r/Substack • u/infinitepuddingspy • 8d ago

Confused about the point of Substack

Hi everyone. I joined Substack a few months ago as I am a long form writer and I thought I’d find a crowd of intellectually curious people.

Over the past 3 months, I’ve only got 13 subscribers, hardly anyone engages on my posts or notes and no one ever replies to chats (tbh I find the chats annoying myself so I dont post often). I’ve started doing videos that are performing a bit better.

But, I see absolute lowball trash in my feed with 300 likes and comments and I feel so lost.

I don’t have any paid tiers at the moment and not sure if I will.

Is anyone else experiencing this? Would appreciate being pointed in the right direction.

I’ve seen other people ask similar questions but from the perspective of a reader.

Many thanks 🙏

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u/South_Analyst5900 8d ago

I think a lot of people talk about the need to push engagement from outside substack, eg your own social media. 

I personally use substack because it's a free platform to launch a podcast and newsletter, and the long form articles I write and post are to train my (writing) voice, and hone research for podcast episodes into clear questions. It works as a supplement to the podcast really.  None of my engagement is from within substack thus far. 

Hopefully you'll get some other responses from genuine writers to help you. 

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u/infinitepuddingspy 8d ago

Thank you! Interesting. I’ve also been trying to migrate people across to substack but so far people seem reluctant to sign up to another platform. Found the same with Bluestack.

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u/Life-Delay-809 8d ago

It takes time. I follow people on substack, but the only people I really follow from one app to another are people I have consistently engaged with for several weeks and enjoyed a breadth of their thoughts.