Comparing Substack and Wattpad - an article on Substack by someone who moved over

[Montero]

Why I left Wattpad for Substack

Taking control of my writing

simonkjones.substack.com

Thought there was a few interesting points.

I'm just starting to explore substack and actually am struggling to find the sff areas. Typing in fantasy does tend to bring up a lot of fantasy football as well as the sff fantasy.

 

[smellincoffee]

I've never even considered using Substack to find fiction: all I read there is journalism/culture/society writing. I may have to nose around for that.

 

[Montero]

I've never even considered using Substack to find fiction: all I read there is journalism/culture/society writing. I may have to nose around for that.

Done a little more delving and there is https://substack.com/top/fiction

Also just tried putting in sci fi and there were some hits, not sure how good they are as quitting for the night, but they are there.

 

[Robert Zwilling]

Attempted to use it last year. Going back for another look. Looking search science fiction, selected publications. People or posts doesn't show much science fiction.

 

[Montero]

Thanks

 

[Laura R Hepworth]

I'm looking into it as a replacement for my newsletter. Ran into a snag with the one I just started so just emailed Substack support a bunch of questions.

 

[Laura R Hepworth]

I'm just starting to explore substack and actually am struggling to find the sff areas. Typing in fantasy does tend to bring up a lot of fantasy football as well as the sff fantasy.

There actually does look to be a fair bit of scifi and fantasy on Substack. The search doesn't work very well for finding it, but once you join and start using the Notes feature it's easier to connect with people on there. I decided to give it a try and finished getting my page there all setup this week and have encountered quite a number on there writing scifi, fantasy, horror, speculative fiction, and every related genre/sub-genre in between. Also, once you start following a few the site's pretty good at suggesting more.

 

[Stephen Palmer]

I've just celebrated my first year on Substack. Not much money from it, but who knows how things might pan out...?
Links below.

 

[Robert Zwilling]

I put some stuff on substack and got some hits. It was up up and down. Didn't put anything on for awhile and looks disappeared as they typically do on social media when you don't continue posting. Left it that and went on to other thoughts. Somehow something of mine on substack got on to tik tok which produced a short burst of activity like a new post on substack might do. Apparently you can somehow link back from tik tok to substack which can produce a flurry of activity which could continue if you kept linking posts back, but from what I read, translating that into sign ups isn't going to happen very often.

 

[Laura R Hepworth]

I put some stuff on substack and got some hits. It was up up and down. Didn't put anything on for awhile and looks disappeared as they typically do on social media when you don't continue posting.

Are you interacting with anyone on Substack's Notes feature? I've not made any newsletter posts for a couple weeks, but I've been very active with posting notes and interacting with other people's notes and continue to gain followers and subscribers. No paid subscribers yet, but my newsletter has gained 32 new subscribers since shifting it to Substack from Mailerlite.

 

[Robert Zwilling]

I haven't looked at the Notes feature yet. I'll look into that.

 

[Stephen Palmer]

Are you interacting with anyone on Substack's Notes feature? I've not made any newsletter posts for a couple weeks, but I've been very active with posting notes and interacting with other people's notes and continue to gain followers and subscribers. No paid subscribers yet, but my newsletter has gained 32 new subscribers since shifting it to Substack from Mailerlite.

Problem for me is finding the time to do that!

 

[Laura R Hepworth]

Problem for me is finding the time to do that!

Yeah, time is always a struggle. Even something is minimal as liking someone's post helps though if you don't have enough time to write a note, but can take a quick look at other people's notes. I've had people come take a look at my page just because I clicked like on one of their notes.