Stay Creative on Substack #1
bedding into our new home together here on Sparkle on Substack... community, cadence, co-creation and what's new here on Substack!?
“You can measure your worth by your dedication to your path,
not by your successes or failures.”
Elizabeth Gilbert
Hello Petals,
How’s your week on Substack been?
Welcome back to (what will be a) regular post series here every other Friday. The idea behind these posts is that they encourage you to stay creative on Substack!
I aim to co-curate and share tools, people and the behind the scenes magic that makes Substack what it is! These posts aren’t designed to create influence, more space for your own growth and creativity. This one is longer because I’m still getting to understand who is here.
If you are NEW to Substack drop me a 👋🏼 in the comments?
On that note, Hi! I’m Claire and I am an Engagement Consultant, Creative and Mum to two. We live under dark skies in Northumberland, UK and as you read this note we are some where else adventuring in our new camper van!
I wrote these ‘Stay Creative’ posts over on my other Substack publication
and to cut a long story short they out grew the space I made for them there and so I moved them here. THANK YOU for all of your support in my new venture. It’s made me so so happy and reflected back it was a great and timely move to make!It’s on my list to move the archive here (I think). I’m not excited about that admin so I’m starting again with a fresh white page at #1.
Are you NEW to Substack or to this space?
Substack is part blog, part mailing list, all community. It’s a wonderful place to create with built for writers originally and the best thing about it - you own your own data here1. You don’t have to use all the platform’s settings or even understand them. Create first, faff later - that’s worked for me! If you do have a question, pop it in the comments below and I’ll do my best to help!
You might also like my ‘Stay Creative on Substack’ youtube playlist - 11 short tutorials on creating your very own Substack Home!
My A-Z on Substack page.
🙌🏻 HOW TO save this post for later or to refer back to. Click the 3 dots top right on your Substack app and hit save.
To find your saved items you want to press the little book icon bottom right and you’ll find your library in the app. You can also listen to your podcasts here and see all your subscriptions which is a nice way to dive into the archives of publications too!
☕️ Coffee and Creativity #1
💌 📒 Have you got a special notebook for Substack yet? 🤓
Things to think about and consider as you grow your Substack…
This week I wanted to write about five of my favourite ‘c’s’. I’m starting here because these things were in my mind as I set up this new space and I hope they are useful to you…
Content Pillars
Confidence
Community
Cadence
Co-creation
These are my experiences both on and off Substack as an Engagement Consultant for Arts and Heritage Projects. In real life and in internet life.
There are loads of different thoughts and opinions on all of this but this is just what I’ve noticed and want to share right here and now with you lovely folks…
Content pillars - Let’s make it easy 🥴 and start with some questions.
What are you known for in your work, in your real life communities, online?
How would your neighbours and friends describe you?
Which of those attributes, ways of being, things you are known for do you want to share and why?
What do you hope your subscribers/ Substack pals get from consuming and connecting to your content? How will they feel? What do they get to take-away into their day?
There’s a whole heap of questions here for you to consider when deciding on your content pillars… I have more resources on this in my membership here and this is the focus of our next meet up.
The main thing I’ve learnt is the internet is busy - readers give you seconds to show them what you’re about. This isn’t about a niche - this is about being clear on who you are (online) and what you’re about so people can easily recognise if it’s FOR them.
Confidence - there is confidence questions and a dance with ego whenever we are called to share. What I’ve learnt is the more I share the easier it gets but it’s still NOT easy. We can learn a lot from nature here.
Our egos (in the purest sense of the word) are designed to keep us feeling safe.
The internet and especially social media can put us in fight or flight. It can remind us the world we’ve created is fragile and it can call on us in the middle of the night to step down. These are my experiences, perhaps you have your own? Perhaps you can trace them back and ‘do the work’ your soul needs to re-connect with your voice.
I’m all about embodied practise I can’t help it my husband is a yoga teacher. If these words jar - let them wash over you… we all have our path to walk…
Community & Co-creation - I’m connecting the dots here for your consideration...
Can you build community without asking questions, genuinely getting to know your subscribers, engaging in and sharing their work? Would you want to?
Can you build ‘beacon-ship’ where community come to you and shares your work for you? What’s the difference?
Or are you interesting in fostering a small community here but deepening your connections to individuals, taking them and going on a journey with them? Can you do both? Answers on a post-card!
Are you “playing” the long game? I am!
The ocean serves for a great analogy here - how much space do you want to take up, how deep do you want to dive and how much of the WHOLE OCEAN can you personally hold wholeheartedly? If you’re honest, like really honest? Without comparison in what might be possible for others what would you really want here on Substack?
This is one of the first things I talk about with clients in my strategy sessions and that’s because I’ve (accidentally) I’ve had a few occasions where I literally can’t keep up with comments and shares and I haven’t been able to reply - that’s felt hard.
Cadence - I am a BIG fan of deciding on the cadence that is right for you; whether that’s for a monthly or seasonal letter/ update, a weekly posting schedule or a day of the week you are ‘on-line’.
Of course it doesn’t work for everyone and life can get in the way BUT for me it helps with my focus and tells my subscribers and members there’s a consistency in what to expect.
I understood this quickly here from one of the first publications I subbed to from Keris over at
who shares a new post every single Monday. It’s one less decision to make right? So what day are you going to make your Substack day? Who’s going to be awake when you post and where in the world are they? Head into your ‘Subscriber report’ tab to find out…
Looking to enhance and add sparkle to your Substack experience?
New on Substack (from Team Substack)
It was a quiet couple of weeks for new things on Substack - maybe they are all on hols but they did take the ‘my subscribers’ tab off Notes and host a busy Open Office Hours session with thousands of comments.
This piece was really insightful too;
and very timely as
and I talked about that in and after our podcast recording episode together (out in Sept). She wrote this Note and there are some great discussions in the comments about how we might encourage more readers;The BIG news was that the author
is on Substack - who knew!I found out through this article where they are suggesting we follow people in Notes. Now, I got to test this a couple of weeks ago and hated it. I’m not a fan and I won’t be plugging my contacts in - I had enough of that in old facebook. 🤢 It’s exhausting and would quash my creativity in an instant. Reminder to self to clean up my phone contacts or maybe I should just delete the whole lot and start again?
A Substack Tip 🤓
Gah…there are sooo many! This week, I want to say that the post scheduling tool is your friend - it gives you a self-imposed deadline to work to and it enables consistent publishing times. I don’t use it all the time but it’s been a great motivator. 🙌🏻
Want to experiment in growing your Substack on other platforms?
You want to keep an eye on your stats page and where folks are subscribing from and put energy there. A lot of us have found our best growth is from within the Substack network. There’s been some great chat on all this in Notes.
- and I have been working together to enhance my presence on Pinterest. We started with my Substack which wasn’t my original intention but it works. She’s also been brilliant at support my husband’s posting schedule here with succinct copywriting from multiple sources. After a lovely chat with on Notes we have all decided to offer you a session on how to encourage clicks to your Substack publication from Pinterest. Please do listen to your intuition as to whether this session is ‘for you’ right now or just another shiny thing and click and tell us in the poll below what format you’d like.
We’ll host the session in the Autumn. 🍂
Want more personalised support?
Book a strategy session with me or come join my Substack Membership Sparkles? It’s hosted right here on Substack and I offer sooo much value to help you with Substack including twice month coffee and creativity co-working sessions and access to MEMBERS ONLY chat for alllll your Substack questions - we are having a LOVELY time!
Community shout-outs on Substack
I’ve noticed a few Substack newbies saying “hello I’m here” in Notes and a beautiful set of supportive responses! How nice it must feel after posting into the abyss on social media?
I am really enjoying chatting with
and who are my two new teachers and keep reminding me to “get on with my writing” - I deeply appreciate their insight and their views which often polarise mine simply because we have come to Substack with completely different experiences. What you need to remember here is this space for us all to bring our lived experiences here and grow!!!! 🌱 Substack will hold space for you and you’ll learn as you post - you don’t need a course to teach you but mine is free for members if you’d like one.
is also very very astute and supportive of the process here at Substack and mindful of the shiny distractions - well worth connecting with.This note from
on how to use instagram and Substack together gained some great traction then restacked it and there are just tonnes of brilliant thoughts and suggestions for growing our Substacks and using instagram tools to do that;
- wrote a piece on growing her Substack into a 6 figure business here. I haven’t read it because I’m not a paid Sub but she does write beautifully and honestly so it will be a good read whatever your goals and your PR machine plug in is…!
My other pro writer fave
is hosting an in person writing retreat in Kent - Farrah is a beacon here at Substack as Head of UK partnerships and writes exquisitely. Her piece on her childhood home blew my mind. I think it’s the best thing I’ve read since I’ve been here in 16 months tbh.My friend
has a BOOK coming out - it sounds excellent. I know Gabrielle puts 111% into everything she does - you can support her and her work over at The Haven.Getting to know our communities on Substack.
started a ‘thread’ to meet her subscribers - she has created a wonderfully warm writing environment from her kitchen table in Shetland so the people there in the comments are just lush - go say hi? I also have this one if you want to meet other (like minded) Substack writers in the comments over at . and you can chat with ‘s creative community on how they came to be creative here. It’s a really lovely thing to set up and pin for your own publication! Send me an invite if you do? 💜
That’s it for today!
See you back here for #2 in a couple of weeks - let me know what you’d like to learn and read about next time?
If you’re a member I’ll be back in the membership chat on Mon, see you then!
Sending sparkles for your weekend ahead,
Claire x
You own your email addresses and can take those with you wherever you go.
Another fabulous post, Claire! You've included so much value here as well. The section on community & co-creation really got me thinking, especially the beacon-ship part. Community is so important and I've noticed that because engagement here is so much better than any other platform I've been apart of, it makes fostering community that much easier and more joyful. I'm excited about you, Sophie, and Charlene's talk on Pinterest. I was super into Pinterest marketing for a while and got my monthly views up to almost 2 million and my blog was getting 15,000-20,000 monthly visitors as a result. I've thought about how I could utilize Pinterest for my Substack, so this is right up my alley!
This is such a value packed post, thank you. And yes, as it happens I do have a brand new notebook for Substack that I started using just this week. I'll be starting it with ideas for my content pillars today.