Welcome to Development Hell
What the Hell is happening?
Substack has given me some kind of template, in a ghastly serif font, to guide me through my first post on here. So fine, let’s go with this, it’s like a questionnaire…
Why this, why now
Tell your readers why you are launching this space. What brought you here and what inspired you to do it now. Think of it as a mini personal manifesto.
Oh God, I don’t know. It seemed fun, is that a good answer? I need the attention? I have visions of driving a Ferrari up the sweeping drive to my new mansion, all bought with the proceeds from oodles of Substack subscriptions?
OK, I think it’s because I have some stuff I like to talk about with regards to the writing process and the process of making things generally that might be a little niche for the Cartoon Gravity site.
I think I want to separate the interesting/weird/inspirations stuff that I throw up there from the workier/process pieces. I tend to hold myself back from getting wonky about writing on Cartoon Gravity and so it seemed like a good time to find an outlet for those ideas.
Does that answer the question? It’s hard to know what this is going to be before I start. But I really like Substack and I want to do something here, and I think it could be something useful to other writers and creators.
Right. Next…
What kind of community are you looking to build here
Oh community, that’s interesting. Most of the internet communities I have come across have been awful Hellmouths, so let’s just say not one of those and move on?
Be specific
Readers love clarity. Be clear when you explain what they should expect: how often will you be posting? Can they expect certain posts on specific days?
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA. Next…
Use an image and “subscribe” buttons
A picture will look nicer when you share the post on your social media (click the image icon in the editor to search for copyright-free photos), and it will give color to your archive as you build it.
Fine, here’s some colour. I don’t know that this is additive…
…but perhaps it helps illustrate the ethereal nature of, I don’t know, stuff.
Apparently “Subscribe” buttons will make it easy for new readers to subscribe to my newsletter with one click. OK…
Ignore our advice
There is no one true way to go about building a Substack. This is your playground, experiment with it. If you’re having fun, your readers will too.
Well we’ll see about that, won’t we?