How to Start an Author Newsletter on Substack
7 tips for writers on what to post, how often to send your newsletter, how to use paid subscriptions, and how to repurpose your existing writing
Maybe you’ve been thinking about creating an author newsletter on Substack. Maybe you started to set one up , but your Substack still says “coming soon.” If you’re ready to take the leap, here are seven ways to make your Substack author newsletter work for you. This post is excerpted from my course SUBSTACK FOR AUTHORS.
Why you need an author newsletter
The inbox beats a social media feed, hands-down
Every author needs a newsletter to keep in touch with readers. The inbox is still a powerful tool—far better at communicating with the readers who care about your work than social media, where your posts can easily get lost in the shuffle. Two years on Substack have convinced me that it is the simplest, best place to host an author newsletter. Since starting Substack, my subscribers have more than doubled. And whereas I used to pay every month to send my newsletters on my old service, I now receive support from my most engaged readers.
In this post, I’ll share best practices for your Substack author newsletter, including posting frequency, how to write a compelling About page, when (and if) to turn on paid subscriptions, how to mine your earlier writing to create a great Substack archive, and what kind of posts tend to engage readers.
Why I Switched to Substack
I started a mailchimp author newsletter more than fifteen years ago. Mailchimp cost about $1,000 per year and required me to jump through a bunch of design and segmenting hoops just to send out an email. Because it was so time-consuming, my author newsletter would lie dormant for many months at a time. Then, when I had a book come out, I was embarrassed to reach out to my email list with a book announcement.
Substack allows you to communicate with your readers in a personal, informal way, on a more frequent basis, without any design skill or extra steps. And the Substack network is unbeatable at helping you reach new, engaged readers who don’t yet know about your work.
I switched my author newsletter to Substack in 2022. Soon thereafter, I switched my travel newsletter, as well as my craft-and-publishing newsletter The Caffeinated Writer (which you’re reading now), and my literary magazine over to Substack too. I’ve learned a lot along the way, and have made some rookie mistakes so you don’t have to.
1. Give readers of your Substack author newsletter something they can't find anywhere else.
As you build your Substack, think about what you can give subscribers that they won't get just by going to your website. If you have a loyal following, they'll be happy just to hear from you, but it never hurts to give them something extra. On my author Substack, I post serial fiction and an occasional audio story. Some are brand new stories that have never been published, and some are previously published stories that have never been released in audio. This just gives subscribers a little something extra they won't find anywhere else.
But you don't have to do audio. You could offer a monthly flash fiction, a chapter from a novel-in-progress, a glimpse into your writing process, unpublished first drafts, photographs of your writing space, craft essays—whatever you think your readers will find engaging. Experiment. You might be surprised what connects.
2. How often should you send out your author newsletter?
If you have a book launch coming up, it's important to let readers hear from you for a little while before you start doing a sales pitch for your new book. That doesn’t mean they need to hear from you every week! If you're using Substack as your author newsletter, it's perfectly reasonable to post just once or twice a month. There are a lot of Substack writers who manage to post weekly, or even more than once a week, but I really don't think that’s necessary. What you want is to stay in the minds of readers, reminding them that you have something valuable or interesting to say.
The advantage of a regular newsletter—whether you send it out once a month or once a week or somewhere in between—is that readers get used to hearing your voice and seeing your name in their inbox. When launch time comes around, you won't feel like you're saying, "Hey, I know I forgot about you for a while, but here I am...and here's my book!"
3. Make your About page brief, informative, and inviting
Your Substack About page should feature a photo at the top, your book titles, and what subscribers will get from your newsletter. Your readers should hear your voice and feel welcomed into your little corner of the internet.
And, as you probably already know if you’ve ever had your photo taken for a book jacket: look into your viewer’s eyes! I think an informal photo works best on Substack. Save the professional headshot for your book jacket. The point isn’t to have the most attractive photo you can find of yourself—but the most approachable.
4. Should you turn on paid subscriptions for your Substack author newsletter?
When you first start your author newsletter, I recommend making the first few posts free to your readers. Then, after you have some subscribers, you can create posts that are exclusive to paid subscribers, like serial fiction or audio.
Once you offer a paid option, you can also set free posts to automatically go behind a paywall a certain number of days or weeks after posting. This way, new visitors to your Substack will always be able to access some of your recent posts, but your archives will be an exclusive benefit for your most passionate readers.
In general, it’s a good idea to keep your featured post free. This is the first post readers will see when they get to your Substack site. If they can’t read the entire post, they’ll be much less likely to subscribe to your newsletter.
5. Repurpose older posts for your Substack author newsletter.
In the “content” world, this is called “evergreen content.” However, I don’t think of what I do here on Substack as content. On your author newsletter, you can post fiction or essays that were previously published in literary journals. Most literary journals take only first North American serial rights, so anything you publish there is still yours to publish as you please.
You can also repost things you’ve written to support publication of your books. For example, when you publish a book, your publisher often asks for you to write a reading group guide, a story about the inspiration behind your book, or a playlist. These all make great Substack posts, and they’re just as relevant now as they were when your book first came out.
In fact, if you haven’t yet started your Substack, I recommend reposting some of your favorite posts before you have subscribers. That way, when new readers come to your Substack site through the Substack network or through your website, they will find enticing articles to read instead of a blank page. Readers are more likely to sign up if your Substack is populated with a few interesting pieces from the beginning.
If you’re importing subscribers from an existing email list, be sure to add a few posts to your Substack before import. If you’ve already imported subscribers to an unpopulated Substack before reading this, don’t worry. There’s a workaround for fleshing out your Substack page without bombarding existing subscribers with emails they’ve already seen:
Let’s say you have a popular post from your Mailchimp newsletter, and you want that post to appear on your Substack page but you don’t want to resend it to existing subscribers. As you go through the steps to publish the post, do this: in the post settings, under “Delivery,” uncheck the box that says, “Send via email and the Substack app.” Then check “Schedule time to publish.” Set the time for right away. The post will appear on your Substack page, but it will not go out as an email to subscribers.
6. Getting personal works really well on Substack.
I’ve found that personal posts tend to resonate with readers here on Substack. Last year, I wrote a post about my marriage, inspired in part by Joan Didion’s South and West. I’ve also written about the empty nest, San Francisco’s outer avenues, and my birthplace, Demopolis, Alabama. These are things I don’t write about elsewhere, but something about the intimacy of Substack compels me to do so here. As a reader, I appreciate the glimpse I get into the lives of other authors, so I try to offer those glimpses to my readers as well.
7. Be sure to link to your books!
Even though you won't be promoting a book in every post, you can include a subtle pre-order link or a link to your books at the bottom of each post. As long as the posts are genuine and help your readers get to know you, book links are fine. Then, when launch time comes around, they're used to hearing from you and will be receptive about book news. You should also include links to your books on your About page.
For reference, here is my About page with book links. I include links to my two most recent books, as well as a link to my best-known book, within the paragraph text immediately after my author photo. At the bottom of the page, I have a linked list of all of my books.
And don't forget the prime real estate in your top menu. Let your potential readers find your books and buy links!
If you’re considering writing an author newsletter on Substack, I hope you’ve found this post helpful! Any questions?
This post is excerpted from my six-week on-demand course, Substack for Authors.
This course was incredibly useful…Thanks to the videos that accompanied the lessons, I could see exactly what I needed to do. She also gave us lots of great ideas for posts…I sign up for a lot of online classes, and this one was by far the most useful.
-Cynthia Gentry, author of seven nonfiction books, creator of The Mind Reels
Michelle Richmond is the New York Times bestselling author of six novels and two story collections. She writes about the intersection of travel and writing at , posts new fiction at
, shares articles on craft and publishing here at , and publishes flash fiction wby new and established writers at .
Thank you for posting this! You gave me some great ideas to run with!