Cymru Conversations and Substack: Rachel Morris
The last time I wrote a blog for Crime Cymru, it was as Editor-in-Chief of Bylines Cymru. I’ve since resigned from that position. You can now submit articles to Neil Schofield-Hughes, the email being unchanged: editor@bylines.cymru
My new project, Cymru Conversations, is less journalistic in focus. It’s about writing of any nature, and maximising its reach – boosting the power and purpose of writers.
I’ve come to believe that no good idea should be homeless, any more than humans should be. In June 2022 I started a Substack publication called Five By Five Times to create just such a home for my inspirations and discoveries, and the text and images lying unseen among my digital clutter. As expected, it was lovely to have some attention paid to my creations, however sparse at first. What I didn’t expect was the lovely community that would develop over time – we even have a little book club now – or that some subscribers would pay for my posts, a most welcome source of help with rent and my own online subscriptions.
Substack isn’t the only online publication platform, of course, let alone the newest. Medium, WordPress, Blogger, personal websites … people have had ways to share their words and images outside the traditional book, journal, and magazine establishments for decades. But the main problem has always been how to let others know that your platform exists, and to easily discover those of others (most writers also being readers, or so we would hope).
Another problem can be having ownership of the contact data and other content, should a platform host go belly-up. And then there’s the matter of social media apps, the primary tool for gaining attention for one’s platform, being completely separate from it. You’re asking two things of people with limited time and attention. First, that they notice you at all on social media. Second, that they trust and are interested enough in you to click out of that particular app and visit your platform.
Then there’s engagement and communication. How much does your platform allow you to develop relationships with readers and other writers, outside the social media space? One of the biggest flaws in the mainstream journalism model is that readers – tellingly referred to as ‘audience’ or even ‘eyeballs’ – are mostly restricted to expressing themselves and engaging with ‘news’ through moderated comments at best. Information should mirror reality in being continual, contextual, and communitarian. Yet it’s designed to do and be the opposite.
And then there’s the question of medium. Many if not most writers just want to, well, write. But some may be curious about or skilled in other mediums, including audio, video, animation, and illustration. There may be times when you want to use words but can’t write for whatever reason. Also – sadly, in my view – some demographics are less likely to engage with text (especially long-form) and seek education, information, entertainment, and inspiration through other formats. Dipping your toe into them can help you reach entirely new audiences, and form communities.
This need not be anything like the learning curve you may fear. The reason I mentioned Substack is that it provides the means of solving the problems I’ve outlined – and is completely free to use. Each post you create is sent to the email inboxes of subscribers but also remains on your publication page (effectively a free website). You retain ownership of subscriber data and can export it for back up.
We’ve been used to gatekeepers all our lives. To have to ask for permission or approval before our words and other work can be published and distributed. With Substack, quickly and without any financial risk, you can share what you want, when, why, and how you want, fiction or non-fiction.
You can also upload images – including galleries of up to nine – or search for and use images from the free platform Unsplash from right there in your post menu. You can upload your own video and audio files, or create them using simple in-post tools, and broadcast live videos. You can also create podcasts, polls, and more, within the Substack site or app. (The Substack app allows for most things that its site in a browser does, for creators and consumers. But I recommend that you do your initial set-up in a browser).
So far I’ve described a richer or easier version of Medium or Blogger. But where Substack really comes into its own is in its engagement ecosystem. As well as a place for comments under each post, there’s a chat function (which you can use ‘live’, announcing it beforehand – for a book launch, for example) and they recently added direct messaging. And it has Notes: its own, far less toxic, version of Twitter.
Of course, you can still use various social media apps to make contacts, grow relationships, and let people know about your work. But you can do the same within Substack itself. A good proportion of my subscribers came across me while navigating Substack, or thanks to recommendations by other writers, with no effort on my part.
I’m aware that I sound like a Substack evangelist. And indeed, I have four such publications, with a fifth on the way:
- The Acorn, Mondays: exploring and supporting creative renaissance at midlife and older.
- The Bite, Tuesdays: snarky, sweary politics and investigative journalism.
- Five By Five Times, Monday to Thursday, Friday for paid subscribers only: started in June 2022, a salmagundi of art, books, travel, photography, videos, illustration, and other enchantments. My home for homeless notions.
- Plot Twist, soon to be on Thursdays: for those who, like me, have learned that they’re neurodivergent at a later age, and must reassess their lives (creatively).
As is the norm on Substack, those are for my own words and other creations, though for a few of them I hope to raise funds via paid subscriptions or other means over time, so I can support and pay guest writers. But my fifth one, Cymru Conversations, attempts to do something less personal, that I consider revolutionary.
I call its model ‘hublication’ and, as the name suggests, it has a focus on Wales. I’m using it to amplify the voices of anyone in or of Wales, to convince more people in Wales to raise their voices, to provide editorial support and guidance in using the platform, and to help connect writers and communities in multiple ways. I can’t be truly specific as it’s so experimental, but its values include being egalitarian, inclusive, and supportive. Unlike in my last job, I’m not a gatekeeper nor even a curator, but operate like a kind of connective tissue.
When Substack uses ‘community’ it generally means the relationships developed between a publication’s creator, their followers and subscribers, and other creators. That type of growth tends to be organic, piecemeal, and mostly happenstance. Hublication develops more strategic and purposeful interconnection within and between different people and communities. One or more people see the big picture of a network based on theme or region, and dedicate a Substack to nudging and weaving that vision into being rather than to their own writing per se, building a self-sustaining, supportive web.
The gradual construction of a constellation of communities happens all the time in the real world (though again, rarely strategically or with the help of a central hub). As far as I’m aware, no one else is yet attempting this on Substack.
Let’s take Crime Cymru as an example. While running Bylines Cymru, I brought dozens of writers together to write about austerity in Wales throughout February and into March. In June, I published their collective work as an ebook. If Crime Cymru members adopt Substack as one of the publication platforms in their toolkits, someone could start a hublication boosting them individually but also connecting and supporting them.
In time, perhaps there’d be Crime Cymru publications gathering together some of their work – a collectively-owned anthology, for example, with a collective decision on what to do with any profits (conference funding, scholarship, overheads, shared among authors, or etc), and running events together using Substack tools. As Coordinating Editor of Cymru Conversations I’d help to connect and promote any individual and collective Crime Cymru publications with others in Wales and across the global Substack ecosystem.
I’ve written and illustrated a short guide to hublication that goes into greater detail. As with all things hublication, including subscriptions to the Cymru Conversations Substack, it’s nominally free but any kind payments will pay for online and in-person get-togethers, guest writer stipends, and other purposeful expenditures. And I’m happy to chat one-to-one or as a group – including hosting a Zoom – to answer any questions and explore the possibilities together. Reach out to me anytime via cymru.conversations@gmail.com
Crime Cymru 