For what it's worth, Substack doesn't pay those big bonuses to writers any longer. As we have discussed, it's not a level playing field -- those with big followings get most of the promotion attention -- but I do get a steady stream of readers through the Substack network, which suggests that they are more successful at promoting the average person than most social media sites are. I've faithfully plugged The Recovering Academic and my Chronicle stories on Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook, and from what I can tell, hashtagging makes no difference whatsoever in the visibility of a post. If you are starting with few followers, you are basically invisible unless you manage to catch the eye of someone with a bigger platform. Substack does seem more egalitarian in that way, even if the deck is stacked in other ways.
Of course, Substack doesn't owe me anything -- I'm grateful for the platform, for its thoughtful leadership team, and for the ways it continues to evolve.
Substacks with custom domains are not yet caught by any Twitter censorship.
So, if you're willing to part with $50 and make peace with having "www." before your domain, I wrote a guide with the ups and downs:
https://www.magyar.blog/p/magyarblog-custom-domains-on-substack
It's my no1 source of search traffic, as, one upside is, the ability to use Search Console and get SEO, which normal, subdomain substacks don't have.
For what it's worth, Substack doesn't pay those big bonuses to writers any longer. As we have discussed, it's not a level playing field -- those with big followings get most of the promotion attention -- but I do get a steady stream of readers through the Substack network, which suggests that they are more successful at promoting the average person than most social media sites are. I've faithfully plugged The Recovering Academic and my Chronicle stories on Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook, and from what I can tell, hashtagging makes no difference whatsoever in the visibility of a post. If you are starting with few followers, you are basically invisible unless you manage to catch the eye of someone with a bigger platform. Substack does seem more egalitarian in that way, even if the deck is stacked in other ways.
Of course, Substack doesn't owe me anything -- I'm grateful for the platform, for its thoughtful leadership team, and for the ways it continues to evolve.