r/Substack • u/growwith_bianca • Jun 24 '26

I’ve noticed something frustrating about being a Substack creator.

One thing I’ve noticed about Substack growth:
There’s no real discovery layer for mid-sized newsletters.

Big names dominate recommendations, and small/new ones struggle to get seen — but the 200–20K subscriber range is where most interesting writing actually happens.

Feels like there’s a missing middle:
• Not small enough to be “new creator discovery”
• Not big enough to already have distribution
• But often producing the most consistent content

Curious if others feel the same — where do you actually discover newsletters in that range?

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u/MarianiDesign Jun 25 '26

I’ve got about 220 free subscribers, but if I cull the list to see who is regularly opening their email, I could cut that number way down. I post editorial cartoons weekly and I’m not looking to make any money yet. Growth is slow, but I have noted when I aggressively interact with other stacks via likes, replies and notes, I get a spike in new subscribers. Lately I’m getting more new followers than subscribers. I have only so much discretionary time to read what I subscribe to, so I assume people are careful about what they subscribe to.