Substack is one of a new breed of publishing platforms taking the world by storm.
It makes publishing content… usually written… but audio and visual as well… a delightful experience.
There’s so many built-in tools to make sharing on social… emailing… and making money from subscriptions… about as brain-dead-simple as you can get.
And I should know…. because for a few months earlier this year I was using Substack as an outlet for repurposing my freelancer-related email content.
It was great while it lasted… and Substack certainly made it easy.
But I ended up ditching it… mainly because I overstretched myself.
And good thing in business is… I can readjust and refocus… and keep moving.
The other reason I waved “goodbye” to Substack is that I couldn’t include the kind of links in my posts that I wanted to.
Or carry on with the kind of emails I wanted to send. Certainly not an email like this one today.
Substack doesn’t have a problem with lots of email… and sending email every day.
But they do have a MAJOR PROBLEM with selling in emails.
That’s the bit lurking in the terms and conditions that I suspect a lot of people haven’t read clearly.
It says that if the main point of the publication (and that includes the emails you send from Substack) is to sell other products or services that aren’t the paid subscription to your publication then…
Kindly Go Away!
I don’t begrudge them having this type of rule.
Because the way they make money is by taking a cut of the subscription revenue to publications on the platform.
If someone comes along and creates posts, sends emails… but all the monetization they do is sending links to their own, or affiliate, products…
Then they could use the platform for free… and Substack wouldn’t see a cent.
Now… they don’t state outright how much advertising of other products is too much… other than indicating it shouldn’t be the main thing you do.
But I say it’s certainly not worth building a business on a platform… while violating their rules… and expecting nothing bad to happen.
So…
Maybe that was a bit of a public service announcement for those who are considering Substack (or a similar platform)…. to make sure you’re 100% happy with the terms and conditions.
And that they’re not likely to come back to bite you on the posterior in the future.
Although I’m a publishing business… and using Substack would make my life much easier in some ways… I’m wanting to sell products and services (err, like any business, right?)… and not depend on subscriptions to my publication…
Hey… my publication (you’re reading it) is free to read anyway!
So I’ll stick with my email publishing platform. Because it encourages its users to “go beserk selling with email.”
And I’ll enjoy its cool feature that automatically re-publishes my email on my website blog.
Which is what I was manually doing on Substack.
Hmmm… 🤔
I guess…
Using BerserkerMail doesn’t make me miss Substack so much, after all.
Ready to build your email list? Go here…
EmailForTheWin.com
Chris Milham