A loser's guide to conquer Substack
A loser's guide to conquer Substack
I was the loser. Tips, NO TRICKS, and other bits and bobs to grow your Substack.
*image taken from Canva
After I received an unexpectedly active reaction to a comment about Substack tips, I decided to summarize all those tips, plus add some more. No tricks, no magic bullshit way to grow your stack hard and fast. Just my experience from zero to… well, more Subscribers than I ever (EVER) hoped to have. I’m sharing this on Notes exclusively. My Subs have had enough of my yapping this week, plus not all of them are writers.
Fuck it! I mean an update: I decided to share this with my subscribers too. Why? Because it might help more Substack newbies read this. Please, don’t unsubscribe! Please, share this on Notes if you can! Let’s help the newbies!
Okay, I did one essay a lot like this one, called StackVoid but some things have changed since then. My stack has grown, and that has given me more fuel for thought.
Like many of you lovely wide-eyed wonders, I joined Substack with my heart full of faith and enthusiasm - this is going to be sooo great! All I have to do is put my genuine writing out there and the readers will find me, right?! Wrong!
Silly little Kathrine… nothing was great! Nothing was happening! My Substack was a silent grave with my dream buried within it, and a fine band of crickets playing at its premature funeral…
Until… well, until very slowly and steadily I got to understand how this place functions. So, let’s get to the meat of it, shall we?!
What got me started:
Joining theme days, prompts, competitions on Substack. Anything that gets more eyes on your writing. I don’t know about non-fiction, but fiction has quite a few of these. Here is the list of the ones I found the most fun/useful:
◦ Macabre Monday for horror/dark fiction, non-fiction. Hosted by
.To join, subscribe to Macabre Monday Substack, share a link to your work in their weekly chat thread, or share it on Notes and tag the hosts.◦ Warrior Wednesday (epic fantasy), Swords & Saturday (dark/pulpy fantasy) hosted by
and . To join, share the link to your work on Notes, add a short description, the name of the theme day and tag the hosts, and some other participants. They do these weekly recap compilations, which gets more eyes on the entries.◦ Thorny Thursday for romance, love-themed fiction and non-fiction, poetry, art, etc. Share the link to your work on Notes and tag the host
He also does a weekly recap post.◦ Sci-Friday for Sci-fi. The same principle, share the link on Notes, tag the host
and some participants.◦ Microdosing for flash fiction, any genre 50-100 words. Has daily themes. The host
. Shares the theme and you must submit your entry within 24hours. But he’s not that strict, you can submit later.If you value somebody’s opinion on Substack, or if you join a theme day, you may tag people, but don’t expect they’ll have the time to read your work. Everybody’s busy and there’s so much to read on Substack! Also some people don’t like being tagged. (Weirdos!😅). I appreciate being tagged, even if I can’t read their work. It means the person thought of me. Oh, and you can’t copy the tags!
What’s “tagging”, preciousssss? I’ve seen newbies ask this. My answer - one of Substack’s biggest flaws. I got the tagging part wrong when I started off because it cannot be copy-pasted. Tagging is when you write a person in your post or note with an “@“ symbol, no space between. Usually, Substack provides a list of those with the name you wrote. If not, you must find their ‘handle’ and type that instead. Yes, lots of manual typing. Tagging draws more eyes to your writing. You can tag a list of participants of your theme day, or just people you’d like to read your stuff. Some might not like tagging. Mass tagging is tedious and lately many people are choosing to tag only the hosts and a couple of other Stackers.
Be active on Notes! Share your thoughts, ideas about…anything really. Let your weirdness shine! Comment, interact with others, but don’t push it. Nobody likes a desperate wannabe…
Promote! Promote! Promote! Whether it be Notes or FB, just share the link to your work when you post it with a nice thumbnail, mention the genre, add a punchy quote. How often should you promote? Well, when I post something new, I promote a couple times on that day, maybe once or twice the next day. Or I might pull something old from the archives and promote it.
Oh and restack your restacks! If somebody shares your stuff, you can share it further. Nothing works like good recommendations!
Short stories or serialised stories? Both. Try both. From my experience - people are more likely to read a short piece or even a flash fiction. We are all busy. If you’re not into short stuff, and have a long novel to share, a good choice is making short chapters. When I had a burnout, flash fiction chapters came as my saving grace. People seem to like them as well - bite-sized chapters (400-1000 words). Of course, you can share long chapters! I suggest trying what works best for you!
Experiment with your writing! Try new stuff! Go nuts! Weird is the new cool, at least on Substack. People are mostly very open to weirdness here. Embrace it! Share it! Try new genres. I wasn’t a Sci-fi girl at all. I tried to write a Sci-fi flash fiction, it grew into a short story and a serialised novelette, which brought me my lovely paid subs. All because I stepped out of my comfort zone and wrote Sci-fi.
Pay attention to details! People like pretty thumbnails. Use the free sources, Unsplash, Canva, etc. Many people aren’t thrilled about AI images. So, keep that in mind. Give the genre of your work in the subtitle. Be kind to your readers, they want to know what they’re about to read.
Be respectful to your readers! Proper formatting and editing… yeah, my weak point. Don’t torture your readers with lengthy introductions. You can always give comments afterward. Inform the readers about your publishing schedule. I do this short newsletter on Sundays, where I share my weekly schedule. You can post once a month, just inform them.
Be consistent! If you said you’ll post something, you do it! If something terrible happens - inform them. I once accidentally deleted a whole chapter I was about to post. Yeah, that hurt. Always create backup! I informed my subs, and they were very supportive.
How often should you post? How much is too much? There are folks who post flash fiction every day. But it’s short stuff. My experience - don’t do too much! Two or three times a week is OK. When I do more - I lose subs. Maybe it’s just a coincidence. I inform my subs about the fixed stuff, like two ongoing serialised stories. Everything else - if I have the time and inspiration. It might be a flash fiction, or a non-fiction essay/rant.
Non-fiction. (A heavy sigh). Substack was originally designed for non-fiction. Maybe that’s why fiction writers have a bit of a hard time here. The good news is - fiction is becoming a thing on Substack. The bad news - non-fiction still is more likely to get you subs. Try writing a non-fiction article. A movie or a book review, anything you’re passionate about. Politics? Mmm… it’s risky. The more controversial the theme, the more subs you might lose. BUT sometimes it’s worth the risk. Non-fiction has brought me many subs. It has made me lose some substack friends, who could not stand my rants, or my stubbornness. Hm… maybe they were not real friends in the first place. Also - I see the fiction community are more likely to support quieter folks, not opinionated old witches like me! My fiction has suffered from my non-fiction in a way.
Start an event/theme day or a prompt. Although while your sub count isn’t big, it might be a good idea to team up with more Substack buddies to start something big and create ‘the hype’. I did a theme day for romance Thorny Thursday with the support of some trustworthy Stackbuddies. It was fun, and it brought me subs, but it’s also tedious and time-consuming. After some 6 months, I decided to step away and trusted a friend with hosting it.
Don’t trust the grifters! There’s lots of quick-growth experts here. Don’t trust them. For fiction writers the growth is slow. No magic way of quickening the growth of a good, loyal readership.
Don’t trust untested growth tips! Some are trying to experiment with Substack growth by using others. Their intentions might be good but using your fellow stackers as guinea pigs or lab rats is not the way. Wait until these methods have proven themselves!
Post when it’s the active time of day in most of the US, because most Substackers are from USA. Yes, it’s problematic for me, I’m from the other side of the pond, but it’s still doable. You can schedule the post to be published on certain date and time.
Stick to your principles! You’re not just building a Substack, you’re building a brand (especially if you write with a pen name like me!). People like trustworthy brands, not meandering wannabies. One of my Substack principles is don’t share my sub numbers publicly. I don’t like it, I don’t do it. Another principle - I don’t slander my work in public. I don’t call it shit. Respect your work! Third principle - I rarely react to political stuff. Mostly it ends up as a pointless beef.
Going paid? Oh, this is where I should write “to be continued…” because going paid is something I’m yet to discover. I’ve tried it very timidly, it didn’t really work. Some say - do a paid section from the start. Some say - wait until you build a readership. I’m currently doing the second thing. Logically, the stuff I’m currently querying outside Substack, goes behind the paywall.
So, this is where I should write some words of encouragement. Here goes: the beginning will most likely be slow, but it will grow. If you’re active and consistent, a tiny bit shameless and positively weird, you will grow. Don’t be discouraged by a very slow start. If I started from scratch and… well, got to where I am now, so can you!
P.s. …taking into consideration I’m a non-native English speaker, I’m tech stupid, a mother of 4, working part-time, I think my growth here is a huge accomplishment. At least for someone like me.
P.p.s. I’m following my own advice and promoting. My first ever self-published book is going live tomorrow! It’s a dark fantasy novella. As ruthless and poetic as a freezing, starlit Winter’s night. I think it’s one of the best fiction pieces I‘ve written. You can pre-order it HERE .
Now this is a proper set of tips for setting oneself on the right track. Simple, actionable, and proven to work in no small part by the fact that all of us have acted on these in some way. Your list nicely covers most of the little decisions we need to make every day regarding how's, when's, and what's of finding our audience here.
That said, the most important point of yours to remember is this: growth on the fiction side of things is a slow burn. You're not likely to see explosive success overnight, so don't give up just because it's taking a while. Exceptions exist, but they're just that.
Thanks for sharing. I'm doing some of the tips already but not all, so will definitely add these to my tool kit.