Disabling the Substack Genre Tab (RESOURCE)
A guide for Substack authors.
Author’s Note: I won’t be emailing this one. This is something I put together to help my fellow writers in Substack, particular the fiction writers.
If you’ve been writing in Substack long enough, you’re probably aware of Substack Notes. And if you’ve been active in Notes long enough, you’ll eventually run into what I call the “genre tab”. Here’s how it looks like at the moment:
If you’re a fiction writer like me, I’m sure you’ve already noticed what’s wrong with the above picture…
There’s no fiction there.
And I mean no offense to the people who wrote these articles. They may or may not be good people and what they wrote above may or may not be good reads. That’s not the point.
This strange phenomenon is not lost on the fiction writers of Substack:
And as it turns out, this is not something that’s limited to the fiction section, as the “Faith and Spirituality” genre also has this issue:
If anything, they seem to be having it worse than we do. But that’s just me.
Anyways, I’ve lost count how many times I’ve seen this issue pop up. Unfortunately, I don’t see any easy “fix” to this situation. I’m not an expert on Information Technology but if I have to guess, these tabs have something to do with how you self-categorize your newsletter. This is the one for Germanicus Publishing:
It’s simply the nature of online newsletters that nonfiction will pull in more readers than fiction. That’s just how it is. For example, here’s the current “most popular” tab for this ‘Stack:
As you can see, my popular thing here in Germanicus Publishing is an article (read: nonfiction). I’m sure if I have the same pull and engagement as
(for example), I will have my articles up there instead of my fiction.So no, I don’t see Substack coming to our rescue in this one. Sorry.
The question is this: what are you going to do about it?
What to do…
My friend(s)
had approached one of the big time writers as a means for recourse:Unfortunately, the author blew them off. Which is not at all unexpected, to be honest.
So talking to these people will probably be a fruitless endeavor. Another solution is an attempt to community build. The aforementioned Brothers Krynn had done so through their Warrior Wednesday events. Then there’s the “Fiction Blast” thing by
.
There’s definitely more. I’m just putting out some examples. I can respect these attempts. My issue more than anything is how there can easily be too many Chiefs and not enough Indians (can I still say that?).
And besides, despite their best efforts, this issue remains.
This leads me back to the question: what are you going to do about it?
No seriously, what are you going to do about it?
There’s only one real solution: disable the tabs. I’ve done it myself and I encourage all Substack writers to do the same. I understand people who complained, but what have those complaints got us?
Nothing.
So liberate yourself from the oppression of the Substack genre tab by following these three easy steps:
Step 1
First, you want to click on your profile-picture button. At the moment, they are located on the top right. Keep going down until you reach the “Settings”, which are currently highlighted in grey on the picture below.
Then, click on the “Settings”.
Step 2
Once you’re in the Settings, scroll down until you reach the “Privacy” section. On the lower half of that section, you will see the picture below. Keep going until you reach the “Manage interests” button.
Then, click on the “Manage interests”.
Step 3
Clicking on the “Manage interests” button will get you a popup exactly like the picture below.
Then, uncheck all of the categories. This can be done by clicking each of the categories until they look like the picture above.
I repeat: uncheck everything. Give no quarter.
Congratulations, you have liberated yourself from the tyranny of the Substack genre tab.
Some may ask, “what will this do in the grand scheme of things?” To be honest, I don’t know. Probably little. But the goal is not to stick it to Substack or the head honchos or whatever. My goal is to give my fellow writers the peace of mind so they can focus themselves on actually writing.
Good luck and have fun.
Until next time, Michael P. Marpaung
Tagging the Substack fiction writers I can think of (I will miss somebody):
[and everyone else]
Listen to Michael, guys, this works! I can actually see the people I follow, which will hopefully make the follower count more meaningful as a growth tool, and Notes actually useable!
Well said, I think I was a little aggressive, but whatever I will do as you said and already did disable the interests part sadly and they still pop up in my feed.