Nature's Pharmacy is now a Substack Bestseller

We've hit a major milestone in the newsletter thanks to the support of readers!

Sep 24, 2023

Hi! This is Dr. Quave with a bonus issue of Nature’s Pharmacy! If you’re not a full subscriber yet, you missed the popular issues Lemon Balm, Supplement Fads and Your Health, Fighting Drug-Resistant Fungal Infections with Natural Solutions, and a few others. In celebration of meeting the milestone of a Substack Bestseller, I’m offering a free month of the full experience! Offer expires on October 15th! Try it out to get access to the archives and new issues every week👇

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In this post, I cover:

Why I started the newsletter
How the newsletter is doing, by the numbers
Link to a survey so I can learn more about what you, as the readers, would like to see in future content

1. Why I started this newsletter

Before joining Substack, I wrote a long-form magazine-style newsletter to send out to supporters of the research undertaken in my lab, the Quave Research Group, and the Emory Herbarium, which I curate. The original purpose of the newsletter was to share news about our research papers and offer profiles on members of the research team and their accomplishments.

My move to Substack came after I had the opportunity to collaborate with my friend and fellow science communicator, Dr. Katelyn Jetelina, on a fun popular science piece reflecting on the HBO show, “The Last of Us”: The Last of Us: Perspectives from an epidemiologist and a plant scientist. Katelyn writes the wildly popular Substack, Your Local Epidemiologist, where she shares her expertise in public health. We met in the world of science communicators when we both won one of the inaugural National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine Eric and Wendy Schmidt Awards for Excellence in Science Communication. After coauthoring this collaborative piece and getting exposed to the Substack platform, I decided it was time to move my newsletter from my website to the new Nature’s Pharmacy Substack site. There were 240 people on my original listserv and I transferred their subscriptions over to Nature’s Pharmacy in February 2023.

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2. How the newsletter is doing, by the numbers

I’ve been pleasantly surprised by the rapid growth I’ve experienced on the platform! I created Nature’s Pharmacy in February 2023 with 240 subscribers transferred from my original website-deployed newsletter. Seven months later, we’ve hit a milestone of 4,000 subscribers!

Where do new subscribers come from?

I love the metric tools that are offered in the platform. Here is the breakdown based on source:

74% Other Substack Network (from recommendation and promotion features of the platform)
9% Existing Substack Accounts
7% Substack App
5% New accounts that came directly to Nature’s Pharmacy
5% Imported accounts

What are paid subscribers saying?

One fun feature of this platform is that subscribers can leave a brief note explaining why they have opted for a paid subscription. Here are a few of my favorites:

“I love your work and am promising myself the time to read more.”
“I like your style.”
“I loved your book and am is interested in many of the same topics. I really appreciate you bringing hardcore facts to the world of plant medicine, your knowledge, bravery and sense of adventure and nurturing young scientists. Thank you for being groundbreaking *and* helping to ensure some of the knowledge of our forefathers and foremothers continues. Happy to support you.”
“As a herb gardener and user...I need your expertise!!!”
“What you do is valuable. Plant medicine can keep us well and reduce the strain on they system of conventional medicine.”
“Thank you for your accessible content. I was in part inspired by your ethnobotanical work to work harder on my Substack. Plus it has really opened my eyes to the medicinal properties of plants, it's a whole new dimension to the world for me.”

3. Reader Survey

I'd love to learn more about what you, as readers, would like to see in future content! Please consider participating in this short survey, which should take approximately 10 minutes to complete. Your input will help me tailor the content more effectively to meet the interests of my readers. Three participants will be randomly selected to receive a complimentary one-year paid subscription—a $50 value! The survey will remain open until October 15th.

Complete the Reader Survey

The Takeaway

After publishing my debut mass-market book, The Plant Hunter: A Scientist’s Quest for Nature’s Next Medicines (Viking Press, 2021), I gained more opportunities to contribute opinion pieces and essays to various print media, including magazines and newspapers. I discovered that I genuinely relish this writing style, which also aids in maintaining a consistent writing practice—a crucial element as I prepare my next book proposal. This newsletter serves as a platform where I can rapidly share my thoughts and ideas on a range of topics with an engaged readership, offering a versatility that traditional magazine publishing models often lack.

Thanks for joining me on this journey!

Yours in health, Dr. Quave

Cassandra L. Quave, Ph.D. is a scientist, author, speaker, podcast host, wife, mother, explorer, and professor at Emory University School of Medicine. She teaches college courses and leads a group of research scientists studying medicinal plants to find new life-saving drugs from nature. She hosts the Foodie Pharmacology podcast and writes the Nature’s Pharmacy newsletter to share the science behind natural medicines. To support her effort, consider a paid or founding subscription, with founding members receiving an autographed 1st edition hardcover copy of her book, The Plant Hunter.