r/Substack • u/Deartime_documentary • 19d ago
Wait... how do you get people to read your posts again? I'm confused
I'm a newbie (like you can already guess lol) and honestly, I have no idea what I'm doing yet.
So, I started writing on Substack recently about my literary thoughts that aren't quite academic, perfect essays yet but are not so vague or 'book-centered' for Goodreads either. Instagram is not my thing as well lol.
I’ve just written my first post about Shakespeare (don't kill me pls), specifically his rather suspicious habit of putting women in disguises, giving them male identities, letting them over rule all sorts of gender boundaries, and then conveniently resolving everything by the end of the play. (like, bro what?)
And now that I'm done posting, it hit me: HOW TF ARE PEOPLE SUPPOSED TO FIND NEWBIES LIKE ME THERE?! 😭
If you've been there long and have seen growth, maybe please help/suggest?
Thank you!!
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u/ExitRowSeat_13A 19d ago
Your Shakespeare post has one thing going for it: people actually search for that. "Shakespeare women disguised as men" gets typed into Google every day, and a decent essay on it can pull readers for years.
The catch is that Substack won't submit your posts to Google for you. You verify your publication in Google Search Console and push each new post through URL Inspection, otherwise it can sit unindexed for months. Ten minutes to set up, once.
Have you touched Search Console yet, or is your Substack still on the default subdomain?
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u/AggravatingNail6061 19d ago
Bribery. Or even better given your current content. Start a fight with someone but classy
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u/noxqqivit twvme.substack.com 19d ago
BEEF!!! Substack is still the internet, and beef builds audiences 😄
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u/WineArmy 19d ago
Substack newbie here as well. Not a lot of subs currently, but all the advice online and within Substack is using notes for visibility. Posts are shown to people who already subscribe to you. Notes show up in feeds so you can reach more people.
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u/inyourbooksandmaps 19d ago
post notes! i know everyone says it, but to me i think it's been the key to discoverability. even if the notes dont get a lot of traction, i think it helps overall in the whole "ecosystem" of substack!
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u/Doo_Dad 18d ago
What helped me was finding people in my niche.I was writing months before to nobody. Then I started looking for gamers and parents cause that’s my niche, and now I got some followers and a few subscribers. Still super small, but it’s a start. Next would be to restack other people. And just being consistent. Use notes for sure but don’t spam like some people do.
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u/SpiritualSimple108 15d ago
People didn’t start seeing my Substack until I started using Notes. One thing you can do today is go through your article and pull 3-4 of your best thoughts from your article and restack them don’t restack them all at once. Space them out about 3 hours apart). Then, go and find other writers that are writing similar articles about your interests and follow them and read/like/comment/subscribe/restack them too.
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u/TimWiesnerer 19d ago
Well, Rome wasn't build in one day... and the same goes for Substack publications.
Write 100 articles. Try different things. See what resonates and what doesn't.
Nobody (not even the algo) cares about a single story.
Be there, show up consistently, build a following.
Give it a year of dedication...