“Please don’t mistake this platform for just the writers. This is more like a Insta for writing entrepreneurs. You do need good entrepreneurial, and influencers skills to be successful here.”
“I am not saying Substack is bad but there's just this feeling that the writers over there make it their identity about writing the most deep, profound things, but I'm sure in their actual life they're just a mess. On my home page, I just got a Mark Manson quotation and I was like I'm done.”
“Substack looks like an alternative to wordpress or an alternative to twitter, but it's most realistically an alternative to patreon. It's how influencers from other platforms build a paid subscriber base.”
“I don’t obsess over it anymore. It’s kinda exhausting especially when you’re chasing paid subs. currently taking it easy, substack is just whatever. The algorithm sucks”
“I understand every company has their own product roadmap and vision for what the platform can/should be, but this always felt like a missed opportunity for Substack.”
“Substack is a great platform. Like really great because the quality of people there and readers is very high. People are really serious and choose carefully what they want to read and support.”
“Best tactic that worked for me was finding similar Substackers or those looking for the content you write and commenting and liking their posts. May be more difficult with your topic (I use it for Fiction writing) but it should help you get more exposure.”
“The premise of Substack is that there's no algorithm. You are responsible for the growth of your page, by having other sites linking back to it, telling friends and family to subscribe, etc. The best you could hope for is a high Google ranking, but thanks to AI and Google being useless on purpose, I wouldn't bet on that either.”
“Honestly i feel like Substacks ROI is really, really bad, and its one reason i barely use mine. I always felt that Substack risked heading to this point as it never really knew what it wanted to be, and wanted to mostly cash in on the limitations of other social media platforms (free speech restrictions or twitter becoming shit post-Elon's take over).”
“The substack algorithm is not really good in suggesting new users to follow and the search engine is not giving good results when actively searching for content.”
“I myself use it solely as a publishing platform, not any sort of social media play. So I don’t expect to get subscribers from Substack, I just use it as a repository for my content and promote that content elsewhere.”
“on substack, you mainly monetise with paid subs. and to be able to get to $500/month with just 50 subs is actually already quite remarkable. conversion rate is typically 2-5%, so that's optimistically \~3 subs.”
“Substack is a good growth platform for someone who already has a personal brand outside Substack. But if you’re just starting your writing journey, it can be very hard for the average person to grow in it.”
“I started a newsletter and podcast about fantasy football in April and it's been slow. I only have 35 subscribers and 50+ followers but everyone is very engaged with each other so I feel at ease about my work being seen.”
“I have my own rather large blog, it is an analogue of a substack, but in order to expand the audience I moved it to a substack. After that I read that it would be better to break it into several parts.”
“It was originally supposed to be a newsletter / blog platform. It wasn’t designed to help you find an audience. And to be fair it’s still a good blogging and newsletter platform.”
“Essentially, my desire to write on Substack was because I wanted to communicate some ideas and get feedback on it. Why would I write on Substack when I can get thousands of more instant responses through Reddit?”
“I re-joined about 2 weeks ago when I realized I could schedule Substack Notes via Typefully (what I use for all short-form content + LinkedIn), so far I have built a tiny following using Notes alone.”
“People thought Substack would be different from Facebook or instagram or whatever but it ended up being the same thing rolled into a different interface that you can charge for access. Imagine if Facebook had paywalls.”
“So why would a writer join Substack? Well, if there's a particular topic you are passionate about or in which you have an expertise, and if you don't have enough outlets for all those ideas, Substack is a good option. For example, I write about social issues, culture, and living abroad.”
“I follow people on substack, but the only people I really follow from one app to another are people I have consistently engaged with for several weeks and enjoyed a breadth of their thoughts.”
“I personally use substack because it's a free platform to launch a podcast and newsletter, and the long form articles I write and post are to train my (writing) voice, and hone research for podcast episodes into clear questions. It works as a supplement to the podcast really.”
“What are your pain points when trying to keep on top of your Substack subscriptions? Personally, I reflect on the fact that: 1. Information overload is rife, endless emails and app updates 2. There doesn’t seem to be a native way to organise subscriptions by categories 3. I want the ability to filter out certain topics etc, like growth hacks”
“Substack is working just fine for me, but don't expect an immediate flood of readers. You have to do the promotion yourself, they won't advertise for you.”