What I've Learned From One Year on Substack

Where I'm at, what seems to be working, and what's ahead

Photo by Csabi Elter on Unsplash

A little over a year ago I moved my newsletter to Substack. Since I like a good stats posts and think some of the info may be useful for other writers, I’m going to about how the transition has gone and plans for going forward for Humor Me.

Some history on my newsletter

When I moved my newsletter over I had been sending out a monthly newsletter for about a year and a half.

I had started it as one of the things I heard would be good to do leading up to book publication but found I really liked having an outlet other than social media for writing and sharing work. After using social media for years as a writer I’m experiencing some burnout with it, and a newsletter feels like a good alternative.

When I moved my newsletter to Substack in the summer of 2022 I had 192 subscribers (although honestly probably 1 to 2 of those were my own email addresses I was using to test the newsletter with!). Not a ton, but I found that growth was pretty slow with traditional newsletter services.

I know other people who grew their newsletters quickly through hardcore marketing tactics but I didn’t want to use those and I didn’t want an inflated list of people who basically just auto-deleted my emails.

I’d heard good things about Substack and felt like some of my posts could work well as something living on the web rather than just in people’s inboxes, so I switched.

And now, as of early August 2023, it looks like I have 730 subscribers and a huge chunk of subscribers came in 2023 — when I look back at my stats, at the beginning of January 2023 I had 258 subscribers. When I was making some annual writing goals for the year in January I set a goal “would be happy if I were at 500 subscribers by the end of 2023” goal for myself. So things are definitely growing faster for me on Substack than I expected.

Things that helped me the most with growth on Substack

That said, I think these are some things that helped with this growth on Substack:

1. Trying to have posts that offer something for readers. This is going to vary based on our Substack topic, but I think the first thing is to think about what readers can get from what you are putting out there. This might involve some trial and error. One thing that has stuck with me from the crash course in marketing that I gave myself before my book came out is the advice that you should test things, see what’s working well, and then do more of the things that are working. The advice was about social media, but I think applies to Substack as well and is something I think about often. In 2023 I started experimenting with more than just the once-a-month links roundup I had been doing for my newsletter previously and I think publishing more and trying some different things helped.

2. Including links to Substack in relevant freelance pieces. Since I am already doing freelance writing and humor pieces, it seemed like an easy enough thing to include a link to my Substack in my bio and I have found subscriber bumps when I have pieces go up at relevant places (like Jane Freidman’s blog and McSweeney’s).

3. Collaborating with other Substackers. I’ve heard others say this as well, but I’ve seen subscriber bumps after collaborating with other Substackers that have helped me grow and I’ve got some other things in the works for future collaborations. If you are a Substacker looking to do more collaborations there are some good leads in this Notes thread and this Substack Office Hours on collaborations.

4. Interacting with the Substack community. I have seen some subscribers come in when I spend more time on Notes or after commenting on other Substacks. I think like a lot of other things, you will naturally build connections and see some growth by just being in the Substack community more. Also, I genuinely like the Substack community, so that helps.

5. Providing information in my posts. When I look at which of my posts have done the best (in terms of views and gaining new subscribers) they are the ones where I’ve given advice like this one and also crowdsourced advice on a relevant topic like this one. So going back to point number 1, I plan to do more of these posts in the future.

6. Substack Recommendations. The other clear place where I’ve seen subscribers come in is from other Substack publications recommending me (thank you to those of you running publications that do this!). It looks like I’ve gained close to 100 subscribers from that feature and can see that I’ve also helped others find relevant publications that way so I think it can be a helpful way to grow. And going back to point number 4, I think building community can help with getting recommendations for your pub.

Plans moving forward

Given all this, I’ve been thinking about things moving forward for this newsletter:

1. Frequency. For now, I’m sticking with a twice-a-month publishing schedule although I’m mulling occasionally upping it to 3 times a month or possibly going weekly. I’m trying to both not burn myself out and not burn readers out. If you have any other thoughts on the frequency of this newsletter let me know.

2. Content. I’m going to try to cover more how-to stuff with writing. (Per point number 6 above)

3. Humor challenge. I am planning on doing a two-week humor writing challenge for people who don’t have a lot of time to write at some point in the future (you will not need to write much each day!). I’m thinking about fall if I can get it together or perhaps January or February when there is typically less going on and a lot of us are stuck inside (although I guess those of you in the southern hemisphere will just be enjoying your summer then). If you are a humor writer that might be interested in contributing a prompt to this challenge you can fill out this form to let me know.

4. Paid subscriptions. I recently turned on paid subscriptions in part because I think it helps give some visibility for others to find Humor Me in parts of the Substack universe. Right now, paid and free content are the same for the newsletter and going paid is a way to support my work (thanks to those of you who have done this!) I’m mulling some potential options for paying subscribers, perhaps some more writing coaching-related content or things that I would just rather not have open to the whole internet. Or I may archive old posts after a certain tired in part to help (maybe) keep them out of the whole AI feeding machine. I’m still thinking about it! But if you happen to notice that a paid subscription is an option now, that is the deal. And if you have any big things you do or don’t like in other paid Substacks, feel free to let me know.

So I think those are the highlights! Thanks for reading this and being here.