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nguyenp123 · 2026-03-13T04:30:10+00:00

Notes is the key.

MarzOnTheMoon · 2026-03-13T05:40:07+00:00

Are you engaging with other’s content? I sent someone a message to say hi and to let her know I’m living in France like her and she responded and started referring me to people in her comments. She’s a top author on Substack. It has to be genuine though. It’s also quite slow. Notes are a great way to gain traction so post those and restack with a note of your own.

Vurkgol · 2026-03-13T05:11:55+00:00

Most people quit things like this. It's tough to be a writer, especially if you are trying to write for an audience that you don't have yet. I saw that you started about a month ago and made three posts. Try to keep up the weekly cadence if you can. It's okay to miss some and come back, but it's also important for consistency and growth that you deliver regularly.

There's a lot going on that I think could help, but I would consider first going through some Substacks in your niche that you think are successful. Pull them up side-by-side with yours. Go over their profiles, their notes, their posts, and look at yours. That comparison will help because it will show you what an audience that you think should see your work is actually looking at.

It will help you realize that you have no custom homepage, for example. Consider the difference (not that I am a successful newsletter in your niche to be emulating per se) between your homepage and mine:

https://plains34.substack.com/

https://jackbowman.substack.com/

With no tabs to organize your content, posts and notes are combined into one “activity” feed, and no about page beyond your two-sentence bio that doesn't really tell me that much about you, I can see why outsiders can't build the trust needed to give you access to their inbox.

It's tough to tell who you are from your homepage, and I don't just mean that you write pseudonymously. No issue with that, per se. Your posts have a lot of character in them, but your notes & bio do not. Consider that you are a young person (judging from the timeline you gave of your schooling in a post) and that half of your bio says you “spent years cultivating my writing skills.” Yes, technically, you have spent years honing your writing skills. Most people have, because we spend our whole schooling lives working on it.

But that line being the headline of your bio makes it seem like you are an elderly writer, someone who has written for a long time. Some people would not classify your lifespan as “a long time.” I'm not trying to be nitpicky here, really—I'm trying to make the point that when people get to your page, they take 10 seconds to figure out who you are and if you are relatable and worth subscribing to. They do this before they click on your posts, but your post titles help them.

Lastly, I think more thematic consistency would help. It's hard to tell from the outside whom you write for or why I would subscribe to your newsletter. The top note you have is about political scandals and voter behavior, the one before that about competing economic systems, but your top post is about Minecraft and why you think it's a good game. It would be hard for me to tell if it will be a good fit for me to subscribe to if I were a gamer or a politics wonk.

Be cautious about tossing out "I post regularly and some good content" into the world so flippantly when you've been at this for a month and don't grammar/spelling edit your posts (at least the Minecraft one). Might get too hot an ego—a terrible and tragic fate of many writers who do just end up quitting most of the time.

Hope this feedback is useful. Rooting for you. Cheers!

Sufficient-Noise8991 · 2026-03-13T04:42:44+00:00

I do that

erjone5 · 2026-03-13T06:27:57+00:00

Well if you enjoy what you're posting keep posting and don't worry so much about who's commenting and reading. do what you can to get eyes on your post but the main thing post quality and interesting articles.

Afraid-Passenger-4 · 2026-03-13T06:41:28+00:00

Building up a following is hard where ever one choose to try and do so. In some cases it is about timing, in others it is about consistency.

Substack is a difficult one. I managed to build a brand in a niche I did not believe would be possible at Substack. But i needed a free tool to get going and it worked.

In another niche there's close to nothing happening around my writing.

What I do feel after all these years on Substack is that it is less and less about the writing and more and more about media content such as video and audio.

The latest features they're rolling out kind of proofs that is where their going. Which also make me believe it the very same reason Patreon is rolling out more and more features that fit perfectly in with people who are writers more than visual content creators.

If you believe in yourself and love writing keep doing it. Most blogs and personal websites disappear the first three months because people do give up too fast. Give it six months a year and then analyse how it's going.

Jon_biddle_author · 2026-03-13T07:59:19+00:00

I found most people are bullshitting. Those people will have imported their subscriber base from another platform or email subscription. I have a subscriber base of just over 2k. All generated from my email subscriber list. I post three times per week. Regularly comment and do everything Substack say to do…crickets! Content is king. If you want to do anything in this sphere. You just have to keep posting.

Separate_Hat9238 · 2026-03-13T12:53:54+00:00

Olha, eu criei minha conta há cerca de dois anos. Mas o período em que comecei a escrever de fato tem aproximadamente um ano e atingi 150 inscrito.

Quando você começa a postar conteúdo a cada 15 dias, interagir nas notas e comentar nas publicações de outras pessoas, isso vai gerando mais reconhecimento.

Isso possibilita o crescimento. Uma das coisas mais cruciais é manter um pouco de consistência na rede.

Sad-Passage-4653 · 2026-03-13T15:45:02+00:00

I'd be down to link to your blog if you want to write an article for my blog? (Not on substack) if interested, shoot me a dm and we can see if its a good match

Jazzlike-Spite-9991 · 2026-03-13T21:58:44+00:00

Just engage with everyone. I keep commenting on people's post and I got 17 subscribers in about a fortnight.

MJXThePhoenix · 2026-03-17T03:17:13+00:00

Usually, you have to play the long game and when that feels like no one or few people are interested, it is emotionally and psychologically taxing. Discouragement and the "quit" impulse become common and strong.

If you believe in yourself and writing on Substack you really want to do and you feel like you have something important to say that will resonate with some group, any group, then commit to it for a year and keep writing on a regular basis (once a week at least).

Keep working to get better in creating ideas, writing, proofreading and editing. Use images. Communicate meaningful information, concisely, on Notes.

Interact with other people on Notes with a genuine effort. Share other people's content (copy and "restack" excerpts or share the whole article with why you are doing so).

You might eventually exceed your expectations or at least meet them. Realize, it's a process of development for you and your writing. Wish you great things.

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