A quest for readers, Part III

On Substack, I created a clear, compelling “hell yes” to sign up for

In my heart of hearts, I really hoped that being a writer would be enough. 

I didn’t want to plumb the depths of my lived experience, pull those takeaways onto the page, tweak my sentence structure for weeks—and then also figure out how to find folks to read that work. A few years ago, when I reached a breaking point and decided I’d had enough of marketing, I threw everything I’d practiced in an agency out the window. 

So when I arrived at Substack with a blank, albeit skeptical, slate, I took myself through some reflective exercises. (In Part II of this series, I explore what it means to work while being in touch with a “felt sense of satisfaction.”) I began building a list of the things I was experienced enough to critique and improve in other people’s work but had never successfully maintained in my own writing life. The two biggest places I struggled were:

• Defining and maintaining visual branding that felt authentic

• Creating a cohesive “landing spot” for readers

Up until April of this year, my online vibe was visually OKish (with great writing) but behind the scenes it felt chaotic and like it was constantly changing. My marketing attempts, website design and branding felt highly influenced by some aspect of autistic masking. Because when I discover a better way to do something in life, I’m conditioned to jump into action, breathlessly making changes to right my “wrongs.” 

Of course, objectively, I understood doing this with my online presence created a disjointed reader experience. But I couldn’t stop the anxious tweaking and re-organizing and re-imagining whenever my writing seemed to be endlessly greeted by crickets. So I took a leap of faith and decided to open myself to being perceived and visually shaped by a creative editor.

With my editor, we worked through my visual branding: my aversion to color, my special interest-level obsession with wanting to put impressionist paintings on everything. And we systematically worked through all the places that readers learn about a newsletter and glean information about what they’ll experience. In the end, I felt we had given potential readers of my Substack newsletter a “hell yes” that felt cohesive and compelling and like a version of me I feel like sharing with the world. 

In addition to a fully polished newsletter both visually and editorially, one of the surprising effects of having an editor in my corner on a regular basis is that I now have someone to talk to when that familiar autistic masking nervousness starts to show up. The instinct to pick, poke, tear apart and reinvent? I now have someone whom I trust to tell me if something is really wrong or if maybe I need to sit on my hands and trust the process.

A “hell yes” for readers… and for you

So what does a “hell yes” look like? This might seem obvious, but whatever a “hell yes” feels like for you is likely very close to what a “hell yes” will feel like to readers. Maybe your perceptions need a little tweaking, a little interpreting, but for the most part: what you are willing to pay money for is likely a great place to start when creating a “hell yes” on your Substack newsletter. 

One of the compelling reasons for using Substack is the built-in publishing tools that writers no longer have to independently maintain (and also troubleshoot when service goes down)! This includes email, podcast, audio and essay publishing tools, as well as their integration with Stripe for taking (and remedying!) payments and ongoing, built-in SEO efforts that help Substack newsletters get found on Google. By having a team of experts managing these items behind the scenes, the technical elements that most affect “reader experience” are taken care of.

Even though all that comes as part of the packaged deal on Substack, there are also visual places you’re responsible for crafting and honing.

Here are some of the places that leave impressions on your readers, specifically about the value your newsletter offers:

• Newsletter logo

• Welcome Screen Cover Photo

• Wordmark

• Profile Picture

• Page Break

• Email Header

• Thumbnails

• Post Images

• Homepage design

• Navigation Bar 

• Essay and “sections” organization

If this list looks daunting, just know I struggled a LOT with translating something so personal like my writing into a visual presentation. My level of lostness earlier this year cannot be understated; I was an autistic writer on the Internet who, for the first time ever, wasn’t actively dissociating and masking, and I could not figure out how to let my whole self get woven into my online presentation. In those days, before working with an editor, my attempts at visual branding quickly sank into self doubt (and shifted to tweaking, changing, updating…). But having an editor as a kind, expert presence sketch out first drafts of much of these editorial branding items on Substack was a game changer for me.

We worked on my writer bio; my publication name; a short (publication) description; the about page for my publication; my free and paid subscription emails and more!

In fact, tomorrow I’m publishing a list of advice on how to creatively approach the 20+ places that words matter most on Substack—outside your essays, of course.

My Substack all came together in just the right time in the right pacing for me, and ultimately that’s what counts! With the visual side of my Substack in harmony with the editorial side, I felt for the first time I had created a real “hell yes” that I’d experienced on other Substacks that made me swoon. There are finally no visual hiccups to perplex readers (don’t worry, we ironed out a good working rhythm so I can still play around with impressionist paintings in contexts where they make sense!), and how I present myself in my bio, my publication bio and About page sing a beautiful song.

For me, the “hell yes” on my Substack is the coming together of the visual and editorial and technical to make one cohesive reader experience.

Click here to read the final piece in this series: