Substack Weekend Musings #3
The latest weekly roundup of everything worth knowing, reading and discovering on Substack this week.
Welcome to the third edition of GYN’s Substack Weekend Musings!
A catch-up on recent posts, some of my favourite reads from other writers and news about the platform and Grow Your Newsletter, as well as other bits and pieces worth knowing.
✉️ What’s in today’s edition?
💰 Thoughts on the Substack plagiarism controversy
💼 The latest on my new 1-2-1 sessions
👀 What you might have missed on GYN
📚 My three favourite reads this week
🛠️ Some of my plans for the Substack chat
This week on Substack 📰
Plagiarism! That’s the hot topic on Substack this week.
This week, bestseller Katie Jgln accused another creator, Maalvika, of plagiarism. This upset many people on Substack, because the whole idea here is that everyone’s content is original. It doesn’t really matter what you write about, but it does matter that said writing is your own.
The whole thing confused me at first. But having read the passage Katie accused Maalvika of stealing, it’s clearly lifted. I was amazed by the shamelessness of promoting it on TikTok too, and doing so with a straight face.
The real issue is that Substack seems to have rewarded her. She’s now a bestseller, and for most of the past week she’s ranked near the top of the ‘Rising’ list in the Technology category. That ranking is based on paid subscriptions. In other words, she’s making (probably good) money off someone else’s work.
I don’t know where the limit is. If you’d steal one piece and pass it off as your own, why wouldn’t you do it again? How much of what’s published here is actually written by the person whose name is on it? The Freelance Writing Network has been plagiarised before. I didn’t kick up a fuss that time, and I know other writers who’ve had the same thing happen.
And it made me think. We’re all trying to deal with AI, and nobody has clear answers. But we know that AI is trained on stolen writing. So does it change how we think about what counts as ‘fair game’? Does it blur the line between what’s shared, what’s copied, and what’s just stolen?
I’m genuinely curious. Let me know what you think in the comments.
P.S. I’m planning to write more on this subject in a full post soon, so stay tuned.
The latest on my new 1-2-1 sessions 💼
This week saw the first of my new 1-2-1 sessions, with one Substack Strategy Session and two of The Growth Sprint, the latter of which involves a detailed audit and lots of hyper-specific techniques to grow a newsletter audience, regardless of what stage the creator is currently at.
The sessions have been a unique reminder for quite how much I know about Substack, and how much I’m able to help people grow an audience on the platform. It’s also been great fun deep diving into newsletters that are new to me, as well as creating practical growth strategies that writers can implement.
I’m going to be sharing more with you on these 1-2-1 sessions in the next few weeks, but I would point out here that they will increase in price in September. That means this is your chance to lock in the highest quality Substack growth sessions for a very reasonable price, while you still can!
Have a look using the link below, I’d love to see if we can work together soon! And if you have questions, please feel free to reach out to me about them too.
Missed anything from GYN? 👀
This week I shared two new posts with you all: What most new newsletter writers get wrong, plus 60 proven ways to grow your newsletter audience and find your first 1000 subscribers.
My top three reads this week 📚
We’ve got a great mix of posts this week, from plagiarism to fashion to self-education.
Here are three of my favourite reads this week:
This is the full piece that Katie wrote regarding the recent plagiarism issue. I don’t need to say much about it, you should just read it for yourself. It’s an excellent piece.
This Fashion 101 post is more something of interest to me personally than a general piece about writing or Substack, so it’s nice to mix it up a little. I loved Joseph’s Schiaparelli post from this week. He’s got a really unique and engaging writing style, and I learned a lot too. If you’re keen on your fashion (especially fashion history with this piece), I’d strongly suggest checking it out.
I’m often thinking about learning and knowledge, especially as a Substack creator. Sam Rinko’s Knowledge Lust is great for this, and I love his breakdowns on how to improve self-education. If you’re a passionate learner, this post (and the Substack in general) will help you become better at that. It’s an insightful read.
The Substack chat with GYN 🛠️
Another aspect of Grow Your Newsletter that I’m refining right now is the Substack chat, which is always a valuable tool for working with your community and subscriber base.
I’m planning to use this chat more regularly than I have with the FWN, and as a cohesive tool to support your newsletters.
This will include things like Ask Me Anything chats and Note shares, plus paid subscribers will have the option to start new threads whenever and get feedback and support from myself, as well as the wider community.
If there’s anything you’d like to see from these chats, please let me know either in the comments or via message. I’m always open to hearing about how I can support you!
Any thoughts? 💬
Let me know if you have anything to say on anything from today’s Substack Weekend Musings. I always love to hear from you!
From what I'm seeing on Substack, Maalvika has stolen writing from a number of other people. Substack needs to take this seriously, and instead they seem to be rewarding her because she brings in money. I don't think that the fact AI is stealing writing makes it okay at all.
This is a burning issue