Is There Really a Substack Growth Secret?
After testing the most common Substack growth advice, I realized the real work begins long before readers click "Subscribe."
Whether we admit it or not, none of us hits that Publish button hoping to be ignored. Otherwise, we’d simply keep a journal. When my words didn’t attract as many people as I expected, naturally I wondered:
Did I do something wrong? Or am I simply really bad?
I researched, as a researcher by training and by blood. There are probably hundreds of articles promising the “secret” to growing on Substack.
After spending too many hours reading them, I realised something funny.
They all looked different on the surface. But underneath, they were answering the same three questions.
Visibility. Recognition. Connection.
People tell you to:
post 2 to 3 Notes daily,
leave 5 to 10 thoughtful comments daily,
reply as quickly as possible,
publish consistently,
find your niche. and so on.
Some even tell you exactly what time to post, what type of notes perform best, and how to alternate between educational, personal and insightful content for notes.
Naturally, I tried almost all of them.
Some worked.
Let’s start with visibility.
More activity, thoughtful comments, collaborations, or optimising your tags, SEO, URL—they’re all trying to do the same thing: give people more opportunities to discover you.
I noticed that many people are struggling with the Algorithm God, but not so many are clear about how they want to be seen.
A fellow Substacker once had a note of a beautiful bird sitting on her windowsill that went absolutely viral. Later she wrote that many of those new readers expected her posts to be about birds—or animals as little messengers. Over time, many quietly disappeared or rarely engaged with her actual writing.
That made me realise visibility alone isn’t enough. The people who discover you also have to discover the real you.
I imagine it like solving a statistics problem. Every note, comment and collaboration is another small stone I throw towards the target. Even if my aim is terrible, if I keep throwing, eventually some will hit.
So, although all the hacks about notes, comments, SEO, etc. sound like the missing key, they are really only one piece of the puzzle. Even if you somehow win the visibility game, what do people see? So perhaps the first question isn’t:
How do I post better notes?
Rather:
How do I want to be seen?
Then comes recognition. Simply being seen isn’t enough. You want to be recognised, remembered.
When someone thinks about football, they think of Messi.
When someone sees your name, what comes to mind?
How do I want to be remembered?
This is also where the famous advice about finding a niche comes in.
Stick to one topic at first. Don’t write about too many things. Become known for something.
I don’t think the goal is to find a niche. I think it’s to give people something unmistakably yours to remember. To me, that can come from a topic. From a voice. Or it can come from a unique combination that nobody else has. Imagine being known as, for example, the tech-savvy mom who cooks vegan food. The point is no one else but you can consistently thread these three seemingly unrelated pieces into one unique story. And that’s how you’re recognised.
People also say “just be consistent”. I used to think consistency was another trick to please the algorithm. Then I noticed that consistency alone isn’t the whole point. You can publish every Saturday for three years. But if every week sounds like a different person, readers don’t have anything to remember.
When you explore something, anything, with your unmistakably-you voice, again and again, over time people begin recognising you, and eventually remembering you. Consistency gives recognition the necessary time to take root.
Every Saturday, your words arrive in my inbox. After enough Saturdays, you’ve become part of my rhythm. At some point, I don’t even need to see your name anymore. I recognise your voice.
Yes, one viral note, one comment, might make people notice you. But it’s the familiar fragrance of your voice that makes them remember you.
Finally, connection. Being remembered isn’t the end goal, though. It’s only the beginning of a relationship.
More recently, I have been noticing many people start saying that the real secret to Substack growth isn’t posting more notes or finding the perfect niche. It’s connection.
Read other people’s work. Treat every username like a real person with respect.
I think this goes without saying. After all, human relationships don’t suddenly become different because we’re online.
Yet, when I started about six months ago, I still believed Substack worked like magic. I thought I would publish an essay, and somehow the platform would carry it to all the people who would instantly fall in love with my words.
It didn’t.
A veteran book publisher once said the most important factor for books to reach a broad audience isn’t marketing but a solid writer-reader connection.
That was when I realized connection is the engine of growth. Growing on Substack isn’t collecting subscribers. It’s building a community. Here I noticed a beautiful kind of symbiosis. It feels less like competition and more like growth together.
Yet, connections take time.
Even writers with thousands of subscribers were unknown once. Some started on Substack with an existing audience from Instagram, Facebook or other platforms. Others built everything here from scratch years ago. Either way, nothing was built overnight.
When my goal becomes building a community with the right people, I stop commenting to be seen. I start commenting because I genuinely care. One real relationship at a time.
Who are my people?
Every username belongs to a person who’s hoping to be seen, just like we are. When you find and nurture a community where both writers and readers feel they belong, your audience naturally grows. People don’t keep choosing someone because they noticed each other. They do because they share similar values and longings. They recognize themselves in each other.
Connection waters the growth. I grow your flowers, and you grow mine. Not out of obligation, but real writer-to-writer, reader-to-reader mutual appreciation, understanding and respect.
Still, some notes that went viral didn’t make much sense. Is that pure luck?
I don’t know exactly why some notes explode while others don’t. But I don’t think it’s random either. Something in them touches a shared human feeling.
To me, the water video saying “let me be water” was not about the water, but about longing, surrender, peace. Different people project different meanings to it.
I noticed something similar in my own essay. One of them unexpectedly travelled far beyond my usual readership. Looking back, I don’t think people were responding to my writing technique. They were responding to 24 years of lived experience distilled into one piece. It named what many people have been quietly carrying within.
I realised that visibility, recognition and connection are only the surface branches. The roots grow somewhere much deeper. Of course, timing and luck play a role too. But in the end I think people are attracted to the writing that evokes something they already feel inside.
When they scream inside: “yes! same!”, or “finally!”
That explains why a short, messy note written in one minute sometimes gains more responses than the beautifully polished lines we spent twenty minutes crafting.
Which picture from these two would make you stop:
A plate of pasta with words “this is my lunch”.
Or that same plate with the words:
“This was my first meal after 20 hours of caring for my dying dog.”
Your lunch is not my business. But caring for a dying dog might remind me of the time I had to say goodbye to someone I loved.
Through the words, I feel that you feel me.
Every piece of writing leaves the reader with a feeling. Even the most practical guide. Perhaps relief. Hope. The excitement of finally understanding something or finding a solution.
What do I want people to feel when they leave this piece?
If growing on Substack doesn’t have simple shortcuts, is the time and effort worth it?
And here comes the one and only most important question I think everyone should answer first.
Why am I here?
Do I want subscribers? Full-time income? A place to vent? Or a playground for my future books?
Only you know why you are here.
I’ll admit something I’m not proud of… I often got annoyed seeing someone writing like me have thousands more subscribers and hundreds more “likes” than my posts. Then I reminded myself why I was here, and almost instantly, I was motivated to write gain:
I am writing for reclaiming myself.
In writing my thoughts into readable content, I let go of the old me and come back to love, to me, one feeling at a time.
In putting my words out there, I hope someone in similar shoes can find their way back to love faster.
That reminder changed the way I looked at numbers. Because there will always be people who are ahead of you.
It changed the way I prioritized things too. As I’ve reclaimed more of myself, my life has become more colorful. I no longer have that much time to sit in front of a computer screen and make words my only friends. When I stopped structuring my life around a publishing schedule and started living more than I was publishing, my views dropped. But remembering why I write, the dip is a toll I am willing to pay.
My why reminds me to stop comparing my garden with everyone else’s, and simply keep tending my own.
If I could go back and whisper some secrets to that me who joined Substack six months ago, it would be these.
Don’t write for “the crowd.” Write for someone. Maybe the person you used to be.
Don’t let numbers define you.
Because no one else in the world can write from your life, with your voice, and your way of seeing.
The deeper I searched for the secret, the more I found myself.
Thank you for spending a little piece of your day here. Your time, your words, and your support are the most beautiful raindrops that help my little garden grow.
In June, this publication earned US$86 (about €73.61 = CHF 68). Keeping the promise I made in this earlier essay, I donated CHF 14 — 20% of June’s earnings—to Plant-for-the-Planet Foundation.
Thank you for supporting not only my writing, but our planet too. 🌱
P.S. I'm glad you're here. If you'd like to join the more intimate side of this conversation, I'd love to welcome you into the inner circle.
I agree with every word you wrote. If we are not willing to engage and support each other on this journey, then we are perhaps doing this writing thing for the wrong reasons. We can't only crave viral engagement. It has to be about personal passion.
Great post Lin. Kudos to you to put in the research to see if there is a magic formula which of course there isn't. Connection is key. I think in terms of my own Substack I am still finding my way. Essentially you want to post writing that is in some way useful to other people.