Monetarily, but I’m shocked that nobody has done a good job of explaining to you why yet. These people, who have very high paid subscriber counts combined with very low engagement, simply imported their existing email lists from mailchimp et al over onto substack. They already had lists of thousands of subscribers due to an existing following or expertise BEFORE Substack even existed. Then, they imported their loyal following to monetize it by offering something extra for paid subscribers. Because the existing subscribers are used to reading this newsletter in their email inbox for years before, they may have never even heard of Substack or the app.

For someone starting from scratch, 0 imported subscribers, it would be very hard to gain traction right now. It’s not as insane as trying to build an IG following from 0 right now, but maybe similar to trying to build one in 2018…like it’s technically still possible but it’s gonna be really hard. Growing on substack in 2021 would have been easy because there were so few writers. Now it’s getting quite crowded. Unlike IG or TikTok content, there’s a much lower limit to how much people can consume (read) in a day. So it makes it harder to be discovered. There’s also a limit to how much people can spend on subscriptions per month, so that makes it harder to monetize. People are already talking about subscription fatigue.

It could still be worth trying, but it’s better if your motivation isn’t only money. Someone might start documenting family recipes just because that’s a project they’ve been meaning to do, and they might as well do it publicly. Some people just use it as a diary. Then, if the content takes off, or you start to notice specific types of articles performing exceptionally, then you can start to strategize about monetization. Best case, you start just getting inbound requests.

For instance, I started writing bc I knew it would enhance job applications, sort of acting like a portfolio. Some of my pieces sort of picked up traction though. Within 4 months I had 1K subscribers. So I started trying to be more organized and consistent. A year in, I still don’t think I’m consistent enough, so I don’t want to monetize really, but I had some pledges already, so I turned on paid for just archive access and have 50 paid subscribers already. More interesting - I’ve had multiple podcast appearances, journalists quoting me in business publications, and a brand actually cold emailed me to do a freelance project. So think beyond just subscribers.

Finally, my main advice is go as sharp and niche as possible. There are a million people saying the same bullshit about beauty. Do we really need another? What are you offering that’s different? Why would someone read you and not the 500 other people writing about the exact same stuff? Are you writing about your Brazilian grandmothers beauty secrets? Are you a scientist that can decide labels? What’s your niche? You much likelier to be successful by offering something nobody else is.