How To Have Success On Substack
I’ve had an unusual amount of success on this blog over the past 9 months. And I’m looking forward to continuing this in-depth project over the coming years.
I was thinking this morning about why things have been successful. There are a lot of people on Substack and on forums associated with Substack who ask for advice on how they can attract an audience that actually cares about their work.
I’ve spent some time reading what the self-appointed gurus say and have actually tried their methods on occasion. I’ve learned, however, that there are better ways to find success than spamming your posts all over the internet, or than by posting the right note 5 times a day or whatever.
Here are a few things that have worked well on this blog:
Offering a mix of free and paid content. Ideally, you want your free content to demonstrate what your paid content is like. People aren’t going to follow you if everything you write is hidden behind a paywall. You need to show people what you have to offer for them to be interested.
Offering something that is clearly of value. AI slop is everywhere. Don’t use AI to create your posts; your readers will spot it immediately (and, yes, I know that the biggest gurus use AI). Being authentic is helpful, obviously, but you need to add something that is clearly of value to your audience.
Focus on creating a community. Your readers are not customers. Readers want a back and forth and a real connection with the author. Newsletters and publications that exist simply to sell products wind up being ignored. Create a real community. It’s social media, after all - not another kind of television commercial.
Do external outreach. Substack’s algorithm is okay, but it’s not the best in the world. Make sure that you’re active and actually participating in communities tied to your niche. I’ve also found that YouTube is incredibly helpful, largely because YouTube videos wind up getting priority in Google’s algorithm.
Be patient. Success does not come immediately. In fact, you’ll notice that people on this platform who claim to have instant success are generally writing about topics heavily connected to scams and fraud. There is an audience out there, but you need to be patient, and you need to situate yourself in a way that they can actually find you.
Things aren’t perfect here, of course. This project is still small, although its growth really has started to pick up over the past few weeks. I’m still trying to find the time to make this blog more friendly to newcomers and beginners. But I’m extremely optimistic for the future of this project. And the coolest part is that we’ve only barely begun to scratch the surface of this book.
Anyway, let me know what you think! And thank you once again for your support, whether you’re a paying subscriber or a free subscriber. You make this project fun and exciting!
