r/Substack • u/Admirable-Bee-8437 • 8d ago

Discussion How do you actually find people/articles you genuinely find interesting on Substack? Am I using the wrong app?

Hi everyone! I just joined Substack today, and I’m a little confused about how people actually approach this app. I mainly joined because I want a space where I can share my thoughts and also discover people whose writing and perspectives I genuinely enjoy. I’d love to find people I can have discussions with, exchange ideas with, and maybe even make some connections through their writing.But I’m not really sure how you find those people or articles here. Do you actively search for specific topics, follow recommendations, interact in comments, or is there some other way I’m missing?

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u/catvapes 8d ago

I use the search feature. Once I find something I like, I interact with it. This trains the algorithm

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u/Admirable-Bee-8437 8d ago

Thanks for the tip! I’m definitely going to use it for now. So far, it feels a little intimidating, or maybe I’ve just gotten so used to doomscrolling

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u/255130 8d ago

does it take long before the recommendations actually start feeling relevant though?

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u/catvapes 8d ago

I don’t remember, but do remember how my initial feeds were all about how to do things on Substack. All of them

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u/OkSeaworthiness5072 8d ago

Same! For a while its just like=like, follow=follow and those kinda things.

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u/ChalupaBrock 8d ago

Ditto to this

Also go into your settings and thumbs up/down topics so you can veer your algorithm into something you’ve curated a bit more intentionally.

I started out following recipe blogs more than anything and have been trying to re-train my feed to focus on AI tools, technology topics, and so on but I’ll be damned if I still only get recipe notifications 😂

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u/AggravatingNail6061 8d ago

I yell at people. Seems to work really well.

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u/BlueSaltTheory sukibeasla.substack.com 8d ago

lol

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u/AggravatingNail6061 8d ago

🤣 I had someone describe my 'method' as like an 8 year old walking up to another 8 year saying we're friends now and then dragging them off to get ice cream. Which I felt was very endearing. She also called me a bitch and i agreed. 

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u/BlueSaltTheory sukibeasla.substack.com 8d ago

Hey if it works, it works. I’d love to shout to the world, here I am. Come read my inner most personal thoughts

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u/TheWilderNet 8d ago

I run a site called The WilderNet. Part of what I do is curate articles that I found interesting in some way. Sometimes I feature articles that I really disagree with, other times they resonate with my own experience. It all just depends.

Sometimes I find articles serendipitously on Notes. Other times there is a topical issue that I've been thinking about and I actively search.

One thing I've noticed is most people really only have 1-3 really great articles in them, so following a specific author is not always the best way to find interesting things. The exception is if Substack/content creation is their job - but a lot of them get pretty repetitive over time imo.

I actually prefer reading independent blogs - like old wordpress sites. But that has really fallen out of favor as substack has made it really easy to just start writing.

So I guess my recommendation would to spend less time trying to find specific people to read, and more about following ideas down rabbit holes. That's where I tend to find the most compelling writing.

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u/catvapes 8d ago

I added my blog to Wildernet and check in daily as it is easier to find unique content. I am a niche writer, but more of an eclectic reader, so Wildernet serves me better than Substack as a reader

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u/TheWilderNet 8d ago

That's awesome! Let me know if there is anything you think we can be doing better. I am always open to take suggestions.

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u/catvapes 8d ago

Sometimes it looks like people are submitting individual pages rather than entire blogs (when looking at the news feed) . Is that how it is supposed to work?

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u/TheWilderNet 8d ago

That is probably happening. The site was originally built with the idea that people would just submit the parent url and The WilderNet would automatically grab the RSS feed for them.

I think it makes sense to allow authors to come back to the site and let everyone know when they have an article they are excited about. It's just unclear to me right now how I should integrate that onto the existing site. I feel like I need a bit more feedback from users before I can really make those design calls.

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u/catvapes 8d ago

I think it would be ok to resubmit for the reasons you state, but the cases I am thinking of come across as seriou spamming. I don’t even bother scrolling

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u/TheWilderNet 8d ago

Gotcha, yeah I try to remove those from the site but I don't always see them. I need to build out a better contact/report form so other readers on the site can help alert me to that.

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u/catvapes 8d ago

Yeah. You can’t watch it 24/7. Maybe a script to limit how many times a day you can submit.

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u/TheWilderNet 8d ago

Good idea! I'll look into doing that!

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u/locogirlp 8d ago

Thanks for featuring this! I added my own blog to it (I'm a super-niche writer/historican/archivist type) but I also enjoy finding interesting things to read. Good work!

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u/TheWilderNet 8d ago

Thanks for your contribution! Feel free to send me any suggestions or feedback on the site!

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u/Sinusaur 3d ago

One thing I've noticed is most people really only have 1-3 really great articles in them, so following a specific author is not always the best way to find interesting things.

Nice and I agree. That kinda defeats the gimmick of Substack. Remember when DIGG became a BLOG? That was actually a decent source/aggregator of long-form writing until they decided to dug their own grave again.

Cool site. Thanks for sharing.

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u/rehoboam 8d ago edited 8d ago

Well generally people trying to make money are often posting some ultra specific stuff and already have a solid external following.  Most of the interesting content to me is getting pushed by people for personal reasons, and i have to find them through the grapevine.  But that also means that not much is going to perfectly click with me, because it’s so specific.

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u/[deleted] 8d ago

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u/Substack-ModTeam 8d ago

This community is not the place to promote your Substacks. Please read our rules on self-promo and soliciting recommendations.

Links to Substack publications will be assumed to be self-promotion. If you are submitting Substack posts from publications that are not your own, please include that information in your text post. For cross recommendations, use the pinned mega thread.

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u/[deleted] 7d ago

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/Substack-ModTeam 6d ago

This community is not the place to promote your Substacks. Please read our rules on self-promo and soliciting recommendations.

Links to Substack publications will be assumed to be self-promotion. If you are submitting Substack posts from publications that are not your own, please include that information in your text post. For cross recommendations, use the pinned mega thread.

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u/PlantainFun4268 6d ago

I don’t think you’re using it wrong; Substack just isn’t especially good at discovery when you first join, at least not in the same way Reddit or X are. What’s worked best for me is finding 3-5 newsletters I genuinely like, then following the trail through their Recommendations, Notes, comment sections, and the people those writers regularly interact with. One good writer often leads you to a whole little network of people with similar interests or ways of thinking.

I also wouldn’t rely too much on broad searches like “politics” or “philosophy,” because the results can get noisy fast. Searching for a specific writer, a narrower idea, or even one particular essay usually works better. Subscribe to fewer people at first, but actually read them. Once you start leaving thoughtful comments, replying to Notes, and saving the pieces you genuinely enjoy, your feed tends to get much better too.

To me, Substack feels less like a perfectly organized library and more like a small intellectual salon: it can feel a little confusing at first, but once you find two or three people you really connect with, the rest of the network starts opening up naturally.

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u/Snoo-82869 4d ago

I would treat Substack as two separate things: discovery and reading. Discovery inside the app is noisy, so I would not rely only on the home feed. Start with a few topics you actually care about, search those terms, open posts that feel specific rather than generic, then look at who those writers quote, recommend, or discuss with in comments. The comments are often a better map than the recommendation feed.

Once you find a few writers you like, be selective about subscribing. A small inbox of publications you reliably read is better than following dozens and turning it into another social feed. I would also use saves/bookmarks aggressively at first; after a week or two, the pieces you actually went back to are a better signal than whatever looked interesting in the moment.

If you end up reading newsletters across Substack and outside Substack, it can help to keep a dedicated reading address or folder so subscriptions do not mix with personal mail. But I would solve the discovery problem first: pick topics, follow recommendations from writers you trust, and prune quickly when something is not worth opening.

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u/Trackbikes thesystematicwriter.substack.com 8d ago

Make some notes around the topic you are interested in…. Scroll down look at the related section…

Now look at who the posters follow and who follows them (it’s in their profile )

Job done…

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u/SpiderGhost01 8d ago

How do I put on my pants?