How to Start a Substack Newsletter in 20 Minutes
It's never too early, and never too late to start
It’s never too early to start a newsletter on Substack.
Building an audience takes time. Bigger audiences mean more opportunities for you. So the earlier you start an email newsletter - also called a publication on Substack - the better.
In this post, I show you just how easy it is to get started on Substack. It is so easy in fact, that you will wish you had done it months ago.
But first, what (exactly) is Substack?
Substack is a software platform for newsletter creators. It allows writers, visual artists, video creators and podcasters to send emails and other content to subscribers and it automatically posts the content to the creator’s own website.
Substack is free for publications that are free, no matter how many subscribers you have. You only pay to use Substack if you start collecting subscription fees from your readers and that’s completely up to you.
It’s the world’s cheapest and easiest way to create a blog and community of readers.
Full disclosure: I’m a huge fan of Substack. I have a Substack newsletter that makes $21 K per year, in a professional niche, and a free newsletter where I share what I have learned on my Substack journey.
For me, Substack is a tool to help me achieve financial freedom — where I am not exchanging my time for money, but instead can use my energy wisely, by growing my subscriber base to earn more money without spending more time writing.
Starting a newsletter is easy with Substack
Every person — every single person—I know on Substack wishes they had started their publication sooner. Most of us procrastinate for months before we get going.
Even people who switched off their first publications and dumped everything after a few months wish they had gotten those early painful learnings out of the way sooner rather than later.
Setting up a new publication can feel like a huge, amorphous challenge… so many things to think about, where to start, decisions, decisions, decisions… What will you call it, do you need a domain name, what will you write about? How will it look? Do you need a freebie to entice people to sign-up? Colours, buttons, headlines, tag-lines, arrrrrgh!
Relax. You don’t need to worry about any of that to begin with. Getting started is simple. And you don’t actually need to make a lot of decisions before you start.
The trick is to take the first step and worry about the details later. The first step is to create a publication. Then all the other pieces will fall into place, sometimes slowly, sometimes all in a rush.
You can start a Substack publication right now, today, on Substack in less than 20 minutes, by following the simple steps in this post. If you don’t like the result, no sweat, bin it and start again, no one will care, and I promise you will learn something valuable in the process.
Step 1: Create an account
Navigate to https://substack.com/signup and follow the on-screen prompts to first set up your personal Substack account, and then your first newsletter, which Substack calls a ‘publication’.
By the way, it’s fine to use a pseudonym for your Substack profile name.
You will be prompted to add a profile picture, but you can skip that step and do it later if you wish.
Step 2: Create a publication
Substack calls newsletters ‘Publications’. A publication is a collection of posts.
During the signup process, you will be prompted to choose a publication name and write a description.
Substack helps you beat procrastination at this step by assigning a default name: [Your name]’s Newsletter. If you don’t have anything better, go with that. Any decisions you make in this initial set-up process can be changed later, although you can only change your publication’s URL once.
The URL is the internet address of your publication and by default it is yourpublicationname.substack.com.
Your publication needs a brief description, which will be shown on its welcome page. Again, you can change this later, so don’t stress about what you put in the description to begin with. Ideally, it will explain not just what your newsletter is about, but who it is for.
Step 3: Write Something
Your first post is already waiting for you when you create a Substack publication. It’s called ‘Coming Soon’.
Change the title of ‘Coming Soon’ and add some words and a picture. Substack’s editing interface is very intuitive and there are large buttons that prompt you to write and edit, so you don’t need detailed technical instructions here.
I’m assuming at this point you don’t have an email ist yet — this is great because it means you can write whatever you like, since no one will see it! You can delete your post later or go back and change it an unlimited number of times, so don’t worry about what you put in your post today.
Step 4: Publish your post
When you have finished adding some words and a picture to your post you need to publish it and (optionally) email it to your list. Substack gives you the choice to send it to your subscribers or only publish it to your publication’s website.
Click the ‘Continue’ button in the post editing window to email or publish your post. You can choose to send it immediately or schedule it for later, or just publish it online without sending it to anyone.
By default everything you email also ends up on your webpage, which becomes like a blogger's website, a showcase of your writing — with no extra effort required.
For your first post select ‘Send via email’ and it will be delivered to your own email inbox — publishers always receive a copy of everything they send to their list. There’s also the option of sending a test email to yourself before you publish.
You Have a Newsletter!
Congratulations on creating a brand new Substack publication and sending your first email, in just twenty minutes. Well done.
Now that you have a publication, you can experiment with it, exploring different post types, styles and formats. It is a good idea to have just one or two trusted email recipients to begin with so you don’t feel pressured to create amazing content while you are still learning the process. Then, when you have got the hang of the software, start sharing your Substack with the wider world.
Important! Don’t wait until you are 100% confident because that day will never come. Start sharing your newsletter when it is (just) good enough. The earlier you start sharing it with new people, the sooner you will have an audience for your writing. And that can’t come too soon.
I have never met a single Substacker (and I have met hundreds) who wishes they had started later than they did, but I have met hundreds who wished they had started earlier.
Final thoughts
Start writing from day one as if you are writing for thousands, no matter how few subscribers you have. Every email you send automatically becomes part of your archive of posts, which grows as you write more, becoming a valuable resource for your future readers (but you can delete them later too if you wish).
I started my newsletter with one subscriber (me), and let it grow organically. I now have thousands of subscribers and make tens of thousands of dollars with my Substack newsletter. If I can do it, so can you. Good luck!
This post was originally published on Medium.
Want expert advice from me to get you pointed in the right direction? Send me a DM to discover how I can help.
Thank you for the motivation. I started my newsletter.
Thanks for the advice Karen. I appreciate it very much. I'm just beginning my writing journey...