Are you struggling on Substack?

We don't need to learn to market or promote ourselves on Substack. We just need to do three things better. One of them is why you're struggling.

“We read to know we are not alone.” -C.S. Lewis

Here’s what I’ve been thinking about lately. People who are struggling on Substack. A lot of people are struggling. And I get it because I struggled for years. Years!!

A year in, I didn’t have 500 followers.

Two years in I had a whopping 732 subscribers.

That’s why I’m not an advice giver. Because it’s taken me too long to grow. I seem to learn everything the slow way. I used to think I made every mistake in the book, but in hindsight, I think the biggest mistake I made was following the advice people give.

But let me back up a little, okay?

Every morning, I scroll Notes until my brain shrieks enough.

Notes gives me a peek into the zeitgeist, so to speak. I look past the political stuff. Reactions to politics is part of the social zeitgeist, too and I do know that and it’s not unimportant. But I’m looking for what writers are saying.

Every morning, I see someone say they want to find the “little” writers, so if you have a teeny following, drop a link. Those Notes always have hundreds of comments. And you know why they post that, right? Because it works.

And it works because there *are* so many people with teeny followings.

I always roll my eyes and move on.

It’s a schtick. It works because it taps into the “we little people need to stick together” train of thinking. Which is kind of silly, if you think about it. Because, do you want followers because you’re new? Or because they like what you write?

This morning I saw three notes that were crazy relevant to where my brain has been lately, thinking about writers who are struggling to get seen.

The first Note said: “Substack pity party, 400 posts, 136 followers.”

Man, I heard that loud and clear. That was me when I started. I felt her pain.

The second Note said “most Substacks will never succeed.”

Which, ouch. That was me, too. Just another Substack that no one read.

The third Note said “someone else’s subscriber count doesn’t mean you’re a bad writer. It means you haven’t learned to market and promote your writing yet.”

No, no, no.

That was the golden ticket I was looking for.

Because it’s so wrong. lol. I’m sorry, but it is. That kind of thinking held me back for so long. Looking for that one magic tip that would help me grow.

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Joan Didion said she writes to find out what she thinks and I do that a lot. Use words to explore thoughts. But other times? I know exactly what I think. I’m just not sure how to put my thoughts into words that properly express what’s in my head without leaving room for misunderstanding, if that makes sense.

Like I said, I’m not an advice giver. I’m about words, books, reading, writing. Those are the things I love with every ounce of my being. I love the magic of words. Of books, literature, and writing. I love to write about how words weave their way through humanity and our lives. How they move us and change us.

Mostly, that’s what I write.

But sometimes I share what I learned along the way.

So that’s what I’m doing here. A lot of people think they need to learn to “market” themselves here on Substack.

No. You don’t.

Look, if you have a book? Yes, you probably need to learn to market and promote your writing. Unless the publisher has a big budget for you. But they probably only have a big budget if you have a name worth throwing money at.

But on Substack? No. You don’t need to learn to promote your writing.

Took me years to figure that out. I tried all the advice. I tried posting on Notes. Gave up because it ate time and my brain and the number of people who followed wasn’t that high. I tried reaching out to other writers. Tried linking to Substack on Medium and linking to Medium on Substack. None of it worked. At least not well enough to make up for the time and effort it took.

And if you enjoy those things, do them because you enjoy them.

On Substack, we don’t need to market or promote our writing. That’s what the Substack Networks exists to do. To promote our writing for us.

But us? Our job is to learn to do 3 things better.

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If you’re growing on Substack, most of your traffic is probably coming from the Substack Network. You can check that out in your stats. Most often, the Substack Network is the top source of traffic, followed by everything else including Notes, recommendations from other writers, and links from search and other sites.

And hell, I don’t really know what the Substack Network means. But every time I get a jump in subscribers, someone leaves a comment that says I don’t know why you were in my feed, but I’m glad I found you. So I assume that’s the Substack Network at work. I assume Substack shows my posts to people who they think will like what I wrote.

Like I said, not pretending to be an advice-giver here. lol.

Just sharing my experience.

But I do know that as I started to grow, traffic from everywhere else became a distant second to the Substack Network. And I see that every time I see a jump in subscribers. And full disclosure, I have no inside information, the people who run Substack likely don’t know I exist and I’m learning by the seat of my pants just like you.

But it made me wonder. Why on earth would the Substack Network decide to show my posts (or yours) to a whole bunch of new faces?

I think there are 3 primary reasons.

Here’s what I think they are...

One: A great title that’s clear and tells people exactly what to expect.

Because honestly? Most people write titles that tell the reader nothing. They go for clever, or lofty or aim for curiosity. And it falls on it’s face. Don’t say the societal assumption of weight. Say people hate me because I’m skinny. Or fat. Or whatever. Write titles so a ten year old knows what it’s about. Write titles stupidly plain.

Also? A lot of people write titles like it’s a book. Especially poets. And if you’re a poet, that’s fine. But dammit, throw me a bone in the subtitle. Because the only way total strangers who don’t know you are going to click in a feed that never ends is if they’re interested and how would they know if you don’t throw them a bone?

One more. I don’t know how to say this delicately, but a lot of people write titles like the internet is their journal. I saw a post a long time ago — the title was “When your kid is the bully.” A ton of responses. It was a story of a mom finding out her kid was bullying. What occurred to me is that if she’d titled the post “my kid is a bully” I’m not sure it would have gotten the same response. Because if I don’t even know her, why do I care if her kid is a bully? But she thought to include her readers in the title.

And it’s hard. Man, I struggle with titles. But it’s worth working at. It’s worth trying the title tester. And it’s worth paying attention to the titles that catch your eye.

Two: Engagement

Everything I said about titles must be taken with a grain of salt. Titles do really help, but you know what counts more? Engagement.

If someone wrote a post called “What I did on Friday” and it went nuts and people were clicking and sharing and restacking and commenting, you bet the Substack Network would promote the heck out of it because it’s getting engagement.

We live in an attention economy where engagement fuels algorithms. That’s why rage bait is everywhere. Make people angry, a lot of them respond. But anger isn’t the point. Engagement is. I’ll say that again. Anger isn’t the point. Engagement is.

Engagement drives everything.

When you don’t have a lot of readers, that’s hard. But man, when I see writers replying to comments with “Thanks, Bob” it kills me a little. I mean, sure, if the reader said “nice post.” Not much else you can say. But it’s worth remembering that algorithms favor engagement. I’ll say that again too. Algorithms favor posts with engagement.

Everything is engagement. Clicks, restacks, comments. And you can’t make anyone restack or comment. You can’t make anyone click or read. But you can engage in your comments. You can ask questions and have conversations. You can make someone laugh or give them a compliment. You know? Just talk. Like humans. It helps.

Three: The writing

This morning I saw a Note that made me laugh. Some woman said omg, I have a problem. I have subscribed to 30 people and I can’t read them all. There are too many good writers here. lol. She’s right. There are a lot of good writers here.

Every one of them learned along the way. Just like me, just like you.

There are classic mistakes writers make. Slow openings. Too much rambling. I’ve made all of those. Most writers could cut their first paragraph and it would be a stronger read. I cut the first two paragraphs on this post. lol.

And pace. Is it a strong read? And rambling. Lord, that’s my problem. Everything I write starts out twice the length it ends up. I go back and cut like a mad woman. Cut the fluff, cut the tangents, increase the pace. Is this relevant? No? Delete.

The writing matters. But the magic is that the more we write, the more we learn.

The stronger my writing gets, and the stronger your writing gets, the more people share and restack our posts and the algorithm takes notice and voila - there we are getting promoted in the Substack Network. That’s how you grow here.

You don’t need to do the promoting. The Substack Network does that for us. But those three things — good writing, good engagement and killer titles — those are our job here. Those are all we need to work on. And good cover images, of course.

If we can do those well, and keep working at them, everything else is just the details. I can’t think of any other tips that matter as much as those three—can you? As always, I’d love to know what you think…

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