Stay Creative on Substack #2
How your Substack can work for you while you are away, sticking to a monthly publishing schedule and your tips and tools for staying creative on Substack this week.
“I don’t have Gandolf’s certainty about everything”
Ian Mckellon
Hello Petals,
How’s your week on Substack been? Looking to enhance and add sparkle to your Substack experience and stay connected to yourself, your writing and your readers? You’re in the right place! ✨
Welcome back to ‘Stay Creative on Substack’, a regular post series here every other Friday. The idea behind these posts is that they encourage you to throw away the heavy rule book and 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. There’s no ‘to do’ list but I did make you a FREE PDF check list if you’d like to work through it and my ideas for setting up your space here. If you are NEW to Substack drop me a 👋🏼 in the comments and tell me what you think of it so far?
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’ve just returned home from a trip South in our new camper van (Mabel) which included a skip over to London to Warner Bros Studio to see The Making of Harry Potter. 🧙♂️
I wrote these ‘Stay Creative’ posts over on my other Substack publication
and to cut a long story short 1they out grew the space I made for them there and so I moved them here. Substack is expansive and there is lots possible here - I want to share all I’ve learnt and I’m excited about so this one is quite long!THANK YOU for all of your support in my new-ish venture. It’s made me so so happy and reflected back it was a great and timely move to make!
Stay Creative on Substack is akin to an interactive magazine, a weekend supplement if you will.
There are 6 parts to this post;
Substack Newbies
My Substack ‘Tip of the Week
Coffee and Creativity - for depth of connection, strategy and more
Workshops, offers and more from me and others
What’s new on Substack from
Community Substack Shout-outs
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 here2. 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 with screen shares on creating your very own Substack Home!
My A-Z on Substack page. My tips on most of the features here.
Art on Substack - a curated list of artsy things here.
2. A Substack Tip of the Week 🤓
‘How to…tag another writer.
How to tag another writer. You can tag any writer here and they’ll get a little notification.
First thing’s first, they have to have their writer tag a.k.a ‘handle’ turned on. If you find you can’t tag them in a post or on Notes but you’ve definitely tagged them before, I find hitting backspace and trying again works like a charm!
Here’s a screen shot of where to set up your handle and a note of the url you need to get there.
3. ☕️ Coffee and Creativity #2
💌 📒 How are you organising your ideas for Substack? 🤓
Things to think about and consider as you grow your Substack…
This week I wanted to delve into how I organise my ideas for Substack ahead of the membership session I’m holding on cadence and content pillars in September.
I’ve written my monthly ‘Note from the Sea’ over at
since 2017. Every single month.I set a framework and pretty much stuck to it. Sometimes I felt disappointed I didn’t give it more time or writing space but I always sent it. It’s an anchor in my month and I really look forward to writing it especially now it’s hosted here on Substack.3
The order of things
I tend to head to the last post I wrote of this type and ‘duplicate to drafts’ so I don’t miss any of my headings - this feature is ESPECIALLY useful if you use a lot of design in your Substack posts or want to.
After I have a new draft I would go through and delete last month’s info and anything I didn’t need.
I would then write my monthly update, my journal prompts, update any sales info/ offers and then choose an image (of the sea) and a carrousel of images to share.
Sometimes this all takes place in one sitting, other times over a few - Substack auto-saves your work.
I then schedule the post for 8am on 1st of the month.
Easy!
For more or to go deeper on this very same topic come join me in the membership!
4. Workshops, offers and more
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 itself. There’s been some great chat on all this in Notes over the last few weeks. Folks are scratching their head about instagram and waiting for some help there… 👀
TUTORIAL How to set up and encourage clicks to your Substack publication from Pinterest.
and I have been working together to enhance my presence on Pinterest. We started with my Substack tutorials and we’ve expanded to other things within my content eco-system now too. I am hosting a pinterest Q&A and tutorial with Sophie for FREE which will be pre-recorded. If you’d like to watch it all you have to do is be subscribed to us and you’ll get the link in your inbox. Sophie is also making you a worksheet which she’ll share for free. Our members will get this first and everyone else will get it mid October.
We’re recording mid-September so the tutorial will be out around then.
Want more personalised support?
I’ve grown my Substack within Substack network to over 2000 subscribers since April 2022, I moved my mailing list here and have been here for lots of changes so I’ve learnt the platform in real time - I’d love to support you further in your journey to make the most of this platform as a creative. Substack helps make my business viable in a cost of living crisis and has given me NEW and renewed hopes for creative careers everywhere! I’m about to host a session with an award winning artist who has just finished up her MA and I can’t wait to share the potential of this platform with her!
Book a one to one Substack strategy session with me. We can chat for 45 mins or 90 minutes - 45 mins is laser sharp, ageda’d in advance and will give you strategy and take aways to implement right away. 90 minutes is more holistic and includes me taking a look at your Substack as a critical friend and a week long email follow up.
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 3 days a week MEMBERS ONLY chat for alllll your Substack questions - we are having a LOVELY time!
I have 50% off if two or more of you join for the rest of the month! If you’ve already joined and want to invite a friend for free email me claire@creativelyconscious.co.uk and I’ll gift them 3 months membership.
5. Whats NEW From Substack
Other payments methods for paid subs as well as stripe are in testing in beta mode. Folks will be able to pay for your membership/ paid content with a debit card.
Substack have added transcript services to podcasts - I’m TOO excited about this one!
They sent me this top 5 list on chat on email and I thought it was very helpful…
Connected to my lovely pal ‘s Note below the very same day (what magic) treated us to a VERY inspirational piece on the power of moving from Patreon to Substack membership model. Well worth a read!
Substack are so so supportive of our growth and you might have noticed we have a new option to share a snippet preview of our scheduled post - you’ll only see this if you schedule posts;
Here’s what this post looked like when I shared it to linked in and if you want to share it to instagram you get the media assets emailed and a link to share.
6. Community Substack shout-outs and celebrations!
I’ve noticed a few Substack newbies saying “hello I’m new here” in Notes and a beautiful set of supportive responses!
How nice it must feel after posting into the abyss on social media?
Notes seems to have slowed down (?) since ‘follows’ were introduced but for me that feels a good thing. As I’ve mentioned I’m not following anyone because it’s not part of what I’m here to do.
Here are a couple of community shout outs if you want to search out the Notes and support/ chat with other writers about these particular topics;
I want to give a HUGE shout out to my lovely (online) friend
who is celebrating working on her Substack curation of sourdough and storytelling FULL time! Chapin has always been so super supportive of my work and her sourdough delights are one of the best things (for me) about the platform… One day I’ll get my starter and be a baker…one day…That’s it for today! If you value or enjoyed this post please forward to a friend, re stack it or leave me a heart - I’d love that! 💜
See you back here for #3 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
PS - We have over 100 members in our Substack Writers and Creatives Community on ‘linked in’ - if you’re looking to network and connect for paid opportunities this is the place to be!
This is a reference to my father in law - he used this phrase a lot and we’re trying to keep it alive! 😉
You own your email addresses and can take those with you wherever you go.
I used mailchimp before and it always felt a slog! The text would jump around, images would go quirky and I would spend ages faffing and I was never happy with it. If you’re reading this and still use mailchimp please know how GOOD Substack is!
Ooooo very interested to hear about Pinterest-ing substacks! I was trying to figure this one out the other day and got very confused.
I had no idea you could “duplicate to drafts”! Thanks for the info Claire 💛✨