I want to use this to encourage people who come peek at my Substack to become at least a free subscriber. I can have three levels to an article. In the top section, I can put general perimenopause information for all to see. In a second section, I can list guidelines and recommendations which are blocked for anyone who doesn't subscribe. In the third section, I can include my tips for paid subscribers.
The workaround that I had in the past was to include special bonus information in the welcome email but I'm going to rework one of those articles with this new feature and I'll let you know how it goes.
https://theperiprofessional.substack.com/p/you-cant-solve-sleep-issues-overnight Subscribers will see the link to the PDF tips and non-subscribers will see a message telling them that they are missing out and they should subscribe (towards the bottom in the Tips & Tricks section). I also noticed a new thing for comments - now we can allow free and paid subscribers to comment, but not non-subscribers.
Dixie, I don't disagree. I feel like this platform is getting more complicated by the day and much of it might be deemed as unnecessary. I wish I had more clout lol
Yes, simplicity is one of the reasons I abandoned my paid wordpress site even if I did give up a lot of features that only slowed it to a crawl without paying for a cms.
Right now, all my posts are free, but I have pages in Substack (resource library) that are only for paid subscribers. I haven’t used this feature yet, but I can envision using it to link to one of these pages as a way to show free readers an example of what they would get if they upgrade their subscription. In other words, a free subscriber would see the description but wouldn’t have access when they clicked the link.
Another creative idea for it! Thanks for sharing, Elizabeth. I still struggle to nail down what I would use it for but I'm super intrigued by what others are discussing here.
Yes i noticed this a few days ago! It's great!!! It means I can leave comments open to everyone in an article and still have paid subscriber only content! the minute i noticed it, i went to all my scheduled paid articles i have drafted up and made the paid subscriber only content with this 'paid' audience only function, which means i can leave comments open to everyone! so that's how I'm going to be using it. Leaving the rest of it free, so everyone can comment on it! I don't know how else there would be to use it? But I've found my way to use it lol
Will using this feature cut off comments from regular readers. To date if we add something for paid subscribers then ONLY paid subscribers can comment. That makes me so sad! Hoping this is a fix!
i just replied elsewhere to Kristi on this thread and I said this: you can paywall specific areas of your articles. For me, I'm going to be doing it on my monthly paid subscriber deep dive offerings. Once a month i have a free article for free subscribers (well, all my articles are free except for one a month), and then at the end I have a 'deeper dive' part for paid subs only. And before, when I put the paywall in, it automatically closed comments to paid subscribers only which PISSED ME OFF SO MUCH because I wanted free subscribers to be able to comment too since they get to read a complete full article! and now they can! They will see the full free article, and then I'll have a bit at the end saying 'the rest of the post is visible only to paid subscribers, if you want to become one, subscribe here'. And they don't see anything else! No paywall or anything, the article just stops! and only the Paid Subscribers see the content that is within this audience specific box.
Thank you so much for the clarification - this makes perfect sense and I often have to cut information in my deep dives that make a post just too long but i hate not sharing it with my paid subscribers because the comments section is literally more important to us. This is a great change.
yes i’m so excited by this! I’m sure there might be other ways to implement it than just paid subscriber stuff at the bottom of the main content, but that’s how i’m using it for now :) and good point about making your articles too long - now that won’t matter as much!
So refreshing and valuable, Kristi Keller. You write using your brain and heart. The only writing tools you seem to use are a computer, pencil, paper, coffee pot, and air conditioning.
Do you ever get the feeling that people who build software do not own a business, do not write (as you other excellent writers do) and rarely get out from behind their screens and keyboards to listen to people or go into a pub or bar where they know nobody, just to strike up a conversation with a stranger?
To your point, if you have no idea who my audience is and the relationship I nurture with them, why in the flipping world would you create barriers and friction between them and my whole story?
I swear I replied to your comment yesterday! Why am I not seeing it here?? Anyway, i was basically agreeing with pretty much everything you said. It feels like this platform is getting waaaay too robust and veering so far from its original purpose!
I’ve been using the voice overlay feature (under the headphones icon) to record my own posts for those who prefer to listen. I’m hoping this will deepen their sense of connection with me too. Substack automatically puts the recording at the top of the article, under the title.
I have thought of doing that; my one concern is I don't want AI to scrape my voice and copy it. Not just because I think that's creepy, but my voice is part of my brand.
I totally get that — but there are so many places (videos on Substack, YouTube) where that can be done that I’ve given up worrying about it. Some of my “readers” seem to enjoy being able to “listen” while they’re doing other things. And the intimacy of my voice helps them feel like they know me. But if I ever have issues with my voice being stolen, I’ll let you say “I told you so.” ;-)
I became curious because of this thread, so looked it up. Apparently, we can't copyright our voice yet, but we CAN protect it from unauthorized AI cloning using the state right of publicity laws, proactive VO contracts, and data set opt outs. I'm also going to look into audio poisoning and inaudible digital watermarking.
Not only is my voice a huge part of my brand, I'm also concerned about voice cloning being used for criminal purposes. 🤷🏻♀️ it's already a brave new world/1984. But we aren't powerless.
I saw it yesterday and played around with it. I used it for my after-post “please subscribe” section. Normally it’s like “hey please subscribe unless you already have then please upgrade unless you already have then maybe share with a friend?” I sure hope it worked to create three different asks for different audiences—it’s impossible to really see in the post preview, as the preview buttons recognize me as logged in.
This is exactly why I didn't test it. Because there was no real way to preview it. I'll go take a look at your latest post and see if I notice what you did.
But we can only insolent a paywall at one point and cut off the rest of the post. I believe this feature allows you to paywall a single paragraph or sentence while leaving the rest of the post visible.
yes that's exactly how it works! you can paywall specific areas of your articles. For me, I'm going to be doing it on my monthly paid subscriber deep dive offerings. once a month i have a full free article for free subscribers, and then at the end I have a 'deeper dive' part for paid subs only. And before when I put the paywall in, it automatically closed comments to paid subscribers only which PISSED ME OFF SO MUCH because I wanted free subscribers to be able to comment too! and now they can! They will see the full free article, and then I'll have a bit at the end saying 'the rest of the post is visible only to paid subscribers. if you want to become one, subscribe here'. And they don't see anything else! No paywall or anything, the article just stops!
I used this in my newsletter today! Discovered it thanks to you :)
Excellent!! How did it work out?
And thanks for the mention!
I want to use this to encourage people who come peek at my Substack to become at least a free subscriber. I can have three levels to an article. In the top section, I can put general perimenopause information for all to see. In a second section, I can list guidelines and recommendations which are blocked for anyone who doesn't subscribe. In the third section, I can include my tips for paid subscribers.
The workaround that I had in the past was to include special bonus information in the welcome email but I'm going to rework one of those articles with this new feature and I'll let you know how it goes.
That's awesome Shelby! It's nice to see so many creative ideas in the comments here. Thanks again for the inspo to write this!
It works exactly as I expected. If you want to see it, let me know and I'll DM you the link - I didn't want to commandeer your thread.
Yes please, I'd like to see but yes, you can totally post links here too.
https://theperiprofessional.substack.com/p/you-cant-solve-sleep-issues-overnight Subscribers will see the link to the PDF tips and non-subscribers will see a message telling them that they are missing out and they should subscribe (towards the bottom in the Tips & Tricks section). I also noticed a new thing for comments - now we can allow free and paid subscribers to comment, but not non-subscribers.
Okay interesting! Thank you for sharing that. You’re more on the ball than I am, it seems 😁 To be honest, I’m feeling overwhelmed with all of it.
So cool!! I've wanted this for so long!!
That's awesome! I guess some dreams come true 😁
Instead of something like this why couldn't Substack offer more basic features like a daily digest email option. Also rss feeds by tag or section
Users (Especially those who post several times daily) would get a lot more milage form something like that IMHO
Dixie, I don't disagree. I feel like this platform is getting more complicated by the day and much of it might be deemed as unnecessary. I wish I had more clout lol
Yes, simplicity is one of the reasons I abandoned my paid wordpress site even if I did give up a lot of features that only slowed it to a crawl without paying for a cms.
Always enjoy your helpful articles. Thanks
My pleasure, Dixie!
What the heck?
Lol that was sort of my response as well.
I see it but it does not seem to do what they describe.
Okay, interesting. What exactly are you trying to do with it?
Right now, all my posts are free, but I have pages in Substack (resource library) that are only for paid subscribers. I haven’t used this feature yet, but I can envision using it to link to one of these pages as a way to show free readers an example of what they would get if they upgrade their subscription. In other words, a free subscriber would see the description but wouldn’t have access when they clicked the link.
Another creative idea for it! Thanks for sharing, Elizabeth. I still struggle to nail down what I would use it for but I'm super intrigued by what others are discussing here.
Yes i noticed this a few days ago! It's great!!! It means I can leave comments open to everyone in an article and still have paid subscriber only content! the minute i noticed it, i went to all my scheduled paid articles i have drafted up and made the paid subscriber only content with this 'paid' audience only function, which means i can leave comments open to everyone! so that's how I'm going to be using it. Leaving the rest of it free, so everyone can comment on it! I don't know how else there would be to use it? But I've found my way to use it lol
Oh this is brilliant, Caitlin! I'm so glad you shared it so others can see use cases. Perfect!
I'm poking around to see who I can find using this...someone's got to make a YouTube video about it soon:)
If they do, let me know. I'd love to see it in a real example.
Will using this feature cut off comments from regular readers. To date if we add something for paid subscribers then ONLY paid subscribers can comment. That makes me so sad! Hoping this is a fix!
this is the exact fix for that! That's how i'm using it!
Then I love it and I will be using it. A great new feature. Thank you Caitlin!
i just replied elsewhere to Kristi on this thread and I said this: you can paywall specific areas of your articles. For me, I'm going to be doing it on my monthly paid subscriber deep dive offerings. Once a month i have a free article for free subscribers (well, all my articles are free except for one a month), and then at the end I have a 'deeper dive' part for paid subs only. And before, when I put the paywall in, it automatically closed comments to paid subscribers only which PISSED ME OFF SO MUCH because I wanted free subscribers to be able to comment too since they get to read a complete full article! and now they can! They will see the full free article, and then I'll have a bit at the end saying 'the rest of the post is visible only to paid subscribers, if you want to become one, subscribe here'. And they don't see anything else! No paywall or anything, the article just stops! and only the Paid Subscribers see the content that is within this audience specific box.
I popped over to your pages and subscribed! Looking forward to reading more of your work.
thank you! I’ve subscribed back! :)
Thank you so much for the clarification - this makes perfect sense and I often have to cut information in my deep dives that make a post just too long but i hate not sharing it with my paid subscribers because the comments section is literally more important to us. This is a great change.
yes i’m so excited by this! I’m sure there might be other ways to implement it than just paid subscriber stuff at the bottom of the main content, but that’s how i’m using it for now :) and good point about making your articles too long - now that won’t matter as much!
So refreshing and valuable, Kristi Keller. You write using your brain and heart. The only writing tools you seem to use are a computer, pencil, paper, coffee pot, and air conditioning.
Do you ever get the feeling that people who build software do not own a business, do not write (as you other excellent writers do) and rarely get out from behind their screens and keyboards to listen to people or go into a pub or bar where they know nobody, just to strike up a conversation with a stranger?
To your point, if you have no idea who my audience is and the relationship I nurture with them, why in the flipping world would you create barriers and friction between them and my whole story?
I swear I replied to your comment yesterday! Why am I not seeing it here?? Anyway, i was basically agreeing with pretty much everything you said. It feels like this platform is getting waaaay too robust and veering so far from its original purpose!
And I just realized that my posts now have an AI reader…can we turn that off? I ended up changing the voice to one that's not too robotic.
I’ve been using the voice overlay feature (under the headphones icon) to record my own posts for those who prefer to listen. I’m hoping this will deepen their sense of connection with me too. Substack automatically puts the recording at the top of the article, under the title.
I have thought of doing that; my one concern is I don't want AI to scrape my voice and copy it. Not just because I think that's creepy, but my voice is part of my brand.
I totally get that — but there are so many places (videos on Substack, YouTube) where that can be done that I’ve given up worrying about it. Some of my “readers” seem to enjoy being able to “listen” while they’re doing other things. And the intimacy of my voice helps them feel like they know me. But if I ever have issues with my voice being stolen, I’ll let you say “I told you so.” ;-)
Lol. I would never! 😁
I became curious because of this thread, so looked it up. Apparently, we can't copyright our voice yet, but we CAN protect it from unauthorized AI cloning using the state right of publicity laws, proactive VO contracts, and data set opt outs. I'm also going to look into audio poisoning and inaudible digital watermarking.
Not only is my voice a huge part of my brand, I'm also concerned about voice cloning being used for criminal purposes. 🤷🏻♀️ it's already a brave new world/1984. But we aren't powerless.
I will follow this question because I want to turn it off too! Until I have time to record my own again.
I saw it yesterday and played around with it. I used it for my after-post “please subscribe” section. Normally it’s like “hey please subscribe unless you already have then please upgrade unless you already have then maybe share with a friend?” I sure hope it worked to create three different asks for different audiences—it’s impossible to really see in the post preview, as the preview buttons recognize me as logged in.
This is exactly why I didn't test it. Because there was no real way to preview it. I'll go take a look at your latest post and see if I notice what you did.
Thank you SO much Kristi for helping me ignore this one both in practice and in my head!
Lol you are so very welcome!!! I was almost even more sarcastic in this post because I'm legit having trouble keeping up with the platform 🤣
I feel like there must be PLENTY of users who are feeling left behind.
Didn't we already have this? We can already decide to paywall material if we choose.
But we can only insolent a paywall at one point and cut off the rest of the post. I believe this feature allows you to paywall a single paragraph or sentence while leaving the rest of the post visible.
yes that's exactly how it works! you can paywall specific areas of your articles. For me, I'm going to be doing it on my monthly paid subscriber deep dive offerings. once a month i have a full free article for free subscribers, and then at the end I have a 'deeper dive' part for paid subs only. And before when I put the paywall in, it automatically closed comments to paid subscribers only which PISSED ME OFF SO MUCH because I wanted free subscribers to be able to comment too! and now they can! They will see the full free article, and then I'll have a bit at the end saying 'the rest of the post is visible only to paid subscribers. if you want to become one, subscribe here'. And they don't see anything else! No paywall or anything, the article just stops!