My wish list for Substack

After trying out writing on different online platforms like Medium.com, Simily.co, Vocal.media and Substack.com. Admittedly, I found writing on Substack to be the most comfortable. I have been writing here for a while now, and everything feels right, even though it was a difficult journey.

One of the significant benefits of writing on Substack is the unparalleled ownership and control you have over your subscribers and content. This is what appeals to many writers to come to Substack. Unlike the other writing platforms I have mentioned above, where you're dependent on the platform's policies and risk losing everything if you violate their terms or face unexpected bans, Substack offers a unique advantage: you get to keep the subscribers you have gained. This means that even if unforeseen circumstances lead to a temporary suspension or changes in platform policies, you won't lose your readers.

Additionally, Substack's subscription model enables writers to monetize their content more sustainably. By offering premium subscriptions or paid newsletters, writers can earn a sustainable income directly from their readers. This business model helps readers to support the creators they admire directly and alleviates the uncertainties writers often face in chasing after stats and popular trends.

These two crucial factors enable Substack to provide writers with a safe space to create, establish their brand, and grow their income with a peace of mind. This level of independence ensures that the writers’ hard work, dedication, and efforts to build an empire won’t be wiped out due to factors beyond their control, an assurance that their hard-earned network remains intact.

That said, starting a newsletter on Substack from ground zero is not easy. During the time when I first joined almost two years ago, Substack was merely a newsletter service provider and nothing else. There was no network discovery, no organic audience to tap into and no social media integration. Everything was pretty much left to the writer to figure out. This makes it very hard for new writers to kick-start a new publication.

Fortunately, the people at Substack understood these struggles and pain. They have been hard at work experimenting and introducing new features, hoping to improve the engagement between the reader and the writer.

Being a writer that benefited from their work, I would like to take this opportunity to thank the people at Substack wholeheartedly for their commitment and good work.

At the onset, Substack knew the best way to help writers is to help them find readers. When they launched the Substack app, initially on iOS and later on Android, it was a game-changing move. Substack has transitioned from being solely a newsletter service provider to a multifaceted newsletter writing platform. As a result, their readership expanded from desktop audiences to encompass readers on mobile phones. This strategic decision has effectively broadened their reach and accessibility, allowing a more diverse and widespread audience to engage with their writers.

They have also progressively improved the theme and magazine outlook of their web-based portal. Adding the ‘explore’ feature to allow readers to discover new publications that they have not subscribed to, helping to boost the network effects within Substack.

While there were many good features introduced along the way, not every feature introduced was useful. For example, Substack introduced a feature called ‘Chat’ as a way for the writer to engage his readers. The idea was good, but only a handful of writers found it useful. As for the majority of us, the bulk of the conversations already took place in the comments section of their articles; hence there was hardly any need for the conversation to spill over to Chat. I am one of the ‘majority’, and I hardly have a reason to use Chat. Or at least I haven’t discovered the value of using it.

Back in the days when X/Twitter and Substack were still good friends, I enjoyed using both platforms complementarily to one another. I would craft and publish my article on Substack and tweet and market them on X/Twitter. It was a perfect strategy, and I have benefited from this golden era, having built up a sizeable audience through this period. But when Twitter and Substack fell out with one another, or more specifically when Elon Musk acquired Twitter, the future of Twitter became uncertain. This disrupted my writing pattern.

Substack launched their own version of X/Twitter replacement called ‘Notes’. With Notes, Substack is now a full-fledged social media platform. I have been using Notes as a replacement for X/Twitter and as a means to reach new readers and potential subscribers. Unfortunately, Notes does not have the reach of X/Twitter, and there are a lot more improvements needed for Notes to reach its full potential. Notes’ success can also be its demise if it doesn’t continue to innovate.

For one, Notes needs to have features that can mirror Twitter, and it needs to implement these features faster than its other competitors like Threads. Second, the current app that is used to host Notes needs to cater outward to the users at large and not focus inward on the writers of Substack.

Notes can be like Threads, which broke 100 million users over just five days after launch. Notes has the potential to take off big time as well, but it can only do so if it positions itself as a social media app focused on serving the readers/users. For Notes to be useful to Substack writers, it needs DAU of that to Twitter or Threads. If Notes is serving only the 35 million Substack subscribers, it would be like a chicken—has wings but cannot fly.

Unlike Threads and X/Twitter, Notes has the advantage of an army of writers and subscribers behind it, capable of generating impressive content that is well-suited for micro-blogging. These content creators and subscribers also have a strong presence on other social platforms that Notes can leverage to attract more users to its app. The integration between this Notes app and the Substack newsletter portal must be tight for the entire reading experience to be seamless and enjoyable.

There is a lot that Substack can do to improve its standing in this heavily contested writing space, but it needs to move fast before it loses its advantage to other competitors. The competitors are not just X/Twitter and Threads but also Medium and others.

Keeping Notes within the Substack app with Chat and newsletter will only restrict its potential and growth. As a writer on Substack, I would like to see Notes grow to its fullest potential so that I can use it complementarily with my newsletter. Only so would it help writers like us to reach out to more potential subscribers.

Here is a wish list I hope Notes can have.

1. Position as a social media app—Either make Notes as a standalone social media app or reconfigure the existing Substack app to be social media centric, focused on serving the Notes users at large. It must be clear that the app must cater to a big bulk of Notes users that aren’t writers on Substack.

2. The ability to schedule posts.

3. The ability to form communities, or feature that allow groups with common interests to band together, i.e. writing community, mental health, etc

4. A Marketplace for Substack publications— a place where Substack writers can choose to have their publication marketed and a place where readers can come to window shop for the Substack publications that best suit their interests.

What are your thoughts? Do you also have something to add too? Let me know in the comments so that Substack can gather more diverse feedback for their improvement.

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If my story resonates with you, it would mean the world to me if you upgrade your subscription, share my story or refer a friend. My journey has not been easy, and I appreciate every little help I can get.