Substack Live Podcast

How your Substack posts land in your reader's inbox matters more than you think.
In this live, I walk through what your subscribers actually see when your post arrives, how to find out where you're being read (email, app, or web), and why creating a familiar, consistent post structure is more important now than ever.
I also cover what's working with images, why stock photos can devalue your writing, and how to think about your opening lines so readers actually want to stay.
https://www.substackwritersatwork.com/


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

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

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.substackwritersatwork.com

Navigating SW@W:
SW@W homepage | Premier Membership homepage | 2026 Notes Boost Challenge | Paid/Premier Chat | 2026 Substack Pathway | Upcoming courses & Intensives | Substack Essentials Workshop library | Archive | Index | Guidance on Notes, Growth, Revenue, Writing on Substack, Serialization

Maya C. Popa and I talk about self-promotion for the self-promotion averse.
Find out why self-promotion is all about bravely falling backward into a ball pit and why we can blame our dislike of it on the Modernists, Roland Barthes, and the Iowa Writers Workshop.


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

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.
Over 300 people showed up to this live recording of the Substack Live Podcast to hear Emily Farra and Jessica DeFino talk about how they built newsletters that became something bigger than the platform itself, including:
* Why having tens and hundreds of thousands of subscribers doesn’t mean the Substack writer has it easy—far from it
* How to create your own platform and not to be platform-dependent
* Why it’s ill-advised to try to write a “genius essay” every week on demand and it’s better to create a framework you can apply consistently
* Why consistency is everything—unless it’s not
* And so much more…
Jessica DeFino is an award-winning beauty reporter and critic (the New York Times, the Sunday Times, Vice). She’s also written for Vogue, Allure, and more. She now writes the Guardian’s beauty advice column, Ask Ugly, a position that arose out of her Substack. Adweek named her one of their Creative 100 for 2023. She’s smart and sharp and funny and wry. FLESH WORLD by Jessica DeFino is “the newsletter the beauty industry fears.” She’s a Substack icon who showed what’s possible beyond the platform. And her CTAs are the best, e.g., “Subscribe now. (Because retinol won’t work in the face of your mortality.)”
Emily Kirkpatrick is the Roland Barthes of fashion writing—with a little bit of Stephen Wright and Tig Notaro mixed in. She’s written for People, i-D, The New York Times, and Vanity Fair, among many others. Her newsletter I is essential reading, whether you care about fashion or not.
Thank you, Helen Roy, Amy Gabrielle, Lynn Jericho, Brad Wetzler, Morgan Strehlow, and many others for tuning into my live video with Emily Kirkpatrick and Jessica DeFino!



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