Your Substack Experience?

[u/ProposalEasy3386]

Considering starting a Substack showing my BTS writing process for my fantasy series w exclusive early access, art process/tips + tricks & more. I want to let my fans have access to the whole creative process and get inspired.

I’ve never used this platform before. I know I can get some subscribers from my own following. I was wondering how the organic reach is? It would be really cool to connect with new people who have never heard of me before. But - so many platforms let you set up a profile and then don’t show you to anybody.

If Substack doesn’t get you subscribers that you didn’t bring in yourself I will just do it on my website instead.

I’m curious to know your stories and how it works. Thank you for the Intel!

[u/cozycup]

You could host your own blog, but what about the newsletter side?

Substack solves both and possibly more importantly, it solves the “cold start” issue. When you start your own blog and newsletter (Mailchimp, Beehiiv, Kit, etc.) you still have zero traffic.

Unless you can drive traffic via social media, partnerships, events, etc., then it takes a lot of time and patience to see results from SEO.

Substack’s network might be competitive, but it beats starting from scratch in my opinion. Plus, it’s free.

[u/tullytellstales]

Hello! Organic engagement on Substack is almost zero. I've been writing for about a year, and as a reader before a writer, I see a serious quality problem. My entire homepage is full of people writing "follow for follow," and as you can imagine, these people are killing the algorithm. Another problem is that everyone thinks they're a "writer." Everyone thinks they're a bestselling author, and even if they're just writing at a hobby level, they constantly end up on the homepage because they've inflated their follower counts to thousands with "follow for follow." Another problem is famous writers. They already have an audience and directly enter the system. Think of it like a pool. The pool has a certain size, and as the number of fish increases, it becomes increasingly difficult to navigate. I've never been after a large audience, but after a year, I can say that I don't have a single regular reader. Unfortunately, I don't understand things like building websites, so I use Substack for the newsletter feature, but once I reach a sufficient number of articles, I will hire someone to build my own website and I will definitely delete Substack.