How I Grew My Substack To 500 Subscribers In 3 Months

Can’t believe all you beautiful people - thank you for being here 🧡

Credit - Midjourney

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I’m sooo excited.

I am hereby officially launching my “Grow Your Substack” course. Ready to get started or grow on Substack?

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How I Grew My Substack To 500 Subscribers In 3 Months

Three months ago, I pressed “publish” for my first newsletter and wondered if anyone besides my mother would even read it.

Most of us know this feeling — beginnings are always nerve-wracking and tough.

Last weekend, I was amazed to see 500 people had signed up.

I can’t believe how quickly this project turned into a real community.

Let me share with you how I got there.

I started writing on Medium a month before Substack.

Still, I quickly realized that I needed a newsletter to write something more personal than just articles. In a newsletter, people get to know you better.

I also wanted to have more control over my audience and not be dependent on algorithms. And the best way to do that is with an email list.

It took me four months to reach just 31 email subscribers on Medium. Crazy fact: I had more subscribers on Substack in just three weeks than in two months on Medium.

5 Ways to Grow Your E-Mail Newsletter

Here’s my simple approach:

1. Write 2–3 newsletters each week. Make sure you add value but also keep it personal — people like getting to know the real you. If you’re importing articles from Medium or your blog, don’t publish them all at once. Share them gradually, adding a personal touch to each one. No one will want to read through 100 imported articles at once, so take your time and make them relatable.

2. Use Substack’s Notes feature. Notes can help more people discover you. Be authentic and real. Successful Notes often include memes about writing (something many of us on Substack can relate to), personal stories, life’s ups and downs, or even your pets.

3. Follow others on Substack. If you enjoy their content, consider subscribing to their newsletters. You can also explore Notes from people who’ve liked a particular Note, making it easy to find and follow new voices. Here’s a pro tip: follow people who like a Note from an author you admire. Just click on the Note, then on Likes, and you’ll see who enjoyed it. These are people who share your interests—they like the same author and the same Note. Plus, they’re active on the platform, which means you’re not following inactive accounts. This is a great way to expand your reach with like-minded individuals.

is is a great way to expand your reach with like-minded individuals.

4. Recommend other newsletters and get recommended in return. You can also reach out to people and ask if they’d like to recommend each other’s newsletters (though to be honest, I’m not a big fan of this — it can feel a bit desperate). If people genuinely like your content, they’ll recommend it naturally.

5. Start with free content. Focus on offering your content for free in the beginning. Once you’ve built a solid audience — around 100–300 subscribers — you can start thinking about offering some paid content.I started using paid content when I had about 300 subscribers. However, some larger accounts waited much longer—around 1.5 years—before making the switch to paid content. It’s up to you how to structure it.

Obviously, there are other newsletter platforms, like ConvertKit, which many people swear by.

But with Substack constantly rolling out cool features like Notes, it’s clear that they’re leading the pack. It’s quickly becoming the go-to platform for writers, and now’s the time to jump on board.

That said, enough fan-girling over Substack. If you want to grow your email list quickly, try out different platforms and mix things up.

The trick is to find what works best for you and your audience.

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