New on Substack: chat channels, lists, freewalls, discounts, podcast updates, and more
More ways to connect with your audience, get paid for your work, and be in control of your feed
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Substack promotes its latest product updates, including chat channels, lists, and freewalls, to help creators connect with their audiences and monetize their work. These updates give creators more control over their content and allow for more personalized interactions with subscribers. Substack also highlights podcast updates and discounts as part of its new features.
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New on Substack: chat channels, lists, freewalls, discounts, podcast updates, and more
More ways to connect with your audience, get paid for your work, and be in control of your feed
READ IN APP
Illustrations by Jac Saik, Designer at Substack
Our latest product updates give everyone more ownership over what they read, listen to, and watch on Substack and give creators more ways to connect with their audiences and turn that connection into long-lasting support, including paid subscriptions.
Here’s the latest.
Chat channels
Publishers on Substack are building large, vibrant communities with Chat. You can now create multiple subscriber group chats—“channels”—within a publication to focus on specific topics, like a TV series, sporting event, or AMA.
As a creator, you control who can join, post, and reply in subscriber chats. You can make a channel available to all subscribers or reserve it for paying subscribers. You and your subscribers can now tag other participants using their Substack handles (and edit your messages so the conversation is free of typos).
We recently spoke toSean Ross, cohost of popular TV watch-along podcast Drop Your Buffs, about how he turned his obsession with Survivor and its fandom into a podcast and chat community. You can read more here.
Chat channels set up by Drop Your Buffs. Illustration by Mia Wu; photography by Rebecca J. Michelson
Learn more about chat channels in our Help Center.
Lists
Yesterday, we launched lists, the next generation of recommendations on Substack and a new way to showcase the work you care about.
Curate your list, give it a name and a description, and write a short blurb for each publication so people know why you selected it. When someone opens your list, they’ll see each publication with your blurb, plus the chronological feed of posts from everyone on the list under the Activity tab.
Learn more about creating lists in our Help Center.
Freewalls
Freewalls help you turn a reader’s passing interest into a direct relationship by asking readers for their email address before they can read a full post.
On Substack, you own what you create. You can export the email addresses of both your free and paid subscribers to give them another way to engage with you and support your work.
Learn more about freewalls in our Help Center.
Metered paywalls
With metered paywalls, you can give free subscribers access to a set number of paid posts each month. You decide how many paid posts free subscribers can access each month and which posts are included. Metered paywalls help you deepen your relationship with your readers by allowing them to experience the value of being a paid subscriber.
When readers reach the limit you’ve set, you can encourage them to subscribe for full access to your work.
Learn more about metered paywalls in our Help Center.
Discounts
You can now create a discount to incentivize your monthly subscribers to upgrade to an annual subscription.
This much-requested feature gives you a way to encourage your biggest fans to commit for the long term.
Learn more about discounts in our Help Center.
Games category
The Games community is already home to standout writing, podcasts, and videos. As it continues to grow, we’re excited to give its creators a dedicated place to be discovered.
If Games is a fit for your publication, switch your primary category in your publication dashboard, and check out the new Games leaderboard.
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