Inspired by that I made this note today which is the origin story…

Your origin story is the piece of your work where you discover more and more each time you visit it - it’s much more than a bio or an about page but it does help inform these things.

You’re allowed to make yourself the hero in your own story.

Even though I’ve done lots of this work…

I made so so many notes. Did you?

The replay video and the slides are below.

If you just have a few moments to spare here are the prompts

1. What is your name and what do you like about it?

2. 10 Tiny Truths (about you)

3. Who are you speaking to

4. What is your truest truth

5. Write out the timeline of your origin stories

6. What is your superpower / what sets you apart.

7. What do you want to be known for?

8. What’s the golden thread?

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Thanks for your beautiful energy this morning. ✨

Here’s the replay and if you’d like to pop yourself forward to swap looking at each other’s publication from the POV of a mystery shopper who feels invited to subscribe - here’s the link;

Here’s the link to share your images/ photos of objects in chat if you have found something that will keep you anchored to doing the work you want to do this quarter!

Claire

✨

P.S - here’s the canva link to teach your readers how to navigate Substack - edit with your branding - https://canva.link/ojmqywjbrvwlvdm

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WELCOME everyone! Whether you’ve just joined us as a Diamond member, annual member, you’re with us monthly, on a trial, you’ve renewed for another year or you’ve been here since the beginning - I’m so so glad we are doing this work together.

As promised, this is a new intro thread for us all to connect with each other. I’ll update the lin…

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NOTE - for some reason I can’t add everyone here as co-authors so we’ll switch back to chat for this from next month…

Hi folks,

If you’re trying to grow your Substack publication using Substack Notes, you’re in the right place.

Inside the membership we usually run these Notes engagement threads for 3 days at the end of the month as a little boost.

In th…

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So gorgeous to see you all yesterday.

Remember to use my Substack calculator to work out your take home pay.

Things to remember about monetisation here;

• Substack take 10%

• Apple app subs are 30% higher and the relationship is directly with apple.

• Founding member tier sign up for a year, you can create a seperate section for them and email them separately.

• Building low volume and higher price point is harder and churn is higher

• Building high volume and low price point is easier and churn is less

• Average paid sub conversion is 2-5% of your overall subs. To increase the percentage you need to look at how much you are giving for free.

• Use the emails tab to send special offers, the deliver is higher, it’s more direct, it won’t get lost - people appreciate clear comms.

Substack Calculator

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Brighter Days, Darker Nights

Circadian rhythm protocols for fertility, pregnancy, birth, postpartum, breastfeeding and babies. Learn about sunlight, hormones, polyphasic sleep, nutrition, anemia & mental health from the Research Director at the Institute of Applied Quantum Biology.

By Nikko Kennedy

Will share more recommendations and links in the comments when I get round to it next week.

Link shared - https://www.iaqb.foundation

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“My main takeaway is the importance of the invitation. By coincidence I was talking about the power of invitations through stories last month in my paid space 🙂”

Hi folks,

Here’s the replay from our class.

KEY actions -

• Your goal for community engagement on Substack in 2026 - what do you want?

• Is your Substack bio inviting to your key audience member?

• What is your MAGIC post combo to encourage the KEY engagement metic trio - the like, the comment and the share. Achieving this is the SINGLE biggest factor in Substack growth outside of going viral.

• Other ways to drive engagement…

Plus screen sharing with examples and going behind the scenes of engagement.

✨

Here are the links to the posts/ publications I mentioned…plus the overview and replay.

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Thanks so much to those of you who could sit in circle this morning…

Here’s our replay.

We’ll do more goals setting through the year and remember you can come back to your golden timeline anytime…

Subscribe now

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I’m so excited to announce our programme up to April 26 is live.

Here at , we focus on joyful, sustainable growth and staying creative here on Substack. We cultivate deep engagement with our readers too. 💖

Just as a reminder you can post questions for community support in our paid subscriber only chat anytime.

Here’s our quarter one (or as I like to say Chapter One) overview for live calls…

Chapter One - January - end of March.

Intention - Settling into the Vision, setting our goals and laying the foundations of a world class Substack!

Live Calls

Jan 2026

• 1 January - - subscribe here for daily posts and weekly emails.

• Monday, January 12, 2026 – 9.30 – Your 2026 Substack Vision and Gentle Goal Setting.

• Wednesday 28 Jan - 12 Chapter’s Club celebration and 2026 launch. For more on 12 Chapter’s Club and if you’d like to write your Substack posts into chapters of a book go here to sign up to my free club.

💎 Thursday, January 29 – 15.30 – Diamond Hot Seat Mentoring

Feb

• Monday, February 2 – 9.30 – Engagement and Growing Community on Substack

• Thursday, February 26 – 15.30 – Conversion - Paywalls, paid posts, memberships and more on Substack.

March

💎 Monday, March 2 – 9.30 – Diamond Hot Seat Mentoring

• Thursday, March 26 – 15.30 – Automated emails on Substack and nurture sequences on and off platform.

Chapter Two - April, May and June…

Intention - Get it Done Season - let’s harness the energy of Spring and get the tasks DONE! We’ll be ticking off organisation, writing together and making decisions this season.

• Monday 13 April - 9.30-10.45 - Reflections and Goal Setting for Chapter Two.

  🌸 Next series of calls will be announced mid January! 💫

And here’s the weekly flow of how we get the work on our publications done

It’s a pick and mix adventure here. There is community, education, growth and positioning advice. You can pick and choose what feels good to you. There are classes on audio, video, growth, good fit collab, engagement and so much more to help you feel aligned and happy on your creative path.

You also access my 4 week long beginners course for Substack and a tonne of replay classes and tutorials plus the most supportive community - it’s such a nice space to hang out, network and align your best work.

Any questions, do let me know. I’m so excited to help you grow, design and flourish on Substack next year! If you’re hanging out as a reader and don’t want to join the membership that’s totally fine - I’m lucky to have you and I publish at least two FREE articles a month with tips, tutorials and advice on what it takes to build something really meaningful here.

I think that’s all - ooo before I forget - members - I have a Holiday pressie coming for you all next week - I’m so excited to share this wonderful gift! 💝

Sending Sparkles for your day ahead,

Claire

✨

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Some recent posts you might have missed…

It was so wonderful to hear from some of you today. Well done to everyone who is showing up and leaning into their beautiful, sustainable joyful growth practise!!

Here’s the replay and I included the audio so you can listen too if you’d prefer - allll the warm and fuzzies.

Claire

✨

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Get more from Claire Venus ✨ in the Substack app

Available for iOS and Android

Get the app

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The other day I tried to pinch zoom a physical photo and I have no idea why. It was a polaroid picture of me and my son as a toddler. I was distracted - my four year old and my husband were both talking to me at once… something happened and my brain short circuited for a split second. Lost between worlds of online and real life… perhaps this has happened to you? Or maybe I’m the only one… please say I’m not 🙊

Stepping seamlessly between worlds when it comes to online and real life has been the single biggest thing that’s protected my sanity building an online business with me at the helm.

If we want to STEP into our POWER when it comes to creating on Substack it doesn’t need to feel scary. What we actually need to do is get MORE curious about how our creative practise of being a person who shows up online is ever evolving! There is no blueprint to step into better than your unique, embodied and beautiful creative practise. ✨

You can if you like…

I feel like there’s a lot of noise around using audio and video here on Substack at the moment and what we can/ should do next year…I wanted to write and say from my point of view - nothing has changed - it’s always been possible to utilise audio/ video features. Substack hasn’t changed that much and we still have YEARS before it does.1

As writers and creatives online we can ALWAYS choose the best fit for our creative ecosystem…

And if Substack is just part of the internet and your online ecosystem,2the question you really have to ask yourself is two fold…

• Do you want to use audio/video.

• Do your audience enjoy it?

Art in the form of long form writing, books, e-books are all beautifully valid and greatly important ways to self express.

- I watch very few videos online. 😵‍💫

- I actually only listen to audio if it’s a meditation or a video podcast and I would never choose to press the button that allows your post to be read aloud to me.3

My inner world is rich and deep and my outer world is noisier than I’d like so I simply don’t add more noise into it. I know I know - I’m only ONE person in a sea of people you’d like to attract into your Substack…but… hear me out?

Individual reader behaviours are important here because we MUST understand what our readers like and how they like to consume our work. There is much nuance and it’s lovely to give folks a choice…

If it helps - use my British Fish and Chips analogy?

In the UK, the Fish and Chip Shops economy is worth of £1billion. We’ve grown up knowing how we like to eat ours - salt and vinegar, a squirt of heinz tomato sauce… a cup of milky tea on the side.

We have our favourites, we’ve been known to queue for up to an hour to get them. The smell oozing closes as we inch toward the counter. We LOVE to invite guests to share in our experience with us but you’d be hard pushed to get someone to try a pickled egg if they hate the idea of it.

Were you there with me… the salty sea air, the visceral moment before the taste of the meal…did I lose you with the pickled egg?

We can go deeper on the strategy that supports a reading experience to be more accessible and reach them in mixed media ways IF we want to. Thank you for this collab…

We have a wonderful opportunity to build trust through audio and/ or video and make the experience of our subscribers, readers and customers something tangible. It’s one of the reasons I’ve grown to love PERFECTLY, IMPERFECT podcasting.

I love podcasting - I always knew I wanted to podcast here and I’m super proud that I have 80k downloads. I was terrified to put the first episode out - it gets easier… I love it when people drop reviews or tell me they are watching on their telly or listening in the car - how wild is that?

You can ALWAYS start with what you have and celebrate the journey to imperfect art… everyone starts somewhere and the journey can be a joy!!

Perfectionism will crush you if you employ it to work on your podcast with you. Leave it outside your recording studio door. ✨ 🎙️

My 12 step podcast flow with Substack and how it works…

1. Record a meeting with myself or my guest (if it’s a guest episode) on Zoom. Guests book in via calendly by the way which automates a link.

2. Upload the video of the recording straight to YouTube as a public video.

3. I use the Vid IQ plug in to insert the best title and keywords4

4. I batch send my podcasts to my editor via wetransfer (for free)

5. I receive the podcast files back

6. I go into my drafts and DUPLICATE my draft I have set up of my podcast - it’s called PODCAST template do not delete.

7. I upload the edited audio to Substack and re-listen to the recording adding in all of the copy, link, things we mentioned as I listen.

8. I upload the transcript from Substack to CHAT GPT and ask for a summary. This is helpful as there are always things I miss - I won’t let myself spend hours on it.

9. I edit the summary IF I have time or use it to write my own.

10. I message my guest (if it’s a guest episode) and tell them when it’s due out and ask them to re-share it across their socials

11. Once it’s out I promote it seven times across socials - I literally count these.

12. If someone else shares it now or anytime in the future, I restack/ share this and screen shot if their are kind words. And there we have it!

Members - I’m so looking forward to seeing you next Thursday 20th November for our monthly call. Topic is Audio, Video and Self Expression on Substack and how to make the most of it for depth of connection.

Here’s the link to find your live calls and all the other exciting events happening here as we look to 2026.

So folks, over to you - have you been toying with the idea of introducing audio and/ or video to your publication. Do you see your Substack as a mixed media magazine and one you’d like to embed your real unfiltered beautiful voice inside of anytime soon?

Let’s chat more - I adore this topic and I’m an open book when it comes to my experience!

Claire

✨

More reading/ resources on this topic…

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It’s a pick and mix adventure here at

This morning Amy joined me to host a beautiful core story workshop for you all.

Here are

’s accompanying slides…

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I wanted to do this to give you all a boost and I’m confident the replays will support you as you remind you that you are NEVER alone… we are all battling with imposter syndrome, confidence, questioning clarity.

The main piece is always taking it back to what you want to do and why AND where it meets your audience.

Here’s the replay for you…

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Get more from Claire Venus ✨ in the Substack app

Available for iOS and Android

Get the app

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Claire

x

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The Holidays are coming 🎄 and I’m running a set of Christmas Classifieds (ads) - you can sign up for the waitlist to get more details to book an affordable slot to advertise to over 11500 readers right here. Special offers for members! ✨

Hi Sparklers,

After some chats with you all, I’ve bumped up our Sales Psychology and How Not to Feel Weird About it class from November to TOMORROW so you can be ready for any end of year/ new year sales you might want to do.

When I talk about sales I mean the selling of paid subscriptions/ memberships not flash sales or discounts.

When I talk about sales psychology that’s the piece that makes someone want to buy from you. (sometimes flash sales or discounts but not always and you don’t have to).

Chicken before egg?! 🐣

The missing piece is that you also must want your readers to be here… this is mostly energetic… it’s also multi-layered and complex.

More in my FREE Audience Alchemy Class (replay)

Substack is a complex platform.

For lots of reasons but from a sales POV because we share it with celebrities, best selling authors, award winning journalists, incredible writers - tens of thousands of others who also ask for paid subs.

I want to reassure you, you can still be authentically you without mimicking what they do and still get paid on your terms.

Subscribe now

Feeling in…

There are some factors at play when it comes to buying into a subscription here on Substack…

Our buyer behavior is often different to that of our readers. Not always but we can’t model what we would pay for on what they would/ will.

I thought it would be helpful for you to sink into these - journal on them and audit your own Substack before our masterclass tomorrow if you’re coming?

1. The ‘know, like and trust factor’. Believe me when I say you want all three before someone buys from you. When I’ve had buyers in my world on impulse there have been issues. You’re not for everyone and neither am I - good job we don’t have to be. Price slice sales tactics that override nervous systems and conscious thought can end in tears. We covered more about this in the - posts still visible for a short time for free.

2. Platform trust - this is THE biggest failing I see in most people I work with - you have to explain how this platform (Substack) works, keep clarity about pausing and renewing subs. I’ve processed four refunds this week - people just don’t know the procedure and they miss things.1

3. Value and what they get - we are all intrinsically valuable and so is our work but people have to understand how to navigate your space and the archive unless you’re running a patron model. Your readers have to recognise the value and stay connected to it.

🛒 The Four Buyer Types on Substack ✨

1. The Supporter

Why they buy: They love you or at least they are super fond of you. They believe in your work, your voice, and your mission, they’ve bought your books or into your work somewhere before, follow you on socials, tell all their friends about you.

Buyer Behaviour…Your supporters:

• Often subscribe early or without reading every post.

• View their subscription as a thank you or a patronage gesture, likely to pledge before you turn on paid subs. They expect way less from you than you might think.

• Stay long-term especially if they feel emotionally connected or part of your story.

• Tell their friends and colleagues about you and shout you out in Notes.
  

How to nurture them:

• Share personal reflections, behind-the-scenes updates, and gratitude.

• Let them see the human behind the work - special invites are a great way in.

• Occasional “thank you” notes or supporter-only posts go really far.

NB - the supporter will leave if they don’t feel seen or get bored.

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