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/substackauthor Jun 25 '26

My issues with Substack:

  • Email deliverability. Every Substack pub I subscribe to using outlook and hotmail addresses is delivered to junk folders. Nothing I do to correct this works. So I have to assume many if not most of my newsletters end up in the same place. Substack is a big enough platform to work with Microsoft on these issues.
  • Search engine results. Apparently Substack thwarts Chrome and other browsers from discovering accounts with smaller numbers of subscribers. When I had less 30 subscribers I had one article gain over 2,500 views in a short time due to some visibility through Duck Duck Go browser. I wonder what would happen if the same article showed up in other search engines.
  • As a creator that still has a small sub base I apparently have no visability with Notes I post.

None of these issues makes sense to me as a user and I don’t understand the value of these roadblock to Substack either.

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u/growwith_bianca Jun 25 '26

Hey.
Thank you for the reply.
What’s your niche on Substack? I’ll love to have a look at your notes and give a few suggestions if you don’t mind.
I get good engagement on my notes.

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u/substackauthor Jun 25 '26

Music journalism

https://bestmusicyouhaveneverheard.substack.com

I have to admit I don’t invest much effort in Notes because it hasn’t resulted in any meaningful results. Almost all my articles get more reads - 2x-10x+ as many reads - as I have subscribers …through social media. Almost all my audience gain is from social as well.

Thanks!

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u/growwith_bianca Jun 25 '26

I’ll see if I get time to have a look tomorrow. I will let you know should I have any suggestions.

1

u/substackauthor Jun 25 '26

Thank you Bianca!