3 Months With a Substack Newsletter: Lessons, Challenges, and Growth
TLDR: Start your ideas, finish as inspiration continues. Delayed publication allows for refinement and further inspiration. Other notes/Notes on the platform.
Several months ago a friend of mine suggested that I try writing on Substack.1 One might argue that I should be consolidating my efforts, not expanding them, but I guess I just can’t resist trying something new. I have cut down on my podcasting and YouTube activities, for better or worse.
Just the facts (and numbers):
As I start writing this2, on February 12th, 2025, I have published 17 posts (including the auto-generated, and rather unpopular “Coming Soon” in 3 months and 1 day. My most popular post are:
“AI Music Creation Is Here: Will It Change Everything?” (288 views)
“AI: The End of Writing as a Profession or a New Beginning?” (279 views).
“How and Why You Should Increase Your Rates” (205 views).
Perhaps the lesson here is that readers here like money and AI. If that sounds like you, we should hang out!3 Beyond these not-that-impressive-but-still-somewhat-encouraging stats, what else have I observed on this platform versus other venues like X4 or YouTube? And how are things going on a more nuanced level? Read on to find out!
Recommendations are rad for subscriber #s
My current subscriber count of 247 consists of approximately:
117 subscribers that I imported or added (thanks for sticking around)
97 subscribers from recommendations
33 subscribers from… who knows where (Let me know where in the comments 😁?)
So nearly 40% of readers here are from recommendations. Most Substacks that recommend my newsletter do get some subscriptions from me to them as well, but if I’m being honest I’ve gained more subscribers out of this deal than I’ve generated. As a publisher here, you can easily see who is recommending you, who you recommended, and what the results are.
I suppose you can use that to evaluate such relationships. In newsletters, as in real life, it’s not all about numbers… even if that definitely matters!
Expand Your Readership/Email List 📬
While I never really concentrated on it, my email list for my rather neglected website/blog stands at somewhere around 120 subscribers–plus a bunch of what appear to be fake addresses. As outlined above, since joining SubStack 3 months ago, this number has roughly doubled, versus years of subscriptions on jeremyscook.com.
Note that while I have turned on payments for this blog, no one has signed up (besides the one person I gave a subscription to). However, I have no content behind a paywall, so there is little motivation to pay beyond “hey, that would be nice” (and it would be nice 😀) I do have plans for monetized content in the future, so stay tuned.
Every single post does better than average 🤔😁
Just about every post does better than average views-wise. Mathematically, this doesn’t seem possible. However, as I gain more subscribers my posts are sent out to more and more people, a decent percentage of whom actually open (and maybe even read) my writing. Newsletters are largely a matter of simple, unfiltered emails (or the app if you prefer, which I’m less sure of how it works), so there’s less of the “algorithmizing” that we see on other platforms.
Put simply, More subscribers = more post receivers = more readers. Which makes sense. On YouTube, X, et al, receivers is based on some sort of algorithm that predicts if you’ll enjoy something (or more cynically, what can maximize the company’s profits).
Therefore, fewer people may see my next X/YouTube/whatever post than the previous one, even if I have more subscribers. This is especially frustrating on X. There I have 4,479 followers, but my latest post got 72(!!!) impressions. My latest newsletter here got over 100 opens, and I have less than 250 subscribers!
So if you’re gaining subscribers, your next post will almost always do better than the previous piece. To be fair, the aforementioned, rather lackluster, “coming soon” post has somewhere around 7 views. That certainly skews the average down.
…But nothing seems to go viral 🧪
The flip side to consistent growth here is that, few–none really–of my posts “blow up” in a viral frenzy of readership. All things being equal, a viral hit on your part would mean a less-read piece for someone else, so this makes sense. On the other hand, Substack as a platform does seem to be growing. So a bigger piece of 🥧 for everyone?
Notes… maybe useful, but not why I write here
If you do want something to go viral, that seems to be the purpose Notes. If you really want to get attention on Notes, it seems that the best way is to humblebrag/explain about your awesome growth and/or to fish for compliments about your minuscule readership. Or you can talk about how Notes is better than other social media platforms (possibly while denying that Notes itself is one).
I do go through and comment on other people’s posts on Notes, or comment on comments on other people’s posts. This does seem to lead to a small spike in views of my newsletter, but I’m not sure it’s worth it.5
Custom domain: kind of expensive, but worthwhile
I registered techadjacent.io with Namecheap.com for ~$35, then paid to have set as my Substack domain for another $50. One benefit is that a preview of the posts now shows up correctly on Twitter (for those that see them). I can also point people here in a bit shorter fashion, and (I assume) the QR code for techadjacent.io would be a bit smaller than techadjacent.substack.io.
Finally, I should be able to take the domain and email subscribers elsewhere if needed. I like using Substack as a platform (today), but that could certainly change. Registration is typically a relatively small cost compared to the hours you will spend writing here if you commit to it, so I think it’s worthwhile given the moderate benefits.
Profit in ways other than paid subscriptions 💰
It would be really neat if people decide to support me as paid subscribers, but I also see this as a good platform for being able to refer to projects that I sell (e.g. my latest Transistor Coaster Kickstarter campaign), and/or for hopefully taking on sponsorships at some point.
I put in Amazon affiliate links when appropriate… Or I try to. When I use their link shorteners, the results via email seem different than the original version. However, if I put in full links they seem to stay the same. I’m not certain what is going on, and haven’t investigated fully. If you’re going to go that route, I’d suggest you at least keep an eye on it.
I suspect and hope that with enough readership this newsletter can be profitable, but that will take some time. Thank YOU 🫵 for reading and helping to make this future success a real possibility.
It is cool to be able to just write ✍️
I have a blog/website, and write for a number of other outlets. However, Substack’s platform is really good from an ease-of-use standpoint. Writing on Wordpress feels clunky next to Substack, and using this platform allows me to just spew words from my keyboard to the virtual page.
Since I don’t have a boss here per se, and it’s a new publication, I can write what and when I please. Sometimes a change of venue is nice.
Consistency is hard (but not because of why you think)
Since I’ve started writing here, I’ve largely published one article a week on Wednesday, 11:30 AM Eastern time US (i.e. New York, Miami, Frostproof). This has been kind of hard to maintain, not because I can’t think of anything to write about, but because I have too much to write about. Right now I have 14 future posts scheduled!
Putting out a higher volume of posts could potentially help me to grow faster. On the other hand, if I’m spamming everyone’s inbox, people will likely be much less receptive to whatever I have to say–and yes, I know this is an extra/bonus post.
I often find new tidbits to add between then and when a newsletter publishes. The delayed output is therefore (hopefully) better output. I think 1x per week for normal posts here is a good number, but I’m happy to hear your thoughts in the comments!6
You need a Hu-man (or AI) proofreader
I used to think I was a pretty good writer who never made mistakes. Then I started getting my writing back from editors etc with “reminders” that I was not as perfect as I thought. I’m leery of letting AI take over too much of my writing duties (I rarely use it here, even to check things over), but it does pay to have someone, or something, review your work.
After reading an early post, my wife volunteered to read over newsletters. This has been helpful from a correctness standpoint, even if it’s humbling/embarrassing at times. In my defense, I’ve heard there’s a mental phenomenon where your brain your brain ignores mistakes that you previously made while writing. Anecdotally, that seems correct 😉
Conclusion: 3 months on Substack - worth it?
So, has this Substack/newsletter experiment been successful? Based on the fact that I’ve paid money for the domain registration and have yet to get directly paid for this writing, if I stopped publishing today, the answer would be a definite no.
At the same time, my readership is growing quite well on a percentage basis (roughly doubled in 3 months)7. Between being able to introduce people to my writing, and to my aforementioned Kickstarter campaign, my Tindie store, and Amazon affiliate links, I have possibly brought in some small amount of money. It’s also possible people will sign up as paid subscriptions in the future and/or I will be able to use advertisement/sponsorships as a source of income here.
Wow, that 👆 seems rather ambitious typing it out now. I definitely need to grow a bit more, so if you feel like sending this along 👇 I would appreciate it very much!
On a more personal level, some time ago, someone (reasonably) questioned why I was starting to write on Substack. I didn’t have a great answer, but after doing so I’d say the best answer is that it lets my ideas flow in a way that didn’t happen with my wordpress-based blog. That might not make sense outside of my head, but I’ve felt really motivated to write on here… about whatever. It’s been fun, which certainly has some value.
One final benefit: I can write here when I have a slot of time between other jobs that I couldn’t otherwise efficiently fill. That is pretty neat too. 🕦
What do you think? Are you enjoying my writing? Am I doing a good/bad job? Let me know in the comments, or email me: hi at jeremyscook.com. Thanks for reading!
Any Amazon links are affiliate (or they are supposed to be at least)
Addendum/Footnotes:
Thanks Alex! Also, thanks Liz for the encouragement. It means a lot from someone who is an actual, educated writer.
Going by when I started this post, not by when it publishes
Was that a quote from Idiocracy?
X gonna give it to ya.
I guess I could always create a fake persona to go through and comment on things a la Meta these days (I didn’t read that whole article, it’s just what popped up first). Such behavior might gain me some subscribers, but would they even be real? Where does this lead in the long run? Am I even real? Are you? The question isn’t really philosophical these days!
At this point, it’s difficult to properly manage more than a couple future posts at a time. I hope Substack develops a better scheduling interface at some point!
If this keeps up, I will have around 4000 subscribers in a year, 64,000 in two years, and 1,024,000 subscribers in three years.
I loved reading this, and I especially loved the footnote shout-out. :-) You gave me some great ideas to think about for my own newsletter. And it's so nice that your wife is helping with the edits/proofreading behind the scenes!