Everyone Should be on Substack, but it Shouldn’t Replace Your Author Newsletter
Advice from a certified email marketer
Like many of you, I first started on Substack as just a reader back in 2023. At this time, I was only toying with the idea of wanting to publish and thought that “maybe I would get to it one day.”
Everywhere I turned, I saw authors talk about their email list and that everyone, even aspiring authors, should have a list, but no one would actually say why. So I opened my Substack publication in 2024, and here we are two years later, and I feel like I’m just now understanding how I want to use this space.
And that’s to help other Christian writer moms navigate the ins and outs of publishing in a manner that doesn’t stray from our true calling–caring for our home and family.
Why Every Writer Should Have a Newsletter
Your newsletter list is one of the only things that you truly own. Any day, META could shut down your social media, TikTok could be banned again . . . you get the idea.
But a newsletter list, that’s yours.
People give you their personal email in exchange for insight about your business–usually exclusive insight.
These are going to be your most loyal readers, where you should pull for alpha and beta reading, your ARC team, a street team–they’re your cheerleaders. And they want to hear from you.
Why Everyone Should be on Substack
What even is Substack?
Essentially, Substack is a little bit of everything. It links to RSS for podcasting, and it links to YouTube for easy video uploads. It’s a gentle social media (no yucky algorithm), newsletter, and website all in one place.
And it’s amazing.
Utilizing Substack’s built-in Notes feature provides organic in-app growth. Substack genuinely pushed your content to users they believe will truly like it (I can talk about this more later). The Substack platform is really set up to help you be successful.
In the last 30 days, all but one of my subscribers came from Substack notes. You can truly build a sustainable newsletter on Substack alone.
Substack Shouldn’t Replace Your Author Newsletter
So why am I saying that it can’t replace your author newsletter?
Some of Substack’s strengths are also its weaknesses. Like being able to have your newsletters live forever as an article on your page. It makes your content searchable and available to your growing audience. Using Substack as your author newsletter alone removes exclusivity and reason for your audience to subscribe. After all, one of the biggest perks to being on a newsletter is to have exclusive access to behind-the scenes work.
Now, there are ways to avoid, like pay-walling old posts. But I would advise against this. Many Substackers see stunted growth after their best posts become pay-walled. Another way is to comp a special group of subscribers to keep access exclusive. But that becomes sticky, especially if you ever plan to offer a real membership option through Substack. (I speak from experience.)
Substack doesn’t have a way for segmented lists. This is the ability to be able to organize your newsletter list into like-minded groups. For example, if you’re a multi-genre author like me, creating segments for each genre is a vital thing to do. My romance readers may not like my poetry, and my cozy fantasy readers may not care for my children’s book. Blasting emailing my full audience can easily decrease my open rate and lower deliverability (the chance of landing in their inbox).
Use Subtack as Your Main Growth for a Newsletter
So, if Substack is so amazing, but shouldn’t replace your author newsletter, what should you do?
Use Subtack.
And use an ESP (email service provider).
As I mentioned before, when someone subscribes to your Substack, they’ve agreed to give you their email address in exchange for your updates. This is called implicit consent, single-opt in. It can ethically be used to upload your subscriber list to an outside ESP. Upload your Subtack list to your ESP. This enables me to grow on Substack and keep your newsletter content exclusive.
Just remember to follow CAN-SPAM and unsubscribe from both lists if someone unsubscribes from one.
Using an additional ESP also allows you to:
Build email funnels, like welcome emails
Use personalization
Set up a sunset policy (for graymails)
Build lead generators
The Bottom Line
Substack is a game-changer for organic newsletter building, and everyone should use it, but it can’t be used solely.
If you need help building your newsletter list, I’m taking on 2-3 newsletter writing clients, and I would love to work with you. Let’s build a sustainable plan together.
Want to see if we’d be a good fit first? Fill out this free inquiry form to learn how I can help you grow your newsletter.
