The Notes Growth System Most Writers Ignore (I Gained 587 Subs in 90 Days)

The dead simple approach that makes me $175/month from Notes alone

Most writers treat Notes like a lucky dip.

They post something short. Cross their fingers. Hope the algorithm gives them a friendly nod.

Meanwhile, in the last 90 days I’ve added 587 new subscribers just from Notes…
and made $525 from Notes alone. Not because I’m special. Not because I spend hours writing perfect one-liners. But because I use Notes deliberately. And I track what actually works.

Almost nobody else does this.

Let me walk you through the exact system.

How to create notes that actually attract subscribers

Most people toss out Notes and cross their fingers.

I don’t. I batch them with my own custom AI tool. One that writes in my voice and speaks straight to the readers who feel a bit invisible, a bit behind, and quietly afraid they’ve missed their moment.

Generic prompts flatten your writing. A personalised tool does the opposite. It lets you post 5–10 Notes a day without sounding like everyone else. And that volume?
It’s not noise. It’s data.

Each Note becomes a tiny experiment. A quick test of what your audience cares about today. Some spark. Some fizz. All of them teach you something. Once you start treating Notes as experiments, the whole process shifts. It becomes a growth engine.

A way out of invisibility. A way to finally be seen.

The dashboard page that shows you what’s Working

Substack gives you more data than any guru, course, or swipe file ever will. Because it’s your actual readers telling you what resonates. This is priceless information.

Go here:

Dashboard → Growth → New Subscribers

You’ll see exactly where every subscriber came from. Scroll down until you see “Notes.”

This number matters because it’s behaviour. Not someone’s guess.

The Notes tab: The most underused growth tool on Substack

Click:

Dashboard → Notes

Sort by “New subscribers” or “Revenue.”

Now you’re not looking at likes or vanity metrics. You’re looking at which of your Notes generated real growth. Here’s mine:

This is interesting.

But what you do next? That’s the part most writers skip… and the part that separates the people who stay invisible from the ones who finally get traction. These three moves can change your growth curve faster than any “be consistent” pep talk.

They’re the exact steps I run through every month. The ones that keep me from drifting, doubting, or disappearing.

Move 1: Repost what already works

Every quarter, I look back three months and grab my top-performing Notes.

Then I repost them. Almost every time, they perform again. People won’t notice. They won’t remember. They won’t think, “Didn’t he say this already?” If a Note earned subscribers once, it’s earned a second outing.

I keep all my best-performing Notes in a simple Google Sheet so I can resurface them on a schedule.

Move 2: Use your best Notes as audience X-rays

I paste all my top Notes into ChatGPT and ask one question:

What does this tell me about my audience?

Not surface-level insights, I ask for deeper patterns:

• Do they prefer short Notes? Longer Notes?

• What fears are they resonating with?

• What ideas light them up?

• Which phrases hit hardest?

• What topics get them to subscribe?

This turns your Notes into a listening device.

You stop guessing what your audience wants. You start reading what they want. Straight from their behaviour.

And once you understand why a Note worked, you can use that insight everywhere:

• Notes

• Posts

• Future digital products

This is audience research without the surveys.

Move 3: Multiply what works

For the best-performing Notes, I take the winning idea and feed it into my custom tool:

The 5-Note Firestarter.

It creates five new versions of the same idea. Different angles, different hooks, different templates. All in my voice, all calibrated to my audience. Because when you feed the right idea into the right tool, the output doesn’t just scale.
It compounds.

One strong Note becomes five more that have a high chance of performing.

If you’re an early-stage writer who feels invisible, unsure, and worried it might be too late. This is the path.

Growth doesn’t come from inspiration alone. It doesn’t come from hoping. It doesn’t come from posting once in a while and praying someone notices.

Growth comes from:

• simple systems

• understanding your readers

• leaning on what already works

This is how I added 587 subscribers from Notes in 90 days. This is how I made $525 from Notes alone. This is how you stop throwing posts into the abyss.

You don’t need a bigger pile of ideas. You don’t need to feel more motivated. You need a system that shows you what’s working and a way to repeat it.

And if you want to skip the DIY altogether? Check out my The Irresistible Substack Agent. The AI writing agent I build for creators who want a system that writes in their voice, understands their audience, and keeps their Substack humming even on their busiest weeks.

Derek