Welcome to The Publishing Spectrum — Let’s Get To Know Each Other
With a new name for this space (The Publishing Spectrum), it felt like the right time to do a proper introduction — and invite you to introduce yourself, too.
I’m Amanda. I’m a publishing strategist who thinks a lot about how we share stories, build trust and make our work visible — in ways that are sustainable, strategic and true to us.
Before launching my own bestselling newsletter (which grew from 12 readers to thousands, with no social media and a thoughtful, behind-the-scenes voice), I spent nearly two decades working across the publishing world in many forms:
🖋️ Editing and publishing books straight out of college — learning the craft on the page
📚 Self-publishing before it was a thing — navigating a pre-Kindle, pre-Amazon world with a systems-thinking mentor
🗂️ Building a content marketing department from scratch — turning long-form storytelling into digital connection using behavioral data and analytics
🏣 Running a boutique content agency — supporting messaging, blogging, and voice development for small businesses and self-publishing authors
🤝 Advising founders through pivots and growth — including two software acquisitions and scaling a financial firm past $1M in revenue
Today, I help creators build newsletters and publications that actually feel like theirs — rooted in trust, tuned to their audience and designed to last.
In any given day, I’m toggling between deep listening, data pattern tracking and reflecting on where storytelling and audience signals intersect.
A few fun facts:
→ My favorite poet is Mary Oliver, but I can most easily recite The Lady of Shalott by Tennyson.
→ I rarely read jacket copy. I buy books based purely on recommendations and intuition. (This worked out recently with Ada Limón’s latest, You Are Here.)
Now I’d love to hear about you.
If you’re open to sharing, hit reply or leave a comment with a quick intro:
📝 What’s one thing that shapes the heart of your storytelling, newsletter or creative work?
✨ What’s something that’s unmistakably you in what you publish?
Whether you’ve been here since the early days or just signed up — thanks for being here. I'm so glad you're part of this spectrum.
New to Amanda and The Publishing Spectrum? Here are 3 ways we can explore publishing together:
→ Publishing Pattern Tap-In – Quiet, high-signal weekly conversations where we connect on your publishing strategy, storytelling and way-finding questions. Get thoughtful feedback, data insights and grounded decision-making as you navigate your next publishing steps. Learn more about the $50 trial.
→ Substack Signal Scan – A 1:1 strategy session to review your publication, spot creative patterns and unlock audience insight through a mix of intuition and analytics. Learn more about how I look at your Substack CSV in this call.
→ Publishing Studio Library – Explore a growing, reimagined archive of serialized guides, tools and frameworks designed to support intentional publishing — from audience trust to writing seasons. See the library.
I'm Nan Tepper, and I write two different stacks. One is dedicated to personal essays and memoir, (all mine). I bring myself to my writing, warts and all (I don't have warts, it's just an expression!). I rat on myself, very reliably. That one is called The Next Write Thing. https://nantepper.com/ And the second one is called Style Your Stack. I'm a graphic designer and I have brand expertise, I pivoted from web design which is how I've made my living for the last 15 years. But my priorities have changed and I want to devote most of time toward writing. I'm able to that with Style Your Stack being my primary source of income. I designed this stack to assist other writers on the platform with basics like wordmark and logo design, branding, overall and I help with nuts and bolts, teaching folks how to get the most out of their publications. I LOVE being here, have been on the platform since Jan 2024. I've heard so many great things about you, and have been following you for a while. I love your re-brand. The new name is perfect. Hope to get to know you better, Amanda. I'm going to stop now! Thanks for opening this up to us. xo
Thanks for the re-introduction! I've been a follower for a little while, but it's nice to feel like I'm kind of in on a new beginning.
My Substack is small, and I'm not *super* ambitious about it, but I'd love to see it grow some more. I guess what shapes my newsletter is my tendency to notice questions that come up in everyday life and my desire to think them through--I'm a philosopher, so questions and (attempts at) answers is what I do. But--and this is what's "me" about it--although I make connections to professional philosophy, it's always just my sometimes-philosophy-nerdy take on the question, driven by curiosity, my knowledge of philosophy, my analytical skills, and a bit of humor.