How to Increase Your Paid Subscribers: The Best Substack Growth Tips of the Month
The Best Substack Growth Tips
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First things first, why bother to grow your newsletter?
I’ve seen some posts snarking on the nature of how-to (!) Substack (!) growth (!) posts, as if the nature of writing or reading about how to do the more commercial side of the business better is anathema to real writing. I’ve been doing this online writing thing for nearly 20 years now, and this ain’t a new idea.
But maybe it’s time we all needed a reminder. (And maybe it’s time to yell it loud, so those in the cheap seats can hear.)
Wanting to write well, and wanting people to read your work, are not mutually exclusive desires.
I’ve published nine books. One of those is by far the most successful one.
Is it my favorite? No.
Am I still very grateful it has given me a bigger audience? I am.
Oh, and also, do I like my royalty checks? And is food and housing nice?
I do. And it is!
Wanting to grow your newsletter or write a bestseller or type words the internet shares does not make you a sell out.
Full stop.
After all, isn’t the real sell out the one who never bothered to write at all?
And also….
How to grow your subscribers
eeeek! the substackers below hit some pretty sweet numbers!
100,000 Readers
left Vox to launch Slow Boring around election time in 2020. He has 100K subscribers, and at least 10,000 paid ones. He’s doing well. This month, he wrote a mammoth of a post reflecting on the experience.His tips?
It worked. Income wise, he never meant to build a kingdom. He has.
As a journalist, he has also kept his access, which he worried about when he left Vox.
As a mature business now (remember, more than 10K paid subscribers), the hardest part of his job now is brainstorming story ideas with his collaborators.
Having a niche is a good thing. The weirder the better.
The future of journalism? Who knows!
Back when I started this thing, there was a wave of hype around Substack, with pieces asking questions like “is this the future of journalism?”
I have no idea what the future of journalism is, but I do think we can now say that part of the future of journalism is the existence of a bunch of small-scale subscription publications like this one.
10,000 Readers
My dear pal
hit the 10,000 subscriber mark, and wrote a wonderful post about how she got there.Her tips?
Social media didn’t play a big part in her growth. (But she does have a killer Instagram tip in her post!)
Her biggest growth vector was Substack, and Substack alone. And by that she means, other people sharing her work on the platform. Full stop.
Do the work. Her first viral piece, which to this day has received more than 2500+ likes, took “12 hours of writing, research, editing, and cutting!”
1,000 Paid Subscribers
is on the journey to get 1,000 paid subscribers, and she’s making progress every month. In this post, she shares some of her latest tips for growth. Her tips?
Although others say to focus mostly on your paid growth, she suggests aggressively growing your free community just as much as your paid one
Don’t do a heavy discount!
Remember growth outside of Substack
Don’t obsess over notes (she’s on maternity leave, and says she’s mostly off notes)
Substack teaching queen
from wrote a post about how to get featured by Substack, since that’s a huge way to boost your subscriber numbers!
480 in a Month
at wrote about the simple thing she did to get 480 subscribers in just one month!her tips?
notes, notes, and notes! (she doesn’t use other social media)
stop promoting your links and start being relatable.
post really funny things on notes and hope you go viral (i’m paraphrasing). but dang if she didn’t get almost 5,000 likes on one note!)
So how do you make money from your subscribers?
Some of the best Substack growth content is coming from posts on Notes, which sadly you can’t save!
(I will cry and I will cry and I will cry.)
You may have missed some of these great notes. (Make sure to click through to the comments on the Notes, which have even more gold.)
Real Talk?
writes in The Elite Capture of Substack (an older post, but a powerful one)What is the goal? To get subscribers? If we have a lot of subscribers, does that mean people are reading? So is that the goal, to have people read our work? And then what? I mean that sincerely. Then what? To change hearts and minds? To start conversations? To make yourself known? Why to strangers? Why not to your family or friends or people in your actual life? Why are we all online, on Substack, circlejerking on Notes and posting on a cadence set not by our most compelling waves of inspiration but by our digital landlords, quality of our work be damned?
I would wager that the most common goal of a Substack writer is to accumulate enough paid subscribers that they can quit their day job and write for themselves full time. It says as much in the Notes announcement. For any writer on here, that would obviously be great, but that’s not how social media companies set things up to work, and despite the cool pep talks from its founders, Substack is no different.
TLDR?
Hang the hell in there.
Got any great tips on getting more paid subscribers? I’d love to hear below.
That last comment is EVERYTHING! The algo is tricking us into thinking $ is what's important (because obviously it's important for the algo.) But good reminder to not fill up on empty carbs of viral hits. Nourish yourself with the writing, why you write in the first place. Love!
Claire, first of all, THANK YOU for including me in this post! I cannot stress the value of this Substack community enough!
The others you've including are exceptional examples of what's possible here. We all have it in us!