relationship with his subscribers, and calls the medium “the perfect complement to writing.”
Glenn LouryWriter and academic Glenn Loury has published a podcast and YouTube show for 13 years. He moved the show to Substack in 2021.
Ethan StraussLongtime NBA writer Ethan Strauss moved his beloved House of Strauss podcast to Substack. In addition to podcast episodes and written pieces, Ethan narrates articles for paying subscribers.
David Roberts (Volts)As David Roberts transitioned from blogging into professional journalism, his audience transformed from loyal followers to “random people who happen to see your headline drift past on social media.” On Substack, so that a community of readers support his writing and podcast directly, “with no advertisements or institutions in between.”The easy way to get started with audio.No need for long episodes, hefty edits, or expensive equipment. Keep it simple and record audio directly in the Substack editor.
