Heads up: I'm moving from Substack
Link to new site and my experience with other platforms.
What the newsletter looks like now when you come here on a phone.
Originally published on Substack on December 22, 2023.In case you missed it. Substack has sided with Nazis. I’ve spun up https://weaversdeepthoughts.com and will be moving there. I'll probably only post one more newsletter on Substack, which will be for housekeeping.
As subscribers, you are moved to the new space, but when I send out the first newsletter you can unsubscribe if you like. I'm not in the business of forcing people to follow me.
In case anyone is wondering about paid subscribers, I don't have any. I had been putting off pushing for people to pay for my newsletter and so no one ever had. On the new site though, you can use the Ko-fi button to pay one time or monthly if you'd like. But per usual, I'm gonna keep my newsletter publicly available with no plans to change that.
Technical stuff.
I know many folks are moving or looking to. So here is my experience on trying different options. I dabbled with WordPress(dot)com, Blogger, Beehiiv, Wix, Ghost, and looked at others.
I chose Squarespace.
I'm tech savvy and used to work in online learning. So this sort of thing is pretty easy for me, but I recognize it's not for many.
Quick tips:
Go to your Substack settings and export a zip file of your content.
You can import that in some platforms. It's not always great, sometimes formatting gets wonky or you lose the images.
Even if you are staying, I suggest exporting your stuff weekly or so, since Substack leadership and staff are annoyed by Substackers Against Nazis folks. Just look at the types of posts they liked after the letter was released.
Thoughts on services I tried:
WordPress(dot)com: I do like their Reader and follow options for community. It's pretty easy to use. Ultimately, I hate that you have to throw a bunch of money at them to deactivate really annoying ads. I was using them during 2016 presidential election and they served up Trump ads on my blog. I shouldn't have to pay to not have Trump ads. Also, the formatting of the posts import got really messed up. It was gonna be time consuming to fix. Follow by email is a thing, but email formatting isn't a thing.
Blogger: Doesn't support Substack exports. For years, blog services used xml files for exporting and importing. Not sure why, but Substack uses csv files. I did export my WordPress version which converted them to xml. Tried that multiple times and could not get them to show up on Blogger. Not sure why, other than probably because Google shows no love to the platform and it is seemingly broken and clunky and rarely updated. Does not support email newsletter stuff. It's basically a blog first and foremost and old and rarely updated. 100% free.
Beehiiv: A newsletter service people swear by. It is pretty cool. I ultimately decided against it, because I want public comments on my posts, and I didn't see where that was an option. I don't think there's a free plan, FYI. If you want just a straight up newsletter platform, this is a good choice. You can monetize too, as I recall.
Wix: Has many cool features for creating a community or just building something unique. But it's still very clunky and slow. And the clunkiness drives me crazy, I can only imagine how much more annoying it would be for someone who isn't tech savvy. Free and premium plans.
Ghost: Seems like a good fit for Substackers. Emails, blog posts, memberships, etc. No free plan, but free trial. There is something about it that just seems too heavy handed for my usage. If I had a lot of paid subscriptions, I probably would have gone with this. If you do, it sounds like the perfect fit. I also read that their support was helpful in getting someone transferred over with posts and subscriptions. So that's good they have your back.
Squarespace: I chose this one. The import was a little wonky, lost my images for example, but it might have been my fault. I'm fortunate in that Weaver's Deep Thoughts is only one year old and so I don't have a lot of posts. Going through the past year to add images back, gives me a chance to work on the SEO for each post which is kinda handy. No free plan. Can quickly convert any blog post to an email campaign. Has feature to get posts into Apple News, which I'm looking into as a potential new way of discovery for the newsletter. Not sure if I qualify, but gonna try. The website I've made is nice looking, fast loading, and pretty easy to tinker with.
If you have any questions about these or other platforms, I'm happy to try and answer. I don't know everything, but I do like helping people with tech when I can.
