This was a hot topic discussed in my Women in Publishing Zoom group. I wanted to provide some insight based on my experience with Substack. This is going to be a two-part newsletter.
Claire, thanks for posting this. I’ve always known that I would need to address the social media aspect of my most recent writing project. But, like you, it seems a bit overwhelming to think about the requisite time to do it justice, so I’ve done very little. And I’m fairly adept at social media! I’ll be reading your next installment to better understand how your using various platforms.
On a positive note, I’ve been contacted by someone who’s affiliated with The New Yorker about the possibility of my story being a podcast. It was interesting that you recently told me the you “can totally see it as a podcast.” We’ll see.
Thank you for this Claire, it's really helpful. I'm writing memoir at the moment and I have also moved from Wordpress to Substack for much the same reasons. I am already getting far more engagement on here in three months than I did in 5 years of wordpress. My query though is about how much memoir should one put on a free substack? I started writing my memoir initially as a book, but no publisher was interested, and I didn't feel confident enough to self-publish. I started putting short chapters out onto substack (they're episodic and more essay-like than a chronological 'story') and people love them. I think ,maybe they could be collected into a book for selling - but....if most of them are already on substack....do you see?
I appreciate you sharing this as I’m in a similar space. No one has time to do it all, which makes it all the more important to make our choices as writers from a place of consciousness rather than ‘what everyone else does.’
Claire, thanks for posting this. I’ve always known that I would need to address the social media aspect of my most recent writing project. But, like you, it seems a bit overwhelming to think about the requisite time to do it justice, so I’ve done very little. And I’m fairly adept at social media! I’ll be reading your next installment to better understand how your using various platforms.
On a positive note, I’ve been contacted by someone who’s affiliated with The New Yorker about the possibility of my story being a podcast. It was interesting that you recently told me the you “can totally see it as a podcast.” We’ll see.
Thank you for this Claire, it's really helpful. I'm writing memoir at the moment and I have also moved from Wordpress to Substack for much the same reasons. I am already getting far more engagement on here in three months than I did in 5 years of wordpress. My query though is about how much memoir should one put on a free substack? I started writing my memoir initially as a book, but no publisher was interested, and I didn't feel confident enough to self-publish. I started putting short chapters out onto substack (they're episodic and more essay-like than a chronological 'story') and people love them. I think ,maybe they could be collected into a book for selling - but....if most of them are already on substack....do you see?
I appreciate you sharing this as I’m in a similar space. No one has time to do it all, which makes it all the more important to make our choices as writers from a place of consciousness rather than ‘what everyone else does.’