5 Things I’ve Learned Writing My Substack Book

Lessons from 2024 from the Substack book I still haven’t finished

This woman’s almost as happy as I am about my book-writing resolution. Image by wayhomestudio on Freepik

Just two weeks into 2024, and I’m two weeks into the year of FINISHING THE (ferken) BOOK. I started it ages ago, and progress has been much slower than I hoped.

As someone who’s not usually a fan of new year’s resolutions, this year I felt compelled to make one:

This year I will work on the book obsessively. This year I will get it done.

Two weeks into 2024, here 5 things I’ve learned (this year) while working on the book.

1. Writing about ‘best practices’ for Substack posts, pages and marketing is embarrassing. …. When you realise that half the time your own publications are falling short.

For example, the other day, while writing about ‘Hero posts’ for getting new subscribers, I realised my paid publication’s hero post didn’t have any subscribe buttons. Major fail!

A hero post is permanently pinned to the top of your home page and is an effective way to get new subscribers by sharing your publication’s mission with new readers

2. The Voiceovers feature on Substack is better than expected. It’s more versatile with respect to paywalls and (bonus) is…