I appreciate this honesty and vulnerability so much!
Mack, I am so proud of you for talking about the slow growth many of us experience on Substack! Not everyone is going to go viral on their first few (hundreds?) posts and it is okay
Thank you, Irene! There is a very supportive community here on Substack. As soon as I joined, everyone kept saying the same thing: Keep writing till you reach your goals. It was just what I needed to hear!
Mack, your transparency about Substack’s growth stages is both refreshing and motivating. It’s easy to underestimate the slow grind of building a meaningful platform. Your approach to fostering authentic engagement—focusing on those who reciprocate and add value—resonates deeply. It’s a smart shift from vanity metrics to true community-building.
Your reflection on creating recurring content series sparked an idea: Could you experiment with an interactive element, like a monthly AMA or community-driven topic poll? It might deepen engagement while easing content planning.
What’s been the most surprising insight you’ve gained about audience behavior during this six-month journey?
Thank you Alexandra! I have thought about doing something like an AMA, but I think it will have more value later on when I am achieving better results. This is one of the issues I faced when I decided to do a monthly recap series from the start: The fact that my results would be pretty unimpressive for a while! But I had confidence that eventually I could grow Backstage Pass into a solid publication, and I felt that it would be valuable to others to share the complete journey from start to finish. I will admit it’s taking a bit longer to get up to speed than I thought it would!
As for biggest surprise…I am really surprised at how supportive most members are. There’s not a lot of sniping back and forth and almost no trolling. Most everyone is supportive and happy to share what works and doesn’t for them. The environment here reminds me a lot of the early days of blogging and Twitter.
Thanks for the insights about open rates. Mine also dropped and I was wondering if my content wasn't good enough. Just learned now that only email reads are counted.
Great article. Thanks for sharing your experience. It helps others set their expectations, so it's super helpful.
After a month of posting daily, I feel like I'm still in pre-first stage. With no imported subscribers, starting from zero, even getting eyeballs on my work seems like a slog.
I think that's why I'm seeing a lot of the 'sub for sub' posts on notes. Subscribers that you get from this will mostly fall away, but those posts get a fair amount of traction which ultimately means new people are getting to read your work.
I think I'll steer clear of the 'sub for sub' for now. Organic feels like the way to go, but it's always tempting to game the algorithm if only to get exposure.
I try my best to make my work thoughtful, interesting, and helpful. Posting daily has been a three to four-hour, up 'til 1am every night, kind of deal, so it's not some AI-generated advice column, a la 'pulp non-fiction.'
I even tried to switch it up with a 'Substack QR code hack' post to see if that could get some more people interested. But so far that's failed to garner any interest.
My decision, as a newbie, with zero imported subscribers and minimal 'success' with the algorithm putting my work in front of readers is this:
Believe that thoughtful can be successful. Keep working for the work, make it good, make it useful, and make it beautiful. But most importantly, for me, slow down.
The Subsatellite publication was always going to be intense by design. Daily was built in from the start. The world I've created over there is not only mine, it's a small part of my reader's world too. I hope they understand when the 'transmissions' from Alexander drop from daily to twice weekly, they might even find that kind of frequency less intense so it could ultimately turn out to be a more engageable schedule for them. Although my 30-day open rate is at 69.93% (not sure if that's good).
Sorry, I went on a little purge-rant there. I think, as always, writing it down has helped me to frame the decision. Writing really is therapy, huh?
Anyway, to loop it back to the start, thanks for your post. It's really helped this pre-first stager to keep their fingers on the keys. Know that you've helped to nudge a bit more art into the world, and, numbers aside, that's something worth counting when all of the stats are in.
Hey thanks for the thoughtful comment. Honestly, everything feels like a slog when you first start here. You are doing great, I found that spending time on engagement really has helped me raise visibility of my own Substack while also making new friends. It’s made Substack a lot more enjoyable in the process. Good luck, I also think a story-driven approach like you are using works well here. Good luck!
Thanks for the reply. Just going through some old posts adding the pictures to the body. I figure that it helps pull the subscribers into the story as, when a post goes straight to their inbox, they don't get to see the thumbnail.
Hey thanks for the thoughtful comment. Honestly, everything feels like a slog when you first start here. You are doing great, I found that spending time on engagement really has helped me raise visibility of my own Substack while also making new friends. It’s made Substack a lot more enjoyable in the process. Good luck, I also think a story-driven approach like you are using works well here. Good luck!
I like your experimental approach to Substack publishing, Mack. I like the ‘seasons’ writers experience, consider talking more about that in your future posts
Thank you Vic. I’m picking up a lot of tips and tricks on how to improve from sheer repetition and experience. I suspect the simple act of writing for publishing over a few months creates some of its own success. Always looking for something to tinker and experiment with. I figure it’s better to test stuff out early on so of it breaks now it won’t make as big of a mess!
I can't believe six months have gone by already! This is awesome and helpful data - thank you for sharing it!!
I'm in the -1 stage on Substack: the "Wannabe Stage." 😅 I'm reading and learning and planning, and squirreling others' wisdom away for future reference.
Right now I'm on the balance board of learning how to juggle full-time caregiving for my folks while working and side-hustling. (And somehow, there's always laundry!! 😜) So often I don't have any emotional energy left to engage with posts online; but as Indy says, "I'm like a bad penny" - I keep coming back. Someday soon, I will graduate to The Slog! 😁
Thank you for all your insight, and for always being a positive voice in our notifications!
Thank you Christine! You’re a wonderful friend and very thoughtful to help your parents. I look forward to enjoying your writing (and hopefully some new artwork!) and will be happy to help you in any way I can once you start here!
Really enjoy reading your detailed updates Mack! Your approach of monthly staples is great thinking - seems like it would definitely lead to more consistent engagement and sustained growth as a commitment to readers. I struggle with trying new topics too, it's really hard to work out what resonates with a constantly changing readership when experimenting.
Thank you Rohan! You are growing much faster than I am, so your method is obviously working very well! I try to do a lot of experimenting as well. Sometimes with topics, or formatting, sometimes when to publish. Always something to improve!
Thanks! Yes, there are so many variables to experiment with. For each post, I try to change just one element in my writing style - keeping what feels authentic and dropping what I feel has become a dated practice :)
Love reading these Substack growth updates Mack! I started in July so have just started my sixth month and am right behind you! Still experiencing slow but steady growth in this phase and I’m very happy with that. Grateful to be on this journey with you✨
I appreciate this honesty and vulnerability so much!
Mack, I am so proud of you for talking about the slow growth many of us experience on Substack! Not everyone is going to go viral on their first few (hundreds?) posts and it is okay
Thank you, Irene! There is a very supportive community here on Substack. As soon as I joined, everyone kept saying the same thing: Keep writing till you reach your goals. It was just what I needed to hear!
Mack, your transparency about Substack’s growth stages is both refreshing and motivating. It’s easy to underestimate the slow grind of building a meaningful platform. Your approach to fostering authentic engagement—focusing on those who reciprocate and add value—resonates deeply. It’s a smart shift from vanity metrics to true community-building.
Your reflection on creating recurring content series sparked an idea: Could you experiment with an interactive element, like a monthly AMA or community-driven topic poll? It might deepen engagement while easing content planning.
What’s been the most surprising insight you’ve gained about audience behavior during this six-month journey?
Thank you Alexandra! I have thought about doing something like an AMA, but I think it will have more value later on when I am achieving better results. This is one of the issues I faced when I decided to do a monthly recap series from the start: The fact that my results would be pretty unimpressive for a while! But I had confidence that eventually I could grow Backstage Pass into a solid publication, and I felt that it would be valuable to others to share the complete journey from start to finish. I will admit it’s taking a bit longer to get up to speed than I thought it would!
As for biggest surprise…I am really surprised at how supportive most members are. There’s not a lot of sniping back and forth and almost no trolling. Most everyone is supportive and happy to share what works and doesn’t for them. The environment here reminds me a lot of the early days of blogging and Twitter.
Thanks so much for the thoughtful reply!
Thanks for the insights about open rates. Mine also dropped and I was wondering if my content wasn't good enough. Just learned now that only email reads are counted.
Thanks Mark, I wish Substack could clear up the confusion about this.
hi Mack, if it helps, you can read my posts on engagement, activity metrics on Substack. Yes, open rates are misleading. Good share, thanks.
Oh that’s awesome, Jayshree! Thank you so much, off to check out your posts now!
Great article. Thanks for sharing your experience. It helps others set their expectations, so it's super helpful.
After a month of posting daily, I feel like I'm still in pre-first stage. With no imported subscribers, starting from zero, even getting eyeballs on my work seems like a slog.
I think that's why I'm seeing a lot of the 'sub for sub' posts on notes. Subscribers that you get from this will mostly fall away, but those posts get a fair amount of traction which ultimately means new people are getting to read your work.
I think I'll steer clear of the 'sub for sub' for now. Organic feels like the way to go, but it's always tempting to game the algorithm if only to get exposure.
I try my best to make my work thoughtful, interesting, and helpful. Posting daily has been a three to four-hour, up 'til 1am every night, kind of deal, so it's not some AI-generated advice column, a la 'pulp non-fiction.'
I even tried to switch it up with a 'Substack QR code hack' post to see if that could get some more people interested. But so far that's failed to garner any interest.
My decision, as a newbie, with zero imported subscribers and minimal 'success' with the algorithm putting my work in front of readers is this:
Believe that thoughtful can be successful. Keep working for the work, make it good, make it useful, and make it beautiful. But most importantly, for me, slow down.
The Subsatellite publication was always going to be intense by design. Daily was built in from the start. The world I've created over there is not only mine, it's a small part of my reader's world too. I hope they understand when the 'transmissions' from Alexander drop from daily to twice weekly, they might even find that kind of frequency less intense so it could ultimately turn out to be a more engageable schedule for them. Although my 30-day open rate is at 69.93% (not sure if that's good).
Sorry, I went on a little purge-rant there. I think, as always, writing it down has helped me to frame the decision. Writing really is therapy, huh?
Anyway, to loop it back to the start, thanks for your post. It's really helped this pre-first stager to keep their fingers on the keys. Know that you've helped to nudge a bit more art into the world, and, numbers aside, that's something worth counting when all of the stats are in.
Hey thanks for the thoughtful comment. Honestly, everything feels like a slog when you first start here. You are doing great, I found that spending time on engagement really has helped me raise visibility of my own Substack while also making new friends. It’s made Substack a lot more enjoyable in the process. Good luck, I also think a story-driven approach like you are using works well here. Good luck!
Thanks for the reply. Just going through some old posts adding the pictures to the body. I figure that it helps pull the subscribers into the story as, when a post goes straight to their inbox, they don't get to see the thumbnail.
All the small things, huh?
Hey thanks for the thoughtful comment. Honestly, everything feels like a slog when you first start here. You are doing great, I found that spending time on engagement really has helped me raise visibility of my own Substack while also making new friends. It’s made Substack a lot more enjoyable in the process. Good luck, I also think a story-driven approach like you are using works well here. Good luck!
These are some great insights Mack! Thank you always for sharing the behind the scenes of your Substack journey really helps for new writers!
Thank you Frey, and thank you for restacking!
I like your experimental approach to Substack publishing, Mack. I like the ‘seasons’ writers experience, consider talking more about that in your future posts
Thank you Jana! What exactly is the ‘seasons’ writers experience?
Mack, I am referring to the stages you explained the writer's experience here on Substack related to growth.
Always great information. Thanks for the shout-out. Looking forward to seeing you reach stage 2 soon. The monthly series are a great idea. Well done.
Thank you Vic. I’m picking up a lot of tips and tricks on how to improve from sheer repetition and experience. I suspect the simple act of writing for publishing over a few months creates some of its own success. Always looking for something to tinker and experiment with. I figure it’s better to test stuff out early on so of it breaks now it won’t make as big of a mess!
I can't believe six months have gone by already! This is awesome and helpful data - thank you for sharing it!!
I'm in the -1 stage on Substack: the "Wannabe Stage." 😅 I'm reading and learning and planning, and squirreling others' wisdom away for future reference.
Right now I'm on the balance board of learning how to juggle full-time caregiving for my folks while working and side-hustling. (And somehow, there's always laundry!! 😜) So often I don't have any emotional energy left to engage with posts online; but as Indy says, "I'm like a bad penny" - I keep coming back. Someday soon, I will graduate to The Slog! 😁
Thank you for all your insight, and for always being a positive voice in our notifications!
Thank you Christine! You’re a wonderful friend and very thoughtful to help your parents. I look forward to enjoying your writing (and hopefully some new artwork!) and will be happy to help you in any way I can once you start here!
Interesting to hear about your journey here, Mack. I'm also in the slow growth stage. Thanks for sharing!
Thank you Lisa! I love how everyone on Substack is so encouraging and says to keep going through the slow times. We will get through them together!!
Really enjoy reading your detailed updates Mack! Your approach of monthly staples is great thinking - seems like it would definitely lead to more consistent engagement and sustained growth as a commitment to readers. I struggle with trying new topics too, it's really hard to work out what resonates with a constantly changing readership when experimenting.
Thank you Rohan! You are growing much faster than I am, so your method is obviously working very well! I try to do a lot of experimenting as well. Sometimes with topics, or formatting, sometimes when to publish. Always something to improve!
Thanks! Yes, there are so many variables to experiment with. For each post, I try to change just one element in my writing style - keeping what feels authentic and dropping what I feel has become a dated practice :)
I'm rooting for you to enter the second phase as soon as possible.
Thank you Mladena, with all the help you continue to give me, I will get there in no time!
Mack, always appreciate your clear and informative info on what the numbers mean!
Thank you Joyce for your constant encouragement. I hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving!
Love reading these Substack growth updates Mack! I started in July so have just started my sixth month and am right behind you! Still experiencing slow but steady growth in this phase and I’m very happy with that. Grateful to be on this journey with you✨
Thank you Hege, you are my Substack BFF!