Why, hello! We are back podcasting after a summer break. How are you all? Have you had a good summer?
Both Claire and I feel like we’ve had a necessary break. I say necessary because we needed that time to think. I don’t think either of us anticipated how much time we needed but Claire completely stepped back, including from Instagram, and I had a brainstorming session that led to a lot of mental processing…and we both came to similar conclusions for our Substack. Keep it simple.
In this podcast we talk about this keep it simple realisation. And also talk about what we’d like to do in the coming months.
Links we referenced
Helen mentioned:
The Substack essay: Do you feel your writing is enough?
The YouTube planning video (with aforementioned brainstorm).
The Austin Kleon essay: The Four Points That Really Inspired Me from Show Your Work by Austin Kleon
Claire mentioned:
He's in fashion: reflections on Edward Enninful's 'A Visible Man'
And that Ali Smith article: Frescoes in fiction: the writing's on the paintings on the wall
Our Substack Story is a podcast about our progress on the relatively new medium of Substack. What works, what doesn’t. How we grow, the mindset issues we struggle with and how we hone in on what we want to write about. Plus the often icky subject of money and charging for subscriptions.
Helen has been on Substack since June 2022. And Claire launched her Substack in January 2023.
We are both coming to Substack from different places. Helen has around 15,000 followers on Instagram, a small YouTube channel and a previous mailing list. Claire has a smaller Instagram with no previous newsletter.
We want to share how we get on with Substack, how we use the platform, how we use it as a place to share our writing, how we grow subscribers, create a community, and hopefully make an income. At the same time as writing our books and, in Helen’s case, creating videos on YouTube.
If you are launching your Substack, or thinking about it, or if you’ve been on here for a while we would love you to join in and share your experiences.
Our Substack Story: JULY & AUGUST Reflections | Episode Seven