Loved this workshop! Such great energy.

New Focus for 2025 on Substack Writers at Work

We’re going all-in on your Substack in 2025. What makes Substack so exciting? It’s where you apply your gifts, talents, and expertise to the platform. You being you, bringing your amazing work to the world—with Substack Writers at Work behind you.

Substack’s Window of Opportunity

In the workshop, I said that the window of opportunity on Substack is closing. That isn’t to panic you. That isn’t to say that you should rush or hurry. Chris Best, the CEO of Substack, said that this time on Substack is like the early days of YouTube and podcasting. You can start a Substack and just grow, much like you could in the early days of YouTube and podcasting. The growth is phenomenal. That could last a year or two or five, but 2025 is definitely the year to take advantage of it.

New 2025 SW@W Workshop Format

We followed the new workshop structure for all 2025 Substack Writers at Work workshops. Substack Mastery Workshops will be active and participatory with feedback opportunities and network opportunities:

* Teaching: I’ll give you a framework you need or a change to make.

* Implementation: You’ll have hands-on time to implement it in the workshop.

* Breakout rooms: For feedback and possible collaboration opportunities. Meet each other, get to know each other. (Epic breakout rooms, Barri Grant said!)

Logistics:

* Replays will always be available.

* Workshops are always on the first Saturday of every month at 12:30 CT.

The Growing Importance of Your Short Description and Bio

Your short description has always been important. It’s what people see when they first land on your welcome page and often appears on your homepage.

But your short description and bio are more important than ever. Why?

* We have pop-ups that appear for new visitors, and they only show your short description.

* Substack inserts subscribe and recommend calls to actions in posts, and only your short description is shown.

* In Notes, when people hover over your name, the preview is your short description and your bio.

In the workshop, I give you

* the new requirements for your short description and bio,

* effective examples, and

* step-by-step directions on how to craft your description and bio.

The requirements, examples, directions, and slide deck are below.

You can also use the comments to get feedback on your short description and bio. Enjoy!

Join us for 2025! Become a paid member of Substack Writers at Work.

Find out how the title of your Substack, building community, and tapping into the Substack network can lead to real, meaningful growth.

Authentic Growth PDF toolkit below.

I bring you my interview with (and case study of) two amazing Substack creators—and, I’m proud to say, clients—Seth Werkheiser and Cassidy Frost.

They both found extraordinary success on Substack:

* Seth grew from 541 to over 4000 subscribers in one year through experimenting with his offerings and taking advantage of the Substack network.

* Seth is a musician and guide for the growing social media exodus. Through his Substack Social Media Escape Club, he empowers creatives to connect directly with their audience, grow their fanbase, and burn down the constraints of social media algorithms.

* Cassidy built 1400 subscribers from 0 (that’s zero, folks) in five months by focusing their Substack and building a tight community.

* Cassidy is a writer and artist educator living in San Francisco. They run the Substack Dedicate Your Life to Music, “helping women & queers build their music careers.”

Check out both my interview with them above and my case studies of what led to their enormous growth below.

Interview and Case Study Quick Tip:

Your Substack Title Is Everything

When Seth came to see me for 1:1 guidance, I immediately saw how much incredible value he was offering, but—there’s often a but—the name of his Substack was Heavy Metal Email.

Seth: “I always tell people it was like 27 minutes into our 30-minute call. And Sarah was like, ‘I don’t like the name.’ I don’t know if it was exactly like that, but I just remember it was just like, ‘I don't like the name.’”

It wasn’t about liking or not liking; I just had no idea what Heavy Metal Email meant and that maybe it was too restrictive.

And Seth had so much to offer.

Seth: “The name change was just a mindset shift with that of like, Oh yeah, I could still rail against social media, but it doesn’t have to be limited to just music.”

He was against a title change. All his branding was there. But he did it.

And as soon as he changed it to Social Media Escape Club, his Substack took off:

The title of your Substack is everything. Unless it tells subscribers exactly what they’ll find there—be leaden, not poetic or “intriguing”—they will not visit your Substack. People are busy; they don’t have time to try to puzzle out your Substack.

Cassidy’s does so much work for the potential subscriber: Dedicate Your Life to Music. I know exactly what it is. I even know the energy behind it.

For paid subscribers:

Authentic Growth Toolkit (PDF)

* How Seth and Cassidy 10x’d and 14x’d their subscribers by focusing on community building and using the Substack network

* A clear implementation strategy based on the community-building approaches that have worked and are working so well for Seth and Cassidy\

I’ve done a variation on this goal-setting session every year since 2018 and am amazed at the results it consistently produces—both in my own life and in the lives of the writers and Substack writers I work with.

I want you to walk away from the replay of this session knowing at least one thing:

The wins you’ve already achieved—no matter how supposedly small—hold the keys to your future success on Substack.

Through neuroscience, practical strategies, and real-world examples from writers in our community, the replay above and Goal Setting Toolkit and Magical Monthly Planner below will take you step-by-step to discover how small wins create sustainable growth.

Highlights:

* Why celebrating every win actually decreases motivation

* The “middle problem” and how to overcome it

* A 30-second technique for handling goal-related anxiety

* The surprising power of visualizing failure (and when to use it)

* How to make goals both ambitious and meaningful

Most importantly, we walked through a step-by-step process for setting achievable goals that still stretch your capabilities. The writers who attended left with clear 2025 goals and practical plans for reaching them.

For paid subscribers:

* Full goal-setting session replay (50 minutes of focused strategy)

* Your Goal Setting Toolkit (structured workbook PDF with proven exercises)

* The Magical Monthly Planner (the simple system that helped me reach 29,000+ subscribers)

* Quarterly check-ins to keep you accountable and supported throughout 2025 (March, June, September, December)

* Our first community goal-setting thread below (!)

Want to set your 2025 Substack goals in a way that makes them achievable? Upgrade to paid:

Here’s to your ambitious, meaningful growth in 2025!

Live Substack Office Hours. Your Substack questions answered.

Become a paid subscriber to Substack Writers at Work: www.writersatwork.net/subscribe.

Yet another way SW@W is here to help you be your amazing self on Substack.

Who?

* Me, you, all of us.

What?

* Your Substack questions answered.

When?

* I’ll announce the day and time of each live Substack Office Hours every Tuesday in that week’s post.

* We’ll also have popup Office Hours.

Where?

* You’ll be notified in email and the app when we’re live.

* We’ll be live in the app.

Why?

* Imagine: Getting to ask me instead of the bot.

* Imagine: No more confusion. No more frustration. No more feeling alone.

* Office Hours are for paid subscribers.

What are they like?

* Watch the replay above to find out! (Great to listen to in the app or on Spotify or Apple. Timestamps are below.)

* Basically, come on, be with each other, connect, put your questions in the chat, and I’ll try to get to each one.

How?

* Join us by upgrading to paid.

Substack Office Hours, 11/8/24

[00:04:17] Niches vs. being a generalist—my signature Substack DNA paradigm

[00:07:35] Setting up subscriber challenges/workshops

[00:09:33] Understanding the activity tab & metrics

[00:14:18] Posting frequency - category differences & expectations

[00:29:56] Balancing posts vs. notes - social media strategy

[00:33:02] Monetization & subscription value

[00:39:01] Headers, footers, and banners - design elements

[00:42:02] Building audience—reality vs. perception

[00:44:21] Custom domains and URLs

[00:48:46] Selling/marketing without losing authenticity

[00:51:31] Writing calls to action effectively

[00:52:26] Community building among Substack Writers at Work subscribers

To upgrade to listen on Apple, go to www.writersatwork.net/subscribe.

How to Write an Opinion Piece on Substack

On Substack, most people doing any form of personal writing use three modes:

* rumination,

* narrative, and/or

* opinion.

Your posts may be a mix of all three, but to write Substacks that draw readers and create engagement, we need to know which mode we’re in and how each works.

Opinion writing may be one of the hardest:

* How do we do it without being moralizing, reactionary, or trite?

* How do we establish authority?

* How do we write something important to readers, not just ourselves?

By the end of this workshop, you’ll know the four keys to opinion writing online: 

* The difference between a hot take, a think piece, an opinion piece, and an op-ed

* The ideal structure for an opinion piece that doesn’t come out dull, sloppy, or disjointed or harangue the reader—brought to us by the great

* How publishing an opinion piece on Substack can perhaps take a different approach than writing an op-ed for a mainstream media outlet

* The 10 keys to a successful op-ed

Wow!

This workshop from the Substack data expert Amanda Hinton is packed with ways to use the data on your Substack dashboard to strategize your Substack growth.

01:39 Amanda's Journey and Approach to Data

04:34 Workshop Goals

06:00 Understanding Substack Data and Metrics

09:40 Analyzing Newsletter Performance

11:19 Addressing Data Anomalies and Subscriber Insights

14:42 Navigating the Substack Dashboard

27:44 Subscriber Page and Activity Ratings

32:39 Navigating Subscriber Metrics

33:44 Filtering and Analyzing Reader Engagement

34:58 Understanding Post Views and Shares

36:30 Email Segmenting and Targeting

37:34 Practical Demonstration of Filters

42:13 Identifying Key Reader Behaviors

50:03 Tracking Subscriber Actions

55:43 Final Tips and Resources

Join the Substack Writers at Work membership: For people who are ready to get serious about their success on Substack. www.writersatwork.net

I have such a treat for you. Today, my guest is the one and only Lucy Werner. She is the mastermind behind the Substack Hype Yourself, which is also the title of one of her bestselling books. I’m so happy to bring you this lightning-quick episode in which we look at why it’s okay to hype yourself and your Substack.

Hype Yourself is one of the top 50 global business newsletters. With over 20 years of communications experience, she’s taught hundreds of entrepreneurs through workshops and courses for creative spaces, like The Futur, Bayes Business School, and the University of Arts London.

She’s the author of two bestselling books, Hype Yourself and Brand Yourself, and has been featured in the Alt Marketing Power 100, The Dots Rising Stars, and Start Up Magazine’s Female Founders to Watch.

Please enjoy my interview with the great Lucy Werner.

Join Substack Writers at Work, the only all-in-one accelerated membership to get ahead on Substack fast: www.writersatwork.net

Watch the replay to

* Craft a customized, effective Notes strategy with viral potential

* Create a calendar that gets you results on Notes in less time

* Break out of your Substack bubble and attract new subscribers

Watch now—or listen in the app or on Spotify or Apple podcasts.

Join the only all-in-one membership where you get subscribers, build a platform, and earn an income on Substack: www.writersatwork.net/subscribe

I had the opportunity to sit down with Hamish McKenzie, co-founder of Substack. I’m so happy to bring you our conversation. It was really illuminating and feels like the best thing I can give you as a Substack writer or creator.

Many people don’t understand or know who the people behind Substack are. Hamish and all the people who work at Substack are some of the best, most idealistic people I’ve ever met. That goes across the board, everyone who works at Substack.

I’m very happy to bring Hamish to you today.

If you don’t know Hamish, he’s a New Zealander living in the Bay Area. He’s the co-founder of Substack and also a writer in his own right—like many people who work at Substack. He’s an incredible writer, author of Insane Mode: How Elon Musk's Tesla Sparked an Electric Revolution to End the Age of Oil, which came out in 2018. Before that, he was a journalist, the former lead writer of Tesla, and a reporter for the tech blog PandoDaily. He’s written for publications around the world on technology, business, pop culture, and politics.

So please enjoy my interview with Substack Co-founder Hamish Mckenzie.

HIGHLIGHTS:

On Substack’s origins:

“The core realization [was] that you needed to make the reader the customer instead of the product…Substack’s real product is the Substack model... undergirding the entire ecosystem.”

On the idealism behind Substack:

“[We thought] maybe we can build something here that could be an alternative to that other system that we think is corroding trust and corroding goodwill in society.”

On Substack’s current vision:

“The vision is as pure as it was the day it was born.”

On the power of small, engaged audiences:

“Even if it’s fifty people.. it can be nourishing and rewarding where you really feel like you’re writing to real people who are really reading your stuff and engaging.”

On the Substack model vs traditional social media:

“This more genuine, deeper connection where the economics can be productive with lower numbers is transformative in itself.”

Advice for new Substack writers with an existing platform:

“Tell people that you’re doing your work over here. Consolidate your work here.”

Advice for new Substack writers without an existing platform:

“Don't overthink it. Just start publishing, get feedback from people. Don’t panic if you’re writing to a small audience for a while.”

On the current media landscape:

“This is the best time there's ever been to start a one-man or one-woman media empire, or even just like your ongoing serial publication.”

03:20 Hamish’s time at Tesla and his book

07:34 Substack’s origin story

12:41 Substack’s vision and model

25:03 Advice for aspiring Substack writers

Get more expert interviews like this one from the Substack team by joining the Substack Writers at Work membership:

Join the only all-in-one membership where you get subscribers, build a platform, and earn an income on Substack: www.writersatwork.net/subscribe

Today we’re going to stop begging for paid subscriptions. I’m going to give you six smart call-to-action strategies. Don’t worry if you don't know what a call to action is—we’ll get to that. Six smart CTA strategies to convert paid substack subscribers.

Stop Begging for Paid Subscriptions

01:28 Understanding CTAs: What and Why

02:36 Strategy 1: Limit Your CTAs

03:42 Strategy 2: Focus on the Subscriber

07:16 Strategy 3: Customize Your CTA

08:22 Strategy 4: Experiment with Wording

09:58 Strategy 5: Avoid Begging

10:55 Strategy 6: Make Subscribers' Lives Easier

11:28 Conclusion: Recap and Next Steps