and made me want to be a published author

I’d seen these lists floating around Substack Notes and I almost decided to go ahead and leave my own list there but changed my mind. I wanted to share this with all of you as these books really are the reason why I want so badly to be a published author but not just any published author, one of mystery, and you’ll see why. So, without further ado, here is my list (in no particular order):

THE MURDER OF ROGER ACKROYD BY AGATHA CHRISTIE (1926)

Agatha Christie is known as the Queen of Crime and if you’ve ever read any of her books you’d know this to be true. This book in particular features a twist ending that I won’t spoil here. I have a bit of a love-hate relationship with this book and that’s why, of all the many other books I could’ve listed I chose this one intentionally. I love the concept and hate the delivery, mostly because of just how damn clever it is all the way around. Agatha Christie opened doors for women in mystery in ways no one has since. She is even better than the men in this genre and no one can argue otherwise. And what makes her unique is the fact that her storytelling withstands the test of time. Her work is relevant and popular today and it will be hundreds of years from now. She’s just that damn good. YAS QUEEN!

If I can write even one-tenth as good as she does with my own mystery writing endeavors (of which I have a few…) then I’ll count myself in good company and damn lucky.

LAMB: THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO BIFF, CHRIST’S CHILDHOOD PAL BY CHRISTOPHER MOORE (2002)

I am no comedian, but this was the book I picked up after I finished the Harry Potter series. I needed something I could read and not be terribly disappointed with and I had read something somewhere that suggested reading a comedy. I remember the day I did a google search and came across this gem. I laughed till I cried from cover to cover.

Now, I am a deeply religious person. If my life hadn’t taken such a tragic turn when my mother died I might very well have been a priest in the Episcopal church today. But life has a way of zigging when you’re just trying to zag. Even knowing that I want to say, if you are religious too, strap on in cause this one is amazing. It does an amazing job of just towing the line between being not quite that offensive to over the top hysterical. Some might take offense and if you think you might, don’t read it.

I chose this as a life changing book because of the profound effect it had on me after I read the last Harry Potter book which I stupidly thought had a PROFOUND effect on me. Yes, that series is one of the greatest of all time but I was proven just how wrong I was when I read this book and it made me question the very art of storytelling. Up until this point I hadn’t really read much comedic books. And to be honest, I still haven’t. I will only read Christopher Moore. Well, I take that back. I have read Terry Pratchett. But he’s the teacher whereas Christopher Moore is the student and I look forward to what comes next every time with his books.

THE BOOK THIEF BY MARKUS ZUSAK (2013)

Another tear jerker but for completely different reasons. There is something about Holocaust books that don’t seem like that is what they’re going to be on the surface but then you read it and your mind is absolutely blown. My mind with this book was absolutely blown. It’s one of those that was made into a movie but the movie could never in a million years do it proper justice. It just can’t. This is a book that you just have to read it.

I think what struck me most was the narrator of this book. I want to say but I wonder if it will be a spoiler? Then again, I just said it’s a WWII book so how spoiled can what I want to say be…damn it, okay…I’m going to say it! The book is narrated by “Death.” Man, I still get chills just thinking about it.

This is not a quick read by any means, although I remember I got through it in under a week just because I couldn’t put it down. I chose this book for one other reason besides how amazing it was and how it touched my soul and tore me apart inside. But it was one of the few where I decided I had to read more by this author because if this was that damn good then he must have others, right? Wrong. This book was a stark reminder to myself that just because you find someone who wrote that one good book doesn’t necessarily mean everything they write is going to be as amazing. :cough cough: Stephen King :cough cough:

I hope to one day write one great book that someone says after reading it, “wow, that was amazing.” But I’m not going to drive myself crazy expecting a winner-winner chicken dinner every time.

A IS FOR ALIBI BY SUE GRAFTON (1982)

This first book in the series, and the series itself holds a key memory for me. That memory involves my grandmother. One birthday I didn’t think I was getting anything. After years and years of getting spoiled by my grandparent’s with presents this was a blow for me. The reason I didn’t think I was getting anything was because that particular year I was going away to college and my grandmother, who never really had any money of her own, managed to pay for my housing to be held aside for me when I got there. It was $200 dollars. I’ll never forget that she paid for that out of her own allowance she got from her husband (my grandfather). But she wanted me to have something for my birthday. I still remember sitting at the dining room table and she’s sitting next to me after I blew out the candles for my birthday cake. She points her chin to a bad in the corner of the room. I grab it and it’s freaking HEAVY! I hoist it over to the table between us and she tells me these are for me. It’s A through N of the Sue Grafton series! Her copies. All first editions that she had purchased when they came out over the years. I have so many memories about this series. Starting with how I got them to my grandmother losing the jacket for N (which I refuse to buy and replace to this day), and my mom “borrowing” A when she went the hospital and losing it there (still a crushing blow that I never forgave her for when I had to replace it).

I even met Sue Grafton at a book signing when U is for Undertow came out. Had I known she would’ve signed all A through U that day I would’ve hauled all 100lbs of them on the train with me that day. I remember I said to her I would do just that at her next book signing. She said she wouldn’t do another until Z. And well…you know the rest. As her daughter aptly put it shortly after her mother passed away, “The alphabet ends with Y.”

When I think of a book and a series that had such a lasting effect on my life I can think of none more deeply embedded in different parts of my life than this series. Hands down.

ELOISE BY KAY THOMPSON (1955) & MADELINE BY LUDWIG BEMELMANS (1939)

These books take me back to my childhood. In fact, I still have my original of each book from when I was young, although I purchased new ones for my son to have. These were the entryway for my imagination. A sense of wonder and great storytelling. I wanted to write stories after reading Eloise and Madeline. I also wanted to be just as curious about the world as Eloise and a know-it-all savior like Madeline.

It would be later in life that I would read Kay Thompson’s autobiography about why she came up with Eloise. And how shocked I was to discover I had seen Kay Thompson before! I love musicals and she is in Funny Face, starring Fred Astaire and Audrey Hepburn.

Kay Thompson and Fred Astaire

Kay Thompson and Audrey Hepburn

My next installment next week I’m going to share five musicals that shaped my life in the most profound way as I turn this into a series that, when put together, will hopefully give you a better insight into me and where my inspirations for writing comes from.

*Okay, I know I listed 6 but I just had to! Sue me!

A step-by-step guide through my process

On May 1st, 2023 I made the decision to write one 100 word story every single day. As of today I have written one-hundred 100 word stories! These aren’t my first. Prior to doing this I already had a back log of 75+ 100 word stories from previous years. I honestly wasn’t sure how long I could keep this up but now that I have been able to do this for 100 days in a row, I wanted to look back on them and talk a little bit about how I came to do this every day and end with what the next 100 days will look like.

WHERE TO BEGIN?

Something I find that always helps me is to have a theme or something that can get my brain thinking about a story. The entire month of May I was winging it for every story and that was really difficult. I knew right away I needed something to help me make coming up with a story easier to manage.

No sooner was I scrambling for assistance when it was nearing June that I received the deck of tarot cards I had been waiting on for two years! They were really so helpful and I will be leaning on them in the future.

So, if you’re anything like me, sometimes it can be difficult to just come up with something on the spot. Especially when you add in the pressure of making that story just 100 words in length. The last thing you want to do is spend forever trying to come up with something off the top of your head.

My advice is to find something you like or enjoy that has a variety of them to cover multiple days or an unlimited number of days. Some examples could be plants from nature, colors, one room locations, television shows, the 50 states, etc. You can take any of those or more examples to fill in an entire calendar and then use those to write a story.

DON’T TAKE FOREVER

Seriously! It’s just 100 words. And while you might think it’s really tough to get it all in there. It isn’t. The beauty of 100 words is that it’s not meant to be “finished” in the same way we think of finished today. The point is to leave the reader wanting more or at least being so inspired by your story that they want to continue it themselves in their mind. It takes less than one minute to read so it shouldn’t take you one hour to write.

On average, I spend less than 30 minutes writing my 100 word stories. That’s if I have no place to start. When I have a theme, that time is cut in half! Knowing my next move always helps get my creative juices flowing.

BE FLEXIBLE & PIVOT

If the theme you started out with isn’t working how you thought it would, there’s no shame in changing it up. The point is to write a story and whatever you need to do to get that story written is what matters. For example, for July I wanted to use songs as my theme. It took me about a week into doing it to realize that my idea was much too broad and I was left with way too many songs I wanted to use but no real direction at all. The idea was sound but my execution just wasn’t up to my personal standards. I didn’t want to abandon the idea completely! So I adjusted and came up with a plan B that worked out better than I had expected.

Instead of just saying my theme would be songs, I went a bit deeper and made it songs from musical movies. But that wasn’t enough. I wanted to tie them all together some how so I decided to make every story take place in the same nightclub where the narrator was the same throughout and there would be recurring characters. This is not the usual way to go about writing 100 word stories but the very nature of them is that they don’t follow any sort of normal rules. They are intended to be different and unique and whatever you need them to be to tell a story.

START WITH 50…

I know what you must be thinking, 50 words is way harder than 100 so what on Earth am I talking about? Okay, so the way I am able to write a story in 100 words is by writing the first 50 words with ease. When you think about telling a story, even a long one, the first 50 words are actually the easiest. You’re getting your feet wet. Laying the ground work. Driving the plane down the runway. You haven’t taken off yet.

When I’m writing my 100 word stories I start writing and when I see myself nearing 50 words I’ll stop myself. Sometimes I’m a few words over or under. The point is to get to as close to 50 as I can.

Why do I stop? Well, it’s at this point that I actually start to edit my story. Sure, I could write 100+ words and edit down from there. But I find when I do that I will have way more than 100 words and find it much harder to shave off entire sentences to get down to 100. It’s much easier to chip away words than a full on sentence!

Also, stopping at 50 helps me to “wrap it up” in the next 50. When I say I don’t like to go too far over 100 words in my first rough draft, I mean it. I’ve gotten so good at this that I typically will be “finished” with a story under 103 words. So, in the end, my editing is just to remove those 3 words.

EDIT WITH PRECISION

When writing such short stories it helps to be able to see an entire sentence and know which word or words can be cut without losing the meaning you’re trying to convey. This is a skill that can only be learned from practice and doing it over and over again. Don’t beat yourself up about it if you can’t do it right away.

I’ve written close to 200 of these and I feel like I still have much to learn with how to best edit such a short-short story.

The best way I know to do my editing is to read and reread and re-reread the story. Each passthrough I’m removing a word(s) and reading it again to make sure it still hits like I want.

HOW DO YOU KNOW WHEN IT’S DONE?

This is a tough one to answer but this is my “rule of thumb” approach when it comes to not spending more time that I feel is necessary on a story. I realize that one story can be told and retold a bunch of different ways and if I allow myself the time I could easily rewrite the story a dozen ways and get 100 words and a different story each time. But that isn’t the assignment. Although, now that I think about it, I wonder if that would make for an interesting experiment to try out in the future?

I know when it’s done when I reach 100 words. Simple as that.

All I will allow myself to do once I see my word count meter hit 100 is to reread the story ONE LAST TIME. If I see one word I want to swap for a better word then I will do it that one time. Otherwise, the moment I see I’m at 100 words, I read it, make sure there are no obvious typos in the words, copy, paste, done.

Trust me, you don’t want to spend more than 30 minutes writing a 100 word story. By that time you’ll drive yourself crazy!

THE NEXT 100 WORDS

I did so much and learned so much from writing these stories that I think for my next 100 and honestly, going into 2024, I want to involve all of you way more. I know my readers are comprised of writers (whether professionally or for enjoyment) and I want to do more to collaborate and connect with this little community of 100 word story readers and writers. Maybe I’ve found a way to do just that.

Also in July I actually did start collaborating weekly with fellow writers to jointly write a 100 word story. In those cases I write 50 words and then another person writes 50 words that will make an unexpected and new 100 word story. So far it’s been amazing and I don’t want that to stop. So, if you’re reading this and you’d like to collaborate with me to write a 100 word story, reply to this email or leave a comment and let’s connect!

August will continue my journey with the Literary Tarot deck as well as writing stories using Substack Publication Names as inspiration. This is how I’m trying to incentivize more people to complete their fiction Substacks to make them better.

September will be another month of tarot but October has me most excited. I’ll share much more details on September 1st and the last week of September will be a teaser to lead up to October but it will forever change the look of 100 word stories, that’s for sure.

Will you join me on my next 100 days? Let me know in the comments.

Challenge accepted!

In August I’ll be revisiting the Literary Tarot cards but because a suit is only 14 cards I wanted to do something else unique and different.

Before I get into the when let me discuss what my prompts will be and in order to do that I have to mention “the list.” If you haven’t heard about the list you must be living under a rock because I’ve mentioned it a bunch of times. But just to recap, the list is the most comprehensive directory of all fiction Substack writers. Currently, it boasts 280+ publications! Wow!

Recently, I decided to do a bit of auditing on the list because not every entry has all of the information. I curated the list myself so if I was unable to ascertain the answers to fill in each entry then it got labeled with an UNKNOWN instead. Here is the Note where I listed the facts I was able to pull together:

building a case for my short story collection (and yours)

It was early May 2023 when a tweet was, for lack of a better word, heard round the world and it was written by someone who has a name that will likely go down in history. I wasn’t there, as I stopped using Twitter a month earlier, but you don’t have to have been there to have heard the name.

As of writing this, it has been “viewed” 18.4M times! 👀

You just can’t make this stuff up! Now, Mr. dickolas (if I may call them that?) doesn’t have many followers on Twitter and I’m sure this tweet can be used as an example of how going viral can be advantageous. But what makes this story so interesting to me is that the authors of This is How You Lose the Time War had no idea what was going on when they saw their book climb the charts to #3 on Amazon and #9 on the NYT Bestseller’s list. Pretty impressive!

In the aftermath I had a few take-aways from this phenomenon that I think are worth keeping in mind:

1. This book was published back in 2020, a good THREE YEARS before this tweet!

2. At that time it was nominated and won the Hugo as well as the Nebulla and Locus awards for Best Novella. If you hang out in short story circles then you know those are pretty awards and it’s an honor to just be nominated.

3. Anything is possible if you put in the work.

What exactly am I trying to get at, you may be asking yourself. Okay, so if you’re new around here, I’ve been writing one 100 word story every single day since May 1st (right around the time this viral tweet happened). Why? The mood struck me and I’m not one to back down from a challenge, even if it’s one I give to myself. And as I’m nearing 100 of these stories written (quite a milestone for any person) I am growing increasingly intrigued at the possibilities of putting these stories into some sort of book form.

THE KERNEL OF AN IDEA

Self-publishing books is not new to me. It started way back in college when I wanted to see my poetry in book form so I went to Lulu.com and made it happen in a few easy steps. Then I got older and wanted to try my hand at selling copies of my work so I wrote an illustrated book with a close friend who did all the artwork. Then I had a wild idea for a fantasy series. Basically, this all boils down to the fact that I know all the ins and outs of ISBNs, Amazon KDP, Adobe InDesign, and whatever else is needed to get the book from written to published.

I’ve had several iterations and ideas ruminating in my brain about how I would want to create my first (of many?) collections. How many would go in the book is a discussion for another day but I have already set my sights on the Austin Kleon books and want mine to be a square. That’s a given. Then there’s the inside and that kernel of an idea is still in its infancy but I’m leaning towards handwriting every story. Would take a lot because I’m already overly critical of my handwriting but every “handwriting font style” I’ve tried just isn’t quite right. And like my momma always said, “sometimes you just gotta do it yourself!”

CAN GOOD BONES MAKE A GOOD BOOK?

Just because I’ve been working on “the book” for years (it seems) doesn’t mean it’ll be what the people are clamoring for. That’s where we all come in. Good bones, I believe, are built by the hands (or mouths?) of others. Word of mouth, in the case of collections of short stories can do well as long as two statements can be made true:

1. Consistently good stories shared.

2. Trusted word of mouth from us to or followers.

I’m hoping to build good bones with my collection coming at the end of 2023 and beginning of the new year. I’d like to think I can do it all with my own two hands but I can’t. It will take a village to help this get off the ground. But I’m not asking just for myself. I’m asking on behalf of all of us out there in the fiction writing community who are toiling away on sharing short stories but are unsure if it can ever be anything more than an email in an inbox. It can! Let’s do it together. Let’s build good bones!

I want to get the word out about your work, especially if your intention is to put it in book form to sell. The act of writing can be a very solitary one. We hide away in our writing places wherever we can find the time, but then we can also come together and when the time is right, build those good bones.

I am sure when El-Mohtar and Gladstone wrote their little book they were immensely honored to be nominated for such prestigious awards and then doubly so when they won. But to expect three years later for a random tweet by the randomest of Twitter users to cause such a viral stir on the algorithm that it raised their books from the depths of where it was, to above some newer released books. No one could’ve predicted that. It’s the power of messaging, community, and most of all word of mouth.

Am I expecting Substack to lift us up to the heights of 18.4M views in two months? No. But let’s see what we can accomplish if we put our heads together.

PLANT A FLAG! MAKE A STATEMENT!

There’s nothing like the power of community supporting your passion and dream! But we can’t support what we don’t know. Mentioning it on social media is great but you know what’s even better? Cementing it in an email right on your own Substack (or blog). I know, that kind of commitment can be hard to do. What if you don’t follow through and finish what you started? I’ve been there. But we can’t finish what we don’t start and that’s just facts.

Ever heard the phrase “no risk, no reward”? Well, that’s what you need to do. Or as I like to say, “risk it for the biscuit!”

So, let’s plant a flag together! Cause I would never ask you to do something I wasn’t more than willing to do myself. Let’s write an email/blog outlining our collection endeavor. Share what you want to do, how you plan on doing it, and most importantly, how often you’re going to let us know how it’s going? All really important questions. But notice the one question I didn’t include? When it will be finished and released. That is an answer you don’t need to have right now. Don’t worry about finishing. Focus on starting and getting those stories in order.

Life will always get in the way and before you know it the time you thought you had won’t be there anymore one month from now. Lean on the community for support during those time. Let us tell you it’s all good and remind yourself of the great work you’ve already done to get to wherever you are now. We can do this!

Look for my “announcement” email some time in October!

THE BEST TIME TO START PLANNING THAT COLLECTION?

You know my answer is going to be “NOW!” Who knows what could happen three years after it’s been released. You could be seeing an unexpected surge too. That’s not to get anyone’s hopes up. Least of all, my own. But I do like to dream big.

My “dream big” idea isn’t to sell 1M copies. I want to know my work kept someone up at night or made them pick up a pen and start writing something. I want to teach and influence through my own journey in storytelling. And with any luck be able to do this for the rest of my life.

How am I making this dream a reality? Well, it starts with one day at a time thinking. If I think of the finished product I easily get overwhelmed. I don’t think about hitting one-hundred stories written in 100 days. Instead, I think about the one story I have to write today. Small goals and accomplishments will eventually lead to a collection.

Time to sound off on our dreams! I want to hear from you! What are you fiction writing dreams? Go beyond what you’re currently doing. Dream big. And not just “I wanna be Stephen King rich.” That’s kid stuff and boring.

For fiction writers

The dreaded about page of Substack. If you’re unfamiliar it’s probably because you’re using Substack like you would Mailchimp or any other newsletter service that doesn’t have an about page, and that’s okay. But you should know that Substack is more than a newsletter service. I like to remind myself that Substack is a combination of Mailchimp, WordPress, Patreon, and (now) Social Media all rolled into one. The part that requires creating an about page comes from WordPress. Think of your personal website (if you have one). You likely have an “about me” page, right? Well, on Substack it’s no different. In fact, I’ll give you a tl;dr crash course right now if you actually have an about me page on a personal website! Go there right now, copy/paste that information into your about page on Substack. Boom! You’re done. No need to read any further… UNLESS…

If you’re looking to up your game on Substack (and you most certainly should be) it takes more than just producing great content. The more new readers come to Substack, the more they know what to expect and beyond the usual “welcome page” that shows a lovely image and short description of your Substack, they’ll find themselves looking around your Homepage. One of the first things I like to snoop at when I’m on anyone’s Homepage is their about page. It’s the best way to get to know if this Substack has what I’m looking for. At least, that’s what I expect to find there. It’s what everyone else will expect to find there as well. And as much as I like to thank Substack for taking the initiative to put generic information on any new Substack for us, I think those who don’t know it exists leave it untouched and the rest who can’t be bothered or don’t think it matters just ignore it. Well, if you’re reading this you care very much and you want to do something about it. I’m here to help and offer advice I’ve garnered after meticulously looking through 200+ fiction Substacks. Trust me when I tell you that I’ve seen my share of really good and really bad about pages.

In this guide, I’ll walk you through:

• How you need to talk about yourself.

• Explain your mad skillz to visitors!

• Why do you have this Substack?

• Why all visitors need to subscribe to you…or else!

• How your time is worth their money? (If your Paid Subscription is turned on)

• The perfect CTA (Call To Action) send off!

Say it don’t spray it!

We all want to stand out. There are hundreds in our niche and hundreds of thousands of Substack users. It can be overwhelming if you feel the need to compete with everyone. But you don’t. There is no competition. Substack is a bookstore. There are many floors and on each floor hundreds of books to choose from. The more people know about this bookstore, the more people will walk right on in. Your job is not to stand out so much that no one knows what the heck you’re about. Your job is to create great content and be as transparent as possible with what that is. You want your page and your name to be synonymous with what you do. But you gotta tell me point blank!

Don’t be flowery in your explanation of the goods. So, when you start your About page, seriously, and I know this might seem bland and boring, but give me your name and what you are writing (or illustrating or photographing or whatevering) in no less than two (maybe three?) sentences. You’re on an elevator and you’ve only got till we reach the ground floor to sell me something. Oh, the good old fashioned “elevator pitch” example. Yep, I went there.

You got mad skillz right? Well let’s give the people what they want!

If you don’t hype yourself up, who will? This is your newsletter and your time to shine. And I don’t mean you have to be some animated fake version of yourself either. But if you love what you do and have any sense of passion in that, you gotta let me know! I don’t mean the sweet talkin’ either! I just want you to take that elevator pitch you wrote earlier and back it up with a little sumthin’ sumthin’. Now, what exactly does that mean? Cause by this point you probably think I’m nuts or something…

I didn’t go to college for my MBA. I’ve only ever been published in a magazine once. I’m not some prolific author with dozens of published books on Amazon. But, I’m not here to sell you on something that I am not. Let’s talk about what I am and what I’ve done instead. I’ve been writing stories since before I started going to school. Storytelling is in my blood and to prove it I’ve been writing and sharing one story every single day for several months. Prior to that I was writing longer pieces of fiction. All of which is documented and can be read here, here, and here. I’ve read many books and watched many movies. But what I love to tell people most about my writing is that I don’t do happy endings. I’m not a happily ever after kind of writer so if you’re looking for that don’t stop here.

Okay, now you might not have written as much as I have. And you might start feeling a bit overwhelmed trying to look at your own resume and wondering if you should say that in your About page? Is it really relevant? Looking from a fiction writer’s perspective, if you’ve written something and it’s public then it is very much relevant. We make things public so that it can be read.

And if you don’t have it written yet but just the kernel of an idea, that is relevant as well. There is nothing more hopeful or exciting than hearing a person profess their dream and then go do it and ask us, the humble reader, to join them on this journey! That could be you. Bring us along on your as-yet-started journey! You’ll be surprised how many will be glad to join you! But we can’t if you don’t tell us. Stop being so shy and make some proclamations. It’s okay of they don’t happen exactly as you stated in the About page. The edit button is there for a reason! Use it!

What’s the deal with this Substack thing, anyway?

Everyone knows about Mailchimp and Mailerlite and Converkit. Charming email marketing services (EMS) but you didn’t choose any of them. And while sometimes it’s not necessary or customary to explain a decision, in this case, it might be beneficial for you to do so in this instance. I didn’t like all the bells and whistles those other platforms had. They are truly for marketing first and I wanted a platform that was for community building first. I’m sure that is something a newcomer wouldn’t mind knowing about you. If that is the reason you went with Substack over the others. You can totally steal my reason if you want. And you can also leave this part out altogether as well.

But, if you are using some unique Substack features, such as Chat, Notes, Threads, Podcasts, or whatever else they may unleash on us at any moment in the future, then this is the ideal time and place to not only mention those things but how you are using them specifically. I won’t go into some of the ways those features can be useful for fiction writers specifically as it would make this post far longer than it will already be, but if you want some examples, let me know in the comments and I might work on that piece next.

If you’re already using those features and are wondering why you’re not getting much interaction with them, now is the time to spend a paragraph per feature explaining how to use them, how you’re using them, and why your subscribers should join you in using them.

Time to show ’em the goods!

Okay, so a quick recap, you explained who the heck you are in a few sentences. Then you expanded a bit with explanation about your passion. After that you go into the features you’re using and why. Now we are going to do a brief road map specific to your Substack.

Are you using Sections? If so, now is the time to explain what those are. And if you’re not, this is a great time to explain the number of emails you intend on sending on a regular basis. You are going to be sending an email on a regular basis right? Whether that’s once a month, a week, or every freaking day, being consistent is key. This might be a tough pill to swallow but I’m going to need you to put your big boy/girl pants on when I say this with mad love and respect: Don’t promise what you know in your heart you can’t keep up with!

All too often I see writers promise a weekly post. They fall behind and within just a couple weeks they are late every single time. They run out of ideas and the content they do share is mediocre at best. They see less comments, less Likes, and less opens. They become disheartened. They scale back to maybe one email a month. Then that falls away as well till they are barely writing something every couple months. I don’t want this to be you!

How can you make sure you keep showin’ your subscribers the goods (ie your mad skillz we talked about earlier) without burn out or lack of consistency? The easiest solution is to figure out what you can do then give yourself extra time on top of that. So, if you can write something weekly, a buffer wouldn’t hurt, so make that writing something every other week (or twice a month). This way you can be ahead with your writing instead of scrambling to play catch-up. If monthly is your preferred frequency of communication, just make sure you’re ready with content or some ideas for those future months. I deliver my updates email on the first of every month. I have the rest of 2023 planned out on paper already so my Draft posts are already created where I talk about what I’ve done, etc. Now, when I get to that time of year it is quite possible that I may miss the mark of my intentions but at least I laid out my intentions and I’m holding myself accountable. If I don’t, who will?

Be intentional with the decisions you make because in the long run they will pay off. Speaking of long run, one more bit of advice I want to leave you with that may be an even tougher pill to swallow: You need to follow through on your consistency of delivery for several YEARS before you can (or should) expect any sort of results!

I know what you’re thinking, “but Billy over there started a month ago and she’s already got twice as many subscribers and hundreds of them are already paid!” Sure, that’s nice for Billy. But we are all different. We all have different paths and vastly different definitions of success. My advice to you is not to worry about what Billy is doing unless it’s to learn and observe, not to covet or turn green with envy. We are all not sharing the same race track. Each of us has a different number of laps to go before we finish our own race. Stay in your lane and stay focused on your journey. If you can do that and be truly consistent and patient it will pay off.

Sorry for the brief Nascar analogy, I must have my mom looking over my shoulder as I’m writing this. She loved Nascar and had the number 3 with his signature tattooed on her arm.

I’ve got a few tips for how to write a great (and consistent) update email on a monthly (or weekly) basis. If you’d like that to come in the future, let me know in the comments and I’ll see when I can drop it into my rotation of Wednesday posts I have planned.

Let’s collectively shake our money makers?…Yes?…

The dirty truth of it all is that we’re here to try with all our might to convert, convert, convert. But how? And with what? If you’ve got paid subscriptions turned on, read on! If not, don’t fret, I don’t want you to feel pressured into doing something you’re just not ready for. This is definitely not for everyone and we all reach that stage in our lives differently. Some of us need the money to earn a living, some of us use it as a side-hustle, and the majority just enjoy the community and the writing and already have a pretty decent paying job. So, no pressure felt? Good! Let’s do this!

This is probably the easiest part of your About page you’ll ever write of all that came before and whatever is left after. Simply put, tell me what you’re offering for my hard-earned money. Most of the time you’ll offer nothing and that is perfectly fine, too. In fact, that might be the easiest sell because you don’t have to set aside time to write an extra thing for no one (cause we all start with zero paid subscribers) or a handful of people. Better to just be honest and say “hey, your paid subscription is your way of letting me know you value my work at whatever price you can afford.” At the end of the day all of your work will be free and therefore those who can pay, will, and those who can’t, won’t miss out. When you get a good number of paid subscribers you can always revisit this idea and add some “paid only” perks.

If you’ve already got some “paid only” perks, then share what those are, frequency of delivery, stuff like that. Bullet points is always nice here. But just like your delivery schedule, don’t paint yourself into a corner you can’t get out of by promising something you know you really can’t deliver on especially if your perk leads to getting paid subscribers. You’ll find some really pissed off people not only canceling their paid subscription but possibly even unsubscribing! Let’s not risk that, okay?

A model I am currently using is changing 99% of my 100 Word Stories to Paid Only (aka Archive) when a new month begins. I leave the first of the month as free to read to give newcomers something to look at from the past. Is this a winning idea? Check back in a couple years when I do a recap and let you know.

The wind-up and the final pitch

If your About page seems jam-packed it’s cause it probably is at this point! And you thought you had nothing to put there! What I do want to say is you don’t have to use every damn example I put here, nor do you have to do all of the homework! If you did, here’s a gold star just for you!

The last bit is that final reminder. You’ll notice all throughout I mention buttons as infrequently as possible. I love a good CTA button as the next person but putting one after every section or paragraph can be annoying. I know I’m not a huge fan of it so I use them sparingly. But if some new person happens upon your page and made it all the way down here, the least you can do is make sure they subscribe or upgrade to paid before they leave, amiright!

So, one suggest I like to add down here (and in my Welcome email too) is a question. Some sort of ice breaker. It helps them know you’re interested. It’s a bit tricky to ask a question in the About page because there is no ability to leave a comment. However, you do have a Substack specific email that I always recommend people use because it saves you from having to create another email account if you don’t want to share your personal email. Your substack email is simply the URL of your substack “@substack.com” at the end. So mine would be [email protected], feel free to email me with any questions you may have!

When someone uses that email to contact you it will forward to the email you used to create your account. What I have not tested out is what happens if you reply to their email. I will do some testing and get back to you on that front rest assured!

FINAL THOUGHTS

This might surprise you to know but this has surpassed 3k words to write! Wow! I hope it was helpful to you. Take your time with each section. You don’t have to have the perfect About page on day one of your Substack. I’m still tweaking mine constantly. Perfection cannot be the end goal here! All we can do is try to be clear with our messaging and let the content we create after do the talking for us!

🖖🏾!