There’s a move you make on Substack that feels like progress every single time. It’s also the reason your account has barely moved.
You’ve tested the best time to post. Run three notes a day, then five, then nine, watching which brought in subscribers. You’ve got a word or two you slip into headlines because they worked once. And every few days another post tells you Substack is changing and this new feature changes everything.
I did all of it.
On Medium I found a phrase that spiked my headlines every time I used it, for about a year. Then it died, and I went straight back to hunting for the next one.
None of that is wrong on its own. The trouble starts when it becomes the main thing you do. You can pour six months into the tweaks and still open your account to find almost nothing has changed, while the writers you keep checking on grow without any of it.
There’s one thing sitting underneath every hack you have ever tried. Once I saw it, the tricks stopped mattering to me. It’s the opposite of exciting, which is most of why so few people bother. It’s also the only reason I have readers who stay, and the only reason I could hand in my notice.
That’s why I’m sharing this recording.
It names the mistake, and it shows you what I’d build instead if I were starting from nothing.
Then there’s the part almost everyone gets stuck on. The money.
For six months my paid subscriptions went nowhere. A handful of people, and one of them was family. I nearly walked away from the whole idea. Then I changed three things, and paid became the strongest part of my business.
I’m walking through all three in next month’s VIP masterclass. If paid subscribers are the bit that won’t work for you, whether you’re starting from zero or trying to grow the few you have, that session is built for exactly that.
Derek
P.S. The hacks will still be there tomorrow. So will the account that hasn’t moved. The three changes are what ends that loop. Come and get them here before next month’s session.
