Using this Platform

Some tips for getting the most out of the SCA Substack

Ahoy! We’ve had a few questions about this new Small Craft Advisor Substack platform, so we thought we’d share a few tips or things we’ve learned.

1. Commenting on Articles

   Did you know that each article can be “liked” and you can also add your comments at the end? Many of you have responded to the articles by replying in e-mail, and while we appreciate it, comments sent that way go to the editors but aren’t seen by the public or the author. Please consider sharing your thoughts on articles publicly so everyone can see them and keep the conversation going.

At the end of each article you should see comment box like this one shown above. The “heart” icon is to show you “like” the article. The text bubble icon takes you down to the comment box to share your thoughts. The arrow icon allows to share the article in various ways.

2. How do Subscriptions Work?

   If you’re seeing this article then you are a subscriber of some kind already. You can be a FREE subscriber, in which case you have access to some articles but will be restricted from seeing others. PAID subscribers have access to all content we publish. If you are a PAID subscription but haven’t paid for it, that’s because you likely had credit remaining for your previous print magazine subscription so we entered your e-mail address into the PAID subscriber list. When your subscription expires the system will prompt you to renew. If you have issues remaining on your print subscription and are not presently receiving a PAID subscription to this new Substack version, please send us a note and we will get you fixed up with a paid version. Unfortunately we didn’t have everyone’s e-mail address in our subscription database.

3. Frequency of Emails

   Some of you say you love the articles but don’t like getting so many as e-mails. We are trying to come up with a sort of “weekly summary” workaround that will notify you of all articles once a week, instead of the sometimes daily e-mails, but in the meantime there are a few things you can do to adjust volume of e-mails received. Go to our Substack page here and go up to your logo icon on the upper right of the screen and click on it to bring up a menu of options. Click on Settings. You will see a section called Notifications. You can turn-off any of those features. Things like “recommendations” and “marketing” are likely less interesting to you than our articles.

   If you’d prefer to stay on as a subscriber but not receive ANY e-mailed articles, click on Manage Subscription to bring up My Account. Here you will see all of the various columns and categories for SCA articles. If you un-click all categories, you will no longer receive e-mail notifications and can instead just go to the SCA Substack directly when you want to read. But be careful with this option, as once you’ve un-clicked, you won’t be hearing from us via e-mail about new articles.

   

   On this screen you can see the Notifications. You can turn-off some of these things if you feel like you’re getting too many e-mails.

   

   Here is an example of the screen where you can manage your account. Below is after you click on the Manage Subscription option. You can un-click any topics or columns you don’t want notifications about. But be careful not to un-click unless you are sure you don’t want hear from us.

   

4. Can I Submit an Article?

   Absolutely! We rely on reader content to keep things interesting around here. Articles on small-boat cruises, seamanship, how-tos and upgrades, boat building, product reviews, etc. are all welcomed. With this new digital format we can also extend word counts, include more photos, and add video and other links as desired. Send your queries or articles to: josh@smallcraftadvisor.com

   While we transition to this new format and look to expand the paid subscriber base we are temporarily not paying for submissions, but we can promise a large and receptive audience of more than 10,000 readers.

5. Where are the Ads?

   Quite a few of you have written to say you actually miss the advertising found in the old print and digital magazines. Substack doesn’t have any provision for including ads (at least not yet) but we will look at finding a way of touching base with our former advertisers and highlighting some of their products in the near future.

6. How is the New Format Doing for SCA?

   Thanks for asking! It’s going even better than expected. Like many of you we have preferred print magazines to reading digitally, but we’re seeing lots of advantages to this new format—form the timeliness of articles to the interactive comments section mentioned above. And we’re actually picking up a lot of new readers and subscribers who didn’t actually read the print version. Thanks for your support.