16 Comments
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Michael Zeitgeist's avatar

The recent Substack performance has been subpar, at best.

My latest post had a view rate of 51 (of 5600+ subscribers), suggesting that subscribers were not notified when I the publish button.

Unsubscribes are curious at best, growth rate is presently DOA - and there doesn’t seem to be a solution in sight.

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Simon Dillon's avatar

Sorry you're having issues here. Everything I post online is always written (or filmed) offline first, so I always have backups. I think that's always sensible as I simply don't trust the internet, the cloud, or whatever we're calling it today.

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The Celtic Chameleon's avatar

Thanks Simon, it seems to be fairly common amongst those who have made changes, like turning off the podcast or paid subscribers. I know you very sensibly back everything up :) I back up most things, but that doesn't fix the paid subscribers problem. I am wondering if it might be safer to add a patreon link or something instead of using the Substack payment platform.

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Simon Dillon's avatar

Yes, that sounds like a sensible workaround. It is concerning, I must say.

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Esther Stanway-Williams's avatar

Looking forward to hearing your decision on a new name…is the option of ‘The writer formerly known as The Celtic Chameleon’ too long? 🤪

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Spaceman Spiff's avatar

Thanks for writing this. I had no idea about these bugs. I rarely touch anything. I recently started paid subscriptions, but nothing else.

Are many others having these technical problems?

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The Celtic Chameleon's avatar

Thank you for reading. In the other piece I linked to the author said "Subsequently, three other writers have come forward and told me they have had issues with content disappearing when they delete episodes or content from their podcasts on Substack", there's bound to be more if it's a built in design issue, and more of my sort of problem too I daresay. Substack sent me one response two months later after I repeatedly tried various methods of contact, then nothing since. So disappointing, looks like we have to protect our own accounts.

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Spaceman Spiff's avatar

That is disappointing. Losing content is one thing. But losing paid subs is catastrophic.

They need to do better than this.

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David Perlmutter's avatar

As I am not a paying subscriber, is there any way I will know when you will restart?

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The Celtic Chameleon's avatar

I'll write a post on the old, introducing the new, and plan to port subscribers across :)

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Wendy Varley's avatar

Glad you have a plan, really sorry it’s such a headache, and yours and Lucy W’s salutary tales against the perils of making Substack tweakments have been absolutely noted.

Is The Phoenix taken?!

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The Celtic Chameleon's avatar

Thank you, and for the heads up about Lucy.

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Susan Beams's avatar

So terribly sorry for all your troubles. I’m so happy to see you will be sticking around in whatever fashion that may be! Been thinking on your name… I’ll let you know if I come up with anything as brilliant as you!

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The Celtic Chameleon's avatar

I wish I were brilliant, but very much appreciate your support :)

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cyberwyrd's avatar

Sympathy. I have been warned, and will be wary.

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The Celtic Chameleon's avatar

It could have been so much worse, to be fair. That poor woman with the 500 paid subscribers :(

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