5 Substack Tactics That Don't Work (I Used Every Single One)
Why your Substack isn't growing
Four months. Forty-seven subscribers.
That’s what one writer told me last week. She was consistent. She was capable. She was invisible. She was doing everything she’d been told to do.
That’s the problem.
I spent a long time doing exactly that. Doing what I was told. Waiting for it to work. In the last 18 months I’ve grown to 7,000+ subscribers, launched 6 digital products, and crossed £100,000 in online income.
None of that came from the tactics most people are pushing. It came from stopping them.
Here are the five I’d cut first.
1. The Rewrite Trap
On Substack, perfectly crafted prose doesn’t build trust. It creates distance.
I used to think attention had to be earned through brilliance. So I’d rewrite the same paragraph nineteen times. Hunting for the metaphor that would finally make people take me seriously. The opening line that would stop someone mid-scroll.
What I was actually doing was hiding.
Perfectionism is procrastination with better PR. The posts that have landed hardest for me were never the most considered. They were the most honest. I once wrote a post from a holiday apartment in Croatia, slightly sunburnt. The afternoon I made my first digital product sale. I hadn’t planned to write it. I just opened my laptop and typed what had happened.
The line that got the most responses wasn’t the headline or the hook. It was this: “I didn’t think anyone would buy this.” Seven words. No craft. Just true. If you’ve been sitting on a draft for a week because it’s not ready yet, here’s what I’d tell you. It’s ready. Hit post.
Your next post will be better. But only if you publish this one first.
2. The Neediness Signal
I spent weeks sending messages to writers I’d never spoken to.
I’d read their post, find something genuine to say about it, then add the line I’d been building toward the whole time. I also write about XYZ. Thought you might enjoy my work.
Most of them never replied.
I told myself it was networking. It wasn’t. It was despair with a subject line. I was working hard, writing things I believed in. Yet nothing was moving. When the writing alone felt like shouting into a wall, the messages felt like doing something
The silence from those writers stung.Because the need was in every word, whether I’d put it there or not. The ask dressed up as a compliment. The shift didn’t come from sending better messages. It came from writing things people wanted to pass on without being asked.
Findable outlasts forceful. Every time.
3. The Mirror Problem
Most Substack welcome pages are doing one thing really well.
Blending in.
“I write about creativity, growth, and the art of living well.”
Fine. Forgettable.
Indistinguishable from three hundred other newsletters your reader has already scrolled past. Mine used to sound like that. Vague enough to appeal to everyone. Which meant it spoke to no one.
The thing that changed my conversion rate wasn’t a new design or a better tagline. It was rewriting the page as if I was talking to one specific person. The writer sitting at 200 subscribers wondering if they should just pack it in. The one who’s been at it for six months and can’t work out what they’re doing wrong.
When your welcome page reflects someone’s exact situation back at them, they don’t just subscribe. They feel like they’ve finally found the right place. Write it for the person who almost didn’t click. Make them glad they did.
(I wrote a full guide to getting this right — you can find it here).
4. The 500 Subscriber Mistake
I remember reading a post and just stopping.
It was clever. Genuinely insightful. The comments were stacking up and every one of them was saying exactly what I wished someone would say about my writing.
My first thought wasn’t admiration. It was: why can’t I write something like that. My second was quieter and uglier: I’m falling behind.
I sat with that for longer than I’d like to admit.
What snapped me out of it wasn’t a mindset shift or a podcast about abundance. It was just watching what happened when I started recommending writers I genuinely rated. Sharing their work. Showing up for them without calculating what I’d get back.
Some of them returned the favour. Some didn’t. The ones who didn't still counted. Because readers see how you treat other writers. That's part of what they're deciding about you. Someone else's growth doesn't shrink yours. Readers follow multiple writers. They find new ones through the ones they already trust.
The writers growing fastest aren't protecting their patch. They're expanding it.
5. The Missing Half
Two types of post are killing your Substack.
Chances are, you've published both this month.
The first is the pure tactics post. Seven tips for beating procrastination. Five ways to grow your list. Useful on the surface, forgettable within the hour.
The second is the personal essay that wanders. A reflection on a walk you took. Something your commute made you think about. Warm, well-written, and gone from memory by Tuesday.
What lands is the combination. The story that earns the lesson. The lesson that makes the story worth telling.
My most shared post this year was about building a writing income from scratch. I had 585 subscribers when I launched my first product. The comments section had been telling me what to build for months. I just hadn’t listened properly. When I finally did, month one brought in $2,500.
I didn’t lead with the number. I led with the doubt. The small room. The slow start. The fear that it was too early. The number meant something because the story was honest first. If your writing isn’t landing the way you hoped, ask which half you’re missing.
Story makes people feel it. Insight gives them somewhere to go.
You need both.
So what actually works?
Write like a person, consistently. Share what’s happening as it happens, not just when it’s worked out. Build your list through generosity rather than tactics.
And publish. Often. Before it’s ready. Especially then.
The writers I see growing on Substack aren’t the most talented or the most strategic. They’re the ones who kept going past the point where it would have been reasonable to stop.
The first product sale. The post that gets shared a hundred times. The message from a reader saying this is exactly what I needed.
None of that requires perfection. It just requires you to still be here when it arrives.
If you know a writer stuck in any of these five traps, restack this and put it in front of them. The tactics feel logical when you’re desperate for growth. Someone needs to tell them there’s a better way.
You don't need to be brilliant. You need to still be here.
I still remember when you recommended my newsletter, and I could not believe it. I had almost no audience then. But that one recommendation gave me the confidence that months of writing never did.
Thanks for this thoughtful post. Where I've been lost as I'm attempting to grow here (and I've shared on this a few times, even) is that there is a lot of noise. Even when starting out, some insist niche/write for one person, others say simply write. For me, time will tell whether this is the right place for me, but I'm intrigued by it.
And I couldn't help but laugh at "despair with a subject line" 😂 sums it up!