Download my FREE Audience Alchemy class and kindle your understanding of your audience and your relationship to them. ⚡️

Hi folks,

I recorded this episode for you to bring you into my inner world when it comes to publishing here. You can listen or watch over on my YouTube channel.

🎙️ AI Episode Summary: Sparkle on Substack – Staying Creative Amid Change

Claire Venus reflects on her evolving Substack journey since 2022, exploring how the platform and her own creative practice have transformed.

She shares honest insights into:

* Recent platform changes (like the news feed and algorithm updates) that have shifted how creators experience Substack — sometimes feeling overstimulating, requiring stronger boundaries and intentional use.

* Creative sustainability, encouraging creators to focus less on metrics and more on intuition, depth of connection, and creative joy.

* Community and support, highlighting the power of memberships, hot seat calls, and peer spaces for creative growth and shared learning.

* Audience evolution, drawing on her background in audience development and reminding listeners to listen to and learn from their readers.

Claire opens up about:

* Experiencing slowed growth, subscriber churn, and algorithmic setbacks.

* Taking a period of deep rest over summer to reset her energy and perspective.

* Returning to her core values of depth, connection, and authentic creativity, rather than chasing fast growth.

She reminds listeners that:

* Paid newsletters and memberships still work — even in slower seasons.

* Churn is normal and not personal.

* Substack is still a place for long-term, meaningful audience building — not instant success.

Don’t forget it’s FREE to download my 2026 Substack planner if you’d like.

You can follow me on instagram - I love a chat! ✨

Thank you Louise Tilbrook, Kathy Slack, Practical Astros ⚕️, Jennifer Zarin, LCAT, Nicole Clark, and many others for tuning into my live video! Join me for my next live video in the app.

Here’s the challenge I reference which is live right now. All welcome and FREE to members. ✨

Thank you Chitra 🦋 Eder, Margaret Williams, MS, ACC, Your Menopause Toolkit, Louise Tilbrook, Lynn Hill, and many others for tuning into my live video! Join me for my next live video in the app.

Artist I mention…

https://www.yoshitomonara.org

More on Diamond membership if you are called to read/ join -

My FREE audience alchemy class that helps you discover your ideal reader and get more confident about where your writing meets them is here.

Thank you Alyssa Polizzi, The Artist's Toolbox, Daria Diaz, daphne cohn, Liisa Kovala, and many others for tuning into my live video with Substack Strategist Sarah Fay, PhD.

I hope you found it insightful.

I love Sarah’s frameworks and grounded advice. There’s not one thing she doesn’t know about how to get the most from this platform whilst keeping your integrity.

If you have a specific question about your Substack publication in 2026, drop them below in the comments and we’ll get to them next time.

Claire (and Sarah)

📔

If you’d like to do some gentle reflections and start to plan out your 2026 on Substack I’ve made my 123 page Substack Planner & Journal Companion free for a limited time.

Use this coupon and you can download it for free and print it so you’re ready to reflect and plan.

Hi Sparklers

I’m super excited to bring this cosy chat with Emma Carpendale to you today. Emma is an award-winning artist and illustrator who works from home here in the UK.

She generously shares more in her community The Creative Flock and on Substack live from time to time too.

We chat about…

* The subscription model

* Showing up with a multimedia approach and our chosen equipment

* The balance of free and membership content and the value

* Thematic anchors for our work

* Cultivating intimate spaces and deeper experiences

* How to deal with overwhelm and pulling back on showing up so much

* Balancing nervous system work, staying in your line with being online

* Finding good fit collaboration, unique creative practise and being live.

* Boundaries and balancing energy with long term goals

* Transitions between mum life and work

Through gentle imagery and storytelling, I aim to spark reflection, inspire care, and contribute to a more hopeful, compassionate world.

We also mention…

* Farrah @Substack and her wonderful publication Things Worth Knowing with Farrah Storr

* Sarah Raad over at Gather & Grow

* RAJ KAUR over at Art As Work

* Beth Spencer and Catherine Rayner at Introvert Drawing Club and Catherine Rayner’s Studio. Here’s the interview I mentioned.

* My post

Thank you so much to Emma Carpendale for podcasting with me. You can subscribe to her Substack publication, join her membership, visit her website and online shop or follow her on Instagram here. Remember, you have an exclusive 14day free trial if you’d like to use it.

We would LOVE for you to share this episode if it resonated with you. Remember you can also listen on spotify and apple podcasts.

Thank you Katie Chappell, Alyssa Polizzi, The Artist's Toolbox, Daria Diaz, New Harmony Homeopath, and many others for tuning into my live video with Russell Nohelty!

If you want more of Russell Nohelty and I, you can buy our Secrets of Substack Bestseller’s Masterclass. Two hours of the deep dive strategy that got us and our clients to be Substack bestsellers with 100s of paid subscribers.

This class is free to my 💎Diamond members

More on the overview of drip emails/ funnels from Substack here…

And Russell Nohelty’s take in a little more depth in this post too -

Thank you Georgina Dean, Annette Skye, Angela Limb, Catherine Davison, Beth Bastow, and many others for tuning into my live video with Claire Tomkins! Join me for my next live video in the app.

You can subscribe to Claire Tomkins here…

My free Audience Alchemy class is here if you want to get to know your audience better.

“Claire is the QUEEN of Substack”

Selina Barker

☃️ Oooo while I’m here there are a few spots left to advertise with me in my two holiday editions of this newsletter this festive season (in December). If you have a product, a book or would like to advertise your newsletter, grab one for just £30. 🎄

Hi Sparklers,

I popped on a quick live from Lidl carpark before grocery shopping this morning as I was procrastinating on the ‘big shop’.

I wanted to talk more about monetising your newsletter.

Running a paid newsletter model AND running a membership model here on Substack are TWO very different things.

I’m hosting a live class at 11am tomorrow (replay available) which is a DEEP dive into the paid newsletter model (without the bells and whistles of a paid membership model).

There’s a BIG difference. I’ve often seen the road to burnout paved with many a Frankenstein model of both of these things. ⚡️🧌

I’ve been building here on Substack for over three years. I didn’t have a ‘big’ audience anywhere else but Substack have supported me to build one here, completely transform my business and get clearer about my offer across the internet air waves.

It’s a TRUE joy to do this work.

Don’t miss my LIVE class tomorrow.

My LAST beginners class of the year.

If you’d like to come along to Monetise your Newsletter and Build Recurring Revenue tomorrow, the link is here. There is 50% off the cost of this class for my members as an act of service too. (link shared in chat).

I also have another class if you think you’d like to build more of a membership model here which has been one of my most popular classes this year.

I do both here (run a paid newsletter and run a membership and I LOVE both for different reasons). I’ve built my paid newsletter to 120 paying readers and my membership to over 450 members in my time here.

I’m so proud of that and it’s been so beautiful to be part of SO many journeys. Seeing you burst your work to life is my own heart work - I feel so honoured that you spend time with me, read my words, come to my classes and share how it all makes you feel on Notes. Thank you! 💖

Hopefully see you tomorrow at class! Any questions, I’m all ears!!

Claire

xxx

Thank you Reda Rountree (she/her), Kaitlyn Ramsay, and many others for tuning into my live video! Join me for my next live video in the app.

Hi loves,

Welcome back to another episode of Sparkle on Substack the podcast with me Claire Venus ✨

This episode is with artist and motorhome enthusiast Jo Scott who is a ‘graduate’ of the Sparkle on Substack membership. Jo writes her ‘Travelling Artist’ substack newsletter from all over the world on her travels with her husband.

I hope you enjoy and do go and check out Jo’s work and interviews with other artists - it’s really fun and friendly over there!!

I was really captivated by Jo’s wisdom and holistic approach to ‘being’ and earning online and think you will be too.

https://www.instagram.com/joscottartist

https://www.joscottart.com/pages/wwj

Thank you to everyone who tuned into my live video! Join me for my next live video in the app.