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Substack as an Email Alternative

Author: Laura Resnick

Substack as an Email Alternative

I was first introduced to Substack by Joanna Campbell Slan, who migrated her newsletter list there in December 2023. “Substack has brought me 207 new subscribers,” she said. “Since I don’t pay Substack, I count that as a huge win. Previously, I was paying around $120 a month, and the other email list servers sure didn’t recommend me to anyone.” Should you use Substack to deliver your newsletters? Is it worth it to switch? Let’s look at the pluses and minuses. According to Forbes magazine, “Substack...

business, Discovery, email, Marketing, newsletters, promotion, Tools

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Giving a Good Panel

I led my first writer/reader panel nearly 30 years ago. In many ways, Giving a Good Panel is even trickier than Giving a Good Session. The latter is solely dependent upon your skills and knowledge, but the former requires a degree of cooperation, a balancing of knowledge and time, and a seriously good moderator. Over the years, I’ve seen both brilliant and disastrous panels. This can be easily measured. Did everyone stay riveted in their seats? Or did the back half of the room empty in a steady...

business, professionalism, public appearances, public speaking, tutorials

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Introducing and Elevating: How White Authors Can Help Bring Readers to Diverse Stories

I didn’t watch the Super Bowl this year, but the vastly different takes on the quality of the halftime show by Kendrick Lamar made me start thinking about how race and various viewpoints on other topics influence how people consume and even understand creative works. Another big factor is exposure. Lots of people are not exposed to books and art by authors/artists of color or other diverse communities, sometimes by choice and sometimes not. This lack of exposure makes those works seem even...

change, DEI, diversity, readers, reading

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Three Non-Writing Books That Transformed My Author Business

The author business books we immerse ourselves intend to be related to craft, processes (such as outlining for plotters), or productivity for authors. Those are fine and helpful, but I’ve learned valuable lessons from books that are not author or writing focused and believe it’s beneficial to pull ideas from outside our industry to help build a successful author career. The following books helped me in that regard: Eat That Frog, Profit First, and Company of One. Ultimately, they transformed my...

business, career, habits, income, money, productivity

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A Guide to Rock-Star Customer Service for Authors Selling Direct

Let’s face it—happy readers come back for more. While the digital age has transformed how we connect with our audience, one truth remains: creating lifelong fans beats making one-time sales. The best part? Readers don’t expect perfection. They just want to know you’ve got their back when issues pop up. The common support scenarios Tech troubles. What button do I push? Most SOS calls are about ebook or audiobook download hiccups (i.e., user confusion). How-to instructions should be clear and easy...

business, direct sales, e-commerce, indie, Marketing, organization, professionalism, sales, self-publishing

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Welcome to Your Best Nightmare: Horror Writing and the Horror Market

When listing their 10 top horror novels for 2024, The New York Times said we’re in a golden age of horror, which is wonderful news for anyone who writes—or wants to write—in the genre. When I got my adult library card at 13, I went straight for the horror section. That’s what I loved to read and also what I wrote. But when I started thinking about writing for publication, I discovered that the horror market was very small and very hard to break into, so I saved my scary stories for short fiction...

business, genre, horror, Publishing, Writing

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