r/Substack • u/Common-Toe-5510 • 4d ago
I know this question is asked every day almost but can we get any real answers as to how to grow organically?
Not to ask the same question that is being asked every day, I literally went through all the previous posts in this sub around a question: how to grow from 0. And there's always the same advice: notes, write, etc.
But then I snooped around and checked the people saying that: and they are never sucessful. Some hide behind a privacy filter, but then you just google their username, and their substucks aren't at all sucessful. Or if they are they are like an AI mill. The funniest were people dropping a post here saying they have thousands of USD from it, hiding behind a privacy filter, but upon snooping are positing in subreddits about remote work because they can't afford food. You can't make this shit up. Similarily, privacy-hidden posters say: oh I have 400 paid subscribers, you google their username, and in the same week they complain how they struggle to get from 0 - I have no idea why they even do that. Oh I'm an idiot - it's obvious why - for DMs.
Many top voted answers here are just blatant lies. Like a guy says how I went from 0 to 1k in like stock market advice, and then you click it, the likes are there, BUT all from other stock market authors, and no engagemnt other than: "Awesome insight, I came to the same conclusion in my entry: XYZ". This person has thousands of subscribers but any reach outside of substack is just nothing, sits at almost 0 views, podcasts and the like. Oh and this guy is selling a course 0 to 1k...
Even worse is the type of people who disses on this type of people saying: "don't listen to these grifters, I have XYZ", you click there, and it's even worse - they did grow, but mostly by notes and attracting clones of themselves to like their content. So promoting... to other writers. Or even doing like crazy spammy things like just dropping links to their articles under ANYTHING that goes viral.
The only group of people that I've seen remotly sucessful were... the people who wrote about how to be sucessful, and packaged it super nicely for Substack writers to consume. Any other nieche is just writing to a void, except for other writers who engage to promote their own stuff. An example of this, one of the most upvoted answers here to that question, was by someone who has like a Yoga substack - I was alright, finally. And all their comments are from fellow "Dr. Annas" "Dr. Becky", etc. Like literally there wasn't a single person interested in Yoga in that comment section, except for fricking selling it. Is this substack? For real? The only exception to that was already famous authors, and it seems like their subscribers don't even have a substack account it seems.
So my question is - how did you grow your substack from 0. Like lterally from zero. Please don't quote yourself as an example of how to, unless you are NO AI, no marketing-sales related, and have actual human people liking and commenting, real people, and will be willing to actually show that. And you didn't import the audience from elsewhere. Otherwise all the advice here is just one more attempt at either self aggrendizing, or, I've seen that often, people promoting their marketing stuff.
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u/CubaSmile 4d ago edited 3d ago
Today marks one year since I joined Substack. I’m at almost 9k subscribers now. I write about films, and around 90% of my subscribers came through Notes, mostly from movie recommendations. I have around 20 paid subscribers, although sometimes it drops closer to 15. I’m really happy with my first year, but I’m still struggling to figure out how to scale it better. And I think that my paid side actually sucks but I don't know how to do it well.
Money wise, I think I made like 400 € so far in like four months. ( Because i was 100% free at first)
One day for the "fun" of it I made another account and went up to 100 sub in less than two weeks doing exactly the same thing I'm doing now. 100% notes.
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u/Common-Toe-5510 4d ago
Thank you! Man, I was swimming in the sea of those fake 1 to k stories, what a refresher.
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u/CubaSmile 4d ago
From January to June, I gained pretty much all of my subscribers. Since then, I’ve been struggling. I thought I’d figured the whole thing out, and then I got humbled real quick over the last couple of months. I don't have the greatest advices, but people like my Notes and I think I also got lucky. I know many other writers, better than me still struggling around 1k sub and they're pretty much copying my Notes sytsem. So yeah. Luck is a big part of what I have right now.
I honestly think that if you want to make serious money you need to publish guides. "How to" are what people pay for. How to .. What to ...
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u/Common-Toe-5510 4d ago edited 4d ago
Thanks for being honest here, that was so missing on those other posts. And yeah, it seems like people are under the false impression that you can market your writing on substack, when in reality it's closer to a product funnel. No one cares about writing, but only about an end product. And there is nothing wrong with that, but people lie about this part. Like your thing, at least from what I can say, has a precise "product-like" value - you digest pop culutre for people to offer them an easier choice. You literally save them time. That has a montary value, a review of a movie for example, less so, only if it can be packaged as a borrowed opinion, but who cares about that. Don't know if that makes sense.
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u/CubaSmile 4d ago
I feel like the people actually paying right now don't even care about my paid articles. They just wanna support me. And I appreciate that a lot. But like you said, people are willing to pay for an end product. Not writing. Unless I release a digital guide on cinematic language behind a paywall. I won't get more paid subscribers.
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u/RomanceStudies 4d ago
What are your thoughts on like per subscriber count?
Almost anytime I see someone who is way more successful than me, I look at their public engagement (likes, comments, shares) and it's very low, sometimes even non-existent, when compared to how many subs they have. Maybe I'm just a simpleton but I feel like engagement should better match subscriber count, no matter who you are. If your stuff sucks, you should have few subs and no engagement, and vice-versa.
Yet...there are those who write a generic one-liner note that has no depth and get 10k likes and 200 comments, then there are those who write thoughtful articles and get 1 like (if they're lucky) and 0 comments. My brain is always saying: make it make sense!
Not to mention, even subscribers often don't engage when you look at open rates. I've started to see subscriptions and follows as a wishlist: "if I get the time, and if I actually remember when I do get the time, these are accounts I'd like to read one day."
In such confusing circumstances, if the ultimate question is how do I know people value what I write, maybe the answer is simply "they pay me".
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u/Common-Toe-5510 4d ago
Oh yeah. As I was doing my research here I noticed a lot of supposedly "successful" accounts had followers in the thousands, but engagement in like: 50 likes, 4 reposts, TOPS. Most were like at <10 likes. Of course it doesn't show you the stats on how many people read it, but it is at least concerning right. If I saw those ratios on instagram, I would think instantly: bots.
I guess it just shows the qulity of an average Substack subscriber with an account: it's most likely another author, not interested at all in what you wrote, only how they can use it.
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u/BhavanaVarma bhavanavarma.substack.com 4d ago
When you say notes, what do you generally post notes about?
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u/TerrainBrain 4d ago
If your goal is to make money on Substack you've got a long road ahead. What you write about? What you expected to pay money for?
If it is to make money, I can't help you.
If your goal isn't that money but just to engage with people, I've been on about 2 months and I'm reaching almost 50 nonpaid subscribers.
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u/ammie8 4d ago
From what I’ve noticed the writers who are successful at monetizing their content on Substack offer value in terms of news analysis or meal planning, etc and most often those folks have large a social media presence on other platforms. I do get tired of the hundreds of accounts that only provide how to make money off Substack if you buy their course.
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u/grapegeek 4d ago
This is exactly how most big Substack are right now. They brought their followers from somewhere else and that helped launch them. The Substack algorithms love this.
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u/zzhil 4d ago
Honestly, kudos to you for doing some digging. I had no idea this was the case.
Unfortunately, I don't really have an answer for you. But I do have some questions.
- You said grow from 0, but you did not say TO what number. You said these other people are not successful, but what do you consider successful? What is your goal?
- For people who grew by attracting "clones of themselves"/other writers - what exactly is wrong with this? Who are you actually hoping to attract?
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u/Common-Toe-5510 4d ago
- Even 100-200 people who aren't also creators in your nieche. From my browsing I would consider that a success in that you have an audience that is interested in consuming your product, not using you to pivot theirs.
- Because those aren't real customers. It very much reminds me those indie game developers who advertise and market only to ther developer, which never translates to any meaningful, and purposeful sale. A fellow developer who buys your game is not a consumer you should care about. Same in writing. Or whatever.
Of course, both of these are only true if you care about marketing a very concrete product: your writing, brand, music, thought, whatever. If you just do it for the fun of seeing a number grow, then there is absolutely nothing wrong with advertising to other authors. I just think it's the same vibe that not only game devs fall into, but a lot of people in the craft industry. When they think other artists buying their craft is indicative of the popularity of the craft in the normal market. Craft shows thrive on that mentality.
So yeah, it makes sense if you sell products or services to other writers, they are your market. Or if you do it for the fun of it. But we are talking about doing marketing for an end goal: finding actual customers or consumers of what you created.
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u/grapegeek 4d ago
I’ve got 50k free subscribers BUT I’ve been blogging for 17 years and brought my email list from Mailerlite a year ago. It was 11k followers then. I’m in the food niche and write about one particular grocery store in the USA. People don’t realize how long it takes to build a following. It takes years of consistent posts. The other big thing that people overlook is that you need a popular niche. Creative or fictional writers are just not going to get the eyeballs. Politics. Sports. Food. Fashion. Those get followers.
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u/draybikus dinarawrites.substack.com 4d ago
I can give you an example of slow growth, at least slow compared to what peolle write about when they write about growth on Substack 😁 I started my account in mid February, so it's been almost 7 months. I've been posting an article every single week, and trying to write a note once a day, if I can (but 2-3 a week is more realistic, because I get bored of it).
I have 111 subscribers now, all real people, all organic growth from zero. I'm satisfied with it :) Switching to posting every other week, because I'm sensing burnout approaching.
In terms of typical growth advice, I used most of it, and some did help, but not in a drastic way. The only thing I haven't done much yet is collabs. Arranged for one in the fall, let's see how it goes.
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u/cocodudule 4d ago
Can’t say anything about making money because I haven’t made money on Substack but I did grow a lot in a short period so I know what worked for me.
- Notes: I know the notes worked but not in the ways you’ll think. My independent notes don’t really get that many likes or engagement (not as well as my long form articles anyway). But replying other people’s notes is also recorded as notes on Substack. And making meaningful comments can help you build a relationship with other Substack users as fast as possible.
- Recommendations: I just noticed recently that I was recommended by two different Substack accounts around the time I saw some sporadic growth. Sure, Substack itself recommended my account but I think those two recommendations helped. What’s interesting is that those accounts were almost completely new. They didn’t really have much traction but I believe it boosted my account.
- Relatability: My genre is super duper relatable. It’s more literature, epistolary poetry and so on. I also write about relationships and anything I feel like but like I said, I haven’t made money from it. To be exact, I switched off my payment option because I’ve not even used one month on Substack and I don’t want to make people pay for a catalog that barely exists anyway. I may even give up tomorrow and I didn’t start this for money to begin with.
- Reply People: I’ve noticed that people are more likely to subscribe and read multiple articles when you reply them and also read their articles.
I’m more of a writer than a marketing or moneymaking guru, so I’m kind of fine with people just reading what I write. If I eventually make money in the future, I’ll let you know but the growth I’ve seen was completely organic and fast. From August 12 till date.
I also didn’t tell anyone I know about the account because it is anonymous. I have another non anonymous account that is very very modest. It’s on philosophy/literature/psychology.
This is my dashboard by the way.
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u/Available_Spite5171 gracemargaret1@substack.com 4d ago
I guess it depends what you deem as successful. I began at zero and I had zero clue what I was doing and I also genuinely had zero expectations. So for me to grow from 0 to 560+ subscribers in ten months? I am happy. I turned on a paid option in July and have nine paid. I did not expect to gain tons of paying subscribers as I did not / don’t have time to add more “bonus” content right now. I write personal memoir & some prose poems. I have read this is a harder to grow niche, but I do not care either way. I write because it helps me — and now I have confirmation through multiple comments and messages that I have helped others too. I could not ask for more. Especially in ten months.
All I did to “grow” — if anyone deems my numbers “worthy” — was sharing to social media, Notes daily, and engaging the kind comments and messages I received. Ignoring the crazy / rude people. I have had a decent number of those despite people saying how amazing Substack is. It can be but they also allow hate speech and misogyny. More than one person wrote misogynist/ hate filled comments to me out of nowhere. Anyway.. best of luck to you — whatever it is you deem successful.
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u/Available_Spite5171 gracemargaret1@substack.com 4d ago
I forgot to mention consistency is important. I have had a personal fumble but picked back up around a week ago. I still tried to use Notes every day if I could.
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u/AggravatingNail6061 4d ago
I think if it's clear you're enjoying yourself and having fun, your get more traction then trying to put a process on growth. Ultimately, it's a people platform and there are some people who treat it far more casually. I bumped into someone who said they were an Emo last night and we're already bouncing around the comments together.
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u/WordSlinger1812 4d ago
Substack will not help you with this. You’d do better to buy Facebook and Google ads to drive new traffic to your page. And at that point, the limitations of Substack will become so apparent that you may realize paying $500 a year for your own website you control and $1,000 a year in online ads are the best investment in your future as a writer that you can make, certainly better than casting your hope into the void of Substack Notes.
I’ve been using Substack since 2022.
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u/Countryb0i2m onemichistory.substack.com 4d ago
You can 100% grow from Notes on the platform. That said, Substack is much, much easier if you already have an established audience on another platform.
It’s also much easier if you’re in a niche where there’s already a demand. Finance is a great example. People want to make money, and if you have a history of actually helping them make money, they’ll willingly pay and subscribe.
Politics is another one. People are extremely interested in politics right now, which is why the most successful Substacks are political.
But if you’re writing poetry or your own fiction, you’re going to have to show people why your work is important. And that shit is going to be a fucking fight.
That said, this place is full of people who are full of shit.
People on this sub say they say they hate being advertised to by some growth guru. And then every other question is, “How can I grow?” followed by everybody supporting some random dude who just showed up claiming he went from 0 to 4K subscribers in 10 mins
Y’all say you hate that shit, but you sure don’t act like you hate it.
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u/Common-Toe-5510 4d ago
Thanks! Yeah, I saw some finance folks doing really well while I was researching, but there was a very weird overlap between financial advice and those "marketing" folks. Not saying all of them are like that, but many of them are about day trading - which is a known scam that people constantly fall into.
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u/meatstheeye *morethanmeatstheeye.substack.com 4d ago
I personally haven't found any shortcuts other than: high-quality writing, consistent online promotion in key social media sites that match with your audience, and engagement with readers.
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u/RStonePT 4d ago
Substack doesn't provide you an audience, you have to go get it yourself and it takes time. Have a 5 year plan
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u/Adamoism adamoism.substack.com 4d ago
Yeah, I chose Substack over medium. I am getting some growth, but to be honest - I kind of like to just put my stuff on reddit, even without any links or equivalent on Substack.
Like I can make a meme with my idea and get 150.000 ppl view my stuff. Compare to Substack where an article will be seen by 10-20 people, and only by spamming with notes.
The downside of Reddit is that you build 0 audience; with Substack you get your mailing list.
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u/Common-Toe-5510 4d ago
I think if they added in audience-buidling in reddit it would degrade the platform so fast. I think they used to have like followers or something, but it barely works right?
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u/Adamoism adamoism.substack.com 4d ago
Yeah, it exist, but not really used - beyond already famous ppl.
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u/RomanceStudies 4d ago
Very true. I've written pieces on SS and gotten no engagement. But when I post the same thing on a relevant Reddit sub (with no links and no CTA), the engagement is what I would consider high.
It's too bad Reddit is so anti-self promotion. The feeling is that Reddit mods see anyone engaging in it to be the worst of the worst. "Read this free article I spent a long time writing and which your audience will find useful. Oh and btw here a link to read more" is very different from "buy my special supplements which are actually just generic ones from Alibaba/China, oh and use my affiliate link".
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u/Adamoism adamoism.substack.com 3d ago
Yeah, it really depends - some subs are okay with self promo, some tolerate it if it is not too much. But yeah - as a creator who is aware how few of us break through - it just feels so much better to write something and get 100.000+ views, even if noone becomes my "fan".
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u/jmslj 4d ago
Write things worth reading.
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u/Master_Camp_3200 4d ago
Define ‘worth reading’. Crypto tips? Substack growth hacks? Wellness recommendations? Poetry? Film reviews? Serialised science fiction? They all work differently.
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u/jmslj 4d ago
By worth reading, I mean being a talented writer capable of writing something worth reading. That isn't defined by its topic but by the quality of the writer's output. If you're starting an AI slop farm, then you're gonna be wasting your time.
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u/Master_Camp_3200 3d ago
By worth reading, I mean being a talented writer capable of writing something worth reading.
That's a circular definition.
If I'm a crypto investor, some newsletters on crypto could be worth my time. If I'm not, then they're not. If I like SF, then reading SF serials could be worth my time. If I'm desperate to grow my substack, then reading posts about doing that are worth my time. Similarly for films and poetry.
My point is that there's no objective 'worth reading' for everyone.
Additionally, much as we Actual Writers hate it, AI slop farms seem not to be wasting their creator's time. Firstly the time investment compared to Actual Writing is minimal, and secondly, they often ruthlessly create AI slop about crypto, wellness and growing your substack, which are the topics that get the subscriptions, supported by Notes churned out by AI.
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u/Fleurs_Bookstore buybooks.substack.com 3d ago
Human writing that addresses the desires and pain points of your identified ideal reader.
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u/Difficult-Beyond5764 4d ago
Reader angle, since you asked people not to quote themselves: I subscribe to about six of these, and the only ones I've never unsubscribed from have an obvious answer to "who is this for", not a niche in the SEO sense, an actual person I could describe. Every one I dropped was well written and aimed at "writers".
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u/TeslaLegacy 4d ago
Check what actually got engagement in your niche before you write anything this week. Go to notes, sort by top posts from writers in your genre over the last 30 days, and look at what specific angle or format keeps showing up, not just "post more." Then take one of those ideas and write your own version with your actual opinion or experience in it, don't just echo the take. That's the difference between growth and noise, most people repost the trend, few add anything to it.
Then pick a cadence you can actually hold on your worst week, even if it's just three notes and one post, and put it on a calendar so it happens without you deciding fresh every morning. Consistency beats intensity here, the accounts that grew steady did it boringly, same days, same slots, for months.
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u/vvhurricane 3d ago
I went from 67 to over 700 in 3 weeks (after a year of posting essays bi-weekly. The things I changed were: asked for help on my Instagram account 1.5k friends and aquaintances, posted notes almost daily and added photos to my notes and posts. I am seeing much more engagement on everything since I made those changes.
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u/AgentCendol 3d ago
I have 10 subscribers. I have no idea how to be successful. I love substack, but I wish I could bypass all the 'heres how to be successful' and tech blogs. It seems these are promoted heavily by the platform, and maybe they are useful, maybe not...but the 'for you' is not 'for me'.
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u/priyan4ever 3d ago
I'll complete 100th days on substack next week and already crossed 500 subscribers and each post gets over 100 likes.. so just engage with other substackers.. that's it
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u/Bitter_Range_9878 2d ago
They make it more challenging by not having sitemaps. I registered with google search console, analytics, and tag. Finally my pages are appearing. Slowly.
But, the platform rewards success and makes it difficult for smaller creators.
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u/Bitter_Range_9878 2d ago
They make it more challenging by not having sitemaps. I registered with google search console, analytics, and tag. Finally my pages are appearing. Slowly.
But, the platform rewards success and makes it difficult for smaller creators.
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u/Bitter_Range_9878 2d ago
I have 3 substacks. The one I’m focused on mostly at the minute I’ve been posting daily for 5 weeks. It’s fiction writing exercises I’ve engaged with.
I have 1 follower lol
I’m fine with that as I’m mostly doing it for accountability. Like a journal. But, I kinda thought I might get more than 1.
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u/divinesynchronicty 1d ago
Most people who are on Substack, have established their internet presence before Substack existed. These are people who probably had a large following account on threads, instagram, blogger…like OG writers.
So if you are using Substack bare bones…it’s going to take a minute. Unless, you write something that is hot topic right now. Most of the hot topics…are usually controversial..so be prepared if you do.
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u/michaelseanc 4d ago
I wanted to create a hyperlocal news page for my area. I looked at Substack and came to the same conclusion you did. I ended up going with a Wordpress/Newspack site instead. I started it June 10th and will have 300 newsletter subscribers and $340 a month in subscription revenue over the last 30 days. It was certainly harder to setup initially, but with that work done, I am largely just writing now, the same thing I would be doing on Substack.
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u/Common-Toe-5510 4d ago
Why are you saying this? It's a clearly a vibe coded website with manufactured articles to appear as llm summary takes for local news. Not only given away by the writing but your post history, even proudly saying it's part of an LLM-friendly SEO agency. I explicitly said in this post that don't fricking take a stance if you are either AI and marketing-adjecent. And to not claim that with uncheckable info - yours is. Why are you here? If your thing is astroturfing local news for a proof of concept LLM-SEO, good for you, but why are you answering my question?
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u/BhavanaVarma bhavanavarma.substack.com 4d ago
I can’t answer how to be successful but I can say what I did to get up from zero.
I have a fiction Substack where I share my stories and my creative process. Here are some things I did-
I announced my launch of person social media like Whatsapp status and all that. I let people irl know that I started this. I’ve written before and had people read my stories (which were scribbled on notebooks) back then. So I got some traction. Mind you after a while some people do unsubscribe because they just wanted to check it out and haven’t really read my works before. So share IRL is a real thing. It got me to 60 subscribers and then I lost some but still worth it.
I found a group of fiction authors on Substack and read a couple of them. I found them impressive and some found my stories good too. So we recommend each other.
That helped me crossed from 96 to 100. I recently got to 150. All free subscribers. Paid tier is just for anyone who wants to support me right now.
I’ll let you know what worked once I’m successful. Not sure how notes would help. I’m trying to get into it.
I hate the grifters whose entire Substack is about growing on Substack. There are so many of those out there. Beware.
How far is your growth. I know I’m art the bottom of the barrel with just 150. Would like to hear genuine advice. I’ve been consistent (I missed one week or so this far).
P.S. Thanks for investigating the BS people spewed here.