Create a Section or New Substack
When do we create a Section or New Substack when we want to add a new topic to write about?
I like bouncing ideas off of many people sometimes. We ARE better together!
Here’s the dilemma I’m currently facing with Substack:
I have 3 sections on my current Substack: Stories, Recipes, and Human Design.
I want to add another Section OR do I create a new Substack for my new topic?
My new topic is about highlighting other Substack publications that feature mostly short stories and/or poems.
My understanding is that sections are for the different topics that you have within your Substack. Right?
So, when is it really necessary to create another Substack?
Is my new topic of highlighting other Substackers too different from what my current Substack is? Would my audience care to see posts where I’m reviewing other Substackers and sharing their Publications?
The similarities would be that I prefer writing and reading only short stories and/or poems. So, if someone is into what I write and how I deliver them (mostly short stories) then would they also like to discover others with a similar writing style (short stories)? OR would this be more of a different Substack niche?
What say you? Do I create a Section or new Substack?
JEL Collaborative is a community publication offering sporadic experiences with how we are learning SubStack together, as we go.
*Photo by Glenn Carstens-Peters on Unsplash
Good question, I have pondered it myself. As I am debating on expanding my posting portfolio to include photography and poems, maybe art and memes, I am thinking about it from an audience point of view.
Think about recipes vs trauma... if both are in the same SubStack, someone looking for recipes on your site may be finding trauma stories. That may or may not be something you want to happen. However, the recipe folks will likely not mind the butterfly picture.
If you want to separate the audience, you can create 2 SubStacks rather than 2 topics. Maybe stick with "sections" unless you would be changing something in the "settings" part of the SubStack - privacy, paywalled etc. - something like that?
That's a great question and one I don't have a good answer for, other than my perspective.
When I was starting my newsletter(s) I kept trying to spin them out as different newsletters, mostly because I was confused by Sections (I still am.) I am great at convincing myself that it's new and unrelated, but also that it's totally related.
My example, I have my newsletter that is about ME and my journey as a writer or solopreneur or human. I also have "Channeling Chaos" which is me trying to build a community that's more specific about mindfulness and life management skills. I STILL wonder if THAT should be "Mindfullish", or if I need to make a Jody Gates newsletter and be talking about me there. I created a newsletter "Threeish" with the intent of making an Atomic newsletter, then I moved it to be a section under Channeling Chaos.
Ironically, this whole thing feels super chaotic to me. Who subscribes to what, when you cancel one? do you cancel others? What is happening with these sections vs newsletters.
I feel like, if you go with another Newsletter, just make it clear what its about so when someone is on your profile they have a good idea which one to choose (if they don't choose all of them.)
I DO like the way Sections work when posting, I just wish I got metrics on sections the same way I get them for newsletters.