My 20th Month Publishing on Substack: Here's What I Learned

A strong start to 2026!

First, let’s look at free subscribers. These were up and down in January because I did some pruning. I started the month with 1082 subscribers, and my goal was to hit at least 1130 by the end of the month. I ended up with 1132, so I barely made it. Here’s how my free subscribers have gone over the last 6 months:

The red arrows are where I did prunes. The first one came on November 14th, and that big dip was where I deleted over 300 free subs. Then last month I did 3 more, the first one was only 10 subs deleted, the second was 25, and the third was 25. So I pruned a total of 60 subs in January.

In spite of that, I still gained 50 subscribers for the month. The subscribers I pruned were all subscribers who hadn’t opened or viewed any of my emails or content over the last 6 months. Additionally, they all came from the list I imported in June of 2024. So these were truly ‘dead’ emails and should have been removed before now.

BTW, if you want to see what the results were of my first big prune, check out this post, the results were absolutely fascinating:

My 18th Month Publishing on Substack: Here's What I Learned

Next, let’s look at Views. This graph will zoom out to show you weekly views over the last year so you can more clearly see the trend lines:

Views were very strong in January, and have been for the last 6 months. I am not huge on vanity metrics, but I do place a lot of stock in Views. Because Views is a good indicator of what level of visibility your content receives. More is good, increasing is even better.

On the graph above, that red arrow at the start of August represents the point at which I pivoted my content to focus more on how I can help others grow their Substack.

That pivot changed everything. It immediately gave me clarity around the type of content I should be creating, who my audience was, and how I could help them.

That was in August. Then in September, I built upon that to design a conversion strategy to take advantage of the more efficient content strategy.

The two strategies (content and conversion) worked together perfectly. I was now able to attract the exact audience that I could best help, and in the process, best convert to Paid.

The results speak for themselves. Prior to August, my Views were clearly flatlined. They were slightly trending down, if anything.

Since then, Views have doubled. At the same time, my conversion rate (percentage of my free subscribers that convert to Paid) has skyrocketed. In August, I had 6 Paid subscribers, and a conversion rate of 0.5%. Today, I have 46 Paid subscribers, and a conversion rate of 4.1%.

And this is the key: I did all this by using the exact same tactics and strategies that I share with you here. This is not to brag, it’s to prove to you that this stuff works.

Do I want you to read this, and decide to upgrade to Paid? Absolutely I do. But I also want you to be more successful.

I spent 14 months trying to figure out how to monetize my Substack. I had about $300 in revenue to show for 14 months of work. It was NOT fun.

I’m having more fun now. I actually look forward to getting up in the morning and getting to work on my Substack. I want you to see this same type of success.

Here’s a Note from Shannon that ties into this:

The only thing better than growing, is watching my Paid subscribers grow. And most of them, like Shannon, are growing faster than I am! I love it!

This is why I focused January on how to design a content strategy, and why February is going to focus on creating a solid conversion strategy. I’m taking what has worked for me, tearing it apart, showing you how and why it works, then showing you how to apply it to your own efforts.

Substack Will Grow in 2026, Get Ready Now

I wrote about this last month, but Substack is in store for a strong growth year in 2026 that may extend into 2027 as well. My content here this year is designed to help you start and build your substack so you can take advantage of the growth when it arrives. I truly believe if you position your substack properly and put in the work, that once the growth surge starts, your substack can generate full time income for many for you. That’s absolutely what I am working toward, and I believe it is coming.

Two metrics you can track for yourself to get a hint that growth is coming: Watch the growth of your Views and free subscribers. When growth arrives, it won’t be isolated, it will be platform-wide. So we all will see growth happening, and it will show up first in your Views and free subscribers.

This is why I want you to get your content, conversion and community strategies in place NOW, so you can leverage the growth surge when it arrives to boost your substack. Last month we covered how to design a content strategy, this month we will cover designing a conversion strategy, and next month will focus on designing a community/engagement strategy.

Thursday’s post will explain why a conversion strategy is important. See you then, and if you aren’t subscribed, please do so now so you can grow with us in 2026.

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Backstage Pass teaches you how to better connect with your customers, readers, clients, or donors. The lessons shared here draw on my experience over the last 20 years building customer engagement strategies for companies like Adobe, Dell, Club Med, Ingersoll-Rand, and countless others. I give you real-world research, examples and tactics that show you how to create customer engagement efforts that drive real business growth.

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