🫂 Community Update: Welcome to the Inner Circle!
I've got some stuff figured out but still WIP 😅
Hello friends,
As promised, I’ve got some news to share for those interested in joining a community for the Substack Writers.
I’m still working on it, but I have a few pieces figured out and that’s why I wanted to share it with you.
Let’s dig in!
📛 The Name
Every good community needs a name, right?
So, I’ve decided to go with Inner Circle as a placeholder for now. Somehow it rang with me the most and I always wanted to be a part of an inner circle, whether it’s a group of friends, colleagues or any place for that matter.
Now I’m creating one myself 🙌
🪙 The stakes
This is the part where I officially announce that this community is going to be a paid one.
Trust me, I don’t love this idea either. But hear me out. First of all, any good community is the one that you need to pay for. Second of all, I’ve been a part of a multitude of free communities over the years and the majority of people there are just not motivated to be a participant.
If there are no stakes in this equation, then nobody is going to take it seriously except for the person organizing it. And I want it to be a serious well-oiled community with a high rate of participation.
So, I’m raising the stakes just a little bit.
Fear not, it’s not going to be a huge deal as I’m planning to activate Substack’s premium subscription feature for this. So, along with the membership, you will get all the premium content from my publications.
🕹️ The platform
I’ve given it a lot of thought and I know this choice is going to somewhat disappoint some of you, but this community is going to be hosted on a closed Discord Server.
I’m truly sorry if that’s not what you wanted to hear, but I’ve spent a lot of time during the past weeks researching different platforms and considering Slack, Skool, Discord and even WhatsUp and Facebook.
I strongly believe that so far there’s no better alternative to a Discord server that will suit the needs of this community.
If any of you have other ideas, I’d be happy to look into them, but so far I’m confident that we can me it work there!
🤼 Activities
This is an ongoing list of things that I want to do with the people who decide to join.
Monthly meetings
A regular online conference/gathering between members of the community where we can talk online about the problems, ideas and solutions for online writers and newsletter operators.
The basic structure is for me to introduce new members of the community, provide a summary of other activities within (more on that below) and facilitate a presentation session. The idea is for 1 person within the community to share what they do, their goals, struggles and problems while the other members can share their insights, and offer advice and support.
Also, it’s a good place to discuss any strategic initiatives. Like, for example, getting Substack to add a “Video Games” category for the writers in that specific sector.
These sessions can be potentially recorded and shared only with the members of the community.
Advice Board
I have a habit of hoarding information everywhere, on the notes on my phone, in a notebook, in a Notion project I set up for myself and in a bunch of other places. It contains everything from potential useful tools to advice I picked up from a tutorial or a YouTube video.
This activity is about that. To create a centralized space where people who want to share their advice with other members of the community.
Any useful tips or things shared within the community will eventually find their way here.
1000 Notes club
Consider this an accountability group.
Those of us who have been on this platform long enough know that Notes are a great tool to create visibility for your Substack. But I’ve been struggling with it probably more than most.
I struggle to maintain a stable routine, and post frequently and most of the time I don’t even know what to post about.
This activity group is designed for people like me to be an accountability partner to each other, to help maintain this routine, to share metrics and results and to find topics to be consistent with Notes.
TBD
I’m constantly working on more things on how to ensure that this community will have a lot of value to their members, so the list is definitely going to expand while I’m figuring this stuff out.
But, if you already have an idea that you want to share, I’ll be extremely happy to hear it (even if you don’t want to be a part of this community)!
🤩 If all of this sounds exciting…
Consider signing up for the waitlist to get an exclusive offer once the Inner Circle goes live!
In the meantime, I’ll get back to work on it!
Stay tuned for more updates in the following weeks.
Thanks for making it this far! 🙌
If you haven’t subscribed yet, this button is just for you ⤵️
Cheers,
Alex from Gamedev Relay!
I think a fee is a good idea, so long as it's symbolic and thus very low. But I don't think you should attach your newsletter's monetisation to it because you might under-value your work or over-price access to the community.