Category: TechnologyCategory: Technology

I’m a big fan of one-page websites, and How To Leave Substack is one such site.

We’re discovering more and more that centralized kingdoms of power are not the answer. Especially when such a platform has no back ups of your work when you inadvertently delete something, or when they send a push notification with a fucking swastika, or goes quiet while a known Substack Bestseller is accused of plagiarism.

I understand the “Asking Authors To Move” section of the How To Leave Substack website. But trust me, moving ain’t easy, as Tara McMullin wrote about this back in “Substack Has a Nazi Problem” era (Nov 2023),

“There’s the work that goes directly into making a move—researching the options, exporting and importing old content, learning how to use the platform, designing your profile or site, moving your audience, etc. There’s also the work that goes into establishing yourself within the network of a new platform, answering questions from your audience about the new platform, and figuring out what kind of content is going to work best on this new platform.”

It took me a solid month or two just to export my paid members to Memberful. I was afraid I’d break something, that some setting would be left un-checked and I’d double charge my members. Or have to refund everyone.

Working with Substack, turns out, is precarious.

There’s a lot of people who probably want to move, but many don’t even know what the options are at. But trust me, I’m telling lots of current Substack authors that they can move their paid members to Memberful.

Looking to move your paid subscribers off of Substack? I’ve moved mine to Memberful.
Got questions? Book a 1:1 call here, or explore my Email Guidance offering.

If you want someone to sign up for your newsletter, give them a link where they can do just that.

This is what The New Happy Newsletter does very well.

Remove all distractions, eliminate the noise, and build your email sign up page to do one thing – get someone to sign up for your newsletter.

Let people see what they’re signing up for. Let them click around and get a feel. People don’t give up their email address easily, so make a good case.

This from The Creative Rebel podcast with Stephanie Harrison – listen here.

Jon Gruber of Daring Fireball taking aim at Google for killing the GOOG.GL shortlink:

 “I trust Google with almost nothing long-term. Mark my words, they’re going to do this with Gmail accounts eventually.”

Hey, nobody uses email anymore, right?

Cody Cook Parrot said in their recent Witnessing Practice workshop that you can make a thing and share it with a few people.

You don’t need to launch your new website with a big press announcement. You probably don’t need to post it on social media, either, because 95% of your followers won’t see it anyways.

This is why we need a few people we can send snippets via email, get on a Zoom call, meet in person, even get on the phone.

MrBeast says that when he was starting out, him and a few friends would be on Skype all day and night, working together just trying to figure out YouTube.

Imagine if you spent just an hour a week doing that with your creative friends?

I’ve seen so much fear in people’s eyes over picking the right email marketing platform (Substack, Kit, Flodesk, Buttondown, Mailchimp).

People’s voices start to shake when choosing the right online store (Shopify, BigCartel), the right website builder (SquareSpace, Cargo, Wix, WordPress).

You’re not getting married. You can break up with these tools at any time.

Instead of spending the next few weeks bouncing between platforms or watching 24 hours of “Beehiiv vs Substack” comparison videos, talk to other creative folks in your orbit.

I host weekly virtual co-working sessions with musicians, writers, and artists.

You can ask me direct via my Email Guidance offering and I’ll get your going in the right direction.

I also host paid-community Zoom calls, where we talk about zines, IRL events, and make fun of social media (it feels great). Get a 30 day trial for $10.

Alex runs BATCAVE, “a place to help one another dive deep into the stuff.”

Cody runs Landscapes, “a writing group for all genres.”

Jes is a musician and hosting a “hands-on session exploring the four most powerful and underused practice tools.

Kate Ellen is hosting a “Go Dumb Meet Up” which is “a zoom meet up to chat about how to temporarily or permanently break up with your smartphone.”

Mansi has The Ripple Circle, a place for “authentic sharing, gentle witnessing, and the longer echo of our practice together.”

It’s not just about deleting an app, it’s about finding new places to inhabit, daring to believe in a world without Musk or Zuckerberg being central to our ability to earn a living.

This is how we escape social media, and we’re getting better at it every week.

Be careful if you’re sending important information in the custom header or footer of your Substack newsletters. If you’re sending Zoom information or Luma invites or other special links to paid subscribers and they’re reading your newsletter in the Substack App, they won’t see it.

This is troubling, as Substack just recently said this:

We’re doubling down on the Substack app, which is designed to help audiences reclaim their attention and connect with the creators they care about.

Get everyone to subscribe to multiple publications, then users have messy inboxes. The cure? Just use the Substack App!

Then, when a publisher leaves Substack and sends a newsletter via a new service, the email will show up a users inbox again – this can be jarring!

“Wait, I thought I was getting all my newsletters in the Substack app?!?!”

So now it’s almost like people won’t be subscribed to a newsletter, they’ll be subscribed to a Substack.

This seems like a slippery slope.