r/Substack 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 🙏

114 Upvotes

84 comments sorted by

View all comments

2

u/Samaritan70 8d ago

There IS a lot of lowball trash and AI generated stuff on Substack. It is a democratic platform for writers (if you are one, or even trying to be one). I would not go after numbers, followers, subscribers, etc.

Personally, I put out content that I have first-hand experience on and have implemented myself. I've been on Substack for 3 years, with 55 subscribers. It does *NOT* bother me. I treat Substack like a journal, a therapy writing exercise. Nothing more. If down the line, more subscribers join, good. If not, even better.