**Whilst this is both Claire and I chatting on the podcast, the podcast as a Substack post is just coming from my Substack this month as Claire is temporarily stepping back for a little while. She’s absolutely fine, just giving herself some grace.**
The one thing I’ve noticed during the course of this yearly Substack journey, is that no month on Substack is the same. Sometimes we have realisations that alter how we show up with our newsletter, other times we’ve had really positive months in different ways. And there are times, like this month, where we feel a bit more negative towards the platform.
Actually, negative is the wrong word. Maybe flat would be a better one? We know there are great changes happening on Substack, and they are happening at speed, and sometimes these changes have an impact on our creative mindset. Even though, rationally, we know it’s for ‘the greater good’.
We promised ourselves we’d be open and honest about our Substack journey and it can’t be all unicorns and sparkles every month. But this month we are a little flat. But, like I said in the episode this might be because of where we are at this point in time and actually, nothing to do with Substack at all!
Let us know in the comments if anything we say resonates with you. I’ve been on Substack now for fifteen months and Claire since the end of January this year and it has been a rollercoaster. But how has it been for you?
Our Substack Story is a podcast about our progress on the relatively new medium of Substack. What works, what doesn’t. How we grow, the mindset issues we struggle with and how we hone in on what we want to write about. Plus the often icky subject of money and charging for subscriptions.
Helen has been on Substack since June 2022. And Claire launched her Substack in January 2023.
We are both coming to Substack from different places. Helen has around 15,000 followers on Instagram, a small YouTube channel and a previous mailing list. Claire has a smaller Instagram with no previous newsletter.
We want to share how we get on with Substack, how we use the platform, how we use it as a place to share our writing, how we grow subscribers, create a community, and hopefully make an income. At the same time as writing our books and, in Helen’s case, creating videos on YouTube.
If you are launching your Substack, or thinking about it, or if you’ve been on here for a while we would love you to join in and share your experiences.
This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit
helenredfern.substack.com/subscribe
