What is this?
This is a simple newsletter to find other Substack lists you can promote on your own Substack either for money or barter. Each issue contains a participating site, along with what the newsletter is about, their important measurements, what they charge, and how to get in touch.
Why does it exist?
Mostly because I am supposed to be writing my university assignment. Also because, while Substack’s built-in recommendation tool is great, it is also kind of buried and most useful when you’re already on the subscription path. This is different—this is about getting in front of readers.
How is it different?
This makes use of Substack’s “Custom button” which can be inserted anywhere on a post. You use it to enter the subscription URL for the newsletter you want to promote. This promotes the newsletter right in the midst of the reading experience. See the screenshots below to see what I’m talking about.
Where is the damn Custom Button?
What do you do then?
What does it look like?
It looks like any of the other Substack buttons. As far as I know you can’t style them in any other way. If you want to do something different, I suggest you contact the author of whatever newsletter you are interested in and throw some ideas around.
But that looks boring right?
Yeah, so you add some text telling people why it is cool, like so:
Ad: “Travelfish is a handy wrap on what has been happening in Southeast Asia over the last week. Free to read for all.”
And don’t forget the “Ad” bit if you’re keen on being honest with your readers—and perhaps also add some line breaks to make it more distinct from the rest of your prose.
Put it all together and…
You end up with something like this (I don’t speak Latin, I just grabbed the fill text from here):
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, an vim fabulas adipiscing, et falli interesset his. Eirmod feugait percipitur eam no, eu everti detracto epicurei eam. Ut sit labore semper, ut sed prompta dolorem, simul inciderint pri ei. Duo fugit patrioque ea, vel integre dolores in.
Ad: “Travelfish is a handy wrap on what has been happening in Southeast Asia over the last week. Free to read for all.”
Vis utamur assentior ex, at prima discere ponderum usu. Libris consequuntur vix in, mei ne commodo quaestio salutandi. Has ut veri nostrud. At ullum cetero accusamus est, sit possim delicatissimi in. Aeque deseruisse in est.
Ius putent persequeris ne. Ne usu audiam utamur. In vim blandit constituto. Te graeco verterem his, alii nulla omittantur ei vix.
Ok, looks great! What next?
Look through the archives to find a site that sounds interesting, or a good match for your readers, scroll down to the “get in touch” bit, and, well, get in touch. That’s it.
Why is this called Write By The Sea?
Because this was going to be a newsletter about a beach shack I’m renovating in West Bali, but I never got around to writing about it—mostly because I was too mentally exhausted at the end of each day to write anything about it. Plus, I guess, if you get enough subscribers to your Substack you can get a shack by the sea that doesn’t need to be endlessly fixed!
This is my shack. As you can see, it is right by the sea, hence the silly name—for what at times is a very silly shack. Photo: Stuart McDonald.
Want to add your newsletter to this?
Please look at the sample listing I’ve done for my own site, put together the details for your site, and shoot them over to me at stuartmcdonald@travelfish.org and I’ll add your entry.
The Substack screenshot and photo are optional, though are a good idea in my humble opinion.
Each new entry gets tagged under whatever the subject matter is—I’ll add new tags as needed—and is sent to our subscribers, so obviously if you’re interested in this sorta thing, you should subscribe to Write By The Sea!
What does it cost to get listed?
There is no charge for this—I’m just trying to avoid finishing my assignment.
Have some other random question?
Drop me a line at stuartmcdonald@travelfish.org