Today was a special Substack LIVE, where I got my own publication roasted by a Substack veteran, Jess, The Creator who’s been on the platform since 2022 and has launched multiple best-selling Substack publications from scratch, including paid newsletters and live offers.
Her most recent Substack publication is called Unstuck to Published, where she focuses on helping people get their Substack publication started with a clear direction and a paid offer, so growth actually has something to land on.
For anyone who’s followed along my journey of writing Trials, Tribulations, & Torches since November 2025, it’s been a lot of hard work with relationship building and writing out notes/posts.
But the part that has been stopping a lot of my growth has been tied mostly to not having a clear foundation of what readers get out of my Substack. This is where Jess comes in and helps with that.
Here’s what we covered along with timestamps if you want to skip around to parts that are most relevant for you:
0:38: Jess’s introduction of her history of writing on Substack and what motivated her to launch Unstuck to Published recently.
6:40: Analysis of both my publication’s name and short description.
10:45: Analysis of my publication’s About page.
17:42: Finding out what Categories to put my Substack in (spoiler: I didn’t even know this feature existed 😬)
21:00: Analysis of Welcome page and how to use recommendation blurbs strategically on it.
27:58: Analysis of a recent paid subscriber post that I put out and how it could have been better.
33:30: How to add tags and optimize for SEO Titles, Descriptions, and URLs.
39:30: How to use Substack writing features, including adding custom buttons.
49:30: Discussion surrounding notes and how important they are for building audience.
54:45: Jess’s offers for her own publication, Unstuck To Published.
Jess hosts a 60-minute bi-weekly workshop 10 AM EST on Saturdays to help others create a fully functioning Substack, paid and ready to go.
In terms of her Substack, Unstuck to Unpublished, you can subscribe free for weekly posts on these topics, or upgrade to paid to get 1:1 support from her on a Zoom call for help with your own Substack publication.
And here are a few relevant articles from Unstuck To Published that go through what we talked about during this live:
Thank you Erin, Mick, Alan, and many others for tuning into my live video with Jess, The Creator! Join me for my next live video in the app.
