This recording captures today’s live session of the tour of Substack I gave for Projectkin members (and anyone else who might find it helpful.) Event recordings are sent directly to our members and posted to the Projectkin Forum (our substack) in the Event Archives accessible to members from the member chat.
Note: As a way to introduce Projectkin to new members, I’m delighted to have you share posts like these with anyone you think may benefit from it. Subscribers can even share clips. (See a demo of that at ~0:54 min 😉)
This tour builds on a 3-part series of posts now shared in a new section to our publication, Substack+Family History with three new posts:
Part 1: “Leaping from a Platform into a Community” (shared with members via email in December.) This post focuses on the economics of Substack as a platform, and why it is a be a good fit for us and family historians in general.
Part 2: “A Guide to the Elements of the Platform” A walk through Substack terminology and features as we’ve used them in this community. I’ll also share resources I’ve found helpful.
Part 3: “Designing the Projectkin Forum on Substack” A review of the design choices I made in the Projectkin publication. Please, questions and make suggestions.
In all candor, bringing our fledgling Projectkin community to Substack over the Thanksgiving break was a bit of an experiment. Projectkin was growing and needed a new home. The features, timing, and economics all fit. Doing so meant that I had to figure it out from scratch — and in a hurry.
Substack + Family History
There are rich resources from Substack, other Substackers, and on the web in general about creating a Substack publication and how to promote and be successful with it. I was frustrated though by the dearth of information about how to use it as a visitor/reader/writer — simply a participant in a community.
From what I’ve learned so far, I believe there is tremendous opportunity for us in a rich and engaged community where perhaps only a small subset ever become writers with their own publications. I also think it’s a model that can work well for others in Family History and I’m delighted to help anyone else on this same journey. Our interests are aligned.
Tour Events + Feedback
This was the first of two “Tour” events (one each for the Atlantic and Pacific). The Pacific edition is scheduled for Monday, January 8th at 4 PM PT, 7 PM ET, (🤫 GMT/CET,) 11 AM AEDT. You can still sign up, and once that recording is ready, I’ll plan to embed it here as it may include a few new gems (or fun bloopers 🙄).
You’ll see I’ve added this recording to a section of our community “Substack + Family History.” If our members are interested, I’m also contemplating a new “Member Corner” section reflecting posts from Projectkin members. Join the chat or drop me a note if you’re interested.
Our community at Projectkin.Substack.com is now growing better than ever, and members are more truly engaged in creative engagement. I’m deeply grateful to the help I’ve received along the way from other Substackers, particularly in this Family History segment.
Resources
Projectkin is all about sharing resources. Let’s start with the slides used in the presentation.
You’ll also find some terrific resources referenced in that series of articles up ☝️above. These are some of the most important that shouldn’t be missed:
Subtack’s own user guide (the Support site): support.substack.com.
On Substack, a community for Substack writers: on.substack.com. This is a terrific community (though heavily weighted toward encouraging writers to start publications.) Don’t miss their curated Resources section.
- ’s Masterclass was incredibly helpful (and encouraging.) If you’re planning your own Substack, you don’t want to miss this one.
Finally, I feel so strongly about it, I’m going to reiterate my offer to create a Member’s Corner (or something better if someone has a suggestion) so that our members have a place to publish before they’re comfortable creating their own Substack publications. Drop me a note, add a comment, or bring it up in chat.
Have a Substack to recommend to other Family Historians? Share them in the comments below! 👇 (Feel free to name drop your own too, it’s totally cool.)
Levels of Substack: A Tour for Projectkin