Hiding Under the Desk Podcast by Helen Redfern Helen Redfern

**Whilst this is both Claire and I chatting on the podcast, the podcast as a Substack post is just coming from my Substack this month as Claire is temporarily stepping back for a little while. She’s absolutely fine, just giving herself some grace.**
The one thing I’ve noticed during the course of this yearly Substack journey, is that no month on Substack is the same. Sometimes we have realisations that alter how we show up with our newsletter, other times we’ve had really positive months in different ways. And there are times, like this month, where we feel a bit more negative towards the platform.
Actually, negative is the wrong word. Maybe flat would be a better one? We know there are great changes happening on Substack, and they are happening at speed, and sometimes these changes have an impact on our creative mindset. Even though, rationally, we know it’s for ‘the greater good’.
We promised ourselves we’d be open and honest about our Substack journey and it can’t be all unicorns and sparkles every month. But this month we are a little flat. But, like I said in the episode this might be because of where we are at this point in time and actually, nothing to do with Substack at all!
Let us know in the comments if anything we say resonates with you. I’ve been on Substack now for fifteen months and Claire since the end of January this year and it has been a rollercoaster. But how has it been for you?
Our Substack Story is a podcast about our progress on the relatively new medium of Substack. What works, what doesn’t. How we grow, the mindset issues we struggle with and how we hone in on what we want to write about. Plus the often icky subject of money and charging for subscriptions.
Helen has been on Substack since June 2022. And Claire launched her Substack in January 2023.
We are both coming to Substack from different places. Helen has around 15,000 followers on Instagram, a small YouTube channel and a previous mailing list. Claire has a smaller Instagram with no previous newsletter.
We want to share how we get on with Substack, how we use the platform, how we use it as a place to share our writing, how we grow subscribers, create a community, and hopefully make an income. At the same time as writing our books and, in Helen’s case, creating videos on YouTube.
If you are launching your Substack, or thinking about it, or if you’ve been on here for a while we would love you to join in and share your experiences.


This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit helenredfern.substack.com/subscribe

Why, hello! We are back podcasting after a summer break. How are you all? Have you had a good summer?
Both Claire and I feel like we’ve had a necessary break. I say necessary because we needed that time to think. I don’t think either of us anticipated how much time we needed but Claire completely stepped back, including from Instagram, and I had a brainstorming session that led to a lot of mental processing…and we both came to similar conclusions for our Substack. Keep it simple.
In this podcast we talk about this keep it simple realisation. And also talk about what we’d like to do in the coming months.
Links we referenced
Helen mentioned:
* The Substack essay: Do you feel your writing is enough?
* The YouTube planning video (with aforementioned brainstorm).
* The Austin Kleon essay: The Four Points That Really Inspired Me from Show Your Work by Austin Kleon
* The non-fiction book club for September.
Claire mentioned:
* Down to Margate
* Travels with my daughter
* He's in fashion: reflections on Edward Enninful's 'A Visible Man'
* And that Ali Smith article: Frescoes in fiction: the writing's on the paintings on the wall
Our Substack Story is a podcast about our progress on the relatively new medium of Substack. What works, what doesn’t. How we grow, the mindset issues we struggle with and how we hone in on what we want to write about. Plus the often icky subject of money and charging for subscriptions.
Helen has been on Substack since June 2022. And Claire launched her Substack in January 2023.
We are both coming to Substack from different places. Helen has around 15,000 followers on Instagram, a small YouTube channel and a previous mailing list. Claire has a smaller Instagram with no previous newsletter.
We want to share how we get on with Substack, how we use the platform, how we use it as a place to share our writing, how we grow subscribers, create a community, and hopefully make an income. At the same time as writing our books and, in Helen’s case, creating videos on YouTube.
If you are launching your Substack, or thinking about it, or if you’ve been on here for a while we would love you to join in and share your experiences.


This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit helenredfern.substack.com/subscribe

In this month’s podcast Claire and I discuss:
* Pausing paid subscriptions for the summer.
* Losing paid subscribers.
* Sending out newsletters with the ‘preview’ option.
* Helen’s one year anniversary on Substack.
* What to offer paid subscribers and lots more.
This is the piece about confidence I referred to when talking about losing paid subscribers:

Our Substack Story is a podcast about our progress on the relatively new medium of Substack. What works, what doesn’t. How we grow, the mindset issues we struggle with and how we hone in on what we want to write about. Plus the often icky subject of money and charging for subscriptions.
Helen has been on Substack since June 2022. And Claire launched her Substack in January 2023.
We are both coming to Substack from different places. Helen has around 15,000 followers on Instagram, a small YouTube channel and a previous mailing list. Claire has a smaller Instagram with no previous newsletter.
We want to share how we get on with Substack, how we use the platform, how we use it as a place to share our writing, how we grow subscribers, create a community, and hopefully make an income. At the same time as writing our books and, in Helen’s case, creating videos on YouTube.
If you are launching your Substack, or thinking about it, or if you’ve been on here for a while we would love you to join in and share your experiences.


This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit helenredfern.substack.com/subscribe

Trona Freeman is a specialist in SEO, Pinterest management and content marketing for small businesses (and yes, that includes writers and authors).
I was thrilled to chat to Trona about all things social media, finding a community and being online. I had an idea of what questions I wanted to ask her pre-recording but it was so lovely to chat to her we basically just had a conversation and went where it went.
We talked about how we both started blogging and how terrifying it was, our struggles with Instagram, why Pinterest is a great platform to try out (though you won’t get the dopamine rush!) and lots more.
LINKS
Trona on Pinterest
Trona’s Website
Trona’s Pinterest Course
Trona on Instagram


This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit helenredfern.substack.com/subscribe

Claire and I were both a little shocked when the end of the month rolled into view - which kind of explains our shock at the beginning of this podcast that it was now time for another monthly reflection.
Our first attempt at recording the podcast was abandoned two minutes in as we were all over the place! We both agreed that this was because we’ve had positive months and it was strange not to have negative issues to structure our chat.
I’ve had a wonderful Substack month in the sense I found my thing. I’ve found articles that resonate, that fill me with joy and that have also helped grow my reach and my subscribers.
Claire has also had a good month. She’s been featured on the Staff Pick section of Substack Explore and is continuing with her self-discovery journey as a writer. We both think Claire has reached a significant point after realising she needs more time to “look at the clouds” and allow herself time and space to think.
It’s been wonderful catching up with each other and taking the time to reflect on our achievements before we push on into the month of June.
This is the piece by Claire that became a Staff Pick.
I mentioned my one year anniversary here on Substack and the special essay and live session I’ve got planned for the 7th June. You can read more here:
The three posts of mine that have led to a spike in subscribers during May are:

Our Substack Story is a podcast about our progress on the relatively new medium of Substack. What works, what doesn’t. How we grow, the mindset issues we struggle with and how we hone in on what we want to write about. Plus the often icky subject of money and charging for subscriptions.
Helen has been on Substack since June 2022. And Claire launched her Substack in January 2023.
We are both coming to Substack from different places. Helen has around 15,000 followers on Instagram, a small YouTube channel and a previous mailing list. Claire has a smaller Instagram with no previous newsletter.
We want to share how we get on with Substack, how we use the platform, how we use it as a place to share our writing, how we grow subscribers, create a community, and hopefully make an income. At the same time as writing our books and, in Helen’s case, creating videos on YouTube.
If you are launching your Substack, or thinking about it, or if you’ve been on here for a while we would love you to join in and share your experiences.


This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit helenredfern.substack.com/subscribe

This is a podcast by Helen Redfern and Claire Holden.
If you enjoyed this podcast please do share it and let us know. We’d love to hear from you.

Hello and welcome to our fourth episode of our podcast about our Substack journey.
Today we are talking about (and it’s another bumper one - we do like to talk!):
* How we have both got on on Substack during the month of April.
* How we learn from the art of doing.
* We quote a number of times from ’s Show Your Work.
* How we focus on the disappointments or the ‘failures’ when, in reality, we’re doing so much better than it feels. (And they’re not actually failures - but lessons we can learn from.)
* Claire talks about feeling grief when she released her last post to the world. (It was this one.)
* We also discuss the pressure Claire has put on herself and how she will be changing that going forward.
* Helen, after struggling with pain for much of the month, wasn’t happy with her April masterclass and is considering re-doing it. We discuss pressure we put on ourselves when we’re not fully up to it.
* We talk a little about marketing our Substack. How can we do this in a way that suits us and our creativity?
* And the launch of Substack Notes. How do we feel about this additional feature?
Plus lots more.
Claire and I are feeling our way forward with the Substack platform and could talk about it for hours. Do let us know in the comments how your Substack journey is going or how you feel about some of the issues we’ve mentioned.
If this podcast has inspired you to start your own Substack then use the button below to create your Substack and connect your publication with THE RED FERN 🌿 By Helen Redfern

Links to items we mentioned:
January Podcast #1
February Podcast #2
March Podcast #3
Helen’s piece that refers to her car accident and her piece about Substack Notes.
Claire’s piece about Ali Smith.
Our Substack Story is a podcast about our progress on the relatively new medium of Substack. What works, what doesn’t. How we grow, the mindset issues we struggle with and how we hone in on what we want to write about. Plus the often icky subject of money and charging for subscriptions.
Helen has been on Substack since June 2022. And Claire launched her Substack in January 2023.
We are both coming to Substack from different places. Helen has around 15,000 followers on Instagram, a small YouTube channel and a previous mailing list. Claire has a smaller Instagram with no previous newsletter.
We want to share how we get on with Substack, how we use the platform, how we use it as a place to share our writing, how we grow subscribers, create a community, and hopefully make an income. At the same time as writing our books and, in Helen’s case, creating videos on YouTube.
If you are launching your Substack, or thinking about it, or if you’ve been on here for a while we would love you to join in and share your experiences.


This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit helenredfern.substack.com/subscribe