5 Simple Things to Make Your Substack Better

A professional-looking Substack is just a few clicks away

Welcome to our 75 new family members this week. Today we’re going to chat about some simple ways to make your Substack look more professional.

But first…

(because we have a lot of new people) I want to share what BYW is about.

This is a supportive writing community and I’m certainly not the only one here with experience or knowledge to share.

Always feel free to share in the comments—that way we learn together.

Yes, even the new writers. If you’re wondering about/struggling with something, it’s likely someone else is too. And if you’ve learnt something cool, let us know!

Ask. Share. Learn. Encourage.

Writers are not competitors (even if it feels like that at times). What we ARE competing with is YouTube, social media, and Netflix.

Writing is the introverted cousin sitting in the corner at a loud media party.

We all have more fun when we bunch up and dance with our sparkliest essays.

That’s what we’re doing here. Learning where and how we can make our writing dance.

Sometimes that means talking about Substack or Jotter or Medium. Sometimes it means talking about how to write better personal essays or what a service piece is.

We can talk about making money if we want, but in an honest, realistic way.

I hope you’re here Because You Write. That’s why I am.

Now, on with the Substack tricks.

5 Simple Changes to Make Your Substack Better

Last week, I gave the BYW home page a mini-makeover.

(I love the colours.)

From last week’s newsletter response, many of you are creating your own Substacks.

I wanted to share some simple tweaks you can do to make it look more professional and appealing.

If you haven’t started one yet, check out last week’s letter:

3 Things To Avoid When Starting on Substack.

1. Update Your Logo

I jumped onto Canva (for free) and made a custom square image 256 x 256 pixels.

A free picture of a pen and the initials of BYW and dah-dah! New logo.

You can change it under your Dashboard, in Settings.

Check out some other Substack logos:

Culture Study —Anne Helen Peterson

Blocked and Reported—Jesse Singal

Bold Brush—Angela Agosto (an art Substack)

and this really cute one by Webworm with David Farrier

A lot of people use a pic of their face. That’s fine too. Just not quite as exciting.

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2. Personalise Your Header

I didn’t even realise you could do this until I joined a Substack with a very pretty header. As soon as I saw it, I was like, “I want that!”

So back to Canva. (Needs to be at least 1344 x 256 pixels). Make your customised text box and pop in what appeals.

You can test them out as you make them in Settings under Branding.

Here are some other people’s headers:

DrawTogether with WendyMac

The Hyphen —Emma Gannon

The Grim Historian—Carlyn Beccia

Isn’t that one fantastic! (Carlyn is an illustrator. Slight advantage.)

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3. Update You

Sadly, we can’t stay in a time-bubble. We age. Our profile pics don’t.

You can decide whether that matters. To me it did. I don’t want to jump on a Zoom call and scare you by looking completely different from what you’re expecting.

In this humongous size, the photo quality and colour look awful—don’t judge—but small it’s perfect. Light and bright and me at the age I actually am.

See what I mean about when it’s small!

I talked about profile pics in my writing group and my friend

Sean Kernan

(who has a great Substack called Thrive, by the way) recommended updating every 6 months.

My last profile photo was done four years ago. Oops.

I think every couple of years would be fine. You don’t want to end up with a 20-year-old profile pic. It almost feels painful to update it then.

Remember to update it in your About and Welcome pages too (at least 600x 600 pixels).

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4. Customise Your Skip Button

Mine says, “Let me sneak a peek first”. Very silly, I know.

I used to have “Let me read it first” but I got bored.

I’ve also seen “I’d rather poke my eyes out with rocks.”

Get creative. It’s in Settings under Welcome Page.

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5. Check out who else is in your category

Did you know you can explore top publications by category and see how yours compares to other similar Substacks?

Here’s culture for example. Scroll down that page and you’ll see a whole list of categories. Everything from Tech to Education to Fiction.

Notice there’s no Writing category. Another reason not to write about writing. Why do I do it? Sigh. Learn from me and choose something more juicy.

Have fun and share your Substacks and Substack tips in the comments.

Kelly