Substack now permits you to observe writers earlier than subscribing to them

Substack now permits you to observe writers, providing a method so that you can maintain tabs on what a author is doing with out having to subscribe to their publication. Whenever you observe a author, “you possibly can keep updated with what they’re studying, liking, publishing, and subscribing to — by means of the Notes feed and on their profiles,” Substack says in a weblog submit.

Substack is probably finest referred to as a publication platform the place writers can earn money from getting individuals to join paid subscriptions. However the platform has additionally been dabbling with extra conventional social networking options corresponding to its tweet-like Notes, and a observe button appears like Substack stepping much more toes into the social networking waters.

The corporate stresses that follows, that are free, are supposed to help writers as they construct out subscription networks. “Following helps writers develop their viewers by way of the Substack community, which is already residence to hundreds of thousands of the world’s most beneficial readers,” Substack argues. “We constructed this function to assist maximize — and never change — subscriptions, which can all the time be crucial kind of relationship on Substack.”

However now, Substack writers could have the added burden of eager about methods to transform followers and non-followers into subscribers. (Substack is promising that sooner or later, it should “make ‘upsells’ to subscriptions simpler” by means of notifying followers about “trending posts and different milestones.”)

Final week, Substack’s co-founders stated that they wish to make the platform a greater place for readers, not simply writers. The corporate has already launched a handful of options to encourage studying issues immediately on the platform, together with cellular apps and the flexibility to convey RSS feeds to your Substack feed.

For individuals searching for a brand new place to learn textual content and submit some microblogs given the final degradation of X / Twitter, the observe button may be a helpful function to see what writers are as much as with out clogging up your e-mail inbox with newsletters.