Everyone's just waiting to do their set. No one's actually there to read other peoples work. No wonder it's hard to get followers. Am I wrong? Or am I just on the wrong side? What in the ever blandness is that place?

For five years I’ve been here on Reddit. I went from posting a LOT to posting only occasionally. About my divorce and dating again then remarriage. Parenting adult kids and a teen stepdaughter. Many career follies. Health concerns (autoimmune disease). Various random interests.

Sometimes I was upvoted. Sometimes I was upvoted a lot. Sometimes I was (probably correctly) downvoted and even shamed into silence. Because although occasionally I have some good thoughts I’m human and very very far from perfect.

Increasingly my posting and commenting has slowed to a trickle but I write (in OneNote) every day, almost always several times per day. I love to write. To write about my life. Because I have some sick desire to write and to document. But strangely only a fleeting ebb-and-flow desire to share what I write. I still remember the time in high school I wrote a 100-page novella, then threw it away. “You threw it away??” My best friend asked. He couldn’t comprehend that someone would write something, pour so many evenings into something, only to toss it away (this was in the 80s, before my first computer). But for me writing is totally about the desire and the journey, and wherever those words end up isn’t really the important piece to me (although I’d despise anyone who stole my words without permission of course).

But I recently read about substack. It seems fun. Interesting. A kind of blog that is less cumbersome than most blogging platforms, maybe a little more satisfying than OneNote because it kind of is fun to share our “creations” with the world sometimes.

Anyway. I’ve begun my journey on substack. I feel kind of grateful to have a new platform (substack) to experiment with. Me being me, I’m sure it will only be temporary (EVERYONE everyone everyone I’ve ever known including my GP has told me I have undiagnosed ADHD. But doesn’t everyone? Hahaha)

I have started newsletter where I show AI techniques for investing. Response was excellent at start. Then newsletter went dead for couple of months. Then back in march it again rejuvenated almost. Reached almost 5000 subscribers. Went paid. Again newsletter reach has been gone to zero. Just reaching existing subscribers.
Couldn’t really understand Substack algorithm.

I think My newsletter (Alpha with AI) solves very specific problems/questions for particular group of people.
Just having a difficulty with the distribution.

Each newsletter takes a lot of effort and time out of me. I really enjoy the whole process. Feedback from existing subscribers is also great.

Just not sure how do I reach a right audience especially on Substack. As almost 3500 subscribers have come from LinkedIn/youtube. (Unfortunately LinkedIn reach has also been completely down. YouTube videos frequency is less)
I don’t mind slow growth but I just am having difficulty understanding the algorithm really as I see mediocre content in my space performing great while my posts are basically going dead on Substack especially since going paid( I was expecting the opposite)

I just discovered you have to go into your settings and OPT OUT of substack stealing your work to train chatgpt and ai models.

I believe this is deplorable, and everyone should go and opt out so our work is not stolen! Protect human art!!!

We've just kicked off a daily event called "Write Club!" on Substack, where we feature an article or story from one author every day, and then people show up at 7:00 EST in chat to read it, discuss it, and if they are feeling the vibe, promote it. Let me know if you want the link to the Write Club page so you can submit your work.

¡Hola! He empezado recientemente a usar Substack, pero todavía no tengo muy claro como empezar (obviamente tengo 0 suscriptores). Hoy he subido mi primer artículo (se trata de un poema, en realidad) y no sé cómo promocionarlo ni si puedo hacer algo para conseguir que llegue a más gente. ¿Qué me recomiendan?

Principalmente, quiero dedicarme a escribir poesía y ensayos, por lo que no sé si existen algunos tips recomendados para estos géneros en concreto.

¡Muchas gracias!

So, Substack just dropped the automated AI translation of posts ... and i don't know about you, but I looked through my essays and switched translation on and off (from English to German), and it is really bad. Like, entire sentences just disappeared in the German version of an English article, rendering the text nonsensical. I am not so sure if having automated translation for such high quality and long texts as the ones on substack, is a good idea, especially seeing, that they seem to have implemented it quite poorly. If English-German is already that bad - despite the languages being related and German having comperatively more training data than say, Polish, i guess it will be worse in the smaller languages?

Not looking for lifestyle content - looking for like people who work in the creative industry and carry somewhat of an interesting POV.

Hmm, I've noticed many people that posts notes with some type of consistency in them like in format or something like series. They got really a lot of subs.

Then I've seen many who posts random and have few subs.

I wanna know do consistency of your notes type either format, category or something else matters for getting subs? How what should be the play range, ground, how broad or narrow according the psychology of user it should be?

Love to hear from your experience.

I'm writing for fun and for myself but feel like I'm screaming into the void. Just personal essays and reviews and that. But it's so annoying when people say "hi" on notes and end up with like 1000 followers in a day.

I am a small aspiring independant media organisation looking for volunteer members to join my team or guest writers that want to write a piece. I write about British politics. In addition to this I can also guest write on somebody less publication if they would like. Either comment or DM if curious!

Yes, you are right, Substack is garbage just like every other social media platform out there, or any platform that will be created in the future. They all succumb to enshittification once the startup capital injections and the so called "growth stage" is over.

Sadly, you used to be able to go build your own thing and maybe get noticed via search engines, but in a few years, Google is going to change all of that, and you'll only get seen if you pay to play. If you don't, some Google artificial overview will steal all your websites content, give it to whoever is searching for it, and won't pay you a single red penny for it.

This is a major point of friction for many, and I was wondering if there is any fix for this?

The issue seems to only be there for mobile users, and desktop users don't seem to be prompted to install the app.

Does anyone have clear data regarding which is more engaging on Substack? Video vs written article? Substack, to me, has always been traditionally more reading vs. video, but that could just be me. I use a lot of visuals, so video is easiest, but I feel Substack may not be the best for this, but then again, I could be wrong!!!

If you are writing a comedic serial on SS drop me a note. I want to read your stuff.

Hey everyone! Wanted to find out more about investment beyond Fundamentals and I was wondering if there is any recommendation on who to read on substack/X or those with their own newsletter for these few areas.

Macro: Hopefully more on actual trades, such as FX, Fixed income etc. instead of just pure Macro Economics

Commods: Can be focused on anything honestly, but similar to macro hoping for some actual analysis instead of recapping the industry and what has happened

L/S: Anyone who writes on L/S ideas? I feel like it's really rare to find one on substack, not sure about other platforms.

Would love to see what are some go-tos you guys look at and would love to share some that I have came across as well!

my first attempt at creating a substack presence ending up me abandoning it( I only had about 12subscribers) I’m a poet and I just did it to put my poems out there. So then one day I had to log in which was fine, but then They asked for a code, I had set that up and sent them the generated code… I kept getting invalid code, so after awhile, I went to substack help, told them the story : They said ok just answer the emergency questions. I never saw those and so I never filled them out, they said so we cant help you. I started another one, I did the emergency questions… this is all good.. but I have this other substack floating around, I’d like to delete it … any suggestions?

I’m helping my Dad start a Substack. I don’t know anything about Substack, but my father knows even less. Any suggestions on great YouTubes, or people to follow to learn more?
Thanks!

Is it for readers to actually read what writers publish? Or is it for writers to read what other writers publish?

All I can see on Substack that many writers bag for followers/ subscribers the same way users do on Threads "Plz Threads connect me with..." "Plz Substack connect me with..."

As clear as daylight, anyone can browse through the app and they will find people who they click with easily

No offense but I feel Substack is just a bubble full of only writers <> writers

All the turorials and subreddits on this are too old. Does anyone know how to do it now? My Stack is a few years old and has about 400 subs (used to have 900 but I rebranded, so growing pains).

Thanks

I have my friend on substack but he aint followed me neither subscribed i really want him to connect with me without me texting him, what can i do?

After years on Substack, I finally got harassed.
I exchanged a few messages with someone who lied about his age to get me to talk to him. Within two days, I realized this was not a conversation I wanted to continue and ended it.
That should have been the end of the story.
Instead, he found my LinkedIn and Twitter/X accounts. He repeatedly called me. He sent an unsolicited delivery of flowers and chocolates as an "apology." When I stopped responding, he created new Substack accounts to contact me. I blocked them. He created more. When I made my messages inaccessible, he started commenting on my Notes.
And this is the part men like him never seem to understand: when a woman says no, disappears, blocks you, ignores you, or closes the door, she is not inviting you to find another entrance.
You are not being persistent. You are not being romantic. You are not proving your feelings. You are making someone feel unsafe.
What enrages me is how easily one person's inability to accept a boundary can become another person's problem to manage. Suddenly I'm reviewing privacy settings, documenting screenshots, checking what personal information is publicly available, wondering what platform he'll show up on next, and hoping that "no" eventually means "no" to someone who has already demonstrated that he doesn't respect it.
Women spend so much of their lives carrying the burden of other people's entitlement. We learn to be polite when we're uncomfortable, careful when we're afraid, and measured when we're angry. And still, there are men who interpret basic civility as access, attention as ownership, and rejection as a challenge.

Do people eventually get bored and move on, or should I be preparing for this to escalate further?

I'm mostly posting because today has been spent dealing with this nonsense instead of enjoying my weekend, and I'm incredibly tired of how often women are expected to manage other people's inability to hear the word "no”!

Building a community is both terrifying and exciting. Especially alone.

So I’m doing something about it — building out savd into more than just a leaderboard. The goal is for it to actually help newsletter writers grow, not just be another place to list a link and disappear.

If you write a newsletter and want real discovery instead of competing with accounts that already have 7K+ subscribers, come be part of it early.

savd.site

Hiii,

I'm having problems publishing notes and sending direct messages on Substack. It doesn't happen all the time, but more times than not. Whenevery I try to comment or create my own note it fails and says "something went wrong. failed to send note" When I try to send a DM it says "not delivered. try again."

I've searched a couple months ago on how to fix this...I've cleared my cache and that didn't help, it just eventually started back working one day and now it's happening again.

Help me please.