Chill Subs Turns Four! And a Bunch of Other Things Worth Celebrating

We turned four this week, which means we're finally over the hump of the terrible twos and also the terrible threes. Applause, please!

With the end of January in sight, we've hit some pretty exciting milestones, shipped a bunch of new features, and watched our community grow in ways that low-key blow our minds.

Here's a look at what's been happening at Chill Subs—the numbers, the products, and the stuff writers are actually using.

The big numbers

Let's start with the all-time milestones, because they're fun to brag about:

✦ 75,000 total users. We're honored you're here with us, for real.

✦ Over 300,000 tracked submissions. This month alone, there were 4,426 tracked submissions.

✦ 6,000+ opportunities in our database. We're constantly adding new magazines, journals, contests, and other places for you to send your writing.

✦ 70,000 followers on Instagram. If you're not following us yet, come say hi.

Recent releases

We've been busy building new things, and here's what's landed recently:

✷ Writers' Hour is officially here. We added a perk to our Best membership: unlimited access to Writers’ Hour—daily accountability hours for any timezone—hosted by London Writers Salon.

✷ We made a browser extension. Meaning, you can take a look at acceptance rates, response times, and bookmark counts instantly on any lit mag’s website. And it’s free! Try it out here.

We also kicked off two new newsletters:

✷ Free Sh*t for Writers, a curated roundup of events, resources, and more that don't cost a damn thing. Preview our first issue here.

✷ Events & Community, a roundup of replays and upcoming events, including live sessions, workshops, and hangouts for writers seeking community. Preview our first issue here.

You can subscribe to both newsletters with this link.

What writers are using the most

Curious what's resonating with the Chill Subs community? Well, good. I’ll tell you.

This month’s most popular collections are:

✦ Lit Mags Agents Love (We Asked)

✦ Impressive Bylines for Your Literary Bio

✦ Lit Mags with Excellent Reputations

✦ Literary Magazines in the Sweet Spot

This month’s most popular keyword searches are:

✦ Poetry, micro, fantasy, and flash fiction. A bit of everything, honestly.

This month's most searched genre is:

✦ Fiction, with 4,151 searches. Poetry is at 3,857, nonfiction is at 1,243, and multimedia is at 229. Only 12 of you were interested in hybrid. Shout out to you 12.

Tutorials to help you navigate everything

We've also been publishing guides to help you get the most out of Chill Subs:

✷ How to Use Chill Subs, which breaks down all the new changes on the site and how everything works.

✷ How to Create Your Writing Portfolio on Chill Subs, a guide to using the Chill Subs profile as a comprehensive writing portfolio.

✷ How to Use Bookmarks and Create Collections on Chill Subs, a guide to—yep!—bookmarks and also collections.

✷ How to Use Chill Subs' Browse to Find Submission Opportunities, a guide to our (recently revamped) browse.

And … way, way more. You can find all of our tutorials over here.

Aaaaand, that's the roundup. Thanks for being a part of this. Here's to year five!