10 Comments
Sep 27Liked by Weronika Salach

Wow this was so incredibly helpful!!! You basically just did all the hard work for me. I am on the cusp of developing my first newsletter and you have convinced me to start out with Substack. Thanks for all the great content you produce!

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I hope I can put all this knowledge into a short online course this year! Someone from Skillshare saw my article and they suggested that this could be a nice class idea. I mean, we also face inflation, a reduction in projects, lower budgets and so on, recession = this Substack idea, moving towards simplicity, I think a lot of people would be interested in it!

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Totally agree! I know I would be interested in taking it. You could build on it too if you wanted to. For instance I will want the ability to send designed promotional emails to my list as well so I have since learned that I will still need another service like Mailchimp or Constant Contact as well as using Substack. This is completely ok, it just wasn’t something I thought about right away.

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Sep 26Liked by Weronika Salach

Hi Weronika, thank you for this newsletter and inviting us to comment. I'm usually quiet at these things, but I do have a question for you. So do you create your emails and send them out all within Substack? Like essentially does Substack do the same thing that MailChimp does (plus more)?

Btw, I really enjoy your Skillshare classes, thank you for putting those out. You've really helped me a lot with Affinity. :-)

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I think it would be a good idea if I created a course about diving into Substack :)))) Yes, I create all my emails on this Substack platform and they go into people's mailbox and/or the Substack app. They might land in the Promotions folder but I think it is ok, I usually check my Promotions folder too. I also structured my Substack into a few sub-pages, for example I have one for announcements: https://weronikasalach.substack.com/t/artist-update or one for creative business advice: https://weronikasalach.substack.com/t/creative-business Very handy!

However, Substack is not like mailchimp or flodesk because first and foremost it is like a blogging platform. That is why I call it a blog-letter. It is best to test it out yourself ^^ And it doesn't have the traditional newsletter "workflows" = you cannot set up chains of emails, like a series of emails. But you can schedule your blog-letters here like for a normal newsletter, and for me that is enough. I learned though experience that I don't need any more fancy workflows.

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Sep 27Liked by Weronika Salach

Thank you Wera. I have learned over the past several years that it's very easy to get talked into thinking I need more than I do. I think a course about diving into Substack is a fantastic idea!

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It is on my list now! I am spontaneously getting married in October hihi - so possibly such a course could be very doable for me to create. Software demos, like with Affinity, take a lot more time.

And that is so true! I used to work at big corporate companies, in advertising, and I know exactly what you are talking about it. But then in real life, we need much less than we think. And most of us don't make thousands every month, sadly :) Especially for artists, we have this dilemma - where does my art stop and where does business begin? Am I a marketer or a creator? I am getting philosophical now :)))))

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Oohhh congratulations!! Have a blast! I'm so happy for you :-)

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I’m honestly thinking of getting rid of my flodesk as well. It’s so much money and I barely use it. I have some popular freebies on there but I could just move them to Substack honestly. And it’s free, which is great!

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Hey hey Melissa, I totally feel you! I think that this dissatisfaction directly stems from the fact that we want to be artists first and foremost, not marketers. So that is why I think more and more creative people, like Kyle Webster, move over to Substack!

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