Mobile reading and writing

Top of my wish list for the Substack mobile app: being able to write a new post for a publication!

Over the last few weeks I’ve been getting used to using Substack desktop and mobile user interfaces, and finding the (core!) writing part a bit frustrating.

Substack publication writing = desktop only

One of my few peeves so far with Substack is that the mobile apps unexpectedly don’t support writing new posts for publications. How can the mobile app for a writer-centric platform not support the actual writing?!

It’s admittedly pretty easy on Substack to restack or comment on something someone else has already published. And I’m doing that.

But I (and probably most people) read and get ideas via email or on many other platforms too, all of which I read on my mobile. It would be so natural and convenient to ‘send to Substack’ a link or some text, to create a draft post I can come back to later, to finish writing. But the app can’t do that - yet. 😕

Newsletter writing would be so much easier if the mobile app directly supported creating new posts: 

• Stuck in a waiting room, or pickup or checkout line? Use that time to write “what’s on your mind?” (Substack’s desktop writing prompt) in your app. 

• Wake up with an inspiration for a fresh new newsletter article? Grab your phone and jot the idea down in a Substack draft before the morning bustle knocks it out of your head. 

• Participating in NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month)? My cousin Sarah (a busy teacher) does, and her writing time is scarce; I’m sure she would love being able to capture ideas for her book via her phone whenever she gets a few minutes during her day.

  • Substack might even be an ideal place for NaNoWriMo participants to share drafts and get feedback = these posts and these publications indicate interest (maybe Substack should consider sponsoring NaNoWriMo …)

I’ve seen Substack writers recommend, and talk about, committing to try to write for 15 minutes every day to build their writing muscle and habit. The mobile writing feature would really reduce the friction and overhead of doing that.

A Workaround

One good list of 10 free recommended tools actually advised using MS Word for a running log of all posts. Since I want to write (drafts at least) from my mobile device, and I don’t have a corporate Office 365 subscription any more, I’ll be using Google Docs. 

On the plus side, I’m already connected on Google Docs with all of my selected book/article collaborators, so we’ll be able to collaborate on draft posts in a Gdoc before publishing them to our collaborative newsletters. 

I suppose another workaround would be to try to force my phone browser to give me the desktop site - I’m not optimistic that it will work well, but will give it a try too.

Still, if Substack’s mobile developers can at least let us create and edit draft posts in the app (if not publish them), that would be great.

In the meantime, do you know of any other workarounds you can recommend?

Reading vs Writing

Aside from this frustration with writing on Substack, I’m mostly happy with the reading UX (no embedded ads!) and I am finding good material to read, including Substacks on writing and Substacks on using Substack. The two I’ve found most valuable so far are

PubStack Success

and

On Substack

- check them out!

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Next up: how and why I selected Substack for 2024 writing and moved off Wordpress