The Substack questions y'all ask me the most
And my answers
Yo, welcome back to Substack Sports. It’s been very cool seeing the response to this thing in its first week.
I’ve rounded up a list of questions I get from Substack sports writers, podcasters and video creators most often, with my own answers. I’d consider this more recommended best practices than a sole source of truth. Every publication here is different, with different goals. Take this info and tailor it to your own personal style and mission. Or just flat out let me know why I’m wrong. I’ll be around in the comments off and on to check in.
Next week we’ll do some sort of office hours set up. After that, it’ll be an interview or a guest post. Hit me up if you’ll be at SXSW, and hop in the Chat to hang out during Nuggets-Celtics tonight (10pm ET / 7pm PT). I’ll be popping in occasionally to drop hot takes about Boston.
How do I comp a subscription?
Go here in the subscriber CRM in your dashboard. You’ll be able to add one email or multiple emails separated by commas. You can select the length of the trial or gift a lifetime paid subscription. There’s also a button to send one of your standard welcome emails. I usually choose not to send a welcome email this way, and instead drop a personal note or DM once the person is comped.
The best way I’ve seen this done:
tossing a comp to Chris Black and ending up with a GQ shoutout. (I co-sign Ruby’s excellent book recommendations).How do I offer discounts?
Mostly … don’t. I’m fairly discount averse. Whether you’re riffing on tennis fashion or doing a reported podcast about corruption in sports, you’re making a valuable product worth paying for. Set your price and keep it. My take is that regular sales inherently devalue the work of a subscription content business and create real audience fatigue. A hyper-targeted sale no more than once a year can work. I’ve seen writers effectively email the most engaged subscribers on their free list — you can filter by activity score in the CRM — with a special one-off discount heading into a big moment. That’s one example I’m into.
One more note: You should probably charge more than you’re currently charging. Too many people on Substack undervalue themselves and their work — both in terms of price and presentation.
What’s the best way to collaborate with other Substackers?
Check out these examples:
Where should I put the paywall?
Up to you, but I recommend putting the paywall fairly high up in an article or early on in an episode. This was our strategy at ESPN+. My friends always texted me that it drove them crazy until they finally subscribed, which I took as a good sign.
Make it absolutely clear to people what the promise of the piece or episode is, and then incentivize conversion up top. (Then, you know, deliver on that promise after the paywall). If there’s a large portion of a piece you want to make free, just make the whole thing free to help grow your list or split it up into two pieces.
Also: Definitely use the preview function in a premium post to test the experience for a free subscriber. Is it clear why they should upgrade to paid to get the full thing?
How do I do charts and tables?
Datawrapper works quite well. You can make a data visualization and then copy-paste the link directly into your editor, generating an embed. Here are some examples from
and .
What are some good founding tier perks?
Try capping the number of members to help make your founding community more intimate/manageable and potentially increase demand. You can also try only opening up founding tier signups for a limited time.
Give founders the ability to occasionally pick your topics/focus areas, either for a piece available to all subscribers or just that tier. They could vote on something like a book club selection, too.
Early and/or discounted access to events (live or digital).
Send them merch, though be mindful that this will involve shipping costs and collecting mailing addresses, which is a pain.
Occasional meetings: Any kind of exclusive communal hang using Zoom, a post thread or something else.
Charity donation: Some or all of the funds from the founding tier membership go to a charity that fits the mission of your publication.
Do I need a custom domain?
Nope, but it can be helpful. If you’re going to set one up, I recommend registering your domain with Cloudflare, which is relatively low-cost and easy to connect.
The main reason I suggest a custom domain: It helps further establish your Substack site as your home base for everything you do. Rather than directing people to go to your Substack site for one thing and your Instagram page for another thing and your online store for something else, you can just direct them to your website, where they can subscribe, support you and count on getting anything worthwhile. Then you can connect everything else across your nav and subdomains.
, and do this well. And that leads to …What’s the best way to integrate Substack with all of my other channels (YouTube, Instagram, etc.)?
Again, up to you. But here’s my biased advice: Make Substack your digital home and use your external channels to grow your reach and drive people back here. YouTube has an incredible discoverability engine. Publishing short-form video over there with the promise of full versions on Substack — in the video itself and the episode description — is a great strategy. And it’s a tactic you can replicate on other platforms.
It’s likely to prove more valuable to you to gain new free and paid subscribers over here — on a list you 100% own and control — than it is to prioritize likes and views elsewhere. That might sound sus coming from a Substack employee, but I’d give the same advice to someone on Patreon. (I just think Substack operates as a more complete and effective home).
Plus, if you’re publishing replicas of your Substack work on other channels, what’s the incentive to subscribe?
What’s the deal with sections?
Check out this example from
, explaining to his subscribers how to get his NFL draft scouting profiles. Bob created a new section and gave his subscribers the ability to opt into receiving the posts via email, since hardcore draft coverage would appeal to some of his subscribers but not all of them. also uses sections in a smart way, making most of them default opt-out but giving subscribers the ability to choose their email preferences more explicitly.
What do I need to do before I launch?
Here’s a simple checklist. I recommend cloning your own copy if you want to start checking off stuff yourself, since this is a public doc.
How often do I need to publish? What kind of things work on Substack?
I think this is the wrong way to think about publishing over here. While there’s undeniably some value in a consistent publishing cadence of one free and one paid thing a week, that doesn’t work for everyone. Don’t force it if it’s not for you. The only thing that’s going to be sustainable — both in terms of growth and your long-term commitment to your publication — is what you find exciting and what you think is great. Maybe that means you publish every day. Maybe that means you go 3-5 times per month. Maybe you publish in seasons with clear beginnings and ends.
You’re creating a direct relationship with your subscribers when you publish on Substack. They want your best stuff and you should deliver it to them when you have it. If you typically publish once a week and that’s what you promise on your subscribe page, but then you get the urge to produce a second thing, send it out. Trust your gut. Ignore the feeling that you might be spamming your subscribers. It’s not useful.
Alright, that’s enough for one post. The next resource deep dive will be for audio and video episodes. As always, let me know what else you want to see over here.
Hi, I've been running a Substack as my main job now for about 3.5 years, earning enough to pay the bills if not to make me rich, and I do think I disagree about discounts. I've always found even a small discount has been very effective at nudging people to start paying, especially when I do it just before the start of the season, or before the World Cup, or something like that.
Recommendation list should be updated now, too.