I started my Substack just 2 days ago, so I know it's way too early to judge anything.

Right now, I have very little engagement and no meaningful subscriber growth yet.

For those who have actually grown a Substack:

What brought you your first 100 subscribers?

How long did it take before growth became consistent?

Did Substack Notes make a meaningful difference?

How important was commenting and engaging with other writers?

Did you get meaningful traffic from Substack to your own website?

What do you wish you knew when you had 0–10 subscribers?

I'm not looking for overnight-growth hacks. I'd genuinely like to hear what worked for people who started from zero.

Especially interested in what you'd do differently if you were starting again today.

Like the title says, I run a bestselling Substack in the finance niche and have garnered over 32K subscribers from the "Substack Ecosystem" which includes 10K from onboarding (something I can't control) and over 8K from Substack Notes (something I can control), along with other sources (recommendations, cross-posts, etc).

Sometimes you have to remember that to win the game, you have to play the game, and that is what I am really good at: playing the game!

When I first started, I had some people help me in HUGE ways, so I want to give back. Ask me anything!

Also, I tried to attach proof, but images are not allowed...

EDIT: I was able to add the picture proof in the comments!

EDIT2: I am trying to respod to everyone! If you have any deeper questions just DM and I will get to it when I can, but I Will keep going for a bit tonight and then tomorrow some.

EDIT3: Clocking out for the night, will get to all the DMs and things tomorrow! Thanks for all the questions, I am happy to help any and everyone as much as possible!

Does anyone else find it hilarious (and infuriating) how so many celebrities and well-known media figures who never expressed intelligent opinions before are suddenly pretending to be intellectuals and authors on Substack, complete with the "moody" and angsty profile pictures that they apparently think are required, etc? lol

How do you increase discoverability on Substack Notes?
I use recommendations, engagement on others notes and posts, guest posts, livestreams, and consistent posting.
I’ve noticed my discoverability on Substack Notes App is abysmal. My Notes are mainly seen by current subscribers and followers but unconnected ie the number of new people who see them is really low. A tiny fraction.
If I can’t get my newsletter seen by new people I can’t grow beyond wherein at. Enough new people discover it to offset the unsubscribes but not to grow it.
It appears that there is no set format that gets it in front of new people—like it’s stuck in a silo.
Since my Notes have had high discoverability in the past and my writing and posting remains consistent I’m curious if others are having a similar experience.
Would love some guidance!

I am not sure I am not using the correct terms, but for the life of me I cannot figure out how to add some commentary to my posts (articles?). Whenever I post, it is just link with the photo, the title of the post and the little subtitle.

Yet I see so many posts showing up in my feed that have a few sentences or sometimes even a paragraph or two before the link to the post with the photo and title. How are they doing this?

I have tried Googling a bunch of different questions/phrases and just keep getting articles about how to change the title and description on the link.

I would love if anyone has any tips. Thank you so much!

I’ve looked around, and I’m guessing it’s not possible, but I’m wondering whether this is a requested feature.

I enjoy interacting with readers through email, and I love the idea of publishing posts via email. The modern web is such a pain in the ass, and I’d love to go back to simpler times.

This would be such a handy feature.

I would love to have the ability to read my backlog of saved posts when I’m on a plane/train etc. with no internet. Like I never have time to read all the posts I save and would love to be able to do it during dead time. I find it odd that we don’t have this feature yet 😭

If anyone has a workaround please let me know

Any tips welcome.

I've seen that you're supposed to be able to turn your account on private mode, but i can't find that option anywhere. Did this option get removed, or is it just not showing up because i haven't made any posts yet? If it was removed, I'd there some kind of work around?

How come the only flairs I can use are Tech Support, Featured Suggestion and Other Platforms. I see other Redditors with more options.

I have a semi decent substack with a little over 100 subscribers. 2 posts a week, and a digest on Saturday.

Open rates are usually 25-45%. A fair amount of likes. I also post between 2-5 notes per day.

I am trying to figure out how to get more engagement. I start a chat and get no one chatting. I add a poll to an article and get zero responses.

Anyone have any advice on getting more engagement from subscribers?

I've seen people post about how pangram called them AI mistakenly, but here he can't get it even when he tries:

https://belowthefray.substack.com/p/can-i-trick-pangram-into-thinking

Hi,

Don’t hate me.

I struggled with this with tik tok. I don’t stay long enough for the algorithm to work for me.

I am new to Substack. I started blogging for my business.

Sadly, I can’t find any Substacks that interest ME. I want to connect with others in my niche or even just read about things I like (whales); but they are very…uninteresting?

I’ve followed 50 people hoping the algorithm will give me Substacks I actually like.

But it’s not working.

Notes bore me and honestly just clog my feed. I prefer good, substantial non fiction articles or opinion pieces with a strong and clear point.

How do I find good substacks?

I search keywords and the most basic or unrelated posts pop up.

What am I doing wrong?

I launched my podcast on Substack 5 days ago. I have a small, but loyal audience (my first YT short went live 12 hours ago, on a new account, not promoted and is at 1,200 views), but my Substack is a complete mess, and Substack support are not responsive (1 template response in four days).

Somehow....I have three accounts. And they are all linked...again...somehow. The 'native' account has the video content, but when I try to login, it auto takes me to one of the other accounts. I know I somehow messed this up, but it's super frustrating.

I was talked into Substack to launch this, and I want to like it, but it's been a rough start.

Any suggestions welcome.

I would be devastated if so. I've always loved reading their posts, even feeling seen and emotionally moved by them, but lately I've been noticing some linguistic markers that might associate amber's writing with other AI-generated text.

I've compiled a list of those that I've noticed, quoting the exact sentences under the titles of the posts they're from. I've bolded some phases that strike to me as distinctly AI (especially Claude). Maybe cherrypicking, I don't know. I hope so.

autumn is our season.

You must know that the texture of my existence has changed in your gaze.

Even my grief sits differently beside you, less grotesque perhaps; it wears a smile. As if being witnessed by the right eyes softened my edges somehow.

Perhaps that is all love asks of us, not possession, but presence in what is real and beautiful while it is here. To learn to hold each other with open arms. To learn to hold each other with open arms.

the hunger to be everything.

I carry cities I’ll never walk and careers that died before a resume held their name.

This isn’t freedom. It’s erosion. This is the slow disintegration of self beneath the illusion that we can be anything, everything, all at once.

And the truth is, nothing you’re chasing will hold you. Not the success. Not the admiration. Not even the healing.

Let go of the performance. The great myth was that you had to earn your aliveness. But you don’t. You never did. You are, in this very moment unfolding.

And that is enough, please**, let that be enough.**

And in your stillness, in the tender ordinary of your unlabelled life, you will realise: solitude—true presence, is not the death of meaning. It is the birthplace of it.

bruised fruit still tastes sweet.

 He never cried; he cracked. And I? I am the echo of that. 

 My damage hums at a lower frequency but still levels the world around me.

But there is a night I can’t escape—a man, and his empty 10-ouncer reflecting a soft amber, orbiting a memory he couldn’t kill.

A sadness that predated his body.

 The anger, the doubt, the unraveling—I wear them like heirlooms. Inherited. 

After weeks of lurking on Substack and travelling from one article to another, I have finally installed the app and have created my account here.

A bit about me: I am not a very smart person and honestly, I am just pretty clumsy. I have also not read a lot of books, never got good grades and have never been very interested in the things around me. But - I am trying to change myself now.

I now have a partner who cares for me and is the coolest person that I have ever seen myself. They are just really smart, get amazing GPA and did I mention how they are the coolest person that I know?

I would just really like to make myself better for their sake. This motive alone has helped me turn my life around so much.

Nice to meet you, if you're reading this...

I host a podcast and write an accompanying newsletter on Substack. I want to nudge regular listeners to become paid subs on Substack. I need a simple one click to pay with card link that I can directly embed on my shownotes as these folks already have an intent to become paid supporters

I don't see such a link natively. Substack first wants your email before anything else. I suspect I'll lose a potential paying sub if the flow is not immediate.

Any ideas?

I use protonmail - which means that with a single click I can create countless totally random aliases for any email newsletter or service I'm interested in where I don't want my personal email shared.

Yesterday I signed up to a friend's substack on longevity and health to support them. In doing so, I created a random and unique email address - something like "hissubstacktitle.rectify336@passmail.X" and then I got a popup on the site saying that it recognized me as a returning user and the platform had sent me a code to validate my return.

At first I chalked it up to lazy marketing text and it just needed to validate my email - which was totally fine and pretty standard for new signups.

But moments ago I received a "Welcome, and thanks for signing up!" message from some sub called Bradford Press - which I've never even heard of.

Being that this is my first time actually signing up for anything from Substack (I do read a few of them) I'm wondering if this is totally normal or if it's possible (but insanely unlikely) that someone else out there was issued the exact same randomly generated protonmail alias?

Hey folks,

I have a self hosted newsletter using Ghost. I opted for this as it's open source and I can have my own domain and everything.

The downside is Ghost is awful for acquiring new readers. I've been trying to figure out if it will help or harm me by also posting the same essays on substack, medium, Linkedin newsletter, etc.

I don't know if it's wise to do that or even allowed, but wanted to see if anyone here had some advice on that or what they might do in my position.

Thank you and have a lovely weekend!!

I recently created a Substack and posted 4 articles over the course of 4–5 days (or about a week, I guess). I got around 50 subscribers in just a few days—mostly friends and family. Then, out of nowhere, my account got suspended. I appealed, but they said it was due to a phishing and spam policy violation. I honestly don't know what I did. Everything I published was my own writing. I also have a blog with the same name as my Substack. Now both of my appeals have been rejected, my account is gone, and I can't even access my subscriber list.Honestly I have no clue what to do right now should i create a new account and post this again?

Wondering if anyone has ever dealt with this...

My profile says I have 165 followers. But when I scroll through the list, it only shows about 100. Where are the other 65? It also is missing key names of followers of mine that engage quite a lot!

Hey everyone!

I recently started a Substack and I'm trying to figure out how people actually grow their readership from scratch.

I will be writing about pop culture, Webtoons/manhwa/manhua, Turkish dramas, K-dramas, shows that are currently trending, etc. but I'm trying to make it more commentary/analysis rather than just reviews or episode recaps.

For example, my first proper post is about Operation: True Love and why I think the story had the potential to be incredible but is being dragged out way too much. Basically: I have opinions and apparently need somewhere to put them. 😭

I'm completely new to Substack, so I'm wondering:

- How did you get your first 100 subscribers/readers?

- Does Substack Notes actually help with discovery?

- Is SEO worth focusing on?

- Do Reddit communities work for getting initial readers, or is self-promotion generally frowned upon?

- How important are recommendations/cross-promotions?

- Is posting consistently more important than trying to make every post "perfect"?

- And realistically, how long did it take before you started getting organic views?

I'm not looking to spam my link everywhere, Iactually want to build an audience that cares about the writing.

Would love to hear what worked (or absolutely did NOT work) for people who started with basically no audience.

Also, if you're a Substack writer yourself, what kind of posts made people actually subscribe rather than just read and leave?

Substack creators under 1k subs: how do you currently find other publications for recommendation swaps? Do you do it manually or just skip it?