You Cynical (But Concrete) Guide to 100 Subscribers for Substack NOOBS
๐น๐ท And F*ck You if You Don't Like it ๐ท๐น
Ummm, why am I writing this?
Well, in line with the super mega shrug of 'I donโt care' that inhabits me right now, I suppose it boils down to my own, very much selfish desire for GROWTH.
At least Iโm an honest rogue, and hopefully still loveable.
There is nothing that will make my Substack grow more (sadly) than a good old article on how to grow on Substack, so why not?
I need to point out to you O cheeky reader that I do not, I repeat, I do not write growth article in general so if you decide to click that subscribe button (Do it) you will NOT get more of these. Or maybe once in a while when I grow restless.
But getting back to the topic at play today. Getting to 100 goddamn subscribers. The hardest stage, the lonely plateau.
WARNING: Dear reader, should your tender heart quiver at the mention of GROWTH or MECHANICS or at me seemingly pointing out an exploit in the systemโฆ Just click now on the cross at the top right of your tab or press alt and F4 โ but do not complain, youโve been warned! Also this article is designed for new residents of our neighbourhood.
So without further ado letโs get stuck in. Why 100 sub, why not 1000? โ Because thatโs enough to get traffic going on your posts within the app, and therefore reach potential readers organically.
Wait, are you saying letโs do it non-organically? โ Hell yeah, thereโs only one life, Iโm not going to sit there and respect some kind of โunspoken rule of dignityโ when some writers are directly paid by the platform to join and when some of the promotion is done manually via โpicksโ. I will do what it takes to defend what I love most, my writing, and get out there.
Do not mistake my slight roguery for a lack of love for art. I love my writing, but Iโm not called Enfant Terrible for nothing. I will not respect the rules or stay well behaved in my corner waiting for my turn. Fuck thatโnot for me.
Can you get to the juicy point please? โ Yes, yes but itโs very important for you to understand why you need to be bold. I go into detail on this in that article right there. But in a nutshell, Substack is very different from other social media, in the sense that there are no mechanics for a pure noobie to trend & go viral. No hashtags or channel for your post to be picked up (up to a point as Iโll explain). Therefore as a noob with 6 subscribers who arenโt even on substack, when you post you get 0 reaction from the cruel world.
How does โviralโ work on Substack. There are several ways. The first, you get โpickedโ by the staff as a featured account on the explore page. Thatโs purely a decision from Substack. Cool, you get lots of traffic from there, thank you substack (You wonโt get that as a noobโwell unless you are famous, then youโll get it the second you join.)
The second is your article gets โpickedโ by the staff (hurray)โthat never happened to me as far as I know.
The third is some big whale account (Guys with coloured badges signifying how many paid subscribers they have) restacks your post in notes. This is cool, but it takes a lot of networking and โbefriendingโ to usually get them to do this. Yes, sometimes they will restack some random article, but in general they restack each other.
Now the last and the one we are most interested in (because we can control itโas opposed to everything else) is the categories.
The articles that get picked in these categories are not human picked, they are picked by an algorithm, so you can get there. Most of my articles these days end up at least once in there and I start seeing new names, new readers appearing on the articles. The only thing is that to get there you need the algorithm to recognise your article as โpopularโ and it does this by looking at engagement.
So we want engagement on our postsโitโs the only controllable way to get an article in front of an unknown reader (apart from other people sharing). How much engagement differs on the time of the day, the competitiveness of the category and so on so forth. There is usually quite a lag between the spike of engagement and the article appearing in your main category (so pick wisely). 1
How do I get engagement with my 6 subscribers? Well you donโt lol. Thatโs why you need a baseline of 100. Without 100 you wonโt get enough momentum to have a shot at getting in the categories section, itโs as simple as that. Once you do, the quality of your writing and ONLY the quality of your writing will start doing the job (or not). But for this I canโt help you.
So of course, pay attention to your About page, to your blurb, pictures and all this. Write good, do good etc. But to get through that glass ceiling, to get cracking with 100 subs there is a very simple method.
TLDR:
Find a few accounts that look a bit like what you want to become. Look at the people that subscribe to them.
Follow around 300 maybe 400 people that subscribe to these accounts. Pay attention I said follow, not subscribe. Pace up your follow as it seems Substack has now implemented a limit per day.
Now hang out on notes and interact with these people for a few weeks.
Voila! If your writing doesnโt suck, and if you are not being overly weird in the wrong sense, you will get your 100 subs.
Stop with this and focus on your beloved craft/wash your hand of the filth of having inorganically grown your account.
Well in fact I would even dispute that last point, because even with this following game, you will still have to prove yourself to people and grab their attention. But at least, you appear on their radar like a little dot on the sea. You give a chance to your writing to impress them.
Expected FAQ:
Why shouldnโt I follow 10,000 people instead of 300?
Do whatever you want. Actually, you will quickly see that a few names invariably come back when you look at peopleโs followers. A few names which seemingly follow absolutely everyone on substack. The reason why I think itโs useless is that once you have traffic and your own little gang, itโs not instagram or twitter where the mass number matters. Once you have that, youโll start thinking about paid subs and that you wonโt get with this follow technique.
This is bullshit! Why are you advising people to do this?!
should fix this as this mechanic 2 is way too easy to abuse. So maybe this will help them realise. EVERY SOCIAL MEDIA HAS MECHANICS CONTROLLING HOW MANY INTERACTIONS ONE CAN DO PER HOUR!!!! There is a reason for this, because itโs easy to exploit. There are no safeguards currently on Substack regarding this. Howeverโdonโt be fooled. Itโs not because someone follows back or even subs that they will stay. The hard work will start around 100. This is a 100 sub guide, nothing more.
Well tbh, I thinkBut Iโm a writer, I only care about writing, I want no part in anything like this. Shame shame shame!
Yet here you are reading this, you cheeky little devil. Honestly do what you want. If you are happy to be one of the โItโs been two years that Iโm on Substack and I finally have 100 followers crowdโ be my guest. Btw, nothing wrong with that, they are pure, they are worthy and patient they are certainly more respectful of the rule than me.Did you bastard do that to get to 100?
Hell yeah, I understood that I was speaking to no one and that the mechanics wouldnโt allow me to reach readers without 100 subs. So I took my two hands, and I made my own luck. Thatโs exactly how I live my life, and guess what, the art world is filled with injustice and personally I have never had any leg up. Iโve never had anyone helping me in the slightest, Iโve always had to get in through the window when the doors were closed (many times over). Do. What. You. Feel. Is. Right. I still brought my stack up from 100 to 1000 completely organically. Because yes, remember than this will only get you to a certain spot: the spot where what you write is seen and has a chance to fly on its own. After that itโs entirely your talent, your skill, your hard work and your perseverance that will count.
Phew, there it is. I got it out of my system. The thing is, I hesitated a lot writing this because as a matter of fact I donโt particularly like the whole โgrow on substackโ article thing. I donโt write articles about this at all. But like I said, I think this should be fixed, so hopefully Substack will be receptive, and in the meantime if I can help a few noobies to change their attitude to getting out thereโbecause itโs also an attitude thing. Stop being so well-behavedโstop letting other people decide for you, then I will feel a bit better.
Plus, if Iโm right about this, my own stack will grow from having written thisโฆ Well, there you go. In a few months, once you've managed to break through the glass ceiling, you can write your very own 'how to grow on Substack' article, and everything will be wonderful.
Let me know in the comments if thatโs helpful, if this is outrageous or if itโs both (Itโs both!)
Cheers x
I shall tag here
Btw, thatโs why you see random car articles in the food category, or stuff about death in humor.
I have discovered a few weeks after posting this, that Substack has now implemented some form of limit on follow/unfollow. They will keep a secret what that is (as they should) but there you go. So keep this in mind if you proceed with the 400 approach. Pace it up.
Outrageous! (as I hope your films are). I would like to pretend I don't care but then why do I keep looking at my subscriber list like a saddo? WHY?
Assuming we want 100 subscribers! I just use it to answer all the questions I get asked about writing and publishing by people who do neither!
"You should get your book on Oprah".
"Is it going to be a bestseller?"
"What's a book?"
(I made up the last one but I get lots of advice from people who don't read).