Put Up Your "Open for Collaboration" Sign
Tips to help you spread the word & find your people
This post is part of the Keys to Collaboration series, which gives you tips on how to collaborate and be a better collaborative partner.
You’ve decided you want to collaborate with other writers on Substack. You have a general idea of what you want to create with them and how you want to go about it.
Now, all you need to do is find your ideal collaboration partners—easy, right?!
When you don’t have a big community yet, this can admittedly be a little challenging. And this is exactly why I started CollabStack.
In addition to being part of the CollabStack Directory and participating in the monthly Calls for Collaboration, here are a few ways to get the word out and let as many potential partners as possible know that you’re open for collaboration.
Create the Invitation: Write a Post
A good first step is to simply write a post sharing that you’re ready to collaborate. This post could include any of the following:
How you’d like to collaborate
Who you’d like to collaborate with (a general description)
Some examples of what you’re looking for, or some criteria around what/who you’re looking for
The backstory: What made you decide it was time to collaborate? What are you looking to gain from the experience?
A request for your community to share the post with their friends and communities (include a share button)
Think of this post as an invitation to your community to collaborate with you. Your subscribers are already interested in your work, so there’s a very good chance one of them would love to collaborate with you—they just didn’t know you were open to it or didn’t know how to approach you.
If you’re looking for an example, check out the invitation I sent out when I was starting to look for collaborators.
Give the Invitation a Permanent Home: Create a Page
Once you’ve created a post and sent it out to your subscribers, you might find that you want a more permanent and prominent home for your collaboration invitation, one that won’t get pushed deep into your archive.
While you could pin the invitation post to your homepage for a time, you may not want it there forever. Instead, you can create a page and add it to your navigation bar. You can do this under “Website” in your publication’s Settings. (Read this post to learn how.)
This page can include the same content you wrote in your post, or you can feel free to go deeper with more examples and instructions. I recommend going back to this page regularly and updating it with links to collaborations you’ve done, so there’s always a list of good examples.
You can check out my Collaboration Page for an example of this.
Reach Beyond Your Subscribers & Followers: Join the CollabStack Directory
If you haven’t already, fill out the form to join the CollabStack Directory!
Your CollabStack Directory listing/profile is created as a post on CollabStack, which means it is open for comments and can be easily restacked, shared, or even cross-posted to your own publication.
Because of this, your CollabStack Directory profile could take the place of you creating a post or page on your own publication. Rather than sharing a post or page you create, you could share your Directory profile.
I personally recommend also adding a page to your own publication and putting it in your navigation bar, so there’s always a prominent space for it on your publication’s website. But the post or Directory listing is a great place to start!
Share, Share, Share!
Whether it is a post, a page, or your CollabStack Directory profile (or all of the above), share it whenever you are seeking collaborators! Restack, put a link in your email signature, and/or share on other social platforms.
Have you created a collaboration invitation as a post or page on your publication? If so, please feel free to share it in the comments as an example!
And let us know—what others ways do you share that you’re open for collaboration?
Ready to Collaborate?
You can find potential collaborators over on the CollabStack Directory, or check in on our March Call for Collaboration, which is still open!
Reminder: Love Notes Challenge!
There’s still time to participate in this quarter’s Love Notes Challenge! As a reminder, to participate:
Collaborate with someone in the CollabStack Directory.
Post a “Love Note” to Substack Notes, saying why you recommend collaborating with this person
Tag me, Marcy Farrey 🧚♀️ (@themysticalfarrey)
I will add a link to the Love Note to the creator’s CollabStack Directory profile.
At the end of each quarter, the person who sends the most Love Notes and the person who receives the most Love Notes will each earn three FREE months of the CollabStack Premium Membership.
Thank you so much for checking out and supporting CollabStack!
If you love the whole idea of CollabStack, please consider becoming a free subscriber or a CollabStack Premium Member (paid subscriber). You can also sponsor a post.
Until next time, Happy Collaborating!
Hi, I’m Marcy Farrey (pronounced Fairy 🧚♀️ ), and I’m on a mission to help others connect and collaborate in meaningful ways here on Substack. Consider me your Farrey 🧚♀️ Godmother of Collaboration!
If you love CollabStack, it would mean so much to me if you restacked this post so more people can participate. This will help our little community grow. Thank you for your support!
Such a beautiful idea! Thanks for all the guidance here, Marcy! Taking some time to work on this!
This is such a great idea! thank you!