LESSON #3: Add Signature Touches

Style, quirks, voice, recognizable elements … something you recognize immediately even before names are announced. Art by Georgia O’Keefe, a building by Gehry, a song by Bob Dylan, and Linda Ellerbee from her famous sign off: “And so it goes.”

Sid Saladi at Sid’s Product Newsletter (currently under a brand change to “The Product Channel” is a content-rich stack offering easily recognized by his simple, colorful graphics at the top of each post. He uses a lot of polls and his readers helped him validate his new branding direction.

Michael Estrin at Situation Normal starts a lot of his posts with eye-catching gifs. See example gif at his post: The Lyft Driver’s Guide to Divorce

Missed opportunity or Challenge? I believe we have a missed opportunity here. Not many of the 150 Substacks I’m reviewing show unique signature items. I think we should have a Challenge. I just changed my Wordmark and accent color to purple and have begun ending my gratitude posts with a motivational sticker and the Substack Explorer’s posts with an inspiring quote. What could you do to add your personality to your posts?

Click below for Substack’s Start Up Guide

A recent review of 50 Substack writers revealed that, on average, each of them subscribed to about 40 Substacks. Why?

Turns out that the more Substacks you see, the more you see best practice ways to connect with your own readers. I currently review about 150 stacks and whenever I see someone interesting on Notes, Office Hours, or occasional subject searches, I add them to my list and freely borrow ideas and inspirations.

Suggestion: Subscribe to 50 writers and at least a few in content areas outside your own interests. Look at their posts for format as well as how they handle content.

Here are 10 stacks to free subscribe to immediately (some of them will wind up in your paid category because of their value to YOU). You might want to save their welcome emails and posts to a “study file.” Read their About Pages and notice how they’ve organized their Home Page. What appeals to you and how could you incorporate that in your stack?

Cosmographia … Spotlight, page 23

Everything Is Amazing … Trail Guide, page 6

Kindness Magnet … Trail Guide, page 7

Sarah Fay at Writers at Work … Substack coach/guide

The Author Stack … Substack coach/guide

Sparkle on Substack … Substack coach/guide

Substack Soirée … Substack design guide

PubStack Success … Substack guide

Backstory Serial … Serialized fiction

The Hungry Artist … Business of art and design

And, of course: gratitude mojo … Home of the Substack Field Guide Also, here is a list of 20 writing guides (Substack and general).