š¤·š»āāļø What do you write after your publication has been wiped?
When being a Number 1 Substack bestseller is fake news
Hiya! Iām Lucy from Hype Yourself. Iām rebuilding my archive after this happened. Join to receive A weekly email cheerleading the self-employed in work and life. Creative ways to promote your work. Alternative income for experts. Slightly above average living.
If you didnāt know me, I was at the top of the Substack Bestller leaderboard and Number 1 Rising in Business this week.
Please donāt be jealous or excited about me, though. Itās because I had to reimport all my paid overnight. Itās not real. Iām not a leader in either of these.
Whatās going on?
I honestly wasnāt sure where or how to start again today.
By now, most of you will know my whole publication was wiped on Tuesday when I went into my Substack settings to delete my podcast.
Everything I had worked on for the last 18 months - gone.
Ironically, I was also featured in the Substack bulletin for profiling my newsletter in Forbes. As they sent it around, my publication no longer existed. Iām sure Alanis Morisette could include me in the revised millennial lyric update.
The community kept me going
The community rallied. You sent me saved posts, archived newsletters, internet-scraping tools, DMs, restacks, notes and moral support. I couldnāt be more grateful.
I couldnāt have got through it without all of you sharing, commenting and liking my work and getting outraged on my behalf.
A lot of you have been asking about how Substack responded.
The PR in me needs to sit on how I talk about that for a little while because, honestly, Iām too angry and upset to go into detail now.
And yes, I did question restarting on a platform that didnāt seem to care. But the truth is, for now, it is for you guys and my community here.
An epiphany whilst out and about
I would normally go for a long walk, but Iām solo parenting this week. So, I wandered around my local village with the kids and bought myself a large cup from the artisanal pottery shop.
It was for me to mark the moment. I made it. She will remind me, āI will survive.ā
While chatting with the shop owner in my DELF B1 French, we talked about how hard it is to promote yourself.
It was a reminder that this is my calling. I just want to help people who struggle to get themselves out there but make and sell awesome services or things.
But I also know so much more than just promotion.
I am more than a PR expert
I am now Lucy Werner more than Lucy āThe Wern PRā Werner.
I consider the latter my more confident side. I canāt tell you why, but I was always extremely confident in the work environment. I know itās because my brain didnāt work like other people's, and I was great at it.
The former, Lucy Werner outside of work, hmm. She lacked a bit of self-love. She wasnāt always showing up true to herself.
Moving to rural France, having a third baby, taking a step back to focusing on language learning and writing means I am now more Lucy Werner and The Wern agency doesnāt exist. My two personalities have collided.
I guess what Iām trying to say is I intend to keep doing monthly live sessions and directories but I also want to bring more of my life pivot and talk about self-employed benefits in work and life.
What happens next?
I am still slowly bringing back the archive.
It isnāt a case of just reuploading everything because I want to reread it all, tweak, update, decide whether to keep it or not, and start as I mean to go on.
(Annoyingly, some of my biggest pieces used to feature in āFrom the archiveā on Substack but now without the same readers, viewers and engagement that will be gone).
Iāve created this post - which I will update as and when I return the new posts.
The delayed realisationsā¦
All my historical survey data: lost.
My recommendation network (220+ publications): gone.
My old āFrom the Archiveā favourites: vanished.
And yes, a handful of refunds came in just as this happened. I paid out Ā£380 in 24 hours. Gutting.
Entries for my next directory - black hole. Iām bumping that to a problem next week.
But a handful of you have taken pity on this situation and upgraded to paid, and I honestly canāt tell you how much I appreciate it while I try to rebuild.
This has been my job and while I have been holding it together, Iām devastated.
But Iāll make it better.
One day at a time.
One post at a time.
And on that note, I will be back in your inboxes next Sunday. In the meantime watch out for the greatest hits returning.
P.S. The transfer caused me to lose 30 paid subscribers. Now more than ever, if my work helps you, I could really use the support and would love it if you would consider an upgrade.
New to me and my writing?
You can buy my books Hype Yourself or Brand Yourself.
You can book me to speak or host a workshop for your retreat, university, accelerator membership or in-house team.
Book me for a one-to-one consultation.
I was one of the upgrades but I didnāt do it out of pity. I upgraded because you are awesome at what you do, I was planning on it anyway, and at the end of the day, you are the jewel and that still exists in spite of any lost work ā„ļø
Lucy, your resilience through this is absolutely inspirational. Thanks for staying here. Ironically, I write all my long posts in Word because of a Substack weak point: drafts donāt synchronise across the app and the browser. I work on stuff wherever I happen to be, which might be at my desk, in the car waiting for child at music lesson, or in the stands at an athletics competition. I guess Iām going to keep on doing that.