Whether you’re a writer, blogger, someone looking to start their own newsletter, or even a simple humble reader who loves reading articles, at first glance, Substack seems like a paradise. It lets anyone post short or long content, podcast episodes, and videos, and even chat with their subscribers, has its own integrated newsletter system, and a friendly-to-use interface for readers.
For the last few months, I’ve been hearing more and more often about Substack. Initially, I was ready to start a blog on Medium.com, in which I wanted to share more stories based on my own experiences, and the ones that I don’t think they’d fit well here. Then I saw somewhere a post by The Verge about Substack, and I thought to give it a try.
Based on Substack’s official website, the company only keeps 10% of your revenue, meaning that not only you can start completely for free, but once you start making money from the platform, you’ll be keeping 90% of all revenue. They also say that “Switching takes less than 5 minutes,” so that’s pretty good news if you’re coming from another platform and you want to quickly import all of your content to Substack.
Once I signed up for a new account and added all my information, I wanted to do a little bit of research before starting my own Substack. I started reading lots of long-reads, especially from people in my niche.
Then I started reading their comments, checking how people engage with the writers on this platform, and looking at how well the short content also performed. That time gave me a pretty good idea of how most writers – and especially those with lots of readers and engagement – wrote their articles, what structure they used, their most popular articles, and notes from their commenters and subscribers.
A few hours passed, and once I had familiarized myself with Substack’s interface, I started writing my first article. Fair to say that this is a mobile-first website, so if you, let’s say use an ultrawide monitor, it has lots of white space that’s absolutely useless in every way. I wrote an article based on my experience writing my first sci-fi book, which programs I’ve used, and some of the difficulties that I’ve faced during my journey.
I’ve used a stock picture from Unsplash or Pixabay (I really don’t remember from which website I got it) and, of course, added the credits in the description, as I always do to thank the creators (even if it’s not necessary). I was happy with my first article and went and published it on Substack.
The next day I went back to Substack, signed in to my account, and I was ready to write my second article. Then this message appeared on the top of my account’s dashboard:
Your account is currently suspended. Something you posted may have violated Substack’s Spam & Phishing policy. If you believe this is a mistake, you can submit an appeal to our Trust & Safety team here: https://substack.link/account-ban-appeal
Wait, what?
How did I violate the platform’s policy with a unique article that was based on my own experience? Maybe it was some of the links that I added to some of the tools that I’ve used? And if so, which ones? The only thing’s sure, I never added any link that went to any suspicious or unofficial website, so I doubt it was that. Maybe it’s a link that was added through this blog? And if so, why? If it is related and helpful to the reader, I don’t think why that would violate their policy.
Now, the first thing that I did was to check if my article actually violated Substack’s Spam & Phishing policy. Although I knew that this wasn’t the case, I wanted to know why I got suspended.
It seemed like a great platform, especially for publishers and professional writers who wanted to find a home for their work, so I wrote my first article, double-checked it, and eventually published it. The next day I went back to my account and I was looking at publishing a second post, only to find out that my account had been suspended. I’ve read through their Spam & Phishing policy page, and I didn’t find anything that could trigger this alarm and lead to my account’s suspension.
I then went to their support page and saw that they had a live chat option, so I clicked on it and, spoiler alert, it was an AI chatbot. I’m not saying that AI chatbots aren’t helpful, I’m just saying that I hate them. And, of course, it kept on giving me the same replies, which weren’t solving my problem.
Thankfully, Substack’s notice gives you a direct link to a form that you can use as an appeal – and so I did, asking them what exactly triggered this and made my account get suspended. Unfortunately, as of this moment of writing, I haven’t received any messages from Substack related to my issue, apart from their constant newsletters.
With that in mind, if there’s anything to be said, is that those kinds of platforms that are “made for writers” have their own policies and guidelines. Sometimes, a bot may trigger a fake alarm, while other times an article may also trigger it, contacting the support team is the first thing you’ll have to do, but a few days have already passed and I never got a reply from them.
This is exactly why I make sure that a), I always keep fresh backups that contain all of my content and the changes or adjustments that I made recently and b), I prefer publishing in self-hosted blogs where I have full control over my content, set my own guidelines and policies, and never have to wake one morning and see my account suspended – especially if I make so much revenue that I work full-time.
Medium.com, on the other hand, seems more “stable”, and if they hadn’t suspended me when I was publishing my first English-written articles there (with tons of mistakes), they’re surely not going to do that now (fingers crossed though). One thing’s for sure: Even when it comes to Medium, Substack, or any other similar platform, if I’m gonna spend lots of time writing and publishing there, the least I can do is keep a backup of all my content elsewhere (I’m using Obsidian for that).
Wrapping this up, do I recommend Substack for content creators? Well, on the one hand, it looks like one of the hottest choices for writers out there, has all the tools you’ll need, and it already has a big community of people. On the other hand, based on my own experience given the suspension of my account and not getting a reply for the appeal I submitted, it has its risks. Give it a try, you may end up liking it or hating it, you won’t know until you try – I guess.
Have you ever used Substack to write and publish articles, or even as a reader? How was your experience with the platform and what did you like and hate the most? Do you trust those kinds of platforms to publish your content or you’re using a self-hosted solution? Let me know in the comments down below.
Editor’s Note: I’ll update the article if I get a response from Substack’s team.
Uh, oh! Legal stuff! Yikes.. Yet important! Affiliate Links Disclaimer: Many of the links on my articles are affiliate links. That means if you click on one and make a purchase, I might earn a small commission, and I'll keep doing what I'm doing, reviewing everything with absolute honesty. Sounds good? Good.
