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I grew my Substack from 439 to 451 free subscribers in just 11 months

shadesofgreaves.substack.com

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Re: I grew my Substack from 439 to 451 free subscribers in just 11 months

#41

Post by klabb3 »

mattbrewsbytes wrote: post #9

> So, considering that you’re likely going to fail, at least pick something you’re going to enjoy failing at! This is the golden nugget that got me subscribed. I love satire (and am pumped Jon Stewart is back on TDS) and this is a good perspective to trying out side projects.

This isn’t satire to me, that’s genuinely great life advice. I use it all the time. For instance, a difficult stressful tech interview was passed with flying colors using that psychological method.

In general parlance (American in particular), a conditional negative (eg “if I got cancer”) is usually verboten, like you cause a side effect (=killing the vibe) even though the condition isn’t materialized. You have to look past that to get the golden nugget.

Assuming you’re gonna fail, you’ll have learnt a lot and enjoyed it. You don’t confuse external opportunity and expectation with your passions and interests. Psychologically it also reduces the stakes. It doesn’t really matter if the outcome is failure or success, the point is that it’s constant.

Re: I grew my Substack from 439 to 451 free subscribers in just 11 months

#42

Post by chiefalchemist »

jacquesm wrote: post #37
ryukoposting wrote: post #7

Darn, I've been doing it all wrong! Guess I need to migrate my entire blog to Substack so that I can have a concept of "subscribers" and the necessary analytics to give me a dopamine rush any time the number gets bigger.

Why? My most enjoyable project doesn't have any tracking at all, I don't know if it has just 1 (me) user, 1,000 or a million. Every other week or so I get some confirmation that people actually use it and it always is a pleasant surprise, so much more worthwhile than just to see a number go up. Maybe there is a businessmodel to be made with a platform that shows engagement metrics but they're not the real thing, just…

I read it was takin' the piss / sarcasm.

Re: I grew my Substack from 439 to 451 free subscribers in just 11 months

#43

Post by jacquesm »

gowld wrote: post #34
ryukoposting wrote: post #7

Darn, I've been doing it all wrong! Guess I need to migrate my entire blog to Substack so that I can have a concept of "subscribers" and the necessary analytics to give me a dopamine rush any time the number gets bigger.

Journaling is great. It helps organize your thinking. Why do you publish, if not to reach readers? If you want to reach readers, why not put some effort into that part too?

I write to organize my thoughts and sometimes that writing is useful to others and then I publish it. But that's more like 1:50 or so these days, most of the stuff I do I'm pretty sure nobody would be interested in. Last week's project: to recreate an old Romanian kitchen implement. I highly doubt anybody would be interested in something like that.

Re: I grew my Substack from 439 to 451 free subscribers in just 11 months

#44

Post by tiborsaas »

prmoustache wrote: post #25

I never understood the appeal in platforms like Medium and Substack. But then I am a pathological contrarian and have an allergic reaction to anything any kind of advertising signal to buy, force you to have an account for consultation, subscribe, send like and whatever and tend to avoid most of these platforms. You are free to add an rss xml file to your website though.

You don't have to deal with any tech stuff, basically that's the appeal. No server management, no separate newsletter service, no nothing. Log in to your account, write and publish with built in monetisation.

Re: I grew my Substack from 439 to 451 free subscribers in just 11 months

#47

Post by gowld »

jacquesm wrote: post #43
gowld wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Journaling is great. It helps organize your thinking. Why do you publish, if not to reach readers? If you want to reach readers, why not put some effort into that part too?

I write to organize my thoughts and sometimes that writing is useful to others and then I publish it. But that's more like 1:50 or so these days, most of the stuff I do I'm pretty sure nobody would be interested in. Last week's project: to recreate an old Romanian kitchen implement. I highly doubt anybody would be interested in something like that.

I bet there are 7 subreddits focused on topics that embrace old Romanian kitchen implements.

Re: I grew my Substack from 439 to 451 free subscribers in just 11 months

#48

Post by duxup »

mattbrewsbytes wrote: post #9

> So, considering that you’re likely going to fail, at least pick something you’re going to enjoy failing at! This is the golden nugget that got me subscribed. I love satire (and am pumped Jon Stewart is back on TDS) and this is a good perspective to trying out side projects.

And you’ll probably be a lot better at it too. Go the extra mile with less mental stress and so on.

Re: I grew my Substack from 439 to 451 free subscribers in just 11 months

#49

Post by lobsterthief »

taubek wrote: post #33
marban wrote: post #32

My newsletter stalled at 5k subs, and writing every single day had a severe negative impact on my life, so I just stopped after 2 years. Life is too short to chase becoming another Morning Brew when you rely on WOM as your sole growth factor.

Content curation and creation is really full time job. Especially if you have a publishing cadence that you don’t want to break. Publishing every day must have been really exhausting.

Yes, in publishing we call this “the content treadmill”. You’re publishing into a vacuum; you never know if you’ve published enough, and there’s always more that can be published. Then, your competitors out-SEO you, and you’re constantly updating your existing content to keep up. It’s why I sold my how-to site and I focus now on building tools instead.
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