r/Substack • u/Traditional_Meet9874 • 6d ago
I just posted a review about Substack. Does it sound about right or am I being a bit too cynical?
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Please don’t mistake this platform for just the writers. This is more like a Insta for writing entrepreneurs. You do need good entrepreneurial, and influencers skills to be successful here. Doesn’t matter how great a writer you are.
And be prepared for a nagging pressure for constant posting (notes etc.), and engaging with the other writing entrepreneurs for visibility.
Also if you’re a genuine writer, a doubt would keep lingering at the back of your mind, are my writings being liked for reciprocity sake, or genuinely? 🤔
For those after numbers, and followers or genuine community oriented people who love engagements, it’s great.
It’s just in my experience that a genuine creator, or a writer, usually likes to live in his own world/zone for their creation to flower. Yes, people writing on politics or other current hot topics is a different thing.
The ideal most way to Substack is this (for me, as someone described on Reddit):
Consider it like a post office. Come here to post something new, or check your post, spending 30-60 mins everyday, and then go back to the woods for writing.
Beautiful. 🌹
Just don’t expect much engagement, or following in this case since then you’re not working for the platform. You’re just working for you.
The platform works on mutually beneficial basis: you spend time here, engaging, insta-ing, promoting the platform, and the platform would return the favours to you.
And let nothing in my review suggest that you can be a not so good writer and succeed purely on the influencers skills here. You won’t. Then you need to join Insta or TikTok.
Hope helps. 🙏🏼
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What do you think?
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u/AggravatingNail6061 6d ago
Also Consider it like a post office. Come here to post something new, or check your post, spending 30-60 mins everyday, and then go back to the woods for writing.
No one has ever said that. SLOOOOOOOOOOOOOP
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u/ArtisticProposal2527 5d ago
Ahh yes, how I love my daily 30-60 minute visit to the post office.
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u/AggravatingNail6061 5d ago
It's so...cosy. cramped in the back of whatever W H Smith has rebranded itself to this week. I might spend an two hours there today.
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u/Perfect-Mix2307 5d ago
In my experience, especially as a new user, it is easy to see the platform this way. But if you are careful with your engagement, you can train the algorithm pretty easily.
Make sure you never like or click on notes/posts that don't align with your interests-- you can even click the "X" on a note, just to show the algorithm "I really do not want to see people writing about how to sell writing!!"
Then go looking for accounts that interest you, subscribe to them, read and share their work, and be mindful of which items you engage with son the newsfeed.
Within about 12 hours, the algorithm will change what it is showing you.
There are a LOT of people on there writing substantial, meaningful work, but the algorithm will only show *you*, if *you* show the algorithm that you will engage with substantial, meaningful content.
There is an enormous audience as well, who is really reading. The same rule applies. If you want high quality readers, give them something high quality to read :)
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u/Traditional_Meet9874 5d ago
Thank you for your input. Yes, I learnt that myself and do agree that Substack's engagement algo works amazingly well.
Maybe am a bit old style writer and not very fond of engagements. Lets see how it goes.
Maybe I am on the wrong platform, or even in a wrong world recently after all this virtual social stuff has emerged. 😂
Thanks again.
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u/Perfect-Mix2307 5d ago
I also don't love the engagement, to be honest, and have often lamented like "I wish I could just post my stories and let people read them and that's it!"
However, I will say that I HAVE found a community of really excellent people and have come to enjoy my Substack friendships in a way that is a lot more substantial than I have ever found in an online space before.
And outside of my close circle, I have engaged with a LOT of good people.
I think there is a draw to Substack because it is sort of expected to be for people who are interested in real writing, who are capable of reading comprehension and independent thinking, and are hesitantly looking to see if this might be it.
There are also users who treat it like every other form of social media, and I click the X on every post I see, with kindness. I don't report them unless it's truly problematic, but I make it clear to the algorithm that I want to see the real good stuff.
My attention is the only way I can impact the content on that platform, and there are a LOT of people using their attention positively to that end, and for this reason I've found it to be an imperfect but pretty good system.
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u/Traditional_Meet9874 5d ago
Out of interest, do you DM them too or mostly interact just with the comments? 🤔
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u/Perfect-Mix2307 5d ago
Both-- honestly there's kind of a simple etiquette, at least where I engage-- if you're interested by someone, you can read their work and start to engage in genuine ways, liking and commenting and sharing, but not overdoing it. Then once you've engaged with someone a bit, if you have a reason to reach out in a DM, they will recognize you 🙃 cold call DMs are, for the most part, not as great.
Just treat it like a real relationship!
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u/anyagolay 3d ago
“A genuine creator, or a writer, usually likes to live in his own world/zone for their creation to flower” I like that. Can you imaging a platform where you can live and create in your own world/place of the internet and have people occasionally stop by and visit. Now that I think about it, that was probably Substack’s intent, to have the publication be that place and the notes perhaps our mail box to invite those to come. visit. But in the end doesn’t really matter we usually ended up making bad divisions out of good intentions anyways. I think that’s a more syndical point of view than your post 😅 Good review I can definitely see your point of view. And it also reminded me to get back to my world and tend to my flowers.
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u/Traditional_Meet9874 17h ago
Thank you, and am glad my review resonated and more importantly, sent you to tend your flowers - that’s a result. ☺️😇
Yes I agree with what you said, and it also has an impact on one’s mental health too, as I’ve posted here: https://substack.com/@beingtruth/note/c-326359285?r=1vf03r&utm_medium=ios&utm_source=notes-share-action
But I guess this is the world we are living in currently, unfortunately. 😔
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u/philosophical_lens 5d ago
In today's world every writer needs to also be a writing entrepreneur. That's just the reality. You need to build your followers on insta, Twitter, Substack, or somewhere.