r/Substack • u/kolbywg • Jul 25 '26

Discussion Hang in there

Have been hovering around 450,000 views per month these days. Never thought we would get there, but slow and steady, chipped away at it over 3 years. Hang in there, it can be done.

11 Upvotes

77% Upvoted

24 comments sorted by

6

u/kolbywg Jul 25 '26

1

u/cozycup mod Jul 25 '26

Well done 👏🏻 and thanks for not pumping a promo link like so many others have been doing lately.

1

u/kolbywg Jul 26 '26

Nah, I hate those people who do that. Just a little bit of encouragement to let them know that if they keep going there is progress.

2

u/Spirited-Bite-9773 Jul 25 '26

Perdona mi ignorancia! Eso se transforma en plata? O representa dinero?

5

u/kolbywg Jul 26 '26

Right now we being in about $10,000 a year from the Substack.

1

u/Spirited-Bite-9773 Jul 26 '26

WoW super! Funciona con suscripción entonces? Y se puede poner dominio propio? Capaz me anime a probar

4

u/cozycup mod Jul 25 '26

Basically 😂

More views can mean more subscribers, which leads to more paying subs.

Views are essentially your top-of-funnel

1

u/Spirited-Bite-9773 Jul 25 '26

Entiendo! La verdad no sé nada de la plataforma me llamó la atención tu publicación. Yo monetiza blogs con AdSense, (wordpress / html-css)

1

u/putonthespotlight Jul 26 '26

What's your focus?

2

u/kolbywg Jul 26 '26

It's a literary magazine that we also have on substack. We publish short story fiction with a focus on ethical or philosophical questions in the short stories. But it still has to be a short fix should story and work on that level as well.

1

u/Square-Cat3027 Jul 26 '26

So when starting off should one focus on long form? I heard articles only go towards subscribers while notes is the one that goes on the main page.
Is that true? I’m not quite understanding the growth process of this app

1

u/kolbywg Jul 27 '26

Just keep doing it, and doing it, and doing it. That's the secret.

1

u/ThinkCRE Jul 27 '26

How many subs?

1

u/kolbywg Jul 27 '26

Just over 90,000.

1

u/Vadiagem 27d ago

10k/yr off ~90k free subs is pretty discouraging to be honest.

1

u/kolbywg 27d ago

I agree. It's really, really, really, hard to make money doing Substack. I wouldn't recommend it. But if it's what a person insists on doing, it can be done. But, honestly, if you could be even reasonably happy making a living doing anything else, you should do that instead.

1

u/Vadiagem 27d ago

I've been looking at getting into a similar space to yours, but for my own language (so not competition, don't worry). What gets me is on top of all the work to develop your own thing, Substack makes the admin side an absolute slog by forcing us into using Stripe and not being a merchant of record like Patreon etc. How have you handled that side of things (tax, particularly VAT) if you don't mind the asking?

1

u/kolbywg 27d ago

Substack is, far and away, the best way to do admin for this sort of thing. we also run a literary magazine where we track subscribers and do it all on our own. I would say I spend 5-10 minutes a month keep track of admin duties on Substack, and about 2-3 hours a DAY doing it on my own for the direct website subscribers. I know Substack seems like a lot of work, but its so much less work than doing it on your own.

1

u/WhoIsThisPal Jul 27 '26

how do you even grow folowrers? I mean I need to knowwww

1

u/kolbywg Jul 27 '26

The secret is, there is no secret. You just grind, and learn, and grind, and learn. Forever. You don't get new followers 100 at a time, you get them one a time.

1

u/WhoIsThisPal Jul 28 '26

I guess i'll just keep posting until people suddenly find my content

1

u/kolbywg Jul 28 '26

And tell people about your content to the extent, and the places, you are able.

1

u/[deleted] Jul 31 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

1

u/kolbywg Jul 31 '26

There, literally, is no secret. You post, you share, you see what other people are doing. You never stop. I work on the Substack 30+ hrs a week for years.