How 9 Successful Substack Writers Have Grown their Substacks
Key tips, tricks, and wacky suggestions from Substack's bestselling reads
I’ve been deep into learning about Substack since I got going recently. In my reading, I’ve come across a number Substack bestsellers who’ve been kind enough to share their learnings. I pulled together a recap of some of their best tips below.
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You also may also like my newer roundups:
Substack Growth Tips for People Who Hate Substack Growth Tips
How to Increase Your Paid Subscribers: The Best Substack Growth Tips
Her Tips:
Keep a real-live PAPER NOTEBOOK of ideas!
Have an editorial calendar (here’s her calendar):
· I publish a free article every Thursday. I also push Feminist Advice Friday though a day early to Substack subscribers, on Thursday.
· On Friday, I publish a bonus Feminist Advice Friday for paid subscribers.
· I publish a paid bonus on Tuesdays.
· On random Saturdays, I publish content that doesn’t fit elsewhere—miscellaneous thoughts on life, tips to be an effective writer, this newsletter.
Her Controversial advice?
Don’t use free trials!
I turned it on for several months. What I found is that people signed up for the free trial, unsubscribed when it expired, and then would use it again later to open paywalls. Basically, it functioned as free access to paid content that didn’t seem to encourage real paid subscriptions. Since deactivating it, I’ve had more subscribers and greater subscriber retention. It’s the only Substack feature that I find useless.
His Tips?
Word of mouth matters
"I’m old school. I love co-ops, farmers markets, and neighborly word of mouth. Until Substack, these gorgeous business models had died online.
Substack has word of mouth in the form of newsletter recommendations. You can team up with other creators/writers & recommend each other’s newsletters.
This lets you build your audience and leverage other people’s at the same time, so you can grow 10x faster. I’ve spent an hour a week for the last few months collaborating with other creators on Substack.
When it makes sense, I recommend them, and they recommend me. What’s wild is many of my readers are happy to recommend my newsletter without getting anything in return.
His formula?
1. Make all your call-to-actions and link-in-bios lead to your Substack.
2. Post short-form content on X, LinkedIn, Instagram, etc. Reply to your content in the comments with a link to your Substack.
3. Publish a daily post on Substack Notes.
4. Start conversations with other creators and recommend each other’s Substack where it makes sense (topic, vibe, beliefs).
5. Send out a weekly Substack newsletter for free.
6. As your audience starts to grow, add a paid tier to your Substack.
Her Tips:
Don’t bother with a niche at first, just find a community.
Moving a 40K Instagram following to Substack is hard!
Trusting your flow; there is natural momentum after 100.
Sign up for some consulting sessions with
Her weird advice?
“I check my energy and make sure I’m having fun here. It can be felt.”
Her tips?
Your About page matters.
Have a clear title for your Substack. No quirk!
Plan posts far in advance.
You need patience to succeed.
Her hot take?
It’s normal to flail around in the desert for a long time before finding your land. Sarah spent more than a year writing on the concept of serialization for writers before realizing that teaching Substack was the thing that really resonated.
Her tips?
Money mindset is a real thing.
There are six decisions you have to figure out when it comes to going paid on Substack:
1/ Whether to go paid, 2/ When to go paid, 3/ How much to charge monthly, 4/ How much to charge annually, 5/ How much to charge for a founding membership (you can change the name of this now), and 6/ How we are going to grow and manage our paid subscriptions.
Her hot take?
Grow with joy - or don’t bother;)
Her tips:
Most followers come from generous sharing.
Leaning into essay writing is her most important task!
It’s like the old days of blogging, which inspired me to ditch my career and start my own business twelve years ago, and here I am doing what I love. I thought that particular energy and ecosystem had died with the loss of Google Reader many years ago, so it is a joy to find it again here. And so many people on Substack are beauty seekers which I LOVE. Hello kindreds!
Her tips?
Don’t forget SEO.
Substack has taken steps to make it easier for Google to find newsletters, but I find writers often don’t know about it.
To take advantage of it, on a post page, click “settings.” Mid-way down the page, there’s an “SEO Options” tag. Clicking on that gives the option to add an SEO title, SEO description and to customize a post URL. Fill each of those with terms a reader might search to find the post.
I’m not an SEO expert but here are two other small steps that can make a big difference:
· Add “alt text” describing images. This copy helps visually impaired people understand what a visual looks like. It also gives search engines something to assess when analyzing pages.
· Including links to past posts helps Google index a website and can help boost search results.
Slow growth is the best growth
Her tips?
Think hard about how to manage free versus paid. This is what she does:
· Weekly free column and paid subscribers receive an audio version: I write about diverse topics, from the philosophy of mental illness (my background is in the philosophy of psychology) to body image, grief, and why it is that millennials are doing worse than their parents. Also why so many women (including me) are fascinated by true crime. Because that’s an awkward question, right? And there are lots of potential lazy answers. Peak Notions isn’t about lazy answers.
· Chat: The weekly paid subscriber chat is always oriented around a question.
· Book club: The monthly book club for paying subscribers is designed to hone critical thinking skills and use philosophy as a practical skill.
· Occasional bonuses for paid subscribers: I share extra pieces of writing and audio for paid subscribers as bonus content when I can. I also occasionally answer reader-problem letters in a series called Wicked Problems. Here, I’ll consider their problem for as many words as it takes, on the understanding that while a PhD in philosophy equips me to think about and look at problems in a careful and detailed way, it doesn’t qualify me to solve them. At all.
Her hot take?
Patreon doesn’t allow for viral growth;(
Her tips?
Write (and write, and write) for free before you charge. She wrote more than 50 essays!
Go paid around a “launch event” - for her, it was new ebook called, When Will You Get a Real Job.
In any launch, 2-3% conversion is good.
agrees! (I say this is high…but it depends on the price point;)
Her hot take?
Find your audience on Substack, not off it!
The marketing advice that I’ve come across since joining this platform have mostly focused on the need to attract readers outside of Substack (which of course is valid, but not an obligation…)
The argument being that those who hang out on Substack (I’m especially referring to the Notes network), are writers not readers (and potential clients).
My perspective, which is the same reason as to why I decided to set up my bookshop right on the creative high-street of Substack, is that I’ve never come across a writer who isn’t also an avid reader. And I don’t mean just a reader/consumer of content that teaches you how to make it on (insert platform of choice), but readers of all genres.
@Diamond-Michael Scott is an independent journalist and book influencer who has several different Substack newsletters focused on non-fiction books.
did a great interview with him here, where he included some great tips.His Tips?
Don’t compare yourself with others. It never helps!
Use the NPR model for paid subscriptions. Don’t paywall anything!
When you write, make it 80% for you and 20% for the reader.
Try to have fun and experiment, especially if you’re feeling down about growth.
In the beginning, half of your paid subscribers will probably be people you have interacted with in a 1:1 capacity (online or other). So make sure to be kind to folks on the platform!
Did you enjoy this round up? Got any other good Substack growth tips or articles to share?
Let me know in the comments.
I had just about had it with Substack advice. I was tempted to not even read this post.
But I did—and it's refreshingly great. So great that I'm going to print it out, keep it on my desk, and not read any other advice for the rest of the year.
Thank you.
Newly arrived here, super helpful to hear what others have figured out. As someone who was blogging back in 2008, I agree with Beth Kempton, there’s a similar feeling of collegiality to those early days.