Everything we fixed in the first Substack Glow-Up, so you can steal the whole check list.
Almost 100 people showed up to watch me give live feedback on a Substack with 88 subscribers.
My screen share froze twice 😅. At one point I vanished completely and Robyn, my guest, had to host her own feedback session while I restarted my connection. My laptop battery gave up right as we wrapped. And through all of it, the chat kept filling with versions of the same message: this is so helpful, when are you doing it again.
So it’s official. This is now a monthly format, and it has a name: the Substack Glow-Up. And because most of you couldn’t make it, this post walks through everything we covered, so you can run the same checkup on your own publication this week.
Before we get to the fixes: every Glow-Up runs on the same playbook, literally. The Wander Wealth Playbook holds the four systems and 10 fill-in templates I check every publication against. One-time $99, yours forever.
Why I put feedback on camera
I get the same questions over and over. What can I do to grow. What should I change on my homepage. Why does nobody subscribe after reading my notes.
Instead of answering them one by one in my inbox, I wanted to answer them live, with a real publication on screen and real numbers behind it.
Robyn Levin volunteered to go first. She writes Rare Finds Luxury Travel, where she shares hidden gems and extraordinary properties around the world, sometimes reporting straight from location, along with exclusive partner perks for her readers. She’s four months in with 88 subscribers.
Well, sort of four months. She actually launched last summer, felt completely overwhelmed, and quit. This year she came back and started over. I told her I get it. It took me a couple of tries in the beginning too, and I’ve been doing this for more than two years now. Substack launches something new almost every week. Keeping up is a job in itself.
Here’s the full glow-up, stop by stop.
Stop 1: Your profile works harder than your posts
Most discovery on Substack happens through Notes now. Your note lands in the feed of someone who has never heard of you. If it resonates, they hover over your name. A tiny preview pops up with your photo and the first lines of your bio, and in about two seconds they decide whether to click.
Which means your profile is doing the heavy lifting for every single note you publish.
The formula I gave Robyn: personality plus credibility. Skip the list of content categories. Use your bio to show who you are and why you’re worth listening to on your topic.
Hers is a great example.
Two more profile fixes from the session:
Put one link directly in your bio text. Almost nobody clicks the small buttons for your Instagram or YouTube further down the profile. A link inside the bio itself gets seen. The best use for it is a freebie. Robyn is finishing a Croatia travel guide, so the play is simple: subscribe and it’s yours. People love a clear free offer, especially in a feed full of noise.
And if you run two publications, know this: the first one listed on your profile collects almost all the subscribes. Growing two at once is genuinely hard. Pick your priority and put it on top.
Quick pause. The profile formula above is one small piece of System 01 in The Wander Wealth Playbook, where I rebuilt everything I learned into four systems you can run: growth, publishing, engagement, and going paid.
If you’d rather fix your whole Substack than collect scattered tips:
Stop 2: Your feed is your shop window
After your bio, visitors scroll your activity. This is your shop window. Pretend a stranger is standing in front of it right now, deciding whether to walk in.
What I see on many profiles is restack after restack of other people’s content. Restacking is generous and good for the community. But if that’s all a visitor finds, they learn nothing about you, and there’s no reason to subscribe to a shop window full of someone else’s products.
The second trap is links. Robyn had a lovely note sitting at 11 likes, right next to a YouTube link with 2. Those numbers say nothing about quality. Substack quietly buries notes that contain links, and it doesn’t matter whether they point outside the platform or to your own posts. Save links for inside your articles.
What does work in the feed: your own thoughts as plain text notes, and images. If you make videos, upload the file directly instead of linking to YouTube. Native uploads keep people on the platform, and Substack rewards exactly that.
Your homework for this stop: scroll your own activity and count. If more than half of your last ten items are restacks, your shop window needs your own work in it.
Stop 3: Give your publication a front door
When someone clicks through to your actual publication, they arrive knowing nothing. Your homepage has one job: make it obvious what this place is and where to start.
Three changes we made on Robyn’s page:
A start here post. One post that explains what your publication is about, what readers can expect, and what free versus paid includes. Pin it to the top of your homepage so every new visitor finds the front door first, while your newest articles rotate beside it.
Sections. Robyn hosts lives, publishes travel guides, and works with travel partners. Mixed into one endless feed, that gets confusing fast. Split into sections, her homepage turns from two lonely subscribe buttons into a structured page with clear rows. It instantly looks fuller and more intentional.
A personal about page. Most about pages describe the publication. Rewrite yours so it describes you. People subscribe to people. Robyn already had strong testimonials there, and the missing piece was her own story. A photo helps. A short video of you explaining why you write is even better.
One small extra: read your navigation bar the way a stranger would. Robyn’s said Destinations Before the Crowds, YouTube Archive, About. Intriguing, but not obvious. Every tab should make it instantly clear where someone lands when they click it.
One more thing before the last stop.
Inside the Playbook there’s a complete publication setup system plus 10 fill-in templates, including the welcome email, the pricing worksheet, and the first-90-days roadmap I use with my coaching clients. Grab The Wander Wealth Playbook here and give your own publication a glow-up this weekend.
Your 10-minute assignment
Open your last note and hover over your own name, or open your profile in a private browser window. Read the preview like a stranger. You get a photo and roughly three lines.
Now rewrite your bio: one line of personality, one line of credibility, one link to your best free thing. Those are the most valuable ten minutes you can spend on Substack this week.
And yes, we’re doing this again. The Substack Glow-Up is happening every month now. If you want your Substack on screen next time, become a premium member, and leave a comment with the one thing you’d want feedback on. I’ll pick the next guest from there.
A huge thank you to Robyn for being my guinea pig, frozen screens and all!
FAQ
What is the Substack Glow-Up?
A monthly live session where I give one publication feedback in front of everyone: profile, homepage, Notes strategy, the whole setup. It’s free to watch, and the guest walks away with a fix list. Leave a comment on this post if you want to be next.
What should my Substack profile bio say?
One line of personality, one line of credibility, and one link to your best free resource. The bio preview is what strangers see when they hover over your name in Notes, and they decide in about two seconds whether to click.
Do links in Substack Notes hurt reach?
Yes. Substack buries notes that contain links, and it makes no difference whether they point to YouTube or to your own posts. Keep your notes as plain text or images, put links inside your articles, and upload videos natively instead of linking out.
What is a start here post?
One pinned post that tells a brand-new visitor what your publication is about, what to read first, and what free versus paid includes. It’s the front door of your homepage, and most publications are missing one.
Where can I get the complete growth system?
Everything I teach in these sessions comes from The Wander Wealth Playbook, four systems and 10 fill-in templates built from 159 published issues. It’s a one-time $99 purchase.
Exclusive Access For My Paid Subscribers:
To help you grow faster, check out the resources waiting for you inside my Growth Library, available to paid members only.
That includes The Wander Wealth Playbook: my complete growth system with four systems, 10 fill-in templates, and workshop recordings, built from two years of growing this newsletter from 0 to 20,000 subscribers.
(If you aren’t a paid member yet, upgrade and unlock the full Playbook, the templates, and everything else in the Library, so you can skip the mistakes I made.)
