In this week’s post, I’m diving into the secrets of a $1m newsletter. Yes, ONE MILLION dollars. It can be done.

Despite what the sceptics say, it is possible to make (very) good money from paid subscriptions alone on Substack. And you don’t have to be writing about writing to do it.

Lenny Rachitsky, creator of the $1m + newsletter Lenny’s Newsletter, for tech product managers, reached his one million dollar revenue milestone some years ago. In March 2025, he reached one million subscribers and shared what he learned about Substack growth in his post, 1,000,000. In this post I’m breaking down the ideas he shared and also drawing on insights from a follow‑up analysis by Growth in Reverse.

Here are the top 5 things you need to do to reach 1 million subscribers like Lenny.

1. Provide quality content that people want to share

Lenny says he tried every growth lever in his early days on Substack: paid ads, SEO, referrals, business development but almost none of them moved the needle. Instead, he says almost all his growth came from word of mouth and recommendations.

Lenny’s posts are structured so that someone can quickly skim, learn something concrete, and think, “This is useful! I’ll send it to send to my friend or colleague.”

My take: I get hundreds of readers through simple shares and recommendations and this is the most effortless and joyful way to grow because every recommendation is a tiny endorsement of my work.

How to do it:

1. Make your posts as good as you can. Readers recognise excellence and will tell their friends if they like what you do.

2. If your publication is educational, make sure your headline and subheadings are clear and skimmable so readers can easily assess how relevant the content is to them and others.

3. Ask Tell your readers to share your posts. Every single one of my food safety posts includes at least one call to action that says something like “Did you find this useful? Please share it with a friend or on LinkedIn and help grow our food safety community”.

4. If you’re ready to ask other writers for recommendations through the Substack system, use the advice in my post for best practices: How to Get More Subscribers with Substack Recommendations

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2. Stick with it (then stick with it some more)

One of the big lessons from Lenny’s 1,000,000 post is that growth doesn’t come from “going viral”. Newsletter success is a long‑haul game where regular, small actions compound over time.

Lenny didn’t suddenly hit 1M‑plus subscribers after a couple of popular posts; he spent five years publishing, interviewing, tweaking and gradually upgrading his publication.

My take: I concur. Later this year I’ll hit my five-year milestone on Substack. I’ve had many disheartening plateaus in growth where I’ve thought “that’s it, there’s no one left to subscribe to me!” and yet every plateau has ended, and my subscriber numbers have continued to climb. Better still, the more subscribers you have, the easier it is to grow, because there are more people sharing your content (see point 1).

How to do it: Set yourself a minimum ‘run time’ to test your idea on Substack - I recommend 6 months. Commit to regular weekly posting and focus on building habits and getting to know your readers before making any judgements or pivots. Choose a simple, repeatable format so you can keep posting even on low‑inspiration days and expect subscriber numbers to plateau regularly.

3. Borrow an audience, then own them

Something that Lenny has mentioned helped him in the early days was penning two guest posts for other newsletters. This gave him access to existing audiences that he could then convert into his own subscribers.

My take: Guest posting gets your work in front of new readers who are already reading newsletters.

How to do this: The key to successful guest posting is to write super-high-quality content for someone else’s publication. Your aim: get their audience so excited by what you wrote that they will subscribe to you too. You can learn how to find and select publications for guest posting and other collaborations in my post: Collaborations for Small Publications.

4. Publish in two or more places, but own one

One of the most useful lessons from Lenny’s journey is the power of sharing your ideas across platforms—guest‑writing, podcast appearances, social posts—while always steering people back to Substack as the central hub.

This was particularly relevant when Lenny started out, as Substack Notes did not exist, meaning all his subscribers had to come from external platforms. I still get most of my food safety subscribers from outside of Substack.

My take: Do not rely solely on the Substack universe for distribution. If you want your publication to grow, you need to be meeting new readers in other places as well. Think LinkedIn, Instagram, YouTube, word-of-mouth, in-person events, webinars and conferences… anywhere you can ‘meet’ people who are interested in your topic.

How to do it: Use social media channels to demonstrate your thinking and build trust with potential readers, but direct everyone to your Substack newsletter. Think of your Substack publication as the “home base” where you own your audience without relying on an algorithm, and can build a deeper relationship with them.

5. Think of your publication like a product, not a diary

Lenny treats his newsletter as a scalable product with clear positioning and a repeatable growth loop. He didn’t just start a blog; he built a clear product with a name, a niche, and a repeating format that people could rely on.

My take: Lenny’s newsletter doesn’t feel random. It’s structured like a product, with a clear promise, predictable format, and a value proposition for his readers. This is an important element to his success.

Structure and predictability are seriously underrated by many Substack creators. Predictability allows readers to feel confident of what they will get each time they open an email from you. It’s this confidence that encourages people to open your emails, click on your posts and stay subscribed.

How to do it: Think of your readers as valued customers, and pay attention to their ‘customer journey’…. How do they ‘meet’ you? How do they get to know you? What encourages them to subscribe? What encourages them to open your emails, click on your posts and go deeper with you?

Make sure you welcome new readers properly, show them how to make the most of their subscription, provide them with context when you appear in their inbox, treat them like valued customers by giving them the kind of content they signed up for and encourage them to spread the word about your writing.

There you have it, 5 tips to get you on the path to 1 million subscribers.

Have a fantastic weekend, see you next week,

Karen

P.S. Want a guided Substack walk-through and personalized tutorial with me? I’ll guide you through your dashboard, help you optimize your settings and get you set up right. Or, if you’re already set up and confident, I’ll give you a backstage tour of my $29K dashboard and strategies for swiping – your choice.

My ultra-popular one-off one-hour strategy sessions re-open next week. To be first in line, send me a DM and I’ll save you a spot.

Today I’ve got a guest post for you, about the craft and art of writing.

If you’ve been with me for a while, you know I never tell you how to write (because most of you are probably better writers than me!)

For me, online writing is nothing more than an attempt at clear communication. My aim: to tell you something helpful and give you simple ideas to execute with clarity.

I put zero thought into the craft of writing.

My guest writer today, , is different. He has put hundreds of hours into understanding the craft of writing online, learning exactly what it takes to become irresistible to readers and building a $60,000 writing business from zero in 18 months.

Today, he shares five techniques that will take your writing to the next level, get you noticed and create raving fans.

Over to you, Derek.

I Spent 6 Months Wondering Why No One Was Reading. Five Writing Moves Later, I Have 12,000 Subscribers.

5 writing decisions that make your writing irresistible

By Derek Hughes

Six months in, I had no readers.

Monday, 6am. I’m at my desk, coffee going cold, publishing another piece no one will read.

So I started studying. I pulled apart every article I couldn’t put down. What made the first sentence impossible to ignore? Why did I keep reading even when I should’ve stopped?

I applied what I found. Awkwardly at first. Then better. Then much better. Twelve months later: 12,000 subscribers. A resignation letter on my boss’s desk.

The writing didn’t change. The craft did.

Most people who quit were never short on ideas. They were short on the skill to make those ideas land. Five craft decisions. Each one costs nothing to apply.

All of them change how your writing lands.

1. Your reader is looking for an exit. Don’t give them one.

Your reader opened your post already looking for a reason to leave.

Most writers build up to their point. They set the scene, add context, ease the reader in. It feels considerate. It isn’t. By the time the real idea arrives, half the readers have gone.

I used to do this. Every post started with context, then background, then finally the thing I actually wanted to say. I thought I was being thorough. I was just making people wait.

Cutting your own words feels wrong. That’s exactly why most writers don’t do it.

The extra sentence explaining why the point matters. The opening paragraph warming things up. The qualifier softening the claim. None of it is helping. It’s making the reader work harder to find what they came for.

Start with the point. Then support it. Not the other way around.

Here’s the difference in real terms.

The Invisible Writer

Getting fit is something a lot of people struggle with. Life gets busy, motivation comes and goes, and it can be hard to know where to start. In this post I want to walk you through some of the things I’ve found helpful on my own fitness journey over the last few years...

The Irresistible Writer

You don’t need more motivation. You need a routine that works when motivation has gone.

When you edit, ask one question: what can I delete and still land the message? If the paragraph opens with context and closes with the insight, try opening with the insight instead. See what happens.

Cut the build-up. The idea was always enough.

2. Abstract writing slides off the brain. Concrete writing sticks.

Here’s what happens when someone reads “financial freedom.”

Nothing.

Most writers reach for abstract language because it sounds like they know what they’re talking about. The brain processes it and moves on. Write “I paid off my last credit card at 11pm on a Tuesday” and something shifts.

You can feel the difference.

The Invisible Writer

Investing consistently over time, making smart decisions, and staying patient will eventually lead to significant financial growth.

The Irresistible Writer

I put $50 into an index fund every month for three years. Last week I checked the balance and didn’t move for a minute.

Go through your last post and find every abstract noun. Ask: what does this actually look like in a real moment? Then write that moment instead.

The reader can’t hold onto a concept. Give them something they can see.

3. The reader gave you one sentence. That’s the audition.

Every section of your post is another chance to lose them.

That’s true at the start of every section inside it. Each time the reader hits a new heading, they make the same decision again. Keep reading or drift away.

A strong opening line doesn’t summarise what’s coming. It creates a reason to find out.

Open with a problem the reader already feels but hasn’t named. Flip something they assumed was true. Drop them into a scene mid-moment, no context, no setup. State something so specific they wonder how you knew.

Every one of those leaves something unresolved. A gap the reader needs to close.

The Invisible Writer

In this section I want to share some productivity tips that have helped me get more done during my working day and that I think could really help you too.

The Irresistible Writer

I got more done last Tuesday than in the entire previous week.

Write the opening line, then ask: does this make someone need the next sentence? If not, rewrite it until it does.

The audition never stops.

4. Nobody reads your writing. They scan it.

Your reader isn’t sitting at a desk with a coffee and an hour to spare.

They’re on a phone, between two other things, giving you thirty seconds to prove it’s worth staying. The way your writing looks on the screen is the first thing they judge. Before the hook. Before the insight. Before any of it.

A wall of text doesn’t just look heavy. It feels like a commitment.

Short paragraphs. One to three lines. Then a break. White space isn’t empty.

It’s the pause that makes the next line land harder.

The Invisible Writer

Making a significant life change in your fifties can feel overwhelming and many people find themselves wondering whether it’s too late to start over, whether the energy they once had is still there, and whether the people around them will understand what they’re trying to do and support them through it, which is why it’s so important to have a plan and a support network in place before you begin.

The Irresistible Writer

She handed in her notice at 54. Her colleagues thought she was having a breakdown. She was having the opposite.

Subheadings work the same way.

I aim for a new one every 150 to 200 words. Not as a label, but as a small hook that catches a scanning reader and pulls them back in. Mix your paragraph sizes too. Short then longer then short again. Same-size paragraphs, however good the content, start to blur.

Give the eye a path and the reader will follow it.

5. The reader doesn’t notice the rhythm. Until it’s wrong.

Your reader doesn’t just read.

They hear the words as they scan them. They feel the rhythm before they process the meaning. When the shape of your writing matches the way the brain expects language to move, the writing locks in.

When it doesn’t, the reader drifts without knowing why.

Some sentences work through balance. Two halves that mirror each other. “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” Martin Luther King, The brain settles into the structure before it registers what was just said.

Some sentences work through repetition at the front. Same opening, new ground each time. Churchill didn’t talk his nation through a war. He drummed it through. “We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields.”

By the third beat, it stops sounding like a sentence and starts sounding like a pulse.

The Invisible Writer

Anxiety is something that affects a lot of people and it can have a significant impact on your daily life.

The Irresistible Writer

It doesn’t shout. It doesn’t announce itself. It doesn’t even argue. It just whispers the same thing on repeat until you mistake it for the truth.

Read your writing out loud. Where you stumble, the reader stumbles. Where it flows, they follow.

Shape is the thing working underneath. Get it wrong and the reader leaves without knowing why.

Get it right and they finish the piece wondering why it felt so easy to read.

Good writing isn’t a gift. It’s a set of decisions.

Every point in this piece comes down to the same thing. The reader’s attention is borrowed, not given. The moment your writing asks too much of them, they’re gone.

The writers who hold attention have learned to read their own work the way a stranger would. From the outside, with no obligation to stay.

Your ideas deserve to be read.

Pick one thing from this piece and apply it to your next post. Just one. See what changes.

And if you want to go deeper.

Derek Hughes went from no online presence to a $60,000 writing business in 18 months. He writes about audience growth, writing craft, and digital products on Substack. Find him at The Irresistible Writer.

Thank you, Derek,

That’s it from Pubstack Success for this week. See you next week,

Karen

I’ve got something from the archives for you today: a post I wrote in 2022. The advice I shared back then is still relevant today.

Enjoy!

3 Things to Learn From One Newsletter

Every publication needs these three things

Karen Cherry | Aug 17, 2022

Today’s issue of The Rubesletter by Matt Ruby (Vooza) is fabulous.

It contains three elements that every publication needs to be successful: great content, a compelling email header and effective CTAs (calls to action). Let’s jump into each in turn.

1. Great content

Matt’s publication has great content. Today’s email is one long original piece that is entertaining, thoughtful and flows beautifully. Matt breaks up the long text with gifs, Tweet previews, and colorful listicles.

And it’s funny

“....lately I feel the same way about Jesus as I do about Beyonce: Love the artist, scared to death of the superfans.” Matt Ruby

After the long original piece, there are 3 more skimmable sections, “Quickies”, “Comedy” and “5-Spotted”.

2. Compelling email header

Matt’s banner and header for free subscribers are a masterclass. They promote his name and brand and they let you know…

• what the email is (a newsletter)

• who the writer is and what he does

• What to expect from your subscription

• Which plan you are on, and an opportunity to sign up for a paid subscription.

3. Effective CTAs (calls to action)

Matt also has some great calls to action (CTAs) in the body of his email, like the one below.

Takeaways

Every successful publication needs great content, compelling email headers and effective calls to action. Take inspiration from the successful creators in your life to tweak and upgrade your Substack publication today.

That’s it from me for this week. See you next time,

P.S. If you found this post helpful, and if you love the fact that my weekly posts have no paywalls, please consider upgrading to say ‘thank you’. Substack is such a generous platform, allowing us all to use it for free for as long as we want before activating paid subscriptions, and I try to emulate their generosity by sharing all my knowledge for free. But I do sincerely appreciate financial support (thank you!)

Subscribe now

I have had an insanely busy week trying to get everything done before going travelling for a month.

Yes, one month of travel 🤭. Unthinkable in my old job. Totally doable now that I have my own business and meaningful revenue from paid subscriptions on Substack.

How exactly did I get everything done this week? Home stuff, business stuff, life admin, family commitments?

Not by procrastinating, that’s for sure.

If you want to learn how to not procrastinate, there are two ways.

Number one is the hard way, the way I learned, by raising two wildly rambunctious kids as a solo parent with zero support from their father, while corporate-careering as the sole breadwinner and stubbornly refusing to give up on the joy of life adventures, watersports and late-night laughing.

Can’t say I recommend that way. Although I wouldn’t change it for all the tea in China.

The second way to learn how to smash procrastination is the easy way, with my friend , Substack bestseller, keynote speaker, Penguin author, triathlete and Chief Executive Mom.

Veronica is a woman who GETS STUFF DONE. She competes in Ironman competitions, has a young family, writes books and has a thriving Substack community.

She’s just published a course built using principles of the science and psychology of procrastination and organised into actionable, short modules with practical exercises.

Each module is designed to give you a mini-daily progress bump, so you can see real wins fast and stay motivated.

Check out her course here.

• It’s 100% actionable, designed to be finished within a week. (You can take longer if you want but best to do it fast: it is, after all, a course about not procrastinating!)

• It includes a unique self-assessment process to identify your tendencies, and

• You will build your own personal Anti-Procrastinator Gym using tools and strategies that fit your style, to create healthy habits that stick over time.

It’s a fabulous program that will get you unstuck, fast.

It costs US$128, and I receive a commission (at no cost to you) if you purchase it using my link:

The Anti-Procrastinator Course: Mental Gym To Get Things Done

Do check it out, and let me know about your favorite quick win from Veronica!

See you soon,

Karen

Whether you’re brand new to Substack or if you’ve been lurking here for a while and are ready to launch your own publication, I’ve got an 8-step system to help you get your first 100 subscribers.

100 subscribers in 8 steps

Step 1

Make a Substack account and publication, and add a logo. Don’t overthink the logo, you can change it any time.

Step 2

Write three posts. It doesn’t matter what they are about; don’t overthink it. You could write about a road trip or a movie you saw recently, or something your kids did. Put words on the page (or video, or photos) and move on.

Step 3

Choose a day and time to send your newsletter each week. A deadline will provide you with the push you need to keep producing. Schedule the content you’ve drafted to be sent out each week for the next three weeks at your chosen time.

Step 4

Launch your newsletter by sending a text to 25 of your family and friends. Send them something simple: tell them you’re starting an email newsletter, tell them you would like them to join up and that it’s free. Give them the name and the link to your publication.

Step 5

Write three more posts. Writing more posts will help you get clarity on what you want to write about, and your newsletter’s topic will gradually reveal itself to you. Schedule the posts for the following weeks.

Step 6

Share your posts on social media by posting the social media assets that Substack generates for you automatically, asking your readers to check out your publication.

Step 7

Ask more people to sign up. In step 4, you asked 25 of your closest contacts to subscribe to your new venture. In this step, widen the net to people in your outer network, such as work colleagues, distant relations, contacts from high school, and LinkedIn connections.

Write each person a personalized note telling them about your publication and why you think they might like it. Include a link and ask them to check it out.

The first ten subscribers are the hardest!

Alternative:

If you don’t want to ask your existing networks, the easiest way to grow is to subscribe to other Substack publications in similar niches and jump into the comments threads with thoughtful responses and unique perspectives. Other commenters will check you out, and some will subscribe. You can do the same by replying to notes.

Step 8

If you haven’t reached 100 subscribers, repeat steps 5 to 7. Treat the process of creating a newsletter as its own reward because it will expand your comfort zone, allow you to connect with new people and improve your writing skills more than you could possibly imagine.

—

That’s it!

Follow those eight steps, and you’ll reach 100 subscribers in no time.

Subscribe now

My best advice is to:

• Use the Substack network by subscribing to other creators and interacting with their posts and notes - don’t waste time making your own notes when you have less than 100 subscribers (this Substack Notes how-to post explains why)

• Publish consistently to build a strong habit. If you ever have to choose between publishing a not-quite-perfect post and nothing, always choose to publish. Your writing will get quicker, easier and more enjoyable the more often you do it, but only if you practice hitting ‘Publish’ on posts that are not perfect.

• Commit to six months of consistent publishing before asking “Is this worth it?”. Most Substack creators quit too early, before they’ve had time to build the momentum that comes with showing up every week.

Want more growth advice (without the BS?)? Check out these other posts from my archive.

• How To Go From 0 to 2,000 Subscribers

• How Often Should You Post on Substack?

• How to Use Substack Notes to Get More Subscribers

• How To Grow in Substack (Without Spamming Notes)

Okay, that’s it from me this week. Have a good one.

And don’t forget, if you found this post useful, please re-stack it to Notes by clicking the circular arrows icon at the top or bottom of the post.

Or upgrade to a paid subscription to say thank you (and get access to my Substack Starter Kit, Substack Canva templates pack and Substack Ideas Analyzer tool).

Karen

Today, a coaching client asked me about using Instagram to get Substack subscribers. Is it a good idea? Does it work? How to do it well without wasting a ton of time?

I’m sharing the answers in this post.

Before I jump in to answer your questions, I’ve gotta be straight with you. I personally do not use Instagram to get Substack subscribers. The knowledge I share in this post has been gained from hours spent forensically dissecting guidance and case studies by writers who are using Instagram successfully, and from talking with Instagram power users.

I’ll start by answering the big question: is Insta actually worth it for Substack creators? Then I’ll explain what works (and what doesn’t) for Substack creators on Insta and I’ll finish up with some tips about how to set up for success.

Let’s jump in.

Does Instagram work for growing a Substack?

Yes, Insta can work for Substack growth. But not for everyone, and not without a thoughtful approach.

Growth on Substack means getting more subscribers - that is, more email addresses in your email list. There are followers on Substack, but true growth on Substack is measured in subscribers, not followers.

So to grow with Instagram, you need to use it to get more Substack subscribers - more email addresses.

You can do that in two ways:

(1) Encourage people on Insta to click the link in your Insta bio or tap a link in your Insta Stories, which takes them to your Substack publication where they can sign up. Or

(2) Earn their trust so gradually, through consistently good content, that they go looking for your newsletter themselves.

So far, so good. But there’s a problem…

The problem with Insta

Getting someone to follow you on Instagram is easy. Getting them to leave Instagram and sign up for something on a completely different platform is hard.

Scrolling on Instagram is a low-commitment action - people scroll there for easy-to-consume, low-effort content, for escapism, for zoning out. On Insta, people are conditioned to keep scrolling, to not take action.

So when you try to get someone on Insta to click through to Substack, it’s a big ask. You’re asking them to switch out of passive scroll mode and make an active decision. You need them to stop scrolling, click a link, land on an unfamiliar platform, understand what it is, and hand over their email address.

That’s huge.

But it can be done. Andy Adams, of FlakPhoto Digest is just one of many Substack creators using Instagram to gain subscribers. He told Substack that he got tens of thousands of views and gained more than 2,300 subscribers from Instagram in one year.

The benefits of Insta

Instagram has a massive existing audience, hundreds of millions of people, including people who would love your writing but have never heard of you. Or of Substack. On Instagram, you can reach people who aren’t using the Substack app or seeing Substack Notes.

The demographic is younger than other social media channels like Facebook, and the culture is more ‘personal’ than sites like LinkedIn.

Instagram is a great place to give people tiny bites of content so they can get a taste of your thinking without having to make a big commitment. A quick scroll, a swipe through a carousel, a 30-second reel… these are easy ‘Yeses’ for a stranger who’s never heard of you.

Instagram will get you and your words in front of strangers - people you can’t meet elsewhere on the internet. Your job is to build the trust and curiosity that will encourage them to click over and join you on Substack.

So is Insta worth it?

Yes, Insta can be a good source of subscribers. But only if you can answer yes to the following questions:

• Is your ideal reader hanging out on Insta?

• Are you willing to ‘niche-down’ on Insta - that is, can you commit to using it strategically as a brand awareness machine instead of a place to share cat photos and describe your family holidays?

• Can you effectively translate your Substack ideas into a visual medium?

• Are you willing to actually promote (‘sell’) to your Instagram followers?

If you answered yes, then Instagram could be a good place to find new readers. But be warned: Insta won’t work if you just use it as a place to drop links to your Substack.

To succeed, you need to treat Instagram as a place to genuinely connect with people, give them a taste of your thinking, and earn their trust first, before offering them a chance to get more from you on Substack.

Subscribe now

How to use Insta for Substack growth without wasting time and energy

In this part of the post, I’ll tell you what to do to successfully use Instagram for Substack growth.

How many Insta followers will you need?

As with all things social media, more is better.

However, the size of your following matters way less than how engaged those followers are. A tight, loyal audience of 500 people who genuinely care about what you write will get you more Substack subscribers than 10K passive followers who followed you for a giveaway two years ago and have forgotten who you are.

The key is building credibility and trust with your audience on Instagram first, before you start trying to send them over to Substack.

So rather than thinking about your follower count, it’s better to ask: are the people already following you actually interested in what you write about? If they are, you’re in a good place to start.

What should you post about?

Post content that’s genuinely useful or interesting to the kind of person who’d want to read your Substack. Not purely promotional posts, but standalone content that is worth something on its own. Think of it as giving people a taste of who you are and how you think about your topic.

When someone sees your Insta post, your aim is for them to think “this person gets it” or “this person gets me”. That’s what builds trust. That’s when people will decide they want more. The subscribe click is the natural endpoint of trust that’s already been built.

However, this doesn’t mean you have to pretend you don’t have a publication. People need to know they can get more from you beyond Instagram. You can also use Insta to:

• Announce new posts you just published on Substack

• Tell followers about the benefits of subscribing

• Share screenshots of great comments on your Substack posts

• Celebrate milestones like publication anniversaries

• Upload Substack shareable assets (the images Substack generates when you publish a new post).

What type of posts work best?

Different post types have different uses on Instagram.

If you’re new to Insta, here’s a short explainer:

Grid posts are Insta posts that live permanently on your Instagram profile page. When someone visits your account, the grid is what they see. Stories are different to grid posts, they do not stay in the grid, but disappear after 24 hours.

A grid post can be:

• A static image - a photo or a graphic with text on it

• A carousel - multiple images (slides) people swipe through, can be photos, but for writers it is often text on a simple background, like a mini article broken into chunks.

• A Reel - a short video, which can be text appearing on a screen over a background with music.

Stories appear in a vertical full-screen format and disappear after 24 hours. They can be static photos, video (up to 60 seconds) or text. They are usually seen only by your existing followers.

Carousels and reels work well for text-based content on Substack. To make a carousel or a reel that contains text, use a design tool like Canva. Keep each slide or screen to one single idea — don’t cram too much in. Use a simple background with large font.

Stories are powerful because they are served up to your biggest fans - the people who already follow you and actively seek you out. Stories also one of the only places on Instagram where you can put a clickable link, making them your best tool for sending people directly to your Substack publication.

Reels are powerful because they are also seen by people who don’t follow you. Instagram shows your Reel to people it thinks will be interested, based on what they’ve watched and engaged with before.

Carousels and reels for building trust

Here’s what a Substack writer in the mental health space could do on Instagram.

• Carousel idea: “5 things nobody tells you about caring for someone with mental illness”, with one point per slide, plain text on a simple background. Honest, a bit raw. The kind of thing where someone reads slide one and thinks oh wow, that’s me and swipes through the whole thing.

• Reel idea: The writer, talking to the camera, no fuss or fancy lighting, just a simple video as they walk or sit in their car. “The thing that broke me this week wasn’t the crisis. It was the Tuesday. The completely ordinary, relentless Tuesday.” There’s no resolution, no tidy ending. Just a true thing. People who relate will stop scrolling.

The aim: to make the right person feel genuinely seen. Not educated. Not inspired. Just like someone else actually feels like they do.

That’s what makes them follow you. And eventually trust you enough to subscribe.

What’s the simplest way to send people from Insta to Substack?

There are two ways to move people from Insta to Substack

(1) Put your Substack link in your bio. That’s the one clickable link on your Instagram profile. Then, in your posts and Reels, you say “link in bio” to send people there.

(2) Put links to your Substack posts in Instagram stories.

How to avoid the ick

Asking people on Instagram to sign up to your newsletter can feel awkward or spammy, but it doesn’t have to.

The key to thinking about promotion is to treat it like an invitation. You’re inviting your followers to get more from you, and offering them a way to learn, grow or go deeper. If you think about it this way, you’re actually doing them a favor!

Don’t ask too often. If every post ends with “sign up to my newsletter,” people tune out fast, and you’ll start feeling like a used car salesman. Aim for a ratio of one newsletter-related post to four posts that don’t mention the newsletter. This way most of your content is genuinely useful or interesting stuff with no agenda attached, which will draw in more followers and help to grow trust.

When you do ask, keep it simple and human. Something like:

“If this resonated with you, I write about this stuff every week — link in bio if you want in.”

The other thing that works is just showing people what they’d get. Share a snippet from a recent piece. If they read it and think I want more of that, they’ll go looking for the link themselves.

How to set up for success

Use a human name, not a brand name, for your Insta account. It’s much easier to build trust and gain followers when you invite people to connect with you as a human, not a faceless company. ‘Sarah Carter Writes’ feels real. ‘MentalHealthHub’ feels like a government website.

Use a picture of your face for your Insta account for the same reason. People follow people, not logos. Avoid blurry photos, group shots where nobody knows which one is you, or a picture of your cat - they’re fine for personal accounts, but confusing for a writing account.

Set up your bio properly. It needs:

• One clear sentence explaining what you write about and who it’s for

• A link to your Substack publication

• A simple call to action, something like “weekly newsletter — link below”

For example: “Writing honestly about life as a mental health carer. Weekly newsletter — link below.”

How often should you post?

The experts seem to agree that 5 to 7 stories per week plus 3 to 5 grid posts (ordinary posts) per week is about right for maintaining a consistent, trusted presence.

Should you do a Substack launch announcement on Insta?

If you already have a following on Instagram, then ABSOLUTELY do a launch announcement! Go ahead and tell your followers about your new project.

For inspiration, check out the examples of launch announcements in this post by On Substack: How Instagram creators are bringing their followers to Substack

If you’re new to Instagram and haven’t started posting regularly there yet, don’t waste your time crafting the perfect launch reel; it’s better to put your energy into Substack instead.

Gain some momentum with your publication before ramping up your Instagram activities. That way, you’ll have something great for people to see when they click your links.

Final thoughts

My hot takes after learning all I can about Insta as a Substack growth lever are:

Instagram is optimised to keep users on the app, so it’s not the easiest place to get new Substack subscribers. However, it can be a good place to give new acquaintances a taste of who you are and what you do. The aim is to build trust and curiosity so they will take the leap over to Substack to get more from you.

If you’re starting from scratch on Insta, Reels are your best shot at being discovered by brand new people. The other formats - carousels, static posts, Stories - are seen mostly by people who already follow you. Reels are how strangers find you.

Be sure to set up your bio properly and post regularly enough that people actually know you exist and can learn about your approach to your topic. A few decent grid posts a week, plus almost daily Stories, is enough to build momentum if the content actually resonates with people.

Don’t rely on ‘link in bio’ alone. People won’t click through to your bio unless you’ve already caught their attention and gained their trust with content that resonates or intrigues.

Think of your Instagram promotional activities as an invitation to go deeper with you: Instagram is where strangers find you, Substack is where they get more.

And finally, if an Insta growth strategy feels like too much, remember you don’t have to do it. Substack should be a place of joy and personal growth, not a hamster wheel of hustle.

It’s more important to build a publication you are proud of and nurture a writing rhythm that works for you than it is to feed the Insta algorithm. Your growth may be a little slower, but at least you won’t burn out and crash before you make it to your tenth week.

Okay, that’s it from me for this week.

If you want more like this, check out my post How to Get More Subscribers Without Social Media, with inspiration from a $1m publication that was built without thousands of followers.

And if you’d like to discuss growth strategies one-to-one with me, a 2x Substack bestseller (including in a niche that is NOT writing about writing), then send me a DM or reply to this email and find out more about my coaching services.

Talk soon!

Hope you’ve had a great week so far.

Today I am delighted to share insights from a successful fiction writer on Substack, , who recently shared what he’s learned about monetizing fiction with readers of his publication . With Simon’s permission, I’m reproducing an extract here.

Simon’s post contains insights for all writers, not just fiction writers. If you’re growing slowly but ready for some hustle-free inspiration you’re going to love it.

Over to you, Simon…

If you’ve been reading my newsletter for a while, you might have noticed that I don’t tend to write about monetisation or making money as a writer. I’ll happily write about anything else, but income isn’t a topic I’ve touched.

There’s a good and simple reason for this: I wasn’t making any money. In writing the non-fiction articles for this publication, I have a rule that so far has kept me on track: I only write about what I know. Hence I have wittered on endlessly about serial fiction, about planning and world building, about characters and themes, about pacing and structure. As the newsletter began to grow, I also started writing about building an audience, sharing what I was discovering in real time.

The internet is full of gurus who are happy to share advice without ever providing evidence of putting it into action themselves. That’s why I serialised Tales from the Triverse for four-and-a-half years, as evidence that I knew what I was talking about. There was a pleasing synchronicity there: if I’d just written an especially action-filled chapter, there was a good chance I’d then write an article about action-heavy chapters. The fiction supported the non-fiction, and vice versa.

Making money, though? C’mon! I write weird science fiction and fantasy. I’m an author in the 21st century — we don’t make money! Doesn’t matter how you publish your work, be it traditional, DIY, online or anything else: fiction ain’t going to make most people rich.

Then, slowly, quietly, begrudgingly, the needle began to move. It’s taken five years, but I do now have a bunch of wonderful paid subscribers. I’ve even had one of those fancy orange checkmarks for a time, which means I’m a ‘Substack Bestseller’ with ‘hundreds of paid subscribers’.

First up, here’s a thing you need to know about that mark: they are very loose with their use of the word ‘hundreds’. Over 100, sure, but in my book you need to have more than 200 for something to count as ‘hundreds’, and that’s not me.

I don’t know if that orange mark is sustainable, or an anomaly that will turn out to be a brief moment in time. Regardless, after five years I do feel like I have some legitimate things to say about (whisper it) making money from your writing.

Products vs Patronage

I started the newsletter in 2021 and had very little idea what I was doing. There was no ‘strategy’ as such, though I was very clear on what I wanted to do. Each week I would send out a new chapter of my fiction serial, accompanied by behind-the-scenes and tutorial articles to help anyone else who wanted to write serial fiction.

When operating a newsletter with an optional paywall, the first question tends to be “when should I turn on paid subscriptions?” I still think the right approach is simply as soon as you want to. It’s up to your readers whether they pay or not, but you may as well give them the option. When you’re comfortable with the concept. But you also have to know what you’re offering.

Here’s a question to ask yourself: are you delivering products, or are you building a community? You can do both, of course, but which way you lean will influence how you handle pricing and payment.

If you’re producing distinct products, such as courses, or specific financial advice, or high quality political insights and so on, then people are likely to think of a subscription as a more traditional transaction. Subscribe > receive products.

On the flipside, if you’re building a community, the equation shifts. It’s less about specific outputs and more about an ongoing experience. It’s a less transactional relationship and the writer-reader connection is more one of patronage. Subscribe > support the writer.

I didn’t know any of this back in 2021, so spent at least a year faffing about trying things that didn’t work. It took me a long while to figure out that I wasn’t selling a product (Tales from the Triverse, my serial) but was instead building a community (of fellow fiction writers, newsletter writers, science fiction readers and viewers).

What worked for me

It took me a long time to get out from under a traditional book sale mentality. I was assuming that I was creating ‘books’, which then had to be ‘sold’ as individual products on a virtual shelf. That’s how fiction has worked for a century or two, after all.

A reality check was required:

1. Nobody had heard of Simon K Jones.

2. There are already vast quantities of very good science fiction and fantasy books, more than anyone could read in a lifetime.

3. An ongoing serial is a risky commitment, being an unfinished ‘product’ by design.

These three inescapable facts make it extremely difficult to sell self-published books, whether in print, ebook or newsletter form.

Anything I tried which required an up-front payment meant erecting a huge barrier between me and potential readers. A new reader had no reason to trust me to deliver, and had no idea if my stories were worth reading. A paywall of any sort gave readers a very good reason to go read something else, and — as noted — there’s no shortage of excellent genre books.

“Do I pay to read this random bloke’s online serial, or do I buy a book by [insert highly respected genre writer]?” is not a question I wanted potential readers to be asking.

Eventually I flipped the newsletter on its head and made everything free to read, non-fiction and fiction alike. It all clicked into place and made sense:

• Anyone could sample my writing to decide if they wanted to subscribe, without any barriers

• Promoting the ongoing serial became much easier, as each new chapter could be its own mini book launch, without awkward caveats and disclaimers

• Word-of-mouth was possible, without enthusiastic readers worrying about whether others could read what they were sharing

Subscriptions grew slowly but steadily and, to my surprise, so did paid subscriptions — albeit at a vastly slower rate. That people were upgrading to paid subscriptions without receiving anything specific in return was startling, and was when I realised that I was operating a patronage model rather than a product model.

You can see in this chart of paid subscribers the very slow start, then steady-ish growth interrupted regularly by dips and general flailing, then a long, flat period, and a recent uptick. Looking at short periods, it’s all fairly chaotic. Over a longer timeline, the trend is more stable.

The short version being: nobody was interested in paying to buy a book from an unknown rando writer on the internet, but some readers were very willing to support the writer.

Getting to that point requires a long-term writer-reader relationship. I’ve had people who read the free newsletter for six months or a year before upgrading to a paid sub. I’ve done the same myself with other writers I enjoy.

It’s a highly inefficient business model, clearly! In the 21st century hustle culture of rapid growth and being in a perpetual hurry it feels anachronistic, even. This newsletter was a quiet little thing for the first two years. I see people start newsletters and abandon them after a month, lamenting that they haven’t hit the big time, and that primarily demonstrates a misunderstanding of the medium.

Write More with Simon K Jones

How to (very, very slowly) cultivate a fiction newsletter: part 1

Writing fiction is hard. Finding readers is even harder. Achieving success, regardless of how you personally measure it, is near impossible…

Read more

2 years ago · 159 likes · 48 comments · Simon K Jones

But here’s the thing: I love writing and would continue to write regardless of how many people are reading. What I do is long-term by definition. Having a slow ‘funnel’ isn’t really a problem. The trick was to get out of my own way, and let the writing speak for itself, and give it time to breathe.

What didn’t work

Along the way, I tried various setups and none felt quite right. To quickly summarise:

• Free opening chapters, then paywalled: this can work once you’re an established name, but is tricky if you’re starting out. More problematic is that by paywalling later chapters, you kill any chance of ongoing promotion, because potential new readers can never read the latest chapter that you’re promoting. There’s no way of building momentum.

• Early access: again, this only works if people are already really eager to read your stuff. If you’re an established author with a strong fanbase, this could work. Otherwise, people are just going to wait, and it again introduces an awkwardness into announcing new chapters.

• Bonus material paywall: putting behind-the-scenes stuff behind the paywall sounds like a great idea, as it keeps the main story fully accessible while giving something to the more enthusiastic fans. If you’re just starting out, though, you might not yet have fans willing to dive deeper, so it ends up being wasted effort.

• Paywalled audio: I thought this was a clever idea, keeping the author voiceovers exclusive to paying subscribers. A bonus audiobook! The problem, as somebody pointed out, is that audio is an excellent accessibility feature and locking it away behind a paywall is an accidentally crappy thing to do. And while it can be a neat perk, it also functions as a useful promotional tool for finding new readers — but only if it’s actually available to new readers/listeners.

• Paywalled comments: this only really works, I think, if you write especially controversial topics. It’s effective for non-fiction which raises tricky topics, or anything that encourages partisan and tribal posturing. If people want to weigh in with their opinion, or their outrage, they may well pay for the privilege. It makes far less sense for fiction.

• ‘Buy me a coffee’: alternative micro-payment patronage such as kofi.com sounds like a simpler, less expensive way for readers to provide support that doesn’t involve committing to a subscription. The challenge, as always, is that the moment you try to move people off-platform it introduces a ton of friction. It works great for some people, I’m sure, but it’s a big ask.

To be clear, I’m not saying any of this is universal truth. What didn’t work for me has worked for others, and might work for you. Give it a try!

What I’m doing now

I’ve slightly tweaked my particular setup since completing the serial run of Tales from the Triverse. Having had everything entirely free for five years, I’m now trialling this setup:

1. Almost everything is free when I send it out. Everyone who is subscribed therefore gets everything. I don’t want anyone to miss out on new stuff I’m writing, for two reasons:

   1. The selfish one: It’s better for me to have more readers, duh.

   2. The altruistic one: I like to think that some of my posts are useful, and I don’t want to lock them away from subscribers. Especially as some will be new or young writers, and we all know that writing isn’t exactly a lucrative profession.

2. After 6 months, posts slip behind the paywall. This means that the back catalogue becomes increasingly valuable, and makes a ‘paid subscription’ more meaningful. Some notes:

   1. This only really works because I now have 5 years of material in that back catalogue. It’s a lot of stuff!

   2. That back catalogue functions as a decent incentive to grab a paid sub, but the cut-off is designed to be quite generous. Anything from the last 6 months is free, so there’s plenty to read without having to pay.

   3. Bursary places are available, no questions asked. If someone can’t afford a paid sub and would find that back catalogue useful, all they have to do is drop me a message. See point 1.b, above, for more details on why that’s important.

It’s early days, but so far it seems to be working out for everyone. As noted earlier, it’s only really possible because I’ve been doing this long enough to a) have a back catalogue and b) be able to have a generous paywall archive date. If I’d only been writing the newsletter for a month, it wouldn’t work.

Perverse incentives and greed

There’s an inherent tension between art and money. An artist needs income to survive while making their art, but they don’t want money to become a distraction. They want as many people as possible to enjoy their art, but also want it to be valued — giving everything away for free risks undermining not only their work but everyone else’s work too.

It’s an ongoing conundrum.

Without wanting to invoke the world’s tiniest sad violin, writing is a simpler exercise when money is not a factor. It requires the artist to be sustainable via other means, but the writing itself can remain pure when money isn’t in the picture.

I can see in my analytics which posts brought in the most subscribers, free or paid. If I were running a business, I would use that data to double-down on the Best Performing Content. I’m not running a business, though — I’m trying to tell stories. If I pumped out more video content about How To Use Substack, I have no doubt that I could accelerate the growth of the newsletter: there’s an insatiable demand for that stuff.

Don’t mistake what I’m saying here: I enjoy making video tutorials and writing helpful guides for writers. I’ve been doing that sort of thing professionally since the early 2000s. But that way also lies mission drift, and a future in which I never quite find time to write any fiction, because the data tells me that fiction doesn’t make money.

The key is to remember the point of all this. I didn’t start a newsletter to make money. That should always remain as a bonus side effect of the main work. This won’t be the case for everyone, and you may well have started a publication specifically to build a brand and boost your income. No problem, as long as that was your intent from the start.

To wrap up this guest post, then:

1. Be clear on why you’re doing this in the first place, and don’t lose sight of that motivation

2. Interrogate your model and what makes sense for you and your audience

3. Experiment, try different things, because you might not hit on the right setup straight out of the gate

4. This is a long game: don’t expect success in a month or 6 months. If you’re not excited by the prospect of writing a newsletter three years from now, it might not be the right thing for you to be doing.

Thank you, Simon for sharing your experiences and expertise.

If you’ve got a question for Simon, drop it in the comments of his original post: Payment models for newsletter fiction writers | Simon K Jones. And don’t forget to check out his fiction too.

Comment on Simon's Post

See ya next week,

Karen

I’m writing to you in case you missed the new features that have recently been added to Substack.

There are five new features and two of them are definitely worth paying attention to.

New Substack features are sometimes more overwhelm-inducing than useful, but this latest batch is pretty darned good. One in particular is going to save me at least an hour a week - love it!

The new features are:

1. templates

2. drop caps

3. live video settings

4. notes scheduling

5. callout blocks

By far my favorite is the template feature. It’s way more useful than I thought it would be.

Here’s my breakdown of each feature plus links to learn more.

1. Templates

What it is:

This is NOT a feature that allows you to make a template of a whole post. That’s already possible using the “Duplicate” option in your draft post list.

Instead, this new feature allows you to create and save custom paragraphs and buttons to add to your posts automatically. No more copy-pasting!

Templates can include chunks of text, custom buttons, buttons with captions, dividers, quote-formatted text and more.

I’ve used the template feature to make a bunch of different ‘subscribe with caption’ buttons with different messaging, plus some ‘share’ CTAs and some ‘P.S.’ notes for the end of each email.

In my other publication, I’ve saved all the elements that appear regularly, from in-post context to shoutouts to paying subscribers to instructions for how to find directories and more. I can now add them at the touch of a button any time I want.

Here’s a screencap of the template feature in action.

Who is it for?

Everyone! (I absolutely love it!)

Where to learn more:

Get complete instructions for using templates here: How can I add a template into my Substack post?

2. Drop caps

What it is:

A feature that allows you to have a fancy-looking large letter in the opening line of each post.

What it doesn’t do:

The drop cap is only visible to people reading on a web browser - you won’t see it in the app or in your email inbox.

The color of the drop cap is the same as your button color, you can’t choose a different color.

The drop cap only affects the first letter of each post, you can’t apply it to other paragraphs.

How to use it:

The drop cap is a universal setting that you apply to your whole publication, in ‘Website Editor’ settings. Full instructions here: How do I add a drop cap to my Substack post?

Subscribe now

3. Live video settings

What it is:

Substack has introduced more sophisticated settings for creators who use Substack Live for video sessions.

The new features make it easier to schedule sessions, edit scheduling and use connected streaming platforms. In addition, people with more than one publication can now host lives from their secondary publications as well as their primary publications.

Who is it for:

These new settings are most useful for creators using Live in advanced ways, and those working with assistants. Low-tech and solo creators won’t notice any changes.

Where to learn more:

Learn more about advanced settings for Live here: How do I go live on Substack using my computer?

4. Notes scheduling

What it is:

Substack now has a built-in scheduling feature for Notes. This allows you to choose the time and day a note will be published.

Who is it for:

Anyone who uses Notes can benefit from this feature.

It’s especially great for people like me who are asleep on the other side of the world while most of you are reading Notes.

How to do it:

To schedule a note, first start making a note in the usual way. When you’re happy with it, click the calendar icon from within the note drafting window. You can then choose a day and time for it to be published. Finish by clicking ‘Schedule’.

To see all your scheduled notes, click the word ‘Drafts’ in the same window.

Where to learn more:

New to Notes? Learn how to leverage it to grow, even with a tiny subscriber list here:

How to use Substack Notes by Karen Cherry

5. Callout blocks

What it is:

Callout blocks are the newest addition to the post formatting menu.

Use this new feature to make a block of text appear highlighted, with a coloured background.

Who is it for:

Callout blocks are for anyone who wants to introduce visual interest to their posts. Use them to draw readers’ attention to a key idea, a quote, or a promotion.

How to use it:

To add a callout block to a post, select a paragraph of text, then click the ‘quote’ icon on the formatting toolbar, then select ‘callout block’ from the dropdown list that appears.

Use it to add visual interest to a post and highlight important information.

Okay that’s it from me this week. Have a great weekend.

Karen

P.S. Want personalised, expert advice for your exact situation? Book a call with me for 60 minutes of my undivided attention and get a bestselling strategy that’s right for you and your audience. Book a call.

If I had a dollar for every piece of advice that works for ‘Substack experts’ and doesn’t work for ordinary people, I’d be hanging out in the Bahamas right now…

Spoiler alert: If you want to launch a paid offer on Substack, ‘Community’ is not the answer. 100% paid posts are not the answer. Cliff-hanger paywalls in stories are not the answer. Subscriber-only chats are not the answer. At least not for most people. I’ll explain shortly.

But first… a quick word from my sponsor (me):

Why most Substack advice about paid offers is wrong

Most people who are giving advice about monetizing Substack have seen success by writing about Substack on Substack. And many of these people started with an existing audience that they’ve brought from Medium, LinkedIn or ConvertKit (‘Kit’).

Not me. I’ve built my other publication from zero in a weird niche that is not writing about writing. And what works there is not the same as what works here. I’ve learned the hard way that the advice provided by many Substack gurus is not quite right for publishers who aren’t writing for online creators.

Those other creators who think they’ve cracked the system, and found the golden key?

They have. They have found a perfect system and a golden key. For them. For their niche. For their audience.

Those gurus? They are in exactly the right place (Substack) at exactly the right time (Substack going mainstream).

Almost anything they do on Substack will make money.

The result? They think their “System” will work perfectly for you because it works perfectly for them.

Not that they aren’t working hard, and building (frankly) fantastic publications and communities, just that their natural advantages give them a weird bias when they try to teach what’s working for them.

Subscribe now

What to do if you’re not writing about writing on Substack

My other newsletter is not about writing. It’s about food safety. It’s ultra niche. It doesn’t have a natural audience already hanging out in Substack. There’s no magic Substack discoverability for it.

It’s hard to grow. It’s hard to monetize.

And yet my paid subscriber numbers grew by 17% last year. My conversion rate is high. My retention rate is phenomenal. Without viral moments. Without shortcuts. Just consistent effort.

Here’s my advice for creators who are NOT writing about writing on Substack:

• Be aware that some audiences are harder to monetize than others. My Substack Idea Analyser interactive tool will tell you if you are on to a winner or not.

• Be wary of advice about monetizing “community”. To do this successfully, you’ll need either a very big subscriber list or a very special type of audience and niche.

• Paywalling all your ordinary posts is a one-way trip to disappointment unless you have extraordinarily compelling content that people absolutely can’t get anywhere else, like local news publications (Simon Owens shares a great example of that here).

• ‘Gratitude’ offers (“Everything here is free to read, but if you love this newsletter, please consider becoming a paid subscriber to support my work”) can work. But only a little. (Here’s an example).

• ‘Buy me a coffee’ buttons and tip jars are appealing to creators who feel overwhelmed by the idea of a paid newsletter, but Substack doesn’t have a built-in ‘Buy me a coffee’ button for a reason….

• Substack’s management knows tip jars are not a sustainable way for writers to be compensated for their work, so they don’t encourage writers to use them. If you really want to use a tip jar, think of it as nice-to-get pocket money, but don’t expect it to be a reliable source of income (Here’s how).

• The most effective way to achieve sustainable, reliable revenue with paid subscriptions is to paywall posts that are different from your ordinary posts or add special bonus content below a paywall. More about this below.

The most effective model: Different content behind the paywall

What I’m about to tell you might make you sob, ‘Ugh, this feels so transactional, so icky’. And you’d be right - about the transactional part, at least.

If you want to make money, people need to give you money. That’s a transaction. That’s transactional. That’s selling (arp!). If that’s not you, no worries, tune out now. But if you are interested in learning how to have successful transactions and what works best for most creators, read on…

Earlier in this article, I told you that your paid content should be different to your free content, that the content you put behind a paywall should be different.

It doesn’t mean paywalling your very best posts - why on earth would you hide those behind a paywall where hardly anyone will see them?!

It means reserving something special for your paying subscribers.

For example, if your publication is about fishing and your ordinary posts are stories about your favourite adventures or locations...

• Standard advice would be: “Send three free posts per month to everyone and one post per month to paying subscribers.” Nope, don’t do that!

It’s much better to do something different for your paywalled content. For example, keep all your stories about adventures free for everyone, and do something special and different for paying subscribers. Such as:

• Three free posts per month for everyone and one paid post per month that is a detailed guide to a specific fishing spot or technique, or

• Adding a paywall towards the bottom of every post with a step-by-step guide to a specific technique or fish species. Your stories stay free and accessible to everyone. The paid content lives underneath.

What you’re doing with this technique is showing everyone who you are, what you know, and why they should trust you.

Only after you’ve built that trust can you convert free subscribers to paid.

Your free content builds trust. Your paywall gives your readers an opportunity to access something special: your specific insights and expertise.

Think of a paywall as an invitation to something more.

Subscribe now

5 ways to do this (with examples)

I’ve just told you to paywall content that is different to your free content. Here are 5 types of content that can be successfully paywalled:

1. Curated information

Curated information saves people the time and effort they would spend filtering out all the free information on the web. It’s something people will pay for. More importantly, in the age of mass ChatGPT use, curated information is valuable to readers who trust your taste, instincts or expertise more than they trust the AIs.

Who does this well: Paris by Mouth, with free posts about individual restaurants (to create trust) and a paywalled curated list of places to eat while in Paris, which saves people time.

2. Standalone items

Special items that people can (figuratively) hold in their hands work very well for paid content. Think checklists, reports, guidance documents, templates. Popular options are investor reports, recipes and downloadable AI prompts.

Who does this well: The Bear Cave, with special reports for paying subscribers, like The Best Stock Research Tools for 2026

3. Live teaching moments

Live teaching moments are easy to monetize for publications that help people with health, wealth and relationships. Free posts showcase the writer’s personality, experience and ‘vibe’. Paid teaching moments, delivered using Substack Live or an online learning platform, show readers the exact ‘how’ of solving a problem.

Who does this well: The Play List, with live training sessions for teachers.

4. ‘Challenges’ and work-together sessions

Challenges and work-together sessions are focused on a single specific outcome, such as building ab strength or painting a still life from scratch. The benefit over ordinary ‘community’ is that readers can sign up to achieve one goal, which is more compelling than signing up to read endless threads week after week.

Who does this well: Wendy MacNaughton of DrawTogether with WendyMac with her 30 Days of Drawing Practice.

5. Subscriber-only AMAs (‘Ask me anything’s)

Paid AMAs are dedicated sessions or spaces where paid members can ask you anything. The free content provides generic advice but paid subscribers can get advice that is specific to their needs.

AMAs don’t have to be delivered with live video; they can be prerecorded or text-based.

Who does this well: Amanda Nelson of Amanda’s Mild Takes, such as in this Paid Subscriber AMA.

Subscribe now

Final thoughts

If your paid subscriber count is lower than you want, don’t let the gurus get you down. What works for them won’t work for everyone. And that’s okay.

Instead of trying to follow cookie-cutter advice, revisit your goals (more impact or more money? - or both!) and find a way to help your readers by offering them something they will value and appreciate.

You don’t have to teach subscribers a skill or run a live session. The ‘help’ you deliver can be as simple as giving your readers a mood boost (“I feel uplifted after reading that fabulous essay”).

But if you really want to increase your revenue, I recommend you offer them access to something different from your ordinary posts.

__

That’s it from me for this week. I bet you’ve got a ton of questions! See you in the comments.

Karen

P.S. Want specific advice about what to offer, customised for your unique personal style and niche? Jump on a call with me ($249), I have 3 slots left for March.

If you’ve been thinking about launching a course to share your knowledge and make some side income, it’s time to stop thinking and start doing.

Surprising fact: You don’t need a big audience or major tech skills to get great results!

An online course is a fantastic way to help your readers get their problems solved - think of a course as a shortcut for readers who don’t want to spend their time reading your posts and are looking for a quick fix (and are willing to pay for it!)

With a course, you can help those people more effectively by solving their problems fast.

Curious? Free training is happening this Wednesday.

Update: the training has passed, but you can learn more about a paid training hosted by Sinem here: Build Your Profitable Mini-Course In Less Than 14 Days

You’ll learn how to create, market and earn from mini-courses in 2026, even with no audience, no experience, and no tech skills.

It’s being delivered by my friend from Write • Build • Scale, who is a huge fan of mini-courses, because they are fast to build and validate and profitable to run. Sinem has made more than $1m from online courses, so when she shares her knowledge, it’s worth listening.

Interested? Find out more by clicking the button below.

The Easiest Way To Create A Course

Enjoy the training, see you next week!

Karen

P.S. I made $80K from my first online course (in the food safety niche). The income it brought completely changed my life and gave me the opportunity to escape the corporate world and go all-in on my online business. Just sayin’…. 😉

Cover image: Freepik

If you’ve ever looked at someone’s Substack homepage and asked, “How did they get that ‘Subscribe’ banner thingy?”, wonder no more. In this post I tell you how.

What is a ‘Subscribe block’?

A subscribe CTA (call to action) is a page-width block that appears on a publication homepage. Substack calls these ‘Subscribe blocks’.

They aren’t present by default; they must be added manually by the publication owner.

The cool thing about subscribe blocks is that different people see different messages on your homepage, depending on whether they are non-subscribers, free subscribers or paid.

You create custom messages for each type of reader when you add a subscribe block to your homepage.

How to add a subscribe block to your Substack homepage

Step 1 Get your bearings

If you’re new to Substack, there are a few gotchas when it comes to homepages.

• Publication homepages are different to personal profile pages (you’ll see a publication name, not a person’s name at the top).

• Publication homepages are only visible on desktop, not on mobile or on the Substack app.

• Publication homepages must be activated for new creators by selecting ‘Custom theme’ in settings. This post shows you exactly how.

Step 2 Go to Website editor

You can get to Substack’s website editor two ways:

• In your publication dashboard, scroll down the menu on the left to ‘Creator tools’ (it’s below ‘Audience’) and click ‘Website editor’; or

• In your publication settings, scroll to ‘Website’, then click ‘Go to website theme editor’

Both paths will take you to the website editing page.

Publication dashboard > Creator Tools > Website editor

or

Publication dashboard > Settings > Website > ‘Go to website theme editor’ [button]

Reminder: Make sure you have ‘Custom theme’ (not ‘Match profile’) active

Step 3 Activate ‘Custom Body Layout

On the Website editor page, find ‘Layout’ on the right, under colors and typography (you may need to scroll).

Toggle on ‘Use custom body layout’.

Step 4 Insert a new block on your homepage

From the Website editor page, find ‘Posts & modules’ in the left-hand menu and click to open.

Then find the three-dot menu next to the title Post & modules, on the right. Click the three-dot menu and select ‘Insert block below’ (or ‘Insert block above’).

Step 5 Select ‘Subscribe block’

After selecting ‘Insert block below/above’ from the three-dot menu, you’ll be given the option to add a ‘Subscribe block’. Click that option.

Step 6 Create the subscribe CTAs

After clicking [add] Subscribe block you will be prompted to create messages for different homepage visitors, including non-subscribers, free subscribers, and (if you have payments activated), paid subscribers.

You can create custom messages for each type of person, or just use the same message for all.

When you’re done click ‘Save’ and go to your website to check out your handywork.

👉 Top tip: You can add multiple ‘Posts & modules’ blocks and multiple subscribe blocks to your homepage - you can even use a different set of messages for each.

Final thoughts

• Subscribe CTAs are easy to add to your Substack homepage, once you know how.

• Choose a message that’s compelling and unique, so you can stand out from the crowd.

• If your homepage doesn’t look right, follow the instructions here to activate the custom theme setting for your publication.

—

That’s it from me for this week,

Have a good one!

P.S. I just finished writing a plain language guide to homepage customizations for Substack. It will be available to paying subscribers as part of my next template pack launch. Upgrade now to lock in the current price of $30 forever.

Hey Substacker! Hope you’re doing well.

Today’s post is a lil bit embarrassing because it shows how my inner rebel succeeded in hijacking my business for literally years.

Because it shows I was just too stubborn to do the work that needed to be done. Because I didn’t feel like it.

Because when you have your own business, you can do whatever you feel like, right? Right?????

How I got here

I’m a girl who likes to get things done.

I’m not one to poke around in the data for hours on end, trying to figure out arcane internet-y stuff like ranking 45 traffic sources or viewing the stats for every step of a funnel.

But I’m smart enough to know you have to pay attention sometimes - pop your head above the surface, take a good look around and notice if storm clouds are gathering on the horizon.

And in 2024, I took a look at the dashboard of my food safety publication and noticed a lovely new tilt on my Substack revenue chart: faster growth in paid subscriptions. Thousands of extra dollars in my bank account month after month, without doing more work: beautiful.

I thought this was my new normal.

I was wrong.

What the stats said

Six months later, when conversions stalled, I revisited that sweet spot on the chart and tried to figure out why more people were converting to paid subscriptions during those blissful months of triple-figure growth.

There was no obvious reason. Annoying. No extra offers, no major blip in free sign-ups, no new benefits for paying subscribers…. maybe a couple of little things here and there, but no one big magical reason that I could replicate.

Except…. except. There was one thing happening at that time. And it had nothing to do with Substack.

I was posting daily on LinkedIn.

Could that have something to do with it? Surely not. I wasn’t overtly promoting my newsletter. I didn’t have a Premium account, so there was no “View My Newsletter” button on my profile.

I wasn’t doing anything particularly special on LinkedIn. Except showing up every day.

Subscribe now

What I did next

I had discovered that my best revenue growth coincided with one of those rare periods that I could be bothered to post on LinkedIn daily.

I couldn’t figure out how that daily posting could have increased my paid subscribers, since free subscriber growth had remained steady. In fact I couldn’t be sure it had anything whatsoever to do with the growth.

It was probably all just a coincidence, I told myself.

So I did nothing. For more than a year.

Not nothing, exactly: I was still doing all the usual work: creating top-quality posts for my food safety publication every week, crafting special supplements for paying subscribers, occasionally poking around on LinkedIn if I could stomach it. But nothing different.

And - surprise, surprise - nothing changed.

Lightbulb moment

I still have no idea why the months that I post daily on LinkedIn are higher revenue with more new paying subscribers.

Maybe it’s a top-of-mind thing for certain readers who see me on LinkedIn a lot and are more inclined to upgrade. Maybe it’s because I find interesting stories on LinkedIn, and what I write about subtly changes without me realising it. Maybe it’s something to do with my energy when I commit to posting daily.

But these days I don’t care. And I no longer use the fact that I don’t know as an excuse not to do the work.

Towards the end of last year, I had a lightbulb moment:

I don’t need to know why it works. Just that it does work.

The ‘Must Do’ list was born

I made a commitment to post daily on LinkedIn for my food safety audience and post daily on Substack Notes for you guys here at Pubstack Success.

That’s my ‘Must Do’ list for every day: Two tasks. Two check boxes. One powerful result.

Does it work?

Yes. Can you guess when I started posting on Notes daily?

Do I know why it works?

I do not.

Powerful (and Painful)

My ‘Must Do’ list is powerful: Paid subscriber growth has really picked up in both of my publications since I started checking off my ‘Must Do’ list daily.

It’s also painful. I still don’t know how it works, since my rate of free subscriber growth has stayed constant. It could all just be an illusion, a coincidence: my revenue growth could be completely unrelated to my ‘Must Do’ list. That’s annoying.

Even more painful is that I didn’t do it sooner. Because I was too busy being a rebel.

Because I wanted to “work on my own terms”.

Because I wanted to do social media “when I feel like it”.

Because my inner rebel insisted I shouldn’t follow the gurus who insist that constant hustle is a requirement for success.

I’ve learned my lesson. Showing up daily does make a difference. Even if it’s just by signalling to the algorithm that you’re making an effort, that your words are worthy of being distributed, that you give a damn about their dumb platform.

If that makes a difference to my business’s bottom line, I’m up for it. Rebel be damned.

—

Karen

P.S. Want to ‘pick my brains’ about LinkedIn strategies that increase your impressions, grow your (LinkedIn) follower count and complement a professional expertise Substack? Jump on a one-hour call with me.

Did you find this useful? Help more people and increase your reach by sharing it to Substack Notes. To share (‘Re-stack’) click the circular arrow icon at the top of bottom of this page.

Lessons learned on my way to $27K.

I’m celebrating a milestone in my other newsletter this week:

• 225 weeks of publishing

• 255+ paying subscribers

• $27K+ yearly revenue on a part-time basis

It feels amazing to earn meaningful money doing what I love every week. So I wanted to share how I got here and describe some of the things that have contributed to my success.

Before you say $27K is not ‘success’, let me share my experience of being selected by Substack to join the invitation-only Substack Growth Intensive in 2022. A few people in that group were making really good coin. Most of us were not.

When we started, almost none of us had conversion rates (free to paid) greater than two per cent, even though Substack will tell you that five to ten per cent conversion rates are the norm.

Anyone earning more than $2K per year on Substack is a rarity. And I feel blessed to be among them.

How did I get here?

I quit my corporate job in food safety in 2021 to go all in on a side-hustle I’d started while my kids were young.

The aim: build a business that would support the lifestyle I wanted: freedom to travel, freedom to choose when I worked, freedom to work from anywhere.

At the time, I was doing consulting work and writing articles that drove organic traffic to my food safety website, where I sold tools, templates and training.

Compared to consulting, writing was much more fun: I could do the work when it suited me, instead of working to a client’s schedule. Plus, it was generating income by drawing customers to my website, where they would purchase digital products.

I wanted more. More passive income from writing.

Enter Substack.

Substack and its paid subscription model seemed a perfect additional income stream for my business: I could write from anywhere and my newsletter would generate steady income, even in months that are slow for consulting gigs.

I started a publication with the main goal of making extra money for my business in just one day per week. There’s more to it than the dollars, of course… I also want to help my readers, keep them informed, make their lives easier, and entertain them. But my overarching personal ‘Why’ is to make money. Sorry, NOT SORRY, this girl’s gotta eat!

Top tip: Any new venture has to start with a good, hard ‘Why’ if you want it to succeed. Creating a newsletter is hard work: without a powerful reason to persevere, you set yourself up for procrastination, excuses and disappointment.

What’s your why? Hint: it doesn’t have to be money; you can start a Substack to practice creativity, to share your knowledge, make an impact, to get a book deal, or to build a legacy.

Subscribe now

Learning from failure

My Substack newsletter was inspired by a now-defunct subscription platform called The Science Says. The platform creators recruited me after seeing my science-y food safety Tweets.

They promised I could make good money by posting regular science-based insights for a targeted audience.

They were wrong. I earned a grand total of $30 from six months of weekly posting on that platform. But I still learnt a powerful lesson.

What I learnt was that weekly, paywalled content is fun to create, interesting to my ‘tribe’ and — perhaps— a viable income stream.

Even better, regular paywalled content is incrediby scaleable. Get more subscribers and you make more money with the same amount of work. Nice!

Subscribe now

Designing for success

There are a lot of decisions to make when you create a newsletter: who to write for, how often to write, what to write about, how long to make an email, how many pictures, what platform to use, how to reach your audience, how to monetise it…. aaaarghhhh….

It is so daunting to make each and every decision about a newsletter all by yourself. For me, the process became easier when I made two promises. One for my readers, one for me.

Hot tip: The decision-making process is much easier if you have a clear offer, a ‘promise’, for your readers. The ‘promise’ becomes a beacon or a lighthouse that will guide the decisions you need to make: what to write about, how long to make the emails, how to monetise…

My promise to my readers is to save them time, to help them get better at their jobs and to save them from inbox overload. They know about this promise because it appears on my sales pages, about pages, subscription pages and email headers and footers.

There’s a hidden promise, too. What I don’t tell my readers is that I’m also committed to entertaining them and piquing their curiosity. And that sneaky promise helps me to create content that readers love.

These promises guide my decisions about what to write (it’s got to be interesting and useful), publishing frequency (not too often, I’m trying to save their inboxes, right?!) and email format (easy to skim because I’m trying to save them time).

Keeping my promises to my readers is my top priority. But readers shouldn’t be your only priority when you create a newsletter. You’ve got to look after yourself as a writer, too. You’ve got to make some promises to yourself. These will keep you going when things are tough, protect you from overwhelm and burnout and make it easier to quantify your own success.

I promised myself: not to spend too many hours on each email; not to lock myself into a publishing schedule that I wouldn’t be able to maintain; not to take it personally if no one subscribed; not to give up too soon; and not to keep going if it didn’t work.

Key questions for you: What will you promise your readers? What specific actions will you do to deliver on that promise? What have you promised yourself? Are you honouring that promise?

Get a sanity check from Karen

Success boosters

Today, with hundreds of paying subscribers and meaningful money arriving in my bank account every week, I’m officially calling it: my food safety newsletter is a success (yay).

How did this happen?

First thing you need to know is that I’ve discovered success is unpredictable. Some of the things I tried with my food safety newsletter did not work. But other things have had big impacts, with less effort than I imagined.

Here are some things that have helped me get where I am.

• Making sure that every post starts with a mini-explainer, which says what the newsletter is about and who it is for.

• Choosing a once-per-week publishing schedule to keep my sanity intact.

• Using a format that allows for evergreen content as well as ‘news’ content, so I can prepare some issues in advance.

• Tweaking my About page regularly as I learn more about why people sign up.

• Experimenting with paid benefits; doubling down on benefits that convert, dropping ones that don’t.

  Subscribe now

• Creating a separate page that clearly explains everything about paid subscriptions, rather than relying on Substack defaults or trying to cram it all into the About page (my audience are detail-loving folks).

• Using a publishing platform that makes it easy to sign up new subscribers and collect their money so I can focus on everything else (Substack - much easier than alternative tech).

• Being crystal clear about my ideal subscriber: who they are, where they work, what they enjoy.

• Encouraging readers to get in touch with me directly — people love feeling like they have a personal connection with you, even in a work/business environment, and I benefit by learning more about my audience.

• Understanding what is different about my newsletter compared to all the other ways my audience could get the same information and using that information when promoting my publication.

• Ruthlessly chopping content that is boring or non-actionable, even if I just spent hours creating it 😓.

• Doing a reader survey, then taking the time to thoughtfully analyse the results for readers AND act on their feedback.

• Not doing too many reader surveys or posts about anniversaries or milestones. Your readers are there to learn and be entertained, not to hear you stroke your own ego.

• Staying in my lane. My main source of subscribers is LinkedIn and I only talk about food safety there. No politics, no weather, no sport. If it’s not on topic, it’s out.

• Thinking global. That means including plenty of content for readers in Africa, Asia and Oceania, areas underserved by other food safety publications.

• Being ruthless with my paywalls but generous with my expertise. You want access to the locked stuff? Then pay up! You want to ‘pick my brains’? Sure, here’s a link to book an appointment, but make sure to upgrade to a paid subscription first.

• Showing up week after week, and doing my very best work for every single issue, even when I don’t feel like it. Coz people need to trust you or they will never pay you.

What didn’t work

Warning: These strategies failed with my other publication, about food safety, which has a very specific audience. They may work great for you and your audience.

• Paid ads on LinkedIn. Too expensive, too few signups.

• Twitter as a way to meet new readers. Not enough new subscribers to justify the effort.

• Substack Notes. That audience just isn’t hanging out on Sustack, and there are few other newsletters with sufficient audience overlap to leverage network effects.

• Increasing the price above $100 per year. Conversions tanked.

• Audio versions as a perk for paying subscribers.

• Community chats. No one cared (that audience reads almost exclusively in their email inbox, they don’t use the Substack app).

• Posting on LinkedIn when I felt inspired, instead of committing to show up daily.

• Monthly meetups. They did not end up being a true value-add for most readers, and so not a good use of my time.

• Discounts. Offering a discount will convert a few readers, but usually only people who were going to buy anyway. I suspect that if you offer a lot of discounts, it simply trains people to wait until the next sale.

What’s next

Consistency is key with email newsletters. And paid newslettering is a long game.

It’s hard. It’s fun. It’s rewarding. It’s a flexible and interesting way to earn money. I get to meet great people, learn amazing things while writing each week and I can do it from anywhere in the world. What’s not to love?!

I’ll keep writing. I’ll keep my promises to my readers. And my promises to myself. And I’ll keep sharing what I learn with you.

P.S. Newslettering can be isolating. Even introverts need to check in with other creators every now and then. Let me help you find a path out of the Substack forest with an honest, no-hype coaching call, or take a shortcut to accountability with 5 calls over 6 months.

Everyone’s talking about podcasts this week. Saying they’re the next big thing, that they are a growth engine. That they are your ticket to $10K months…

Here’s what they’re not saying:

Podcasts are a minefield of traps, trip-ups and pitfalls. Experienced creators are not immune to these problems.

In this post, I explain the pitfalls and give you a simple system to get you through.

But first…. I just published a new bundle for paying subscribers. It’s a pack of Canva templates for creating all the boring fiddly brand-y whatnots you need for a polished-looking publication. Click the preview box below to check it out.

Podcasts: the FOMO is real

Do you have FOMO because you haven’t launched a podcast yet? Are you wondering if you could launch one without chewing up hours of time and energy every week? And if you could, does that mean you should?

The harsh truth about podcasts is that the people telling you that you need one to get a 6-figure business are lying. The people who say you need a podcast are people who sell podcast solutions: software, hardware, how-to courses and outreach services. They need you to think that or they don’t have a business.

Do you need a podcast (really?)

The honest truth about podcasts is that 98% of creators don’t need one.

Actually, it’s worse than that. Not only do most creators not need a podcast, but most creators will end up wasting time and money on a podcast.

Lots of time. Lots of money.

So why would you get a podcast?

Here’s why you might want a podcast

If your goal is more Substack subscribers, then a podcast could (theoretically) help you in four ways:

1. Discovery → more people hear about you. You’ll show up in podcast app search, charts, and recommendation algorithms, reaching new people who’d never see your Substack publication otherwise directly.

2. Trust and attention → higher opt‑in rates. Listeners spend time with your voice, which builds the relationship. Podcast hosts are among the most trusted online influencers (source).

3. Targeted CTAs → turn listeners into email subscribers using a CTA (call to action) and a lead magnet in the episode. For example: “Sign up to download the checklist we’re talking about”.

4. Emails → feed back into podcast growth. Once people are subscribed to your Substack publication, every podcast episode becomes a way to build relationships with readers, which strengthens trust, increasing paid upgrades and referrals.

Here’s why a podcast isn’t right for 98% of creators

Full disclosure: I’ve been podcasting since 2022 with my food safety publication. My podcast was a Spotify ‘Rising Star’ in 2025. Which is to say it experienced 1,200% growth in 2025.

Before you get excited about this, my ‘Rising Star’ growth took me from (no joke) about 7 listeners per week to about 85 listeners per week. Thanks for the ego stroking, Spotify!

Thing is, a podcast is a huge time commitment. I chatted to a creator the other day who has a podcast with his Substack publication. It takes him 6 to 8 hours to make one episode. That’s a whole day of work each week!

The time commitment would be worth it if the podcast could generate serious income - or impact, for those creators who are not here for the dollars.

I’m telling you, it probably won’t.

Let’s run the numbers on my food safety publication and its podcast.

My primary goal for that publication is income.

My conversion rate is 6% - that is, for every 100 people who join my subscriber list, 6 of them become paying subscribers. Each paying subscriber pays $100 per year, and most stick around for 3 years.

So every 100 new subscribers is worth $1,800 (6 people x $100 x 3 years) and every 1 new free subscriber is worth $18 to me.

If I get one free subscriber from every podcast episode, I earn $18 per episode.

$18 earned per episode? Hmmmm.

Here’s why a podcast might be right for you

I’ve just shown you that it doesn’t make financial sense for me to do a podcast, even though my newsletter numbers are good (high conversion rate, high subscription fees, high retention rate).

Why do it? Because it improves the quality of my weekly newsletter - every week I discover and correct omissions and errors as I record the podcast, and since my readers are very detail-focused people, that gives me more superfans who refer my newsletter to all their colleagues for free1.

This approach only makes sense because it’s ultra easy for me to make each episode, taking just 25 to 40 minutes per week with no special equipment.

So a podcast can be worth it. But only if it gets you more of what you want AND doesn’t take you too much time or money to produce. This is where 98% of podcasts fail.

Most creators spend way too much time and way too much money trying to achieve their podcast goals. If each episode took me 6 hours and only earned $18, I would be on a losing ticket (and a fast track to burnout).

But if you can buck the trend and produce a podcast without spending hours of time and buckets of money, then a podcast might just be worth it for you.

Warning: Podcast experts want you to think podcasting is hard and expensive. They don’t want you to make your episodes quickly and cheaply because then they can’t sell you expensive hardware and trainings.

Subscribe now

My simple podcast system

You’ve already heard that quick and cheap-to-make shows are the only podcasts that make sense for most creators. Now, find out how to podcast with Substack with my low-effort, low-cost system.

Step 1. Pick a simple format

Make your podcast short in duration. Avoid the interview format (because it takes too much time to find guests, set up sessions, deal with their tech problems and edit their rambling thoughts).

Simplest option: Record an audio version of your most recent post, or read out and expand on a recent post.

Why this works: All good podcasts are either heavily scripted or heavily edited. If you use your post as a script, you can do less editing, and you won’t have to write a script.

Remember, some people like to listen, some people prefer to read, but most people don’t do both, so there is no need to create different content for text and audio.

Pitfall: Avoid off-the-cuff riffing because the end result will either be (a) disjointed and boring or (b) need a lot of editing to make it good. Editing takes hours: avoid it at all costs.

Step 2. Record without fuss

Record straight into your laptop with a basic USB mic in a quiet room. There is no need for a fancy setup.

Hot tip: Sit with your head inside the wardrobe to reduce echoey sounds and background noises.

Step 3. Aim for zero edits

Editing takes time and effort. A lot of time. Avoid edits by self-correcting on the fly as much as possible (“Apologies, I should have said Y instead of X”).

Why this works: Your listeners are there to hear your voice; they don’t care about occasional imperfections. In fact, they might love you more for it. One creator I know even introduces his voiceovers by saying, “I’m attempting to record this in one take, so apologies for any bloopers”.

Hot tip: If you make a major mistake and know it will need to be edited, don’t stop recording. Instead, take a long pause, then clap your hands before restarting. The long pause and clap are easy to see on the visual display when editing, so you can jump straight to your mistake without having to listen to the whole file.

Step 4. Automate the intro and outro

Intros and outros add polish to any podcast episode, but manually adding them takes time and effort. The solution is automation.

Simplest option: I use Auphonic.com to add an intro to each episode. The Auphonic production engine also levels the volume, removes background noise, adds a copyright notice and backs up files to Google Drive automatically.

Hot tip: Buy a royalty-free jingle for your intro to avoid licensing issues. Short clips from AudioJungle cost under $5.

Step 5. Upload to Substack

Open an audio post in Substack, drop your file in, and press publish.

This is the magic part: When you publish a podcast episode, Substack will automatically distribute it to Apple Podcasts, Spotify and other major podcast apps via an RSS feed.

Hot tip: Keep the show notes simple, most listeners don’t read them anyway! But do include a link to your newsletter, of course.

Subscribe now

Final thoughts

Most creators won’t get a good return on their investment from a podcast.

Podcasts aren’t as good for discovery as the experts might have you believe, and converting podcast listeners into Substack readers is much harder than you might think.

But they can be a lovely value-add to an existing publication, helping you deepen the connection and trust between you and your readers. And - for me at least - a podcast can provide an excellent pre-publish quality check on detailed long-form posts for pedantic audiences.

Podcasts only make sense if you can get dozens of new subscribers each episode (and to be honest, you probably won’t) OR if you can produce them with minimal time and cost.

So before you jump on the podcasting bandwagon, check your goals to see whether the time spent on a podcast will actually help you reach them. You might discover that launching a podcast because “everyone else is doing it” is a terrible idea.

And remember, there’s an entire industry of podcast gurus who need creators to believe that podcasts are fantastic growth tools as well as being difficult and expensive, so that they can profit by selling you tools and trainings.

That’s it from me this week, see you in the comments!

Karen

P.S. If you want a personal guided tour through my food safety publication, its podcast and the exact tools I use to make $26K per year in paid subscriptions from that publication, book a one-hour Zoom session with me ($249) and get an all-areas backstage pass with unlimited Q and A. Book your slot here.

What shocked me was not the mistake itself - we all make mistakes - but the fact that it had never occurred to me that Substack users might do this.

The mistake meant that their Notes would never be seen.

The biggest mistake

Before we jump into the surprising mistake, let me share the biggest mistake new creators make on Notes. It’s publishing their own notes instead of interacting with other people’s notes. I’ve written about this dozens of times, including in this post, which explains the best way for new writers to use Notes.

The surprising mistake

Here’s what shocked me about new creators and Notes last week.

I discovered that ambitious new creators were crafting carefully intentioned growth strategies, doing all the things the experts said, and wondering why they weren’t getting results.

They were missing a piece of the puzzle.

Partly my fault! I missed it too. This was something I never thought to tell anyone about.

I didn’t realise that these new creators were (metaphorically) in incognito mode on Substack.

Let me explain.

You’ve probably heard me say 1,000 times that new creators who use Notes get more growth by interacting with other people’s content rather than posting their own notes. Substack’s founder and the architect of Substack’s Notes algorithm say the same thing.

Interacting with other people’s notes works because when you show up in replies and comments, your profile gets seen by other humans.

But that’s not the only reason it works.

The other reason it works is that by interacting with other people’s content, you are showing Substack (‘the algorithm’) who you are. You’re teaching Substack about your interests and your preferences. In doing so, you’re giving it an opportunity to show you more of the things you like.

Substack assumes that if you like the same things as someone else, that person might also be a good fit for your publication. And Substack wants to get you new subscribers.

Yes, Substack WANTS you to get more subscribers. The Notes platform was built for that exact purpose (coz that’s how Substack earns revenue, not from serving up ads like other social media platforms).

Bonus: This means you don’t have to ‘game’ the algorithm to get new subscribers, you just have to give it enough data to do its job.

So what’s the big mistake I discovered?

The mistake is that some new creators are not subscribing to enough publications. So simple. So obvious that I missed it.

Why is it a mistake? Because if you don’t subscribe to publications, you starve Substack of the information it needs to hook you up with like-minded readers.

Sure, when you ‘like’, comment and follow on Notes, these can help the algorithm guess what you’re into, but subscriptions? Subscriptions are rock solid signals.

When you subscribe to a publication about fishing, you’re telling Substack loud and clear that you’re interested in fishing, instead of it having to guess based on a once-off interaction with a random Note containing just 50 words.

Subscribing to publications that appeal to you is the strongest signal you can send to Substack.

Substack uses the information to match you up with related publications and readers. When you are subscribed to many publications, Substack can understand what sort of reader you are and can guess what type of reader might want to hear from you too. Then it makes sure those readers can see you in Notes. Magic.

That’s why you should be subscribing to other people’s publications.

You have questions. Doubts. Excuses. Here’s what you need to know.

But isn’t it better to search for keywords and dig up new unrelated notes every day for commenting and re-stacking?

Nope. Subscribe and let the content that resonates with you come to you, rather than clicking around looking for it. When you are subscribed to many publications, relevant content will appear in your feed automatically, so you can interact with it in an authentic way.

Chasing around for notes using search could actually sabotage your efforts. If you interact with dozens of notes that the algorithm doesn’t recognise as linked to you or to each other, you make it harder for Substack to understand you and your place in the Substack universe.

Remember, Notes is designed to help you to grow; you don’t have to jump through hoops or trick the algorithm to get traction.

Subscribe now

But I don’t want to pay for dozens of subscriptions!

You don’t have to pay; free subscriptions do the job. There’s no evidence that paying for publications helps with growth or reach1.

But I don’t want my inbox flooded, I can’t read dozens of emails every day!

I hear you. You don’t have to read everything that lands in your inbox. And you don’t have to let Substack newsletters flood into your primary/focused inbox.

Instead, set up email inbox rules, labels and filters to automatically divert newsletters to a separate folder where you can browse them at your leisure. And remember, you don’t have to stay subscribed forever.

What! Are you telling my subscribers to NOT read all my emails and to unsubscribe after a while?!

That’s right. Not sorry. Some readers will read every word you send, some will open most of your emails, and some will only open occasionally. This is the way of newslettering, and it’s time you made your peace with it. Unless you want a subscriber list that is forever just you and your mom.

What publications should I subscribe to?

Choose publications that

• genuinely appeal to you AND

• that you think would appeal to your ideal reader.

For example, if your ideal reader is into health, subscribe to fitness and nutrition publications.

Why this works: There’s a reason I don’t see any US politics in my Notes feed; it’s because Substack knows that’s not my cup of tea. On the other hand, I never see any watersport-related notes, even though I love watersports. Why? Because I’ve never subscribed to any watersports publications, so Substack doesn’t know I’m a watersports enthusiast.

What if I have two publications on completely different topics? Should I subscribe to publications in both topics? Will the algorithm get confused?

If your topics are wildly different, it makes sense to have two separate Substack accounts, one for each topic. But if your reader demographics are similar for both (for example, both publications are for middle-aged women from North America), you could get away with one account.

How many publications should I subscribe to?

Aim for 10 to 20 publications to begin with. This will greatly increase the size of your network immediately. From there, you can slowly explore the publications and prune out ones that don’t serve you.

How do I find new publications?

If you’re already subscribed to a few that are a good fit, you’ll be able to use the ‘Related Notes’ feature in the Substack Notes feed to discover creators with similar ideas to the people you already follow. To find Related Notes, open a popular note in the Notes feed and scroll past the top replies.

Alternatively, if you want a completely fresh set of options, open the Substack Browse page and click one of the topic buttons across the top of the screen. You’ll see a list of posts by various publications. Choose a post that looks interesting, click through to read and subscribe to the publication if the post is good.

Final thoughts

To conclude, I admit I’m feeling a bit dumb for not realising that some people start writing and publishing on Substack without first being an avid reader on the platform.

Subscribing to other publications means showing Substack who you are and what you are interested in. It’s a vital step to getting good results on Substack Notes.

This step wasn’t important until relatively recently, when the Substack Notes algorithm was rebuilt to improve its ability to match new publishers with potential readers. However, I really wish I’d identified this mistake and called it out for you sooner.

I’ve just finished updating my other posts and Notes strategies blueprint to make sure none of my readers makes this mistake again.

That’s it from me for this week, see you soon.

Karen

But how exactly to do that?

In past posts, I’ve told you that if you’re new to Substack and trying to grow from a small base, Notes works best when you interact with other people’s notes, rather than publishing your own.

However at some point, it makes sense to start writing your own notes1. When? When you’ve got at least a few hundred subscribers. Before that, your notes will most likely vanish into the void.

This post is for you if you’re ready to publish original notes of your own.

If you’ve still got a small subscriber list, don’t waste your time on this one. Instead, review these other posts of mine, which include more advice about how to grow with Notes as a small/new creator: How to Use Substack Notes to Get More Subscribers + The Notes algorithm explained (by its actual creator).

In this post:

• How to write for Substack Notes

• 4 types of notes to write

• Key takeaways

How to write for Substack Notes

Follow these 5 simple steps to write notes to publish on Substack Notes

1. Banish the blank page

A blank page is a creativity killer and procrastination creator, even for short-form content like notes. Banish it by creating a list where you can drop ideas whenever they come to you.

Keep your list in a Google sheet, phone note taker, or a Notes scheduling tool (I use Finn Tropy’s Substack Scheduled Notes*).

Whenever you get an idea, drop it into the list. One or two words will do; you can expand the idea and polish it up later.

2. Set aside 30 - 60 minutes

Good notes take time. Set aside 30 - 60 minutes to turn as many of your ideas into notes as possible. You might end up with 1, 2 or 10 notes from one session; it doesn’t matter how many… some days will be slow and effortful, some days you’ll be a genius.

Batching up your notes creation process is smart because if you’re usually a long-form writer, it can take a little while to get into the groove of crafting short-form posts, but once you do, the process gets fast and fluid.

3. Decide if you want to use AI

No, I’m not telling you to use AI to write notes. Yuck.

AI-generated notes do work for attracting certain types of readers, but I hate 98% of notes created by AI writing tools.

On the other hand, I love deconstructing AI-generated notes and rebuilding them into something human and authentic. AI-generated notes usually have a Notes-optimised structure (something I struggle with as a long-form writer), and every iteration gives you a different angle to explore.

So if short-form structure is a struggle for you or if your idea needs to be fleshed out, try asking an AI tool to make 15 Subsack notes from your idea, and use the results as a starting point.

Don’t use AI if you’re likely to waste all your creative genius on creating the perfect prompt trying to get better results from AI. Instead, skip the middleman and save time by writing your own notes from scratch.

4. Create a set of notes

Choose an idea from your list and draft 5-10 notes based on that idea, one or two from each of the four types of notes in the second part of this post as inspiration.

Aim for 50–250 words per note, but go longer if you feel inspired.

​A typical structure is ​1-5 short paragraphs, often with multiple single-sentence lines and lots of white space to keep them scannable. Some of your notes should also have a photo or short video.

Save your finished notes to a spreadsheet, Word doc or straight into a Notes scheduling tool.

5. Publish your notes

Shuffle your notes so that your ideas and styles vary from day to day. For example, if you created 10 notes around one idea in a single session, intersperse them with notes from other sessions in your publishing schedule.

Aim to publish one note per day. Other experts will tell you to publish 3-5 per day, but I’m not convinced that more than one will achieve anything other than annoying your most loyal readers (willing to be proved wrong).

Time of day? Don’t overthink it. Among your ideal readers, some will use the Substack app in the morning, some in the evening, some during the workday, some only on weekends. Add in the fact that they may be in twenty different time zones and you realise that it’s impossible to choose a ‘perfect’ time.

Having said that, certain times are crowded, with many people posting notes all at the same time - notably the middle of the day US Eastern time (source). As a result, notes posted at other times typically get more engagement per note, with weekend evenings US Eastern time being a sweet spot (source).

Also, don’t imagine that your notes will vanish from the feed within hours. While that’s true on other platforms, Substack is different. I often get engagement on notes that are days or even months old, as other creators like and re-stack them to their audiences.

Subscribe now

4 types of notes

Substack Notes exists to get more of the right people to see you, care about you, and eventually subscribe to your publication. You’re on Notes to build relationships and get subscribers. That’s it.

Substack is not like Insta or TikTok, which aim to keep users scrolling so they can show more ads. Substack is designed to connect new readers to creators they might like and get them to click through to subscribe. Posts that encourage endless scrolling and mindless likes are not rewarded by the Notes algorithm. Meaningful connections are.

Likes, engagement and attention are good, but they are a means to an end, they are not the end game on Substack Notes. Likes, engagement and attention show the algorithm that your post is worthy of being seen by more people. But they are useless on their own (except to give you a dopamine hit).

How to build relationships and get subscribers? By interacting with other people’s notes (this is the best way if you don’t have many subscribers), and by publishing notes of the following 4 types.

1. Likeability, relatability, transparency

Posts that show your personality, values and everyday frustrations so people feel “this person is like me”. People who like you are more likely to subscribe.

Posts that introduce you and your publication and invite people to connect and subscribe. 6 Must-haves For a Substack Intro Note | Karen Cherry

Posts that show how you work, think, or create, making your expertise feel transparent and real, and building trust between you and your readers.

2. Authority, expertise, thought leadership

Posts where you state clear opinions, predictions, or frameworks that position you as an expert in your niche.

Posts that comment on current events, industry news or new trends, showcasing your insights so people feel “This is someone worth listening to”.

Posts that repeat the strongest ideas from your top long-form posts or past notes, so new followers are repeatedly exposed to your core mission and gain a clear idea of who you are and what you do best.

Posts that teach one specific thing, such as a hot tip, mini-tutorial or short checklist to solve a concrete problem for your ideal subscriber.

If you’re a fiction writer or poet, posts that showcase the strength and/or range of your work will encourage new readers to connect with you.

3. Conversation starters + hot takes

Short, opinionated posts or questions designed to spark replies, controversy and debate. These posts encourage engagement, which shows the algorithm that your notes are interesting, which could increase their reach, so new people will see you.

4. Community, networking, credibility and proof

Posts that highlight other people’s work. These are a gift to your current followers, who may benefit from the other creator, and they teach the algorithm about overlaps in topic areas and audience types, reinforcing the Substack network effect. (Plus, it’s just a super nice thing to do!)

Posts that share case studies, screenshots, or testimonials that demonstrate that you get results for your readers.

Posts that thank new subscribers, celebrate milestones, or highlight shout-outs you’ve received, reinforcing that others already trust you.

Final thoughts

Substack Notes exists to help the right readers find you, connect with you, and subscribe to your publication. Use it to build relationships and connections.

​If you’re committed to regular note-posting, it can help to systematize: Keep an ideas list so you never have to face a blank page, write multiple notes at a time to make the most of momentum and store the finished drafts in a sheet, document or scheduling tool to make publishing a breeze.

Each note should aim to do one of these four things:

1. to help people know you and like you, or

2. to showcase your helpfulness, expertise, knowledge or talent, or

3. to get in front of new people, or

4. to lift up other creators and leverage Substack’s network effects such as audience overlaps.

And finally (please!) write like a human: AI tools can help with structure and might provide new angles for you to explore but don’t waste your creative genius (or time) creating perfect prompts in the hope you’ll get better results from AI. We all need a little human in our feeds these days.

That’s it for this week, have a good one,

*^{This is an affiliate link, I’ll earn a small commission if you purchase. It’s a great tool and totally worth it.}

^{Cover image by Freepik}

I hope you had a marvellous Christmas (if that’s your thing) and end of year break (if you got one!). Happy New Year to you.

Just dropping you a quick note to announce the winner of the special draw for new paying subscribers of Pubstack Success.

Reminder:

Free subscribers get focused, authentic advice about Substack by someone who’s been where you are now and wants to see you grow and thrive, including dozens of no-BS Substack tutorials.

Access the tutorials here.

Paid subscribers get instant access to my exclusive Substack Starter Kit with a guidebook, templates, checklist and cheatsheet + 2 bonus downloadables and share their appreciation for the most helpful, authentic advice about Substack you’ll find, by someone who genuinely cares about your Substack journey 😊.

Check out the Substack Starter Kit here.

The winner is…

If you became a paying subscriber between 10th November and 31st December 2025, you were automatically entered into a draw for a chance to win a one-to-one coaching package with me (valued at $963).

Today I put on my nerd glasses, exported a list of new subscribers and used a random number generator to pick the winner. The winner is Bill R. Congratulations! [Bill, I have emailed you separately].

Thank you to everyone who upgraded during the past months. It’s been a pleasure hearing from you and watching you grow.

The other big winner for 2025 is Substack itself, which saw phenomenal growth in new readers and writers. If you haven’t launched yet, it’s not too late. Substack 2026 is like Bitcoin 2017: the early adopters have settled in, but there’s still plenty of opportunities, and the platform is going from strength to strength. Join the party now and watch your investment grow.

What’s next?

I’m currently working on a new template pack to complement the Substack Starter Kit.

It will include a branding pack (Canva image templates for banners, headers, logos and more); content planner, one-off payments set-up guide, reader feedback form, AI policy template, ROI calculator, post performance spreadsheet and more.

It’s going to be fabulous, and it’s going to be for paying subscribers… stay tuned!

In the meantime, I’ll continue to show up in your inbox every week, with no-nonsense guidance about doing better on Substack, starting with How to Write Substack Notes (as a human), which will hit your inbox on Thursday.

Until then,

P.S. Need to get in touch? Reply to any of the emails I send, or use the Substack DM feature (access DM (direct message) by clicking on my profile pic at the top of this post, then find the button that says ‘Message’).

Today’s post is about what encourages readers to pull out their credit cards and subscribe to a Substack publication.

It includes the results of the poll I ran last month.

I’m not here to give you a full lecture on the neuroscience of purchasing decisions - although I do recommend reading up on that if you’re serious about making mega-bucks on Substack - instead, I want to share a few juicy tidbits I’ve discovered while growing my other publication to a Substack bestseller, as well as takeaways from my recent poll.

3 types of Substack subscribers

When I first launched paid subscriptions on Substack in my other account (in 2022), I had a theory that there is a certain type of person who just wouldn’t pay for a subscription, no matter what I promised them.

Just. Won’t. Pay.

It’s kind of a personal policy: some people just say “Subscriptions = no way”

(Except maybe Netflix. And Amazon Prime. And some cloud storage. And…. you get the picture…)

To test my theory about the “No way” people, I surveyed my readers - I had around 1,000 at the time - and asked them what I would need to do to get them to upgrade to a paid subscription.

For forty percent of them, the answer was nothing: there was nothing I could offer that would ever convince them to get their credit cards out for my food safety publication.

The other sixty percent were split between “Give me access to awesome resources” and “Let me support your work”.

In a nutshell, I had discovered there were 3 types of potential subscribers:

1. “No way, never” subscribers

2. “I need to get special content” subscribers

3. “I want to support your efforts” subscribers

This was great information, because it allowed me to rethink my conversion strategies.

No such thing as perfect

After I discovered that I had a large bunch of readers who would never become paying subscribers, I stopped hustling to find the ‘perfect’ paid offer. It was kind of a relief to know that for those people, I could never convert them by offering them more or better resources.

This meant I could spend less time questing for perfection for everyone and more time appealing directly to the readers who MIGHT want to pay.

Even better, once I realised there were two types of potential paying subscribers for that newsletter, I knew I needed to tweak my conversion strategy.

These days I split my ‘Upgrade to paid’ CTAs (calls to action) between “Become a paying subscriber to get [amazing resources/special content]” and “Become a paying subscriber to support my efforts to bring you the best [content] every week”.

When I added the second style of CTA to my posts, my publication’s conversion rate almost doubled.

Subscribe now

What’s changed for Substack readers?

It’s all very well for me to talk about a poll I ran in 2022 for food safety professionals. What about everyone else on Substack? We’re all here for different reasons, and times have changed since 2022.

Last month, I published a post to find out what you guys, the readers of Pubstack Success, think about paid subscriptions. My aim: to collect data to help you strategise for your publication.

In it, I asked four questions using Substack’s Poll feature. Here are the results, followed by 7 key takeaways.

Results of the 2025 poll

Question 1: Do you pay (at all)?

You’re a generous lot! People who responded to this poll are generally willing to pay for subscriptions, with just 8% saying they will “never pay”.

• 92% are either already paying or open to it.

• 68% are currently paying, and

• 21% of you pay for more than 3 publications!

Question 2: Why do you pay?

Around 30% of you chose “access to extra content/resources” as the only reason you pay, with a further 30% choosing a combination that “resources” and “support the author”.

The proportion of people who say they pay for “access to the author” alone is tiny at 3%.

Taken together, about three‑quarters of people who pay are doing it for some mix of extra content/resources and to support the author, not for access or altruism alone.

Question 3: Pricing for work or business newsletters

Almost everyone (92%) is fine with $50 per year for a work or business newsletter, but one quarter of respondents think $75 per year is too much to pay.

Around one third of you are okay with pricing up to $150 per year and some of you would be willing to pay even more than that.

The results suggest the majority of readers are willing to pay $80–$140 per year for work or business newsletters.

Question 4: Pricing for leisure, culture, fiction or hobby newsletters

Most of you (89%) think $30 per year is acceptable, and more than two-thirds (71%) are fine with up to $50 per year for a leisure, culture, fiction or hobby newsletter.

The most popular response was that $70 is too much. However, around one in five of you (18%) are willing to pay more than $100 per year.

The results suggest $50-$60 per year is the sweet spot for most non-work newsletters.

Subscribe now

Key Takeaways

1. Some people just won’t pay, no matter how much ‘value’ you offer. This could be because of their personal policies, personal finances or because they feel like they’ve already got too many other subscriptions. That is: it’s not you, it’s them.

2. Readers will upgrade to a paid subscription for access to specific resources and extra content more readily than for access to more of the same type of content or access to the creator.

3. In addition, many people like to feel they will be supporting the author with their subscription, rather than just paying to get something. Lean into this in some of your calls to action (E.g. “Upgrade for early access to this month’s chapter and feel great knowing you’re supporting independent writing”)

4. Pricing tolerance is higher for work or business newsletters. If readers can justify a subscription as a business expense or a tool that saves them money or time, they will be willing to pay more. If the value is entertainment, cultural or aesthetic, most will be willing to pay less.

5. My poll results suggest the following price points are safe/’no-brainer’ options for most newsletters:

   • $80–$140 per year for work or business newsletters and

   • $50-$60 per year for most non-work newsletters.

6. For monthly prices, use 10% of the annual price as a starting point, and test slightly higher and lower options.

7. Use the ‘Founder’ tier to accommodate superfans who want to pay more.

Okay that’s it for now. Stay safe, stay merry and stay sane this week,

Karen

P.S. You might also be interested in…