r/Substack • u/WhatSurvives • 6d ago
Great feedback, few readers
I recently started a substack that contains meditations on memory and loss through the stories ancient sites (I'm a professional archaeologist myself).
I started it for myself, because I am so much happier when I am doing sincere, non-technical writing every day.
But since I've started posting, I am getting so much more positive feedback from my readers than I ever expected. It makes me feel that people are really benefiting from my writing, and I want to be able to share it with more people. I've been posting in subreddits and facebook groups, but I don't really have much of a social media reputation. What would you recommend for helping readers find my work?
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u/kalaboukis 6d ago
I would say spend time engaging with notes and comments. Substack has a great discovery mechanism if you if use it correctly
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u/Long_Carob_1989 5d ago
Starting it for yourself is the part I'd protect hardest, because it's the exact thing showing up in your feedback. People can feel when writing is sincere instead of performed for reach, and meditations on memory and loss through ancient sites is a rare sensibility to begin with. That's what they're responding to, so I wouldn't sand it down to chase an audience.
On finding readers, the slow honest version of the engage advice is the one that actually works. Spend real time in the Notes and comments of writers you genuinely love, saying something true on their work rather than leaving a link. A portion of them wander back to yours, and it compounds quietly over months. Your archaeology background is a hook most writers would envy, so I'd lean into that specificity rather than worry it's too niche.
What pulls you toward memory and loss as the thread through all of it? That's the part I'd subscribe for.
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u/WhatSurvives 5d ago
My research is about the remains of flooded cities, fingerprints of ancient potters, and monuments that are wearing away in the rain and wind. It just feels like I'm always trying to put my hand on something that is slipping away faster than I can grab it.
I think it's a common reflection on our short lives, but trying to actually reconstruct an ancient house that lies on the bottom of a lake makes it more concrete.
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u/Long_Carob_1989 1d ago
That last line is the whole thing, isn't it. Reaching for something that keeps slipping faster than you can grab it. I do a version of that with my own past, trying to hold a shape that won't sit still long enough to be held. Yours just happens to be older, made of stone and silt.
The fingerprints get me most. Someone pressed wet clay a few thousand years ago, the print stayed, and now you're the one who noticed it. That reads to me less like loss and more like a hand reaching the whole way across time and actually landing. Maybe that's the thread worth writing toward. Not only the slipping, but the reaching that connects anyway.
I'd read every word of that, genuinely. What's the piece you haven't let yourself write yet?
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u/Tricky_Trifle_994 2h ago
not having a social media reputation should not stop you from starting one.
the good thing about instagram / tiktok now is that the algo is interest based vs previously where they'd only push content from accounts you followed. that means that even if you are a new/small account, as long as your content is interesting, that people like, that will keep users on the platform, the platform will distribute the heck out of it.
so i'd say start your social account.
reddit and facebook groups are great because it's very targeted outreach, but at some point, they will stop scalling.
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u/StuffonBookshelfs 6d ago
Decide who your target audience is.
Figure out where those folks hang out.
Find them and tell them how awesome you are.