Today, Substack februarykastrenakes theverge introduces a long-awaited new feature: the capacity to modify the appearance of newsletters. Writers can now pick a different font for the title and body of posts as well as their background and accent colours. There are only a few customization options, but they should help Substack newsletters differentiate themselves from one another because they are now all essentially identical aside from profile photographs and link colours.
Themes is the name of the feature, and Substack claims it intends to keep giving writers additional possibilities. It’s supposed to be accessible as of right now.
Even if themes are entertaining, two other features that Substack plans to roll out “soon” may be much more useful to writers. Substack imagines lists of “founding members” or “lapsed readers,” but writers will be able to establish their own sub-lists of subscribers and just send out specific emails to them. A “multipub” facility is also being added, which will enable authors to combine different newsletters and podcasts they run under a single publication. This technology is now used by The Dispatch to bundle a dozen different titles, but it will soon be made available to everyone. Substack anticipates that the new options will be live in February.
Today at Substack On, a one-day online conference for Substack writers, the features were revealed. Since its founding in 2017, Substack has grown in popularity as a platform for journalists who want to establish paid subscription magazines. High-profile figures including Anne Helen Petersen, Glenn Greenwald, and Matthew Yglesias have been drawn to it.
