Dame Cathy Sloman shares what she learned from the recent Substack: Unwrapped session.
A big thank you to Dames Elisabeth Luard and Helen Collier for sharing their insights and experience as Substackers. And to Dame Jen Greenhalgh for hosting and steering the conversation with skill and aplomb.
I haven’t even been brave enough to get my Substack L-plates yet – and I came away feeling inspired to stop procrastinating and to get on with it. Others felt the same or felt encouraged to pick up where they left off.
Elisabeth has been on Substack for a while, Helen is newer to it, so they came to the session with different perspectives and lots of practical advice. They both love the freedom the platform gives to write what you want, how you want, when you want.
Key messages I took from this excellent and very well spent hour and a half were:
- Read lots of other Substacks – find out who is out there, what you like, what you might be willing to pay to read more of
- Read the free stuff first, then decide what you want to subscribe or make a financial pledge to
- Start by offering unpaid content and probably keep offering some that when you are ready to start charging
- You can make money from your Substack and it can bring in more income in other ways eg via increased book sales
But mostly:
- Just do it – get started and find your voice
We hope this will be the first of many online sessions – between us all, we have such a wealth of knowledge and expertise, let’s share it within our Chapter and beyond – it was wonderful to have some US Dames join our group of London Dames.
Whether you were able to join or not, you can find the recording here.