Guide to Selling from our Posts
Plus the next Geek Out and another Giveaway!
Answers to my questions
I have been chatting to the lovely people at Substack and I’d like to share with you what we can and can’t sell within our posts.
To give you a clear idea of what these items might look like I’ve set-up some examples.
What we can sell…
Here’s a list of my questions (1-7) to Substack, to which the answer is ‘Yes!’:
Can we offer items that are included in the Publication Paid Membership, as separate items on our posts for a one-off payment, i.e. a ticket to a Zoom call?
Yes!
Live example:
Join us for the next Substack Geek Out.
Open to Paid Members of Substack Type Club, or as a one-off ticket.
Can we offer random items that are not included in the Paid Membership for a one-off charge within our posts, i.e. a pdf guide or training session?
Yes!
Live example:
Purchase my 3-page ‘One-Off Stripe Payments Guide’ if you need help setting up these products and embedding the payment links in your posts, as below:
Are we allowed to solicit one-off ‘Tip’ payments from our readers for a one-off payment within our posts?
Yes!
Live example:
Are we allowed to link directly from the home page navigation menu to a 3rd party website to sell our products?
Yes!
Are we allowed to link directly from our posts to a 3rd party website to sell our products?
Yes!
Giveaways
Are we allowed to run giveaways for a Comp to our membership from our posts, i.e. Restack or Like for a chance to win a 3-month Comp?
Yes!
Are we allowed to run giveaways from our posts for non-membership items, i.e. a book?
Yes!
Last week’s winner…
With this in mind I’m happy to announce last week’s winner is
who managed to Restack the original post before it was unpublished! 👏Congratulations Sonya! 🎉
I will be comping you up to full membership for the next 3 months! 😃
Let’s do it again…
Restack giveaway!
This week I’d like to give away one 3 Month Membership to a random Restacker!
If you’d like to be in with a chance of winning, then Restack this post before Tuesday 22 October at 3pm (BST London), when one of you will be selected at random to receive the three month upgrade to Paid.
If you are already a Paid member and win, I will extend your membership by three months for free. 🎉
What we can’t sell…
I understand that we can't offer the same bundled benefits as our Publication (i.e. pay-walled posts, Zoom calls, paywalled Chat), but in different time chunks, i.e. 3 or 6 month bundles. Either in exchange for a one-off payment, or for a recurring payment.
I am still hoping that sometime soon Substack do decide to offer 3 and 6 month subscription options, and give us the option of turning off Annual. 🤞
No off ramp
The downside to selling Annual subscriptions is that you can’t get off the merry-go-round without stopping the Paid option altogether, 11 months in advance.
Let’s assume you’ve turned Paid on and are gathering at least one Annual membership each month. Their renewal dates will be spread over the 12 months in front of you, and if you decide at any point to stop, you will need to refund them the proportion that remains unused.
Think about that.
How much would you need to refund if you stopped tomorrow?
Do you collect the money for your annual subscriptions into a ‘holding bank account’ and then pay yourself each month, one twelfth of each initial annual fee?
Technically this is what you should do, so if you ever decided to stop, or were unable to continue due to illness or circumstances, the refund fees would all be nice and ring-fenced, ready for distribution.
Only want to encourage monthly subscriptions?
You can do this by pricing out the Annual option so no one chooses it.
I have changed my pricing to do exactly that, so the annual is £360 versus the monthly £10, while I decide whether I want to offer it or keep everyone on the monthly, which gives me more flexibility.
Thank you for bearing with me, while I liaised with Substack on these points, hopefully it’s crystal clear now.
That’s all for this week, see you in the Comments! 😘
K8x
PS: Please ‘❤️’ below and Restack to WIN a 3 Month Membership to Type Club.
YAY!! All good news. I'd rather be able to do all of this than ONLY be able to offer straight up subscriptions (even if it means there's no 3 or 6 month option). 🥳
Excellent as always. Thanks for the clarification!