Substack Field Guide #2 ENTICE
Substack Field Guide #2 ENTICE
Rebalancing the value proposition between writers and readers of newsletters.
We call Substack a newsletter platform.
We call ourselves writers.
We call newsletters an information delivery device.
Substack is more than a newsletter platform; it is an ecosystem designed to connect writers with readers who want to be informed, entertained, enlightened, connected to sources of life and world wisdom.
We are more than writers; we are teachers, activists, scientists, artists, entertainers, leaders, journalists, novelists, storytellers, and wisdom sharers wanting to connect to readers who want the wisdom, creativity, and experience we have collected, refined, and translated into informative words and images.
Newsletters are more than periodically delivered packets of information; they are a consistent flow of value from writer direct to reader in a personal way that builds connection and relationship. Historically, newsletters originated from activists who wanted followers and corporations that wanted greater sales. Therefore, they were delivered free.
Therein lies the rub: the value proposition has done gone out of balance.
Too often, newsletters are a one-way flow of value: writer to reader.
Enter Substack:
a newsletter ecosystem that supports payments direct to writers who create value for readers … while leaving the choice of whether or not to monetize the newsletter up to each writer.
Substack offers extensive “how to” information for the nuts and bolts of creating a newsletter and the mechanisms needed to accept payments.
Substack Field Guide fills “the gap”
The gap of knowing how to use all those system details to create a newsletter that entices readers to pay for the value they are receiving. The gap of understanding what it takes to create value to support an entrepreneurial writing business.
Few writers come with a built in marketing mindset, so the Field Guide links a very simple but powerful marketing model to the elements and features of Substack … the 5Es Marketing model
What is the Substack Field Guide?
When I started my Substack journey a little over a year ago, I wasn’t thinking about building a business. I had a gratitude journal I wanted to sell and thought a newsletter would be a good support system.
Funny, how life changes.
I found far more than I expected in this generous community of writers. And, at the same time, less than I expected in the “how to” information offered by Substack: great nuts and bolts, but little on “how and why” to use the elements and features to their best marketing advantage. Gradually, I turned to a simple marketing process I had learned and began to use decades ago … the 5 Es model shown above.
Looking at each of the elements and features of Substack as pieces of that marketing process began to show me a way to use each of them in order to build value for the reader … value worth paying for.
In the process, I became fascinated … not by the idea of building my own entrepreneurial writing business, (I’m 77, past the desire for fame and fortune) but by the idea of helping other writers build theirs. Which, of course, meant “showing and telling” … learning how to use the elements and features of Substack in conjunction with a marketing plan in order to share those learnings with emerging Substackers.
Substack Field Guide: A learning experiment being documented in real time
So, the Substack Field Guide is not a locked-step, do this - get that manual. It is a learning experiment being documented in real time. It means looking at hundreds of Substacks through the lens of the 5 Es marketing process … a form of crowd-wisdom: synthesizing what I see authors doing well (in a marketing sense) or not so well. Identifying and highlighting Substackers who are figuring out how to use this system aesthetically and commercially and may be a step or two ahead of us.
My job … throw me in that briar patch … is finding what I call Beautiful Examples.
This issue of the Field Guide focuses on the first step: ENTICE … helping your readers find you. The backbone of each guide will be a 3x3 learning grid which will change with each issue. Above is the grid for this issue.
And the paywall … the bane of so many of us as well as our financial backbone?
I have struggled and flip-flopped on this. I want to write and just leave everything open to everyone. I don’t know if that’s because of some innate generosity or a function of Imposter Syndrome. However, I finally realized if I wanted to help people build their writing businesses, I had to take my own medicine. I had to understand what it takes to create enough value that readers want to pay for it. I had to be willing to stand up and say “What I am creating is valuable and worth paying for.” I had to ask for money.
Arrgghhhh!!!
Finally, I came to my own resolution: all the posts about gratitude will be free. All the posts about marketing on Substack will be free. The Substack Field Guide will only be available to paid subscribers.
Then I waffled and flopped again. (Special offer coming.)
The Field Guide is new. Readers need a chance to see it. The first Field Guide is already available for free (here) … however, this new issue launches into the 5 Es model and it is substantially different. Substackers need an opportunity to see this issue in order to see if this series would be of value to them. (Paid subscribers will receive a minimum of four more issues, one for each step of the 5 Es.)
The Field Guides are delivered as 30-page digital magazines chocked full of tips, insights, Beautiful Examples, and links to deeper readings. Or as a standard pdf.
Two sample pages.
If I have counted right, there are 33 Substack Stars and Coaches mentioned in this issue. I’ll put that list in Notes once this issue is released.
I hope you join me … and become part of the process of learning how to effectively use this “newsletter platform” to build entrepreneurial writing businesses that support your work and add value to the lives of your readers.
Please feel free to send your questions and suggestions: to jwycoff@gratitudemojo.com
And, whenever you see a Beautiful Example of someone using Substack in a way that delights you (and therefore, would delight other readers), please let me know by email … or even better, celebrate them in Notes and add a @JoyceWycoff so I’ll see it also.
By this time, Substack coach, @SarahFay would be telling me to wind this up … it’s already over 1000 words. So, I will.
Thank you to all of you who have created this abbondanza for readers and the most generous of writing communities for all of us writers. It is a delight to be here.
And, full disclosure: I am sitting here on August 22, 2023, the day before releasing Substack Field Guide #2, with 376 subscribers (mainly collected over 14 years of blogging for the sheer pleasure of combining words and images) with 34 paid subscribers and an open rate of 55.13%. I will share these stats with you with every Field Guide released to help give all of us a sense of what’s working …. and what might not be worth the effort.
Also, I believe in Substack … enough to invest $100 in its stock.
****** This is where the paywall starts … below the wise words from fellow Substacker Russell C. Smith, there be dragons Substack Field Guides and information about how to build your entrepreneurial writing business.
In the meantime … words from Russell C. Smith who writes at The New Now:
"Words and language and written communication matter. Literacy is a superpower. People are constantly reading online, everything from the daily news reports to novels, nonfiction collections to journals, and political opinion pieces to personal essays."
In other words … keep writing!