I'm not calling for a boycott. By all means, take out paid subscriptions, but also, cancel them. Do it right away, so they don't renew. Do it while the credit card is still warm.
It'd be nice if Substack had a feature like "Buy Me a Coffee." Sometimes I come across a piece I like and would like to send the author $1-5. Although sending money in the early Web was hard, it's not now, and Substack could take a cut of this. But I guess they make more from pushing subscriptions.
Go to the Substack you want to cancel, click on your profile picture in the top right, then "Manage subscription", and then you have a settings page where you can cancel your payments (in case you have a paid subscription for this substack).
Most of us do include a Ko-fi link. Why not just send a tip?
I depend on writing for a living. Every cancellation breaks my heart a little (and scares me — am I not going to be able to live? Is my writing bad now? What if everyone cancels?!? OMG SHOULD I GIVE UP?!?)
If authors make it easy for readers to support them through means other than recurring subscriptions, great. My experience is that's not typically the case. For example, I just checked out your profile and publications here on Substack and didn't see a Ko-fi link or any instructions on what to do if I want access to your paid articles but don't want to take out a recurring subscription.
I include the info after every post. I wouldn’t expect anyone to want to tip unless they’d just read something and felt it resonated in some way. I hate to post the info all over the place and make it sound like I’m begging. I don’t want to beg for alms — just wanna provide a way for people who genuinely wish to support my work to do so.
I paywall nothing, so it’s completely voluntary. I don’t feel right paywalling when I’m writing about income inequality. I want poor people to have access and well-off people to subsidize my costs if they consider my work of value.
Ok, I skimmed one of your recent articles and I didn't see a Ko-fi link. So I searched the page. Yes, you are correct, it is there! And yet, it took me multiple attempts, plus talking to you, plus a full-text search, to even find it.
If you want people to use this method I think you need to be more upfront about it, and possibly also explain to people what Ko-fi is and why they should consider using it. I'm on Substack. I have never used Ko-fi, or even heard about it until today. I'll just read past the words "Ko-fi" and not even give them a second thought. All the while Substack is blasting "take out a paid subscription" into my eyes everywhere.
I still think the About page is the right place where you can explain to people how to support you, what the pros and cons are of different methods, etc.
I’m going to amend my About page and consider other changes.
I just don’t want to look like I’m desperate (although OF COURSE I am — I write full time and am naturally broke!) or begging or trying to guilt people into contributing.
FWIW, I suspect that you can hide these simply by not showing them as subscriptions on your profile. There has always been an option to hide any or all subscriptions from your profile here at the bottom of the page: https://substack.com/profile/edit. Not many people know about it.
There was a similar uproar when Notes was released and they made subscription info public on folks’ profiles.
Haven’t tried to see whether hiding on your profile also removes the badge, but I bet it does.
It doesn't remove the badge. It just adds "n private subscriptions" to it. But then it also removes the respective subscriptions from your "reads" section in your profile. I feel these are two separate issues. I may be willing to list who I'm subscribing to without also stating that I'm a paid subscriber.
Ah, oh well. Yeah, I agree that they are two separate issues. Seems at the very least reasonable that a user should have complete freedom to choose what they want to show on their profile or not, preferably with individual toggles for each feature. Seems especially reasonable since these folks are paying customers and therefore directly supporting Substack as a platform.
It'd be nice if Substack had a feature like "Buy Me a Coffee." Sometimes I come across a piece I like and would like to send the author $1-5. Although sending money in the early Web was hard, it's not now, and Substack could take a cut of this. But I guess they make more from pushing subscriptions.
Indeed, I left this up as an open tab and it wanted me to subscribe instead of showing the article. Definitely annoying.
It didn't ask for money though. 😉
Is there a specific way to get to the cancel subscription on the Substack site?
Go to the Substack you want to cancel, click on your profile picture in the top right, then "Manage subscription", and then you have a settings page where you can cancel your payments (in case you have a paid subscription for this substack).
Thank you!
Most of us do include a Ko-fi link. Why not just send a tip?
I depend on writing for a living. Every cancellation breaks my heart a little (and scares me — am I not going to be able to live? Is my writing bad now? What if everyone cancels?!? OMG SHOULD I GIVE UP?!?)
Tips always make me happy.
If authors make it easy for readers to support them through means other than recurring subscriptions, great. My experience is that's not typically the case. For example, I just checked out your profile and publications here on Substack and didn't see a Ko-fi link or any instructions on what to do if I want access to your paid articles but don't want to take out a recurring subscription.
I checked here: https://michelleteheux.substack.com/about
and here: https://selfpublishingbookauthors.substack.com/about
and here: https://substack.com/@michelleteheux
Those are the most obvious places anybody would look I think.
I include the info after every post. I wouldn’t expect anyone to want to tip unless they’d just read something and felt it resonated in some way. I hate to post the info all over the place and make it sound like I’m begging. I don’t want to beg for alms — just wanna provide a way for people who genuinely wish to support my work to do so.
I paywall nothing, so it’s completely voluntary. I don’t feel right paywalling when I’m writing about income inequality. I want poor people to have access and well-off people to subsidize my costs if they consider my work of value.
Ok, I skimmed one of your recent articles and I didn't see a Ko-fi link. So I searched the page. Yes, you are correct, it is there! And yet, it took me multiple attempts, plus talking to you, plus a full-text search, to even find it.
If you want people to use this method I think you need to be more upfront about it, and possibly also explain to people what Ko-fi is and why they should consider using it. I'm on Substack. I have never used Ko-fi, or even heard about it until today. I'll just read past the words "Ko-fi" and not even give them a second thought. All the while Substack is blasting "take out a paid subscription" into my eyes everywhere.
I still think the About page is the right place where you can explain to people how to support you, what the pros and cons are of different methods, etc.
I’m going to amend my About page and consider other changes.
I just don’t want to look like I’m desperate (although OF COURSE I am — I write full time and am naturally broke!) or begging or trying to guilt people into contributing.
FWIW, I suspect that you can hide these simply by not showing them as subscriptions on your profile. There has always been an option to hide any or all subscriptions from your profile here at the bottom of the page: https://substack.com/profile/edit. Not many people know about it.
There was a similar uproar when Notes was released and they made subscription info public on folks’ profiles.
Haven’t tried to see whether hiding on your profile also removes the badge, but I bet it does.
It doesn't remove the badge. It just adds "n private subscriptions" to it. But then it also removes the respective subscriptions from your "reads" section in your profile. I feel these are two separate issues. I may be willing to list who I'm subscribing to without also stating that I'm a paid subscriber.
To see how hidden subscriptions interact with the badge, check out this profile: https://substack.com/@whatarethechances/reads
Ah, oh well. Yeah, I agree that they are two separate issues. Seems at the very least reasonable that a user should have complete freedom to choose what they want to show on their profile or not, preferably with individual toggles for each feature. Seems especially reasonable since these folks are paying customers and therefore directly supporting Substack as a platform.