Substack Live Podcast

Welcome to the Substack Live Podcast! Conversations with the best Substack early adopters who created amazing newsletters and continue to bring their good work to the world and make the world a better place in doing so. Plus, get updates and expert guidance on the platform as it changes and changes again and again, so you can use it to fuel your creative, professional, and financial life. Brought to you by Substack Writers at Work Founder and Director and former Paris Review interviewer, Sarah Fay. You can also listen on your favorite podcast platform → 700 hundred people showed up to this live recording of the Substack Live Podcast to hear Austin Kleon give some of the best advice on how to have a newsletter/Substack that means something to you and your readers, including: * making what you want to see in the world, * taking time to process in a world that wants us to just move on and scroll, * writing the newspaper column you’ve always wanted to write, * the So what? test, and so much more… The Atlantic called Austin Kleon “positively one of the most interesting people on the Internet,” which is why his Substack is so damn good. To have a Substack newsletter that people are interested in, it helps to be interesting, which typically comes when the writer of said Substack is interested in the world and specifically, the part of the world he writes about in a way no one else can. Austin was Substack before there was Substack, having started his newsletter in 2013, before Substack existed. He came to Substack in 2021 because, he said, he liked the simple interface. He’s the New York Times bestselling author of a trilogy of illustrated books about creativity in the digital age—Steal Like An Artist [http://austinkleon.com/steal/], Show Your Work! [http://austinkleon.com/show-your-work], and Keep Going [http://austinkleon.com/keepgoing]—and of Newspaper Blackout [http://austinkleon.com/newspaperblackout], a collection of poems made by redacting the newspaper with a permanent marker. I love how he describes his trilogy, which is a masterclass in creativity and living a creative life: * Steal Like an Artist [https://amzn.to/4nQIZXC] is the book you give to somebody who’s just starting out and needs a kickstart or a boost. * Show Your Work [https://amzn.to/4q4MGLc] is for the person that has found their thing but they haven’t been found themselves yet — people who need to self promote or need to get their work out there. * Keep Going [https://amzn.to/46EgIh4] is really the book for people who are trying to make a career out of creative work — people who are trying to be in it for the long haul *** About the Substack Live Podcast Join me for conversations with Substack early adopters who created amazing newsletters and continue to bring their good work to the world and make the world a better place in doing so. I also bring you updates and expert guidance on the platform as it changes and changes again and again, so you can use it to fuel your creative, professional, and financial life. Subscribe to receive every episode» Thank you Tom Sykes [https://substack.com/profile/358060199-tom-sykes], Beth Spencer [https://substack.com/profile/58646732-beth-spencer], Jason Chatfield [https://substack.com/profile/1814777-jason-chatfield], Petya K. Grady [https://substack.com/profile/3251207-petya-k-grady], Emilie Friedlander [https://substack.com/profile/1076779-emilie-friedlander], and many others for joining us. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.substackwritersatwork.com/subscribe [https://www.substackwritersatwork.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_2]

Nearly 400 people showed up to listen to Maya C. Popa [https://open.substack.com/users/63627356-maya-c-popa?utm_source=mentions] and I talk about: - The realities of pitching, publishing, and rejection - Mindset, motivation, and the myth of “having it all together” - Substack strategies, authenticity, and audience growth - The dopamine loop, validation, and the writing process and more… Maya is a poet, prose writer, exceptional human, and someone I’m so lucky to call a dear friend. She’s the author of three books of poetry: Wound is the Origin of Wonder [https://www.amazon.com/Wound-Origin-Wonder-Maya-Popa/dp/1324021365/ref=sr_1_1?crid=3EBU330QBNTUK&keywords=maya%20popa&qid=1672756042&sprefix=maya%20%2Caps%2C559&sr=8-1] (W.W. Norton 2022; Picador 2023), named one of the Guardian’s Best Books of Poetry; American Faith [https://www.amazon.com/American-Faith-Maya-C-Popa/dp/194644846X] (Sarabande 2019); and her third collection coming in 2026, which we’re all going to make sure it gets on the bestseller list. She’s also the Poetry Reviews Editor at Publishers Weekly. She’s been teaching for thirteen years at NYU and is just such an exceptional human. Her poems have been published in The New Yorker, The Paris Review, Poetry, Granta, the Nation, and elsewhere. What I love most is Maya’s Conscious Writers Collective [https://www.consciouswriterscollective.com/] (CWC), her online school and writing community that offers a rigorous, MFA-level education for writers without forcing them to take on the debt an MFA program would. Having taught at NYU and elsewhere at the graduate and post-grad level, she’s created a not-to-be-missed-out-on mentorship and training for writers at all levels, those who already have an MFA, those who might go on to receive one with the training they need to make the most of it, and those who may get enough to produce a body of work ready for publication without it. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.substackwritersatwork.com/subscribe [https://www.substackwritersatwork.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_2]

In this episode, I tell you what no one tells you about the Substack Bestseller badge, what it really means, and why your Substack DNA is all that matters. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.substackwritersatwork.com/subscribe [https://www.substackwritersatwork.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_2]

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.substackwritersatwork.com [https://www.substackwritersatwork.com?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_7] As people scramble onto Substack, it’s easy to overlook why it’s the platform to be on right now: Certain early adopters spent years creating Substack newsletters so good people would actually read and paid to read them. Which is why I’ve created an entire podcast to share them with you. My conversation [https://www.substackwritersatwork.com/p/youre-writing-so-much-more-than-a]with Mason Currey [https://substack.com/profile/3672372-mason-currey] contains some of the best advice on how to stop feeling like you have to chase the algorithm and can set about owning your platform and doing your best work. Nearly 300 people showed up for the live recording. The feedback was incredible. Why? Becuase our conversation truly humanizes what it means to be a writer on Substack or any other platform. If you don’t know Mason, he’s the author of the Daily Rituals [https://bookshop.org/lists/daily-rituals] books and writes the Substack newsletter Subtle Maneuvers [https://masoncurrey.substack.com/?utm_source=mention&utm_content=writes] about how creative people get work done. Cal Newport called him “the undisputed master of finding, in the messy lives of great artists and thinkers throughout time, deeply human lessons about cultivating meaning in our current age.” * This is some of the best advice on how to build a Substack that people will spend their time and money reading. * + How to stop chasing the algorithm and own your platform. 6 Ways to Build a Substack People Will Actually Spend Their Time and Money Reading 1. Don’t call it your Substack

For the only expert guide to Substack, join Substack Writers at Work [https://www.substackwritersatwork.com/] with the leading Substack Strategist Sarah Fay: https://www.substackwritersatwork.com/ [https://www.substackwritersatwork.com/] Substack has fundamentally changed—and that's actually the best thing that could happen to us. While everyone's panicking about algorithm changes, trolls, and platform noise, we need to see why Substack 5.0 is our opportunity to build something bigger. In this episode, we break down why treating Substack like social media will hurt your growth. We keep growing, we keep earning, but we stop being "on" Substack like it's Instagram. We use it as a launchpad for books, speaking, media opportunities—not another hamster wheel. Every single one of my 42,000 subscribers has been hard-earned through deep work, not tricks. This isn't about growing less—it's about growing smarter while everyone else burns out chasing the algorithm. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.substackwritersatwork.com/subscribe [https://www.substackwritersatwork.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_2]