What I Wish I’d Known Before I Did My First Substack Live
Engage your audience, expect tech issues, promote in advance, and cohost if possible. Reintroduce yourself every 15 min. Substack Live is mobile-only and helps promote and monetize your work.
Getting started with live video and Substack:
Changelog
Coming in with some edits 2025-03-16.
Mostly cosmetic.
2025-03-27
More edits after watching Simon K Jones doing his first chapter reading.1 See additions to section “Commercial Breaks/Encouragement”
Before you even begin, everything is going to be recorded. Bear that in mind.
Have a drink to clear your throat.
Show some ❤️ to your audience. They could be anywhere else, but they’re with you.
The key value of the live is the interaction with the audience. Speak with them frequently, thank them for joining, reply to questions if you can—at least acknowledge that they’re there. I haven’t been a guest on many lives, but I love it when people do this.
Announce it; promote it
promote your live just like you would anything else. Let people know it’s going to start around a certain time—not necessarily a fixed time. Something’s gonna cause a delay.
Embrace the chaos.
Something is going to go wrong on every live you do. A lot of things are gonna go wrong on the first live. Embrace the imperfection.
Whenever possible, invite someone else to cohost with you. It’s really draining to do the entire thing on your own.
As of this writing, Substack Live is only accessible via the mobile app.
Make sure your phone or device is plugged in.
“Commercial breaks”/Encouragement
Every 15 minutes or so, remind people of the following:
Quick reintroduction of who you are and
where people can find you.
Use the share button in the lower right-hand corner to share the live, at least on Substack.
That’s going to get more people into your live.
Encouragement:
While you're doing your “commercials,” encourage people to do the following:
Subscribe to you. Viewers can do this by clicking on your name and avatar in the upper left-hand corner.
Make sure to do the above for your guests, if you have any.
Subscribe to commenters. If I see a particularly witty comment, I'll usually subscribe, or at least follow to the author.
Comment. If you're doing a reading, this could be difficult as it could be distracting. But it engaged with your audience as much as possible. That is what differentiates the live experience from everything else. Encourage viewers to comment and then interact with them when they do. It’s electric.
Follow-up
I’m not a Substack fanboy, but they do a great job of allowing you to do two things:
Promote your writing via tools like the snippets and clips that come out after your live.
Monetize your work.
Follow up throughout the next two weeks with consistent content, using the snippets feature and other tools that are native to Substack.
Notes
Excellent work, Simon!
Thanks! Commercial breaks and reintroductions are a good idea. People showing up halfway through my chapter reading must have wondered what on earth was going on.
What's the snippet tool?