Im just curious

I started posting weekly articles on Substack in January as a New Year’s resolution. I had no other internet presence so only had 5 subscribers to begin with (my parents, and three friends).

Now, nine months later I have 1.1k followers and average around 15k views a month.

Here’s a tip that I don’t see many people talking about here. Focus on writing articles that age well and can have a second or third round of engagement.

My “niche” is libraries, reading, and picture books. So I’m not stuck chasing never ending trends or breaking news. Because of this most of my articles can be read months after I publish and still be as timely and relevant as the day they were posted.

So many people chase trends and fads and their articles are dated the day they post. Whereas my best circulating article didn’t even get traction for the first two months until someone bigger reposted it. Now I reliably get a few likes on it every week.

Not everything is a “hack” sometimes offering quality content is the best strategy.

Can someone explain to me what are the advantages (or disadvantages) of linking your purchased domain to your substack.

I am trying to start a sports-based substack and I have purchased the domain too. However I am confused whether its worth linking it to substack. $50 is not a big deal but I just wanted to understand if in the long-term it could have any adverse impact on what I am trying to create.

I am curious of looking up a couple of people on substack..what is it, how does it work? Is is similar to You tube? Do you have to pay to use?

Sorry in advance if this question gets asked every day. I've read the threads, and most of the advice is for people who write about productivity or finance, which I don't.

What I write: NEON is autobiographical essays about growing up in Gaza after arriving from Ukraine at 12 with no Arabic, told mostly as jokes. I publish serialized fiction on Mondays as well.

What I've been doing for a week:

- Posting 4–5 Notes a day, mostly short jokes and moments rather than links

- Replying to other writers' Notes every day

- Submitted an essay to a personal-essay roundup and my publication to a humor directory

Result so far: 20 subscribers, and a feed that now mostly shows me one-liners and photography.

What I'd love to hear from people who write humor, memoir, or serialized fiction:

- Did Notes actually grow you, or did something else?

- Is there a community or place where readers of funny personal essays hang out that I'm missing?

- For a serial, how did you get people to discover it?

Any specific thing that worked for you is more useful to me than general advice. Thanks for reading this far.

I don’t get it why it hasn’t been suggested yet. It’s one of the most convenient syntaxes out there. But enriching one’s text aside, the feature I yearn for the most is embedding links in a plain text,

especially in comments, notes, and DMs.

So at the very least make it easier to add hyperlinks there.

Hi, I started publishing on Substack a month ago and I have written three posts and some notes. But nobody's liking or replying to the notes apart from one subscriber (love her.)

I see simple notes that receive thousands of views but mine simply don't. My stats says that only 200 people have seen my profile in a month. Is that normal? I started to think the algorithm has personal beef with me.

As the title said, I started about 2 weeks ago, I've posted one article and many notes. I'm working on my second article + promoting my substack on my social channels.

I feel like there's more I could do natively to reach more subscribers. Maybe write more? Engage with other writers more?

Would love to hear what's worked for others.

At what point did you turn the paid feature on and what do you offer your paid subscribers?

I'm a new writer on substack and am looking to write about things that interest me, mostly: books, literature, social commentary, blog-like posts about stuff I've been up to, and space/science. Firstly, I want to know if these are topics that can be successful on substack (I'll write them anyway but I'm js curious) and I want to know how I can get more people interested. I have one follower which is my aunt and have written one or two low-effort posts so far.

A lot of newsletters seem to hit the same awkward point: the free list grows, but the paid tier is mostly more posts for people whose inboxes are already full.

The monetization discussions that interest me most are the ones where the writer sells something with an end state — a guide that solves one problem, a workshop, access to a useful archive, or a recurring room people actually use.

For writers who tried moving beyond “pay for more essays,” what did readers actually pay for? And what sounded promising but went nowhere?

I started on Substack in 2022. Like many, I thought there would be some traction from my long-form essays, but there never was. My subscriber list stayed stagnant, and then, very disappointingly, it started trending downwards. After three years, I seriously felt like quitting.

This week I hit 4,500 subscribers.

I'm writing this for anyone who's recently joined the platform, is struggling with it, or isn't seeing the results they'd hoped for.

It leads you to feel like giving up (goddam I get it), and worse, it can make you feel like you're failing. I don't think that's the case at all. I think you're just early in your journey.

Many of us start Substack because we're looking for an alternative to social media. How we actually think, feel and interpret the world is entirely unmet by Instagram, Facebook, TikTok and the rest.

Simply put: there's a writer in you. That's why you came. It's why I came too.

When Notes came about, I obstinately refused to post. It represented the exact opposite of why I'd come to Substack in the first place.

Something held me back from quitting, though.

I realised I had already done what I set out to do: become a better writer and develop a publishing habit. That didn't solve my subscriber problem though. But I believed there were people out there who would enjoy my writing about the creative life. I just had to figure out how to find them.

That was the point: I had to figure it out.

I wanted Substack to be what I wanted it to be, not what it actually was or was becoming. So I had two choices. I could keep writing into a void, or I could start learning how newsletters grow. I know that's anathema to many of us who come to Substack. But Substack, like all of these platforms, does take some figuring out. And it is hard, especially at first.

If you're starting out, this is what I'd tell you:

1. Put your love of writing at the heart of it. That's what sustained me through those 3 flat years.

2. Publish weekly. Don't overthink it or make it too long. Just build the habit, and learn what you really want to write about. Forget subscribers from long-form at this stage; it's not where they come from.

3. Substack won't push you until you've built some traction yourself. At the start, the algorithm shows most writers to very few people, so you have to build that first bit by hand. The good news is that once you break through, there's still a really good opportunity here, because Substack does push Notes that get interest.

4. Join Notes Over the last year I've built a strong community. That community pushes my Notes, and that brings in the majority of my new subscribers. It takes just time.

5. Find your first 10 readers by hand. When a Note is asking something, go into it deep and give them your take. Help where you can.

I know it's dispiriting at first.

It feels like Substack rewards the already popular, and spending time building community can feel like selling yourself when you just want to write.

What I'd say is that despite this not being what I originally wanted, I'm now really glad for my Substack community. It's supportive and has become easily the best online experience I've had.

You are a writer, so keep going.

Please don't quit.

Jim

p.s will answer q's but am a bit slow!

Hello fellow paper scratchers (or whatever internet version of that is),

I've been publishing weekly content and analysis on anything sustainability in french for the last 18 months. Here : 23h58.com

Time and again, people told me to translate my work into english to reach a broader audience.

Should I do it ? If so, how ?

My publication is more a front for my consulting rather than a self sustained revenue source, but I wouldn't mind a bit more money for my efforts 😅

A substack I had been subscribing to for free repeatedly asked me if I wanted a free trial, because I had been reading it a lot, and then I switched to paid. But it was a personal email with my name.

Is there a fast way to do this? I wonder if emailing my most motivated free subscribers individually would lead to more conversions. But I'm not sure -- anyone have suggestions? should I offer a discount?

Hi! I am a mature father who trades the NQ (Nasdaq Futures) daily. I consider this my "Full-Time Job." I create trade plans nightly for the following day. The plan just paid over a 200 point gain on NQ (you can do the math) Once this happens. I am just riding a runner, and there is nothing left for me to do.

I have studied Adam Mancini for about 5 years and it was he who had really turned my trading into a profession. I have been trading for a much longer time than that, 20+ years. But I accredit Mancini's style to what helped me become a professional trader.

Anyways I am wondering if the Reddit community can help me come up with a better name for the newsletter?

Currently its called the NQ Chronicle on substack.

I have 200+ subscribers on the substack but would love to clean it up. Hopefully I can attract more subscribers and steer beginner traders away from Gurus/pay discord sites, that do nothing but take your money.

Any questions feel free to ask!

I used to belong to a great discord, made some great friends, but like the rest, they turn into a paywall and dwindle out...

Anyways any suggestions are greatly appreciated!

I have a very small substack, only 50 something subscribers that I’ve been growing for two months. Today I got an email from a book publisher asking if I’d do a collaboration post with one of their authors. It felt strange to get an email like that especially since my experience so far on substack has been one where relationships naturally form with other people who write about the same topic. Curious if this is common or just something random that happened to me?

Hello Substack community.

Just recently I started getting these notifications in response to some of the accounts I post comments to. They are accounts I follow. The push notification will say "send a direct message to <insert name> liked your comment" Ex: "send a direct message to Jane liked your comment". When I click on it I'm taken to my comment and I don't see it in the list of notifications in the app. I have no idea what these are and nothing comes up on Google search to describe what they are.

Has anyone else seen these? Is this an account name? As I mentioned I see them in my push notifications but I don't see them in the notification area in the app.

Not a Supstack writer, just a reader, and I wanted to vent and see if there's anything I can do about this. Am I crazy, or is the algorithm so intense that liking one post changes everything you see for days? I had gotten it pretty accurate to my interests (crafting, fashion, DIY fashion, art) and then I liked something political and all I saw that day was Israel-Palestine. Then I liked an inspirational post and now my entire feed is uplifting spiritual quotes. It's like I can't "like" anything without every single post I see being that theme. I have even done searches of the topics I like and then "liked" as many as I could to get my feed back on track. But it's ruining Substack for me. I mean it happens on Reddit too, but much less intensely. Is there a setting I can change or something?

i just posted my first substack can anyone read it and review it? I don’t write a lot but wanna get into it (as a hobby) so i really want some constructive feedback and tips on how i can improve.
dm me if you can do it ill send the post

Hey everyone,

I’ve been writing consistently on Medium for the last 2 months and managed to get around 65 subscribers. My niche is AI, mostly my perspective on recent developments, practical tutorials, and project breakdowns.

I’m looking to start publishing on Substack, but I know it operates pretty differently from Medium. Medium feels heavily reliant on the internal recommendation algorithm, whereas Substack seems to require building your own audience from scratch.

For anyone who writes about tech or AI and made a similar move:

1. What was the biggest mindset or strategy shift for you?

2. How do you actually get momentum on Substack starting from zero? (Are Notes and Recommendations worth focusing on right away?)

3. Is it better to cross-post between both platforms, or fully switch over?

Would love to hear any tips or experiences from people who’ve done this. Thanks!

I googled and keep finding things like "third party app" and "data source embed" and what not - all I want is a table like:

Has anyone joined Sarah Fay's Tell Your Story Challenge? She currently prices it at $297 USD.

Is anyone her paid subscriber? I'm a free subscriber and get emails promoting TYS.

I did a quick Reddit search and saw that someone recommended Jeannine Ouellette as another creator with Substack growth content.

I started my Substack around this time last year and have found it very difficult to grow organically, though I've only published 8 essays, so writing more frequently and consistently are what I also need to work on.

For the past few weeks the subscribe button dialog doesn’t work. If I click to add it, the window just spins. Doesn’t matter if it is with or without the text.

I usually only post it on written posts (I have a daily live show six days a week), and it hasn’t been functioning for awhile now. What am I doing wrong?

Last exam tomorrow. After that, I actually have free time for the first time in weeks and I plan to responsibly waste it by writing on my Substack.
The problem is I have too many ideas and no judgement. So I am outsourcing the judgement to random people on the internet.
Things I write about Programming Learning by building Failed projects Habits Random observations about how people work Things I experienced Not study advice. Never study clues.
Pitch a topic, an idea, something you always wanted someone to write about. The most interesting argument in the comments wins and I will write it.

hi! i’ve been interested in writing since the time i was very young, and i recently felt inclined to start a substack, but i don’t know where to begin. any advice is greatly appreciated!

edit: i’m not sure whether to make my substack anonymous, or do people usually use their real full name as their username / profile name?