Use Sections to Create Multiple Newsletters

You don't have to create a new publication for each idea.

When I started on Substack, I had my ‘personal’ newsletter and one for business, then I went ahead and made one for my Atomic Newsletter that was going to be short and sweet.

It wasn’t too tedious to maintain them all, but it scattered my following. Again, not too much of a pain, but the things I say are always about me and my interests. While the tone might have been different between them, the topic was relatable. I wanted people to be able to see the other aspects I was writing as well. At the time, there were no other options. Sections weren’t so fleshed out… but things have changed.

Did you know:

• You can export an entire Substack publication, then import it into your existing publication, but opt to have it be created as its own Section.

• Your subscribers can turn sections off and on as they desire, so they can get access to only the content they want to see.

• Sections can be displayed as Newsletters on your home page.

• If someone unsubscribes from ALL the Newsletter/Sections, they will unsubscribe completely. As long as they’re still receiving notifications for 1 section they will stay on your list.

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Great! How Do I create a section?

To start, go to the dashboard for your Publication (you might call it your Newsletter, same thing.) On your dashboard, go to Settings.

Under Settings, find the Sections tab.

You can see my existing sections, Channeling Chaos & Substack Meta above.

Click the Add button at the top of the Publications section area to get the customization options for your section.

This is much like the initial Publication creation process, give it a name and a description. Customize what your “From” field will look like when an email is sent out.

Note, you can have sections that aren’t included in your normal feed or interface. Checking the “Hide posts…” box will make any content created in that Section remain exclusive to that section. This makes it a truly standalone Newsletter.

You can also upload an icon for publication to further distinguish its difference.

Once this is all done, update the options for who is or will be subscribed to the new section by default.

If you uncheck the first box, then the ONLY way people will ever get an email from this section is if they manually opt in to that subscription. I’ll detail that in another post.

If you uncheck the “Copy your email list” then current members will have to come in and retroactively subscribe as well.

Leaving both options checked means that all of your current subscribers will automatically be subscribed to the new Section and any new subscribers will also get emails.

To complete the process, be sure you click Create Section. This will apply all the settings defined above, and a section will exist (but be empty.)

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Great, I have an empty Section, now what?

Just like your original Publication, you have to write content and make sure you’re sending it to the right place.

You create posts for the new Section the same way you do with the original Publication. There is one new thing you have to do now.

Any time you create a new post, you need to choose the desired section where it will be published. If you don’t change this value, it just goes to the original “parent” publication.

That’s it, you have a new Section or a new Newsletter you might call it. You can add content to it and do as you please.

By default, this new Section is added to your top Navigation bar. There are other options, but that’s for the “Substack Sections 201 course.”