It definitely wasn’t as dramatic as you might imagine, and I wasn’t crying my eyes out.

It was the calmest and most exhausted conclusion I’ve reached in recent years.

A few months before that, I was giving it my all. Really, everything.

I was writing, rewriting, publishing, reading up on what others were doing, and trying again. Substack was on my mind in the morning, at night, and in the middle of conversations with people, even while I was supposedly listening to something completely different.

And nothing.

Not because I wasn’t working hard enough. I was working too hard, if I’m being honest. It’s just that the results weren’t coming.

And when you give so much and see nothing in return, you start asking yourself the question you don’t want to ask.

Maybe it just wasn’t meant to be for me.

In January, my partner went abroad for a week. I stayed home alone.

And this week was different from the others. Not because I was working more—I didn’t think I could work any more than I already was.

But because, for the first time, I allowed myself to fully experience it, without anyone watching me sit in front of my laptop at eleven at night, still in the same clothes.

I didn’t step away from the computer for almost the entire week. Not to accomplish anything specific. More because I didn’t know what else to do with that feeling.

I spent endless hours reading, writing, planning, and doing endless, endless work.

By the last day, I was empty. Literally drained.

And that’s when I accepted it.

Maybe I’m just not the kind of person who can do that.

I went to the airport to wait for my partner. I sat down on one of those plastic chairs that are never comfortable. All around me, people were hugging, rushing about, and checking the flight boards. I was just waiting.

I was tired in that way that sleep just can’t fix.

And lurking in the back of my mind was another thought — that this month’s electricity bill wouldn’t pay itself. That we had to find money somewhere, and I had no idea where.

I had no idea how to break this news to my partner.

I sat there with the phone in my hand, expecting nothing from it.

And then the screen lit up.

“You have a new paid subscriber.”

I don’t know how long I stared at those words before I fully understood them.

My heart started pounding wildly. I couldn’t believe my eyes; my brain couldn’t process it.

One person.

Just one.

But minutes before that, I was sure it was all over. That I’d wasted my time. That this time, it just wasn’t meant to be for me.

And at that very moment, just as I was ready to give up, someone on the other side of the screen decided to trust me.

I don’t know why exactly then. I don’t know what he saw in me on that particular day, after all the other days when he saw nothing. But he stayed. And he’s still here, to this day.

I don’t think that one person changed my financial situation that month. I’m not fooling myself about that.

But he changed something else.

I can’t tell you that if you work hard enough, results will follow.

I worked hard enough before this week, and nothing came of it. I worked this week, too — to the point of exhaustion, which didn’t help anyone. And that’s exactly when it happened.

Not because of the effort. Not because of some new trick I discovered. It just happened when it happened.

If you have zero paying subscribers right now, it doesn’t mean you’re not good enough. It doesn’t mean it’ll never happen. It doesn’t mean you’re doing something wrong.

Sometimes, the moment just hasn’t come yet.

You don’t need one more post. You don’t need one more hour in front of the screen. You don’t need one more strategy.

Just time.

And it might come right when you’ve stopped expecting it—at the airport, at eleven at night, at a moment when you’ve decided you’re done.

These types of posts will always remain free, but if you’d like to support me, the best way is with a cup of coffee☕

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If the answer is “Yes” — then now is the time to tell you that my interview with Not Exactly Ana is officially here. And I have to admit, it turned out more than perfect.

Ana is the person behind the already well-known Substack visibility project, otherwise known as “Not Exactly Magazine.” She is also the voice behind “Not Exactly Ana” — a publication about mental health, personal stories, and Substack/Pinterest strategies.

In less than a year, Ana reached almost 5K subscribers, while also becoming a Bestseller just a month ago.

What is the recipe behind these results? — You will discover all of it in the interview below.

Enjoy reading, and I would love to hear your thoughts on this interview, as well as who you would like to see as my next guest.

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The Beginning — Where It All Started

– What was the moment when you decided: “Okay, I’m going to write publicly”?

I’ve always wanted to write publicly, I have to admit. Ever since I was little, my dream was either to become a journalist or a writer. Probably, the fact that I had watched way too much Sex and the City had a big influence on me, I have to admit.

But what gave me a little more courage a year ago was realizing that I had nothing to lose, but so much to say. And yes, I’ll admit it: I needed to help someone out there. To be useful, not only to myself, but to the people around me as well.

It was on one such afternoon, while I was in the kitchen with my partner, that the idea for Not Exactly Ana came to me.

– Did you have fears? What did they sound like?

I was afraid that someone out there would judge me for my thoughts, but then I realized that I was putting the brakes on myself before I had even started the car, you know? And I’m not a good driver, I admit, but I believe I have a talent for writing.

Maybe it was precisely this confidence that “saved” me from giving up prematurely.

– When did you first feel that someone was truly hearing you?

It may sound strange, but perhaps it was a month after I joined Substack. I remember it clearly because that was the first time I shared about my relationship with my mother and how, at that stage, our relationship was emotionally unhealthy.

I received so much feedback from different people who were going through the same thing that I told myself: “Okay, Ana, maybe there really is a reason for you to tell your story.”

2. The Road to 5K Subscribers — Not Just Numbers, but a Process

– What was the most unexpected post that blew up?

It may sound trivial, but I never expected a post like “Grandma, You Were Right — I Just Wasn’t Listening” to become so popular.

Maybe it was because of the title, I admit, since before that I had always written about more provocative topics and was constantly chasing bold headlines, I have to admit.

But the post about my grandmother was something different — softer, yet filled with so many life lessons that even I, as a reader, recently found myself saying, “Okay, did I really manage to write all of this?”

– What did you do during the periods when growth was slow?

If I say that there were moments when I cried because of it, will that sound too pathetic on my part? Because there really were moments like that.

There were also moments of tremendous anxiety that maybe, once your momentum is gone, you don’t get the right to have another one. Stupid thoughts, I admit.

During those moments, I focused mostly on the strength of my writing and on experimenting with different topics to write about.

Often, what we think our audience will like turns out to be completely different from what we originally had in mind.

That is why I also advise every single one of my coaching clients to experiment. Especially when it comes to Substack.

The time when growth is slow is a great opportunity to try new Notes or new posts that explore different PERSONAL topics.

– What does NOT work for you, even though everyone recommends it?

Following some kind of schedule for when I should publish.

The truth is, aside from creating additional stress for myself, nothing else happened. And I also had to say goodbye to my creativity for a certain period of time.

The truth is, Substack is not YouTube, and when you are sharing your story, there is no need to set deadlines for yourself.

Instead, during the weeks when you don’t publish something, you can focus on promoting an older post — not only through Notes, but also through external channels for direct organic traffic, such as Pinterest.

3. Writing About Mental Health — Vulnerability, Boundaries, Honesty

– How do you decide when something is too personal to publish?

The truth is, when it comes to me, I don’t think there is such a thing as something being “too personal.”

Simply because what feels too personal often turns out to be a topic that everyone has some kind of fear or concern about, but no one has the courage to talk about it.

That is exactly why I want to use my experience to show that it is worth allowing yourself to be vulnerable.

You never know when your story might save someone else’s life.

– What is the hardest part about writing about the psyche?

You know when you’ve gone through a certain traumatic experience and you simply become numb?

You can talk about it, for example, but you can’t show the emotion you are supposedly expected to feel.

Maybe that is the hardest part for me at certain moments.

Simply because my inspiration works precisely when I am emotional. And there are topics that require exactly those emotions from me, but the truth is, there is this huge gap left behind that I often have to “fill” with periods of retrospection.

And you know — brain fog is a trademark of trauma.

For better or for worse.

– How do you take care of yourself when you write about difficult topics?

I allow myself to feel, I write out the particular topic, and then I isolate myself for a certain period of time in my old childhood bedroom.

Lately, that has been the moment when I read certain passages from the Bible or simply listen to music while staring at the ceiling.

When I feel like I’m “more in the mood,” I simply wrap myself in a blanket and put on some mental health YouTube channel.

4. Visibility — The Project That Brings Writers Together

– Are you the person who chooses the authors?

My Substack Visibility Project gives absolutely every writer the opportunity to publish their story.

I don’t like putting myself, or the people around me, into boxes. Life is far too short for that.

– What do you want the magazine to be like a year from now?

I’m already thinking about physical copies — or at least something that I know anyone who wants to can have in their home.

So my plan for the year ahead is for this project to become so much more than what it is now.

But it will continue to carry the most important element: bringing people together.

– What is the biggest challenge in this project?

I have to admit, my biggest challenge is talking about the project enough, as well as fighting my own demons, such as overthinking and worrying.

What remains behind the scenes are many sleepless nights spent thinking about the design, including how to present the magazine to the audience every month.

5. The Relationship With Readers

– What is the most beautiful thing a reader has ever told you?

Some time ago, one of my readers wrote to me with the news that she was pregnant after several unsuccessful IVF attempts.

It may have nothing to do with my writing, but even to this day, the memory of it makes me happy.

I wish her and her husband health, love, and joy.

– What is the hardest part?

Recently, a woman reached out to me who is going through domestic violence.

In moments like these, I admit that I even provide my personal phone number as a means of contact, simply because I cannot accept someone going through such hell alone.

6. The Creative Process

– How do you know that a topic “has a place” in the world?

I have to admit that I write about what I am experiencing and what affects me personally.

Often, it turns out to be a problem that someone else out there is also struggling with, so in my opinion, every story deserves to see the light of day — no matter what people say.

– What do you do when you don’t feel like writing?

A few months ago, I was in such a creative block, and I realized that my biggest mistake was forcing the process.

Instead, now I allow myself to relax and redirect my energy into drawing, reading, or even listening to a podcast.

All of this greatly helps me get out of such a state.

– What is your personal definition of a good piece of writing?

One that makes you feel and experience every single word, as if fingers were running through every fold of your brain.

7. The Future

– What do you want to create that you are still afraid to start?

The podcast I am planning is exactly that little “almost” in my life at the moment.

I want it to be perfect, but at the same time, I have concerns about the language barrier.

But I suppose that with time and a lot of practice, that will work itself out.

– What would you like people to know about you that you haven’t said yet?

I am a very old-fashioned soul who will very soon give you access not to Ana, but to the woman I am.

In the book I am currently writing, I will give you a much deeper version of myself, where... the ending is the beginning, and the beginning is the end...

I believe that everyone who has gone through a life-changing event will find themselves in this very book.

So — stay tuned. Coming very soon.

– What is the dream you keep only to yourself?

If I share it here, how will it come true?

I leave it in silence, look up at the sky, and believe that God will fulfill even my most intimate prayer.

– If you had the chance to speak to yourself from 10 years ago, what would you say?

Dear little Ana,

We made it, even though not in the way you wanted.

We managed to write and help people. We managed to create something so meaningful that now thousands of people find peace through your words.

We managed to find the right path back to our talent — writing.

We got our hearts broken a little, I admit, but it turned out to be so strong that the only thing we sacrificed along the way was our soul — those 21 grams you once believed in so deeply.

But it was worth it, my little Ana. It was worth challenging ourselves.

Now you are happy, even if not in the way you expected.

Now you have what you needed once, rather than what you wanted.

And I am so grateful that there are wishes that never came true, because Ana, how else would we have what we have now?

I am proud of you, my little girl

I hope this interview has encouraged some of you or given you a glimmer of hope.

Let me know which Substack author you can’t wait for me to interview next.

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These types of posts will always remain free, but if you’d like to support me, the best way is with a cup of coffee☕

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That was my first thought a few days ago when I received a message that was extremely upsetting to me.

And maybe you’ve thought the same thing if this has ever happened to you.

Maybe it’s never happened to you at all (which I’m very glad about).

But today, I’m not going to talk about myself. I have something to say to someone.

Someone who will probably recognize themselves.

Dear Hater,

Maybe today you spilled coffee on your favorite pair of pants. Or maybe you were late for work because you overslept by five minutes. Maybe something happened in your life and you don’t know what to do with the emotions raging inside you.

I don’t know what happened to you, dear hater.

But I want to ask: Did you know?

Did you know that you’re shattering someone’s hope? Did you know that you were the last thing that pushed someone over the edge—someone who was just trying to be themselves?

Did you know that words weigh more than a stone or that they hurt more than a scraped knee?

Because, dear hater… This happens. Every day. All over the world, constantly.

Someone is convinced by your words that they’re good for nothing. That their voice doesn’t matter. That when they stand in front of the mirror, they have no right to smile.

Just because you’ve convinced them that they have no place online. Or worse—no place in the world.

“It’s just a comment”

It’s just a comment that might be the last thing someone reads before giving up.

Whether online or in person.

“Hide yourself”

“You’re fat”

“You’re ugly”

“You’re good for nothing”

“Give up—nobody cares”

Should I go on? Do these words sound familiar enough?

Because for many of us, they are familiar, and we’ve heard them so many times that every time they come up, we already know what we’re going to hear.

Please tell me—don’t these words feel heavy?

Dear Hater,

If there’s one thing I want you to know, it’s that you’ll never understand how much your words are worth.

To you, they’re just 5 seconds—written hastily out of boredom or anger.

To someone else, they’re worth years.

They might be the voice that encourages that person to start something over.

It could be the reason someone never shows their drawing again. Or posts what they want to say. Or stops fighting for their dream job. Or even wakes up the next day.

Or simply stops believing they belong here.

But if you’re reading this and have ever been the one to hear words like these…

I want to tell you not to let the loudest voice become the most important one. The people who want to support you are almost always quieter than those who want to hurt you.

A harsh comment isn’t—and never will be—proof that you’re not good enough.

It’s only proof that today, someone chose cruelty over kindness.

A few days ago, my first thought was…

“Maybe it’s better to give up.”

But then I realized something.

If I give up because of someone’s hatred, that means I’ve allowed a person who doesn’t know me to write the ending to my story.

And that’s not their right.

So, dear Hater…

I won’t stop. And I hope no one else stops because of you.

And I hope you receive the love that will make you choose kindness over cruelty today.

Dear Hater, I love you even if you don’t love yourself.❤️

These types of posts will always remain free, but if you’d like to support me, the best way is with a cup of coffee☕

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I know that sounds pretty harsh, but since we talked about unsubscribes last time, I think it’s only fair to flip the coin and see what’s actually on the other side.

Because if you don’t understand why people click the “Subscribe” button in the first place, you’ll never understand why they disappear later and more importantly, you’ll never figure out who actually deserves your attention.

Let’s start with the most obvious group—the one we all know and secretly look down on a little.

The “Sub for Sub” crowd.

Those posts on Notes that go something like this: Follow me, and I’ll follow you back—let’s grow together.

At first glance, it seems like a friendly gesture, almost like mutual support among fellow writers.

In reality, it’s pure hot air.

These people don’t come to you for your words.

They don’t even know what your words are. They don’t read anything you post, they don’t wait for your next email, they don’t comment, they don’t share with a friend something they’ve read from you—because they’ve never read anything you’ve written.

They’re simply exchanging one number for another. And the moment that exchange stops benefiting them, they leave just as quietly as they came.

I don’t want to make them sound like bad people, because they aren’t bad people—they’re just empty numbers in the context of your audience. They look like growth, but they don’t bring anything real.

Then comes the second group, a little more innocent at first glance.

Impulsive Subscribers

These are the people who scroll through Notes or their main feed, stumble upon something you’ve posted by chance, get hooked by a sentence for a second, and impulsively click “Subscribe” without even knowing who’s behind it.

There’s nothing wrong with that, honestly—that’s how a lot of great connections happen in real life, too. The problem is that after a few days, when they start receiving your actual emails, they realize that this isn’t exactly the content they were expecting, or it’s just not the right time for them, and they unsubscribe.

This is absolutely normal, and you shouldn’t take it as a failure. They were never your target audience to begin with. They just happened to cross your path for a moment.

There’s also a third group worth mentioning separately because it’s a bit more cunning than the first two.

But first, look for your Free Product here ❤️

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People who follow you not because of you, but because they expect you to return the favor.

They come with a specific expectation in mind—I followed you, now it’s your turn.

Again, we shouldn’t judge them too harshly for this; we all understand the logic of exchanging favors.

But here, too, the relationship isn’t built on your content, but on something entirely unrelated to it.

And that brings us to the only group that really matters.

The Real Deal Subscribers

These are the people who stumble upon something you’ve created—either by chance or because someone forwarded it to them—and it touches them in a way they didn’t expect.

It might have solved a problem they’d been carrying around for weeks. It might have helped them see something familiar from a new perspective.

It might simply have given them a little hope on a day when they didn’t have much of it.

These people don’t click “Subscribe” with a calculator in hand. They click it because they want more. They want to hear what you have to say next time.

These are the people who make up your true audience.

They read your emails all the way through, not just the first two lines. They reply to you, sometimes with something very personal that makes you stop for a moment and reflect. They comment on your posts.

They forward your text to a friend with the words, “Check this out—I think you’ll find it helpful.” They come back on their own, without waiting for a reminder. They aren’t just adding a number to your spreadsheet.

They are the real impact your words have on the world, however big or small that may be.

I’ll tell you something from my own experience,

because I think almost everyone who writes here goes through the same phase.

At first, I checked my subscriber count literally every day, sometimes several times a day. Every new number made me feel like I’d accomplished something, like I was one step closer to some invisible goal.

The problem was that that number didn’t tell me anything meaningful.

You can have thousands of subscribers and almost none of them open your emails.

And you can have a very small group of people who eagerly await each of your posts, respond to you, debate with you, and go back to read your old posts again.

The difference between these two situations is enormous, even when the numbers on paper suggest the opposite.

That’s why I think the myth we need to debunk is precisely this one—that success on Substack is measured by the number of subscribers.

It’s not measured by that.

It’s measured by the trust that the people who are still reading have placed in you.

By engagement, not volume.

Hollow numbers look good in the stats, but they mean nothing when you sit down to write your next piece.

So how do you find your true readers, instead of just racking up random subscribers?

Not with “Sub for Sub,” not by chasing numbers, not with growth hacks that sound good for a week and then fizzle out.

You find them by writing honestly, even when it’s easier to gloss over things. By being consistent, even in the weeks when inspiration doesn’t come on its own.

By solving real problems for real people, rather than writing just to fill your calendar with posts. And by creating something that people want to share with a friend on their own, without you having to ask them to.

Stop chasing numbers. Start looking for people.

Ten genuine readers who are waiting for you are worth more than a thousand random names on a list that no one ever opens.

And the next time you see a new subscription notification, don’t ask yourself how many you have in total—ask yourself if this person will stick around long enough to figure out who you really are.

These types of posts will always remain free, but if you’d like to support me, the best way is with a cup of coffee☕

Keep me caffeinated

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Somewhere out there, right now, someone is unsubscribing from your newsletter. Maybe it happened five minutes ago. Maybe it’s happening as you read this sentence.

And if you’re anything like most writers on here, some small part of you just flinched.

I want to talk you out of that flinch. Not with platitudes, but with an actual reframe that changed how I feel every time that little notification pops up.

Let’s start with the easy part.

The unsubscribes that were never real to begin with

You know the posts I mean.

They show up in Notes constantly: “Sub for sub,” “Subscribe and I’ll subscribe back,” “Let’s grow together,” “Connect with fellow Substack writers.”

Someone taps the button, you get a little dopamine hit, your subscriber count ticks up by one, and for about four seconds it feels like progress.

It isn’t. Not really.

Those people didn’t subscribe because your writing moved them. They didn’t read your last essay, or your first one, or any of them.

They clicked a button because someone asked them to, in the same spirit as clicking a button back. There was no relationship there to begin with — just two numbers agreeing to go up together for a moment.

So when those subscribers quietly vanish a few weeks later, once your actual emails start landing in their inbox and they realize this isn’t the arrangement they thought it was, nothing has been lost.

You can’t lose a reader you never had.

That unsubscribe isn’t a verdict on your writing. It’s just two strangers’ numbers going back to where they started.

Fine. That one’s easy to make peace with. It barely even counts.

The unsubscribe I actually want to talk about today is a different animal entirely.

The ones who actually knew you

I mean the people who used to comment on your posts. Who you half-recognized by their little profile picture because they showed up in your inbox so often.

Who maybe replied to one of your emails once with something personal, something that told you they weren’t just skimming — they were really reading. Maybe they’d been with you for months. Maybe over a year.

And then one day, they’re gone too.

That one stings differently. And I think the reason it stings is that we’re telling ourselves the wrong story about why it happens.

Here’s a question for you.

Do you remember a TV show you were completely obsessed with as a kid?

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I mean really obsessed. You knew the release schedule of every episode by heart. You knew the characters’ full names, their backstories, their catchphrases.

You’d have arguments with friends about which character was secretly the best one. If you’d missed an episode, it felt like a genuine crisis.

Now — what about today? Could you even tell me the main character’s name?

For most of us, honestly, no.

And here’s the thing worth sitting with: it’s not because the show got worse. The scripts didn’t suddenly go downhill. The actors didn’t lose their talent overnight. Nothing about that show betrayed you.

You just changed.

Your interests moved somewhere else. You grew into a different person, with different afternoons and different things pulling at your attention.

The show stayed exactly what it always was. It’s just that it stopped being for you anymore, not because it failed, but because you kept living.

That’s it. That’s the whole explanation. And it has nothing to do with quality.

The same thing is happening with your newsletter

People who unsubscribe from something they once loved reading are very often going through this exact process.

They’re not auditing your last twelve posts and deciding you’ve lost your edge. Most of the time, they’re not thinking about your writing at all.

They started a new job that eats their mornings. They became a parent and their reading time evaporated. They pivoted their business, or picked up a new hobby, or simply drifted, the way people naturally drift, toward different questions than the ones you’re still writing about.

None of that is a referendum on you. It’s just what happens when real humans with real, shifting lives are on the other end of your subscriber list instead of static numbers on a dashboard.

I used to take every single one personally

I’ll be honest with you about where I started, because I think it’s worth saying out loud.

In the beginning, every unsubscribe felt like a small breakup. Sometimes it felt sharper than that — like a little knife, right between the shoulder blades, from someone I thought was on my side.

I’d see the notification and immediately start interrogating myself. What did I do wrong? Was that last piece bad? Did I disappoint them somehow? Should I change my whole approach so this stops happening?

I’d genuinely spiral over people I’d never met, replaying sentences from a newsletter as if they’d personally wronged someone by not landing.

It took me longer than I’d like to admit to realize that neither of us had done anything wrong.

Not me, not them.

People grow in directions that have nothing to do with you.

Interests fade the way all interests eventually do. Life reroutes itself constantly, for reasons that have absolutely nothing to do with the quality of your Tuesday essay.

That’s not a flaw in your writing. That’s just what being alive, and writing to other people who are also alive, actually looks like.

So here’s what I want you to do

Don’t let a handful of unsubscribes talk you into putting the pen down.

Don’t treat each one like a personal indictment.

Don’t let the guilt creep in and start rewriting your voice, softening your opinions, or chasing some imaginary version of yourself designed to be unlosable to everyone.

You were never going to keep everyone forever. Nobody does. That was never actually the job.

The job is to keep showing up for the people who are still opening your emails — the ones who are, right now, waiting to see what you write next.

Write for them. The door’s always open for the others, whenever life brings them back around.

These types of posts will always remain free, but if you’d like to support me, the best way is with a cup of coffee☕

Keep me caffeinated

P.S Have you seen the new templates for Notes yet?

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Imagine if every article you wrote kept bringing readers six months later. Cool, right?

Almost like a dream, but it’s not.

It’s actually possible.

Six months ago, I wrote a post that seventeen people read on the day it was published.

Seventeen.

I remember the number because I looked at it with that specific sense of disappointment that anyone who has written something they poured their heart into — and received silence in return — knows all too well.

Today, that very same text brings me new readers every week.

I haven’t edited it, I haven’t reposted it, and I haven’t spent a single penny on advertising.

I simply discovered something that most Substack authors don’t even suspect exists as a channel for them and it works in the background while I’m sleeping, cooking dinner, or arguing with friends about which movie is better.

It’s called Pinterest.

And don’t worry, I know what you’re thinking right now.

Most people associate Pinterest with wedding decorations, outfit ideas, home decor, and a whole bunch of other “how-to” pins.

A mood board for recipes, wedding decorations, interior design—basically, an app for people who collect ideas for a bathroom they’ll never renovate.

That’s exactly what I thought, too, until I sat down and tracked where the people were coming from—the ones who actually stick around to read, actually subscribe, and actually open my emails months later.

The difference between Pinterest and everything else that writers waste their evenings on—Instagram, X, Threads, even LinkedIn—is so fundamental that I’m surprised people don’t talk about it more.

The other platforms are designed to keep you inside them.

Their logic is simple: the more you scroll, the more ads you see, the more money they make.

That’s why their algorithm penalizes anything that makes you leave the platform—outbound links, references to external sites, invitations to go somewhere else to read a long piece.

You post something at nine in the morning; by noon, it’s already buried under a thousand other posts, and by evening, it practically doesn’t exist.

You’ve written an article, devoted your attention and time to it, and it disappears faster than ice in hot coffee.

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Pinterest is designed on the opposite principle.

It doesn’t want to keep you on the site—it wants to send you out to the exact website, article, or product you’re looking for.

That’s why people don’t go on Pinterest to kill half an hour while waiting for the bus.

They go there with a specific purpose—they want a gift idea, a recipe for Sunday lunch, a way to organize their desk, or a strategy for writing better.

They come with a question in mind and expect an answer in the form of an image that will take them somewhere.

This is a difference that changes everything down the line, because it means that the traffic coming from there isn’t a random passerby, but someone who has already decided that the topic interests them before they even click.

That’s why it’s more accurate to think of Pinterest not as a social network, but as a visual search engine.

What nobody tells you is that Pinterest is a search engine, just like Google, with the difference that it’s the visual element that first catches your attention.

As I like to say, it’s more closely related to Google than to Instagram.

And just like with Google, there’s something here that very few people use consciously: SEO.

Not technical SEO with code and meta tags, but simple keyword logic—titles, descriptions, and text on pins written the way a real person would type a search query.

Not “thoughts on life,” but “how to organize your day when working from home.”

Not a poetic title for the Substack post itself, but a practical description of the pin that directly answers the question someone might ask.

This is exactly where the part comes in that, in my opinion, explains why so many authors miss this opportunity.

We writers love to write.

We spend hours crafting a sentence, searching for the right word, editing a paragraph that no one but us would even notice if it were slightly different.

And once we publish, we stop there. We consider promotion to be a tedious chore, something secondary to the act of writing itself.

But the truth is far more inconvenient—writing the text is perhaps thirty percent of the work.

The remaining seventy percent is getting it in front of the eyes of those who would appreciate it.

And that’s exactly where most people give up, because promotion requires a different kind of thinking than writing, and we’ve trained ourselves to do only one of them.

Pinterest solves exactly this problem—and in a way that doesn’t require you to become a different person.

You don’t have to dance in front of a camera, record videos every morning, or maintain a presence on five different platforms at the same time.

You do something specific and almost mechanical—for every post you publish on Substack, you create a few vertical images with clear text on them, upload them with a well-thought-out description, and that’s it.

A pin, once created, keeps working while you’re writing your next post, while you’re sleeping, and while you’re on vacation.

That’s the difference between evergreen content and everything else—it doesn’t disappear after twenty-four hours, but lives on for months, sometimes years, because Pinterest’s algorithm doesn’t penalize old content if it remains relevant to someone’s search.

I know a writer whose three best Substack posts weren’t popular at all on the day they were published.

They went almost unnoticed by his subscribers. But he pinned them, with decent titles and descriptions, and today, more than a year later, those three posts bring in more new subscribers than anything else he’s writing right now.

His old words continue to work for him while he’s busy with new ones.

This is something that Instagram or X could never give you, because there, the past literally doesn’t exist—only the present, only the last few hours.

Substack and Pinterest complement each other so well precisely because they solve each other’s problems.

Substack gives you the space for depth—you can explore an idea, tell a story, or persuade someone slowly and thoughtfully, without any character limits.

Pinterest gives you the platform for discoverability—the way a complete stranger who’s never heard of you stumbles upon your writing because they were searching for exactly what you’re writing about.

You need both, because writing without distribution is like writing the perfect letter and locking it away in a drawer.

If you decide to give it a try, don’t overcomplicate things at the start.

1. Take the last three pieces you’ve written that you’re truly happy with. For each one, create two or three vertical images with a title that sounds like something someone would type into a search engine.

2. Describe each pin in a few sentences that include the keywords people would actually use to search for your topic. Then let things take their course.

3. Or join the paid subscribers of Creative Hub, who get four posts promoted every single month on my Pinterest account. (+ Substack Analysis and Monthly Resources)

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Don’t expect a sudden surge of visitors the very next day—expect a slow, steady increase that will surprise you in a few months when you check your stats and see where the people reading your posts today are coming from.

If you keep writing well and continue to rely solely on social media algorithms to decide who will see your content, you’re probably leaving the most sustainable channel for growth completely untapped.

And it’s right in front of you, waiting for you—vertical, with a little red button in the lower right corner.

I think Pinterest might be the most ignored growth hack for Substack writers.

These types of posts will always remain free, but if you’d like to support me, the best way is with a cup of coffee☕

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I’m not asking rhetorically. I’m asking seriously, because I know the answer, and it’s uncomfortable.

You post something, close your laptop, tell yourself, “Done, I’ll let it live its own life,” and then eight minutes later you’ve already opened the app again, staring at the “views” count as if it’s going to tell you something about you as a person.

It doesn’t. It never has.

But you keep checking because someone, somewhere, has convinced you that this number is the measure of everything.

And this is where I get a little annoyed, because it really bugs me how monotonously the same message is repeated everywhere, no matter where you hear it.

You open a video by some “expert” (I won’t mention any names) on the topic, and he explains to you with a smile how many subscribers you’re supposed to have by the third month.

You open another one, and he shows you a screenshot of his earnings, like an artist showing off a trophy.

A third person shows you a graph with growth from zero to fifty thousand readers and tells you, “Here’s the formula.”

Formula.

As if writing were a dough that follows a recipe, and if you add the exact grams of ingredients, you’ll end up with the same loaf of bread.

The problem isn’t that the numbers exist.

The problem is what they do to your mind once you start trusting them more than you trust yourself.

You start writing headlines that sound right to the algorithm, not because you actually want to write them.

You look at which creator crossed the ten-thousand-subscriber mark this month and feel that cold, awful feeling in your stomach—which has nothing to do with being happy for them, but with how small you feel next to their success.

And the worst part is, there will always be someone with more.

Always.

Even the one with fifty thousand subscribers looks at someone with two hundred thousand and feels bad. The chase never ends, because it’s not meant to end—that’s the whole mechanics of the thing.

☕Keep me caffeinated

I’ll tell you when I myself realized just how deeply this can pull you in.

I’d been writing for three months straight, and every night before going to bed, I’d check the stats as if it were a religious ritual.

I didn’t look at what I’d written. I looked at how many people had opened it.

If the number was lower than the last time, I’d go to bed with that awful feeling, as if I’d failed an exam that no one had even given me.

If it was higher, I’d feel good for maybe two hours, until I went to bed and woke up with the same question the next day.

I wrote articles that I thought would “perform well,” instead of articles I actually wanted to write. I looked at which headlines “worked” instead of asking myself if I even believed what I was saying.

And then a person I didn’t know at all left a comment under a post I’d published almost reluctantly, because I didn’t believe it would interest anyone.

He wrote that the text had prompted him to call his father that very evening, after two years of silence between them. I don’t know exactly why that particular combination of words resonated with him so deeply.

But as I sat in front of the screen, I realized that this single comment meant more to me than all the followers I’d gained that month combined.

The numbers haven’t disappeared, but for the first time, they’re no longer the only thing I look at at night before going to bed.

From then on, I’ve been thinking differently, and I won’t pretend to have a “balanced” view on the matter, because I don’t think in a balanced way—I think concretely.

I believe that subscriber numbers are a measure of reach, not of value.

I believe that paid subscriptions show how many people are willing to pay, which is great for your bank account at the end of the month, but says nothing about whether your words meant anything to them.

I believe that “likes” are a reflex of the thumb, not an acknowledgment of the mind.

And I believe that anyone who sells you the idea that success is measured exclusively by these numbers does so because it’s conveniently measurable and easy to sell as a ninety-nine-dollar course, not because they truly believe that’s where the meaning of writing lies.

To me, success looks different and sounds almost too simple to be true, but that’s exactly why I believe in it.

Success is when someone waits for your next post, instead of just scrolling past it among the other fifty things in their inbox.

Success is when someone forwards your text to a friend with a comment like “this sounds just like you” or “read this, I’m thinking of you.”

Success is when a reader writes to you that after reading something you wrote, they looked at their own life a little differently—not because you told them what to think, but because you gave them the words they couldn’t find themselves.

Success is when people start to recognize your voice even without seeing your name at the top, because you’ve written something so uniquely yours that it can’t be mistaken for anyone else’s.

Success is a community, not an audience.

An audience just watches. A community stays, responds, argues with you, and comes back—because they care about you as a person, not because an algorithm shoved your text to the top of their inbox.

The gurus won’t sell you this definition, because you can’t turn it into a course with worksheets and a Module 3 titled “How to Reach Ten Thousand Subscribers in Ninety Days.”

You can’t put a price on this definition. You can only live it, day after day, post after post, until you realize you’ve stopped checking the stats every five minutes because you already know what’s important.

The number on the screen will disappear one day, along with the screen itself.

The conversation you’ve created with other people through your words will not.

These types of posts will always remain free, but if you’d like to support me, the best way is with a cup of coffee☕

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You publish a new post. You click “Publish,” close your laptop… and two minutes later, you open it again because, of course, you have to check the stats.

You refresh the page. Nothing.

You refresh again. One view, or maybe two.

The first few hours pass, and that familiar feeling of a slight knot in your stomach sets in. It’s not exactly anxiety, but it’s definitely not calm either.

The questions that all authors ask themselves, but no one likes to admit, start popping into your head:

“Was the topic wrong?”

“Did the algorithm pass me by today?”

“Are people no longer interested in what I write?”

“Maybe it’s just… not a good piece?”

And while you’re trying to convince yourself it’s no big deal, your hand automatically hits refresh one more time. And then five more times. And then you tell yourself, “Okay, that’s enough,” close the tab… and three minutes later, you open it again.

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A while back, I used to take a slow start as a sign that I’d failed. That the post had fallen into some black hole on the internet from which there was no return. That I’d wasted my time. That people had seen the headline and said to themselves, “No, thanks.”

But over time, and after quite a few internal conversations that went something like, “Stop being so dramatic, please,” I realized something that changed the way I view my own work.

A slow start doesn’t mean a weak piece.

Sometimes it just means… a slow start.

That’s it. Nothing more and nothing less.

And the more I write, the clearer it becomes to me that many great pieces simply need time.

Some pieces are like people who don’t walk into a room with a bang. They show up quietly, sit in the corner, and only after a while does someone notice them and say, “Hey, this is actually really good.”

What do I do when my post doesn’t take off?

First—I don’t panic anymore. Or at least not as much.

Yes, I still check the stats “just one more time,” but at least I no longer see it as a death sentence.

Second—I don’t assume that everything is over on the very day of publication.

That was the big change for me. Before, I believed that if a piece didn’t take off right away, it was “dead.” Now I know that’s just the first day of its life.

And that’s where my process begins.

I keep promoting it. Almost every day.

Not aggressively or intrusively. I just give it a chance to be seen.

I post Notes on Substack along with the link—sometimes short, sometimes longer. Sometimes I share a quote from the text.

I’ve noticed that people respond much better to quotes than to bare links.

Links are like saying, “Here, read this.”

Quotes are like saying, “Here’s something I’m thinking about. If you’re interested—there’s more.”

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I include the post in Chat conversations.

Not as an advertisement, but as a natural extension of the topic.

If someone is talking about something I’ve touched on in the text, I simply share: “I wrote about this recently, if you’re interested.” And it often turns out that they are interested.

I create Pinterest pins.

It’s a slow channel, but it’s one that pays off over the long term.

A pin that gets zero clicks today might get a hundred a month from now. Pinterest is like a garden—you plant, you water, you forget about it, and one day you see that something has grown.

Which is really cool because you put something out there, and instead of you working for it, it works for you.

If you have no idea how to use Pinterest (just like I didn’t), saved my digital life with this post:

Not Exactly Ana

Pinterest for Substack: How I Get More Subscribers, Organic Traffic, and Sales Without Ads

Let’s be honest: Pinterest is much more than just pretty pictures…

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3 months ago · 106 likes · 31 comments · Not Exactly Ana

Sometimes I also post it on my work Instagram.

Not always—only when the topic would actually be useful there. But when I do, I often reach people who would never visit Substack, but who need exactly this piece of content.

I use parts of the text as separate Notes.

Sometimes a story from a post takes on a life of its own.

Sometimes a single sentence becomes more popular than the entire text.

And that’s wonderful, because it brings people back to it.

☕Keep me caffeinated

I respond to comments.

Not out of politeness, but because the conversation around a topic is often more interesting than the topic itself.

And because comments bring the post to life.

And because sometimes someone says something that gives me an idea for a new post.

And because conversations attract even more people.

Besides, what could be better than making new friends through something you’ve created?!

I link an old article to a new one.

This is one of my favorite ways to give a second life to a piece I like.

And I think not many people think to do this.

When I write something new and realize I’ve written about a similar topic before, I just add a link. Not as “you absolutely have to read this,” but as “if you’re interested, there’s more here.”

And people often click on it.

Sometimes even more than on the new post.

And most importantly

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Sometimes I catch myself sitting there and wondering exactly when I decided I had to be interesting. Not just normally interesting, but interesting in a way that makes people lean in, smile, nod, and remember me.

It’s as if I’m some kind of walking trailer for my own personality. And if I don’t keep up the pace, if I don’t serve up something fresh, funny, clever, or at least slightly eccentric, people will be disappointed and walk away.

I lived like that for a long time.

And it wasn’t because I was some hidden star just waiting to shine. On the contrary. I’ve never been the life of the party. I’ve never been the person everyone gathers around.

If there was a group at school laughing loudly, I’d be two meters away, pretending to look for something in my backpack.

If there were coworkers at work telling stories with gestures and dramatic pauses, I was the one who listened and smiled but didn’t add anything.

Not because I had nothing to say, but because it seemed to me that whatever I said wouldn’t be impressive enough.

Before I realized that I was simply an introvert, I believed it was a flaw.

Something like a manufacturing defect that I had to compensate for. So I started acting like my own PR agent. Every meeting was a mini-performance. Every sentence was carefully chosen. Every reaction, slightly exaggerated, to make me seem more lively, more colorful, and more “memorable.”

And the strangest thing is that no one was asking this of me. People were just living their lives, and I was the one trying to earn their attention. To win it. To keep it. To not disappoint them. As if attention were some kind of trophy I had to defend every day.

It’s exhausting.

Not just tiring — exhausting in that sticky way that makes you wake up in the morning and wonder why you’re so tense, even though nothing bad has happened. Exhausting like wearing a heavy coat in July. Exhausting like having to smile when all you really want to do is sit down and be quiet.

And the worst part is that once you get used to living like this, you start to forget what you look like when you’re not trying. When you’re not putting on a show. When you’re just being yourself.

That feeling carries over very easily into writing.

Especially on Substack. There, we’re all, to a greater or lesser extent, voluntary participants in a big, silent competition — who will be more original, more profound, more “wow.”

And I’ve done it, too. I write something, publish it, people like it, and instead of being happy, my first thought is: “Okay, the next one has to be even better.”

That’s the moment when you start acting like a PR agent in your own writing. You start thinking of your readers as an audience you need to keep engaged. You start worrying whether you’re interesting enough. Whether you sound too ordinary. Whether you’re too normal.

And suddenly, every post becomes a little test. A little stage. A little proof that you deserve to be read.

But the truth is,

People rarely come back just because someone is interesting.

That’s the big realization I’ve had. And to be honest, it came the hard way.

People come back because of the voice. Because of the feeling that there’s a real person on the other side. Because of that moment when they read something and say to themselves, “Yes, I’ve felt that way, too.”

They don’t come for fireworks. They come for the human touch. For that unpretentious, slightly imperfect thing that happens when someone just speaks honestly.

And when I realized that, I felt a weight lift off my shoulders.

Really.

It was as if someone had given me back the right to be normal. To be myself. To not try to be more interesting than I am.

You don’t have to be impressive to be read.

You don’t have to be interesting to be valued.

You don’t have to prove anything to the world to have a place in it.

Sometimes the best thing you can give people is simply yourself.

And if you’re tired of trying so hard to be interesting

Maybe that’s a sign that you don’t need to anymore. That you’ve outgrown that habit. That you’re ready to be a person, not a performance.

At least, that’s how I feel. And it makes me feel lighter.

If you recognize yourself in this, I hope it becomes a little easier for you, too. Not because you have to do anything. But because maybe, finally, someone is telling you clearly: you can stop putting on a show.

The world isn’t going anywhere. Neither are the people who are there for you.

There’s something very beautiful about allowing yourself to just be human..

These types of posts will always remain free, but if you’d like to support me, the best way is with a cup of coffee☕

Keep me caffeinated

P.S Have you seen the new templates for Notes yet?

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I’m the kind of person who almost never makes the first move when it comes to meeting someone new.

If you see me at a party or some other event with a lot of people, you’ll find me standing off to the side with a drink in my hand, seemingly lost in deep thought, when in reality I’m just observing.

I listen to snippets of conversations. I notice details that no one else picks up on. Not because I’m shy, but because I’m comfortable that way — standing on the sidelines, observing from the outside.

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When I first started writing online, I decided this was a problem.

How do you build a community around your writing if you physically can’t bring yourself to make the first move?! If the thought of commenting on someone else’s profile with “Hi, I like your work!” makes you feel a little anxious? If the term “networking” sounds to you like some kind of UFO?

I read the advice. It was all variations on the same theme: “Be active!” “Post every day!” “Build a presence!” “Get out there!” As if building a community were ultimately just a matter of volume and frequency. Like an advertising jingle — repeat it enough times and people will remember.

I tried. I felt like an extra in a play written for a different kind of person.

Then I stopped trying to do it “right” and just started writing what mattered to me. Not so much to build an audience, but because things were piling up inside and needed to come out.

Honestly, sometimes awkwardly, with that specific aftertaste of “Was it a good idea to publish this?” after hitting the button.

But to my surprise, people started writing to me. Not many, and definitely not right away. But they were specific. Not “great article!” but “I read your essay three times, and on the third read, I realized why I’ve been feeling more drained by my work at Substack lately.”

There aren’t many of these messages. But they carry different weight.

I realized I’d been doing things backwards. I thought that to build a community, you had to go out to people. Knock on doors. To show up everywhere.

Like those people (I don’t know exactly what they’re called) who go door to door advertising kitchen knives or $6,000 vacuum cleaners.

But for introverts — at least for me — the opposite works. You write something honest enough, and people come to you. And that’s by no means the shortcut, but it’s the safer path and infinitely more satisfying.

There’s something about the honesty of writing that does the exact opposite of what you’d expect: instead of isolating you, it connects you with people you’d otherwise never meet.

Because what you write about isn’t just yours. It’s just that most people don’t say it out loud. You do. And they find you.

But let me be clear here, because I don’t want this to sound like “just write and wait for a miracle.” There are things I actively do that just aren’t the things people usually talk about.

I respond to every comment thoughtfully, with a full sentence, not just an emoji. When I read something that moved me, I write to the author, not with “awesome!”, but with the specific thing that struck me.

Sometimes I take someone else’s idea that I disagree with and respond to it with a full essay in my own newsletter. These are conversations, not advertising. And it is precisely these that build what others call a “community.”

You don’t need an audience of thousands. You need twenty people who care. Or five. Or even just one who reads everything you write and occasionally sends you a sentence that lets you know you’re in the same world.

Introverts excel at depth, not breadth.

And when you stop struggling to expand and let that depth work for you, things fall into place more naturally.

You write consistently, not because it’s a “growth strategy,” but because you can’t stop thinking about the things you write about. You ask questions of your audience because you’re genuinely interested in them, not because “engagement boosts algorithmic reach.”

There was a moment, maybe a year ago, when someone wrote to me: “I read your work for a long time before I found the courage to write. I felt like I knew you.”

We had never spoken. We had no mutual acquaintances.

The only thing that connected us were the words I’d left on the internet, trying to figure something out about myself.

That’s community. Not a stage and spotlights.

But recognition, as if you’ve just witnessed yet another Karen at the supermarket checkout and exchanged glances with the other customers in the store, and with just a look you’re asking each other— “You find this just as annoying as I do, don’t you?”

If you’re an introvert trying to find your people online, you don’t need to become more outgoing.

You need to be more genuine and then do the few things that come naturally: respond thoughtfully, ask a question, and check back next week with something new. Don’t just wait. Just the kind of presence that doesn’t drain you.

I still don’t make the first move. I still stand on the sidelines at most gatherings. But I have people I talk to about things I wouldn’t otherwise talk to anyone about. We found each other, not because I was everywhere at once, but because I was present enough in one place.

I think you can, too

These types of posts will always remain free, but if you’d like to support me, the best way is with a cup of coffee☕

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P.S Have you seen the new templates for Notes yet?

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Have you ever posted something you spent hours working on, and then watched it sit there without a single like or comment, and thought to yourself, “Maybe I’m just not good enough for this”?

Me — yes. Many times.

About six months ago, I wrote a piece in which I mentioned something personal for the first time.

Nothing too personal, nothing sensational. Just an honest observation about the sadness I sometimes feel on Sunday afternoons, when it’s raining outside, I have nowhere to escape to, and there’s nothing to occupy my mind.

It’s because it’s precisely in those moments that you realize how tired you are of everything, when there’s nothing to do. I wrote it with care and all the emotion I was capable of. I posted it.

The result: four views. One of them was my own, while I was checking to see if it had published correctly.

I closed my laptop and didn’t open it for three whole weeks.

Not because I was angry, but because I felt awkward. I was ashamed that I had written it at all. It was as if I had said something out loud in a room full of people, and no one had turned around.

I’m sure you’ve been in a group of people, said something important, and no one turned around. Afterward, you might even feel silly for having said anything at all.

Well, that’s exactly how I felt about that post.

Writing when you feel small is different from anything else.

It’s not like doing something you’re just not good at — like parallel parking (which I’m absolutely terrible at) or cooking risotto. In those cases, failure is technical. It can be fixed with a few more tries.

Here it’s different, because you’re writing with yourself. You’re putting in not just words, but also the way you think, the things you care about, and the version of the world that only you see.

And when no one responds, the feeling isn’t “I wrote badly.” The feeling is “I am unnecessary.”

Of course, you know that this is irrational. But knowing and feeling are two completely different things.

Then you see the others.

The author you’ve been following for months posts something — a quick, casually written piece, almost obvious.

And it gets two hundred comments. People share it. They write to him that it’s “exactly what they needed.” He replies to each one with a single sentence, as if it’s no big deal.

And you wrote a better sentence than anything in that post, and you know it, but no one saw it.

In moments like these, you don’t envy their success. Don’t get me wrong. We’re not talking about any kind of malice or negative feelings toward other authors here. That’s the last thing I’d encourage, really.

You envy the self-confidence. The ease with which he publishes. The fact that he doesn’t seem to have asked himself if he has the right.

“Do I have the right to write this?”

That’s the question few people admit to themselves, the one that echoes in their heads as they hesitate to hit the “Publish” button.

I’ve asked myself that question countless times, especially when I discovered Substack.

My partner encouraged me to join in, but I kept finding excuses. Until one day, after dozens of excuses, I sat down and said, “Well, I don’t really have the right to write there. I’m not a writer; I’ve never written anything in my life. This place is for real professionals.”

Anyway, here I am now. And I know I’ve said some pretty ridiculous things.

But the question “Do I have the right to write this?” is so well disguised under logic and self-criticism that sometimes we hear it as reason.

We tell ourselves: I’m being realistic. I know my level. I’m not fooling myself.

But realism and fear sound the same when they’re in our heads.

That feeling of inadequacy doesn’t go away when you get better.

It doesn’t go away when you gain followers. It doesn’t go away when someone writes to you saying your post helped them.

(Wait, wait, don’t lose hope, hear me out…)

It just… mutates. Sounds strange, doesn’t it?

It changes form. It shows up in new places.

I know people with thousands of readers who ask themselves the same thing before every post: will anyone even read this? Is it too personal? Is it too boring? Is it too much?

Feeling small sometimes isn’t a phase you go through. It’s a companion.

The question is whether you’ll let it decide when you publish.

If you pay close enough attention, you’ll recognize it

There’s a moment in writing —and not just in writing— when the text ceases to be yours. When the words are no longer for you, but for that reader you’ve never met and don’t even know exists.

The one who will open their phone at 11:40 p.m., stumble upon your text, and feel a little less alone with something they once thought was theirs alone.

You write for them. Even when you don’t know who they are.

Even when you don’t know if they exist.

Do you hear me?

Write about them.

And if you don’t believe me, I’ll tell you very quickly why.

A long time ago, I stumbled upon a post by an author who had maybe two or three subscribers. I instinctively decided to open the latest post, even though the title didn’t mean anything to me. It didn’t even have anything to do with what was written inside.

The text was about family relationships, which I’ve always admitted I struggle with.

Anyway. I was so moved by what was written that I opened up in the comments in a way I haven’t even opened up to my closest friends and family.

I got a reply.

“Thank you so much, Tsetsy! You’re my first comment!!! I didn’t even know anyone was reading what I write.”

That’s why I’m telling you this. You may not see it or feel it, but someone out there is reading what you write and is just as moved by it as I was by that text.

That’s when the idea of helping other Substack authors first came to me.

Because that author’s work was brilliant, but no one was seeing it.

Maybe because the author wasn’t sure how to show it to the world, or simply because they weren’t sure how to title it. There could be many reasons.

But one thing is certain—there are so many wonderful authors on Substack who just need a nudge and some help.

And now that I’ve mentioned this mission of mine, I want to share something else with you.

launched a Visibility Project three months ago.

This is a new Substack magazine, featuring stories by brilliant writers, and copies are already flying off the shelves.

If you’re interested in the project, I’ll leave the issues here for you to check out, and if you’d like to get involved, please contact

#Issue 1

#Issue 2

The three weeks I didn’t write after that Sunday post

I remember them well, not with bitterness, but rather with a kind of understanding of my older self.

Because in the end, I opened the document again. Not because a unique idea struck me or I magically became more confident, but simply because it was Sunday afternoon, it was raining, and I had something I wanted to say. And it felt increasingly uncomfortable not to say it.

I posted the text. Four reads. Then five. Then someone shared it without comment, just a link, no words. And I didn’t know if they liked it, or just found it interesting, or just sent it to a friend as a joke.

But I posted the next one. And the next.

I’m not telling you to “keep going no matter what.”

That phrase is cliché, and we both know it.

I’m telling you that writing when you feel small is actually the only honest kind of writing. Because when you feel small, you write without a mask. You write without pretending to know more than you do.

And right there in that corner, where it’s uncomfortable and uncertain and not at all heroic, lies the text for which one day someone will write to you: “That’s exactly how I feel, too.”

Open the blank page and write. Don’t wait until you grow up.

These types of posts will always remain free, but if you’d like to support me, the best way is with a cup of coffee☕

☕Keep me caffeinated

P.S Have you seen the new templates for Notes yet?

GRAB YOUR NOTES TEMPLATES

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I’ve been here for 10 months, and believe me, I’ve tried absolutely every single tip, trick, and “hack” I’ve found on Google and Substack.

Even the ones the big gurus hide behind a paywall.

And I want to share with you what doesn’t work from my experience, without hiding it behind a paywall.

Because I value your time just as much as I value my own.

But first, take your FREE Substack Guide ❤️

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There’s one thing I notice every day on Substack

People who are doing everything “right,” and yet… nothing happens.

One big, beautiful nothing.

And it’s not because they don’t write well.

It’s because they’re doing things that just don’t work here, no matter how hard we try to force them to work.

Substack is a strange place.

It’s not Instagram, and it’s definitely not Medium.

It’s not exactly a blog, and it’s not exactly email marketing.

It’s not any social platform we’ve seen so far, either.

It’s some sort of mix of all of that, but with a completely different logic.

And if you don’t understand that logic, you can write beautifully and still be left in the dark.

So… here’s what doesn’t work here.

Writing Like on Social Media

Here, people want to step into someone’s world.

To sit at their table, hear their thoughts, and feel what’s on their mind.

There have been posts where, as I read them, I felt as if the author were sitting right next to me, tears streaming down his cheeks, leaning on my shoulder and sharing all the pain he’d kept bottled up inside for many years.

Or I see a post where someone has finally gotten their dream home, and their enthusiasm is practically bursting through my phone screen as I read it. And even though I’m not the one with the new home, I’m smiling so hard my cheeks hurt.

And you can’t see things like that on Instagram or TikTok.

Those are places where we don’t allow ourselves to be vulnerable or imperfect.

So if you write like you do on Instagram, Substack just passes you by.

Here, it’s not the loudest who wins, but the most authentic.

Pretending to be smarter, deeper, or more interesting than you really are

That’s the quickest way to have people tune you out.

Substack is a place where readers can spot insincerity from three sentences away.

“Sounding intellectual” doesn’t work here.

“Being mysterious” doesn’t work.

“Being poetic to impress” doesn’t work.

People here want to read a person, not a character.

We struggle enough with ourselves without having to pretend to be someone else in the one place where we’re allowed to be ourselves.

So show your weaknesses, your worries, and your failures. Show those quirky sides that your family doesn’t understand and your friends look at strangely.

Because here, we’re all a little or a lot strange, and those quirks bring us together in a very pleasant way.

So stop trying to sound artificial. The best way to be unique is to be yourself!

Getting involved just for the traffic

This is my favorite piece of propaganda, it just makes my blood boil every time someone proclaims that this is the only way to “succeed” on Substack.

As I said in the previous point—people can sense the insincerity. And they sense it even more if you haven’t read the story you just commented on with “Great job.”

Be honest—the authors deserve it.

Sub for Sub

Although I see it less and less these days, there’s still this practice where people create a pyramid scheme—kind of like MLM schemes—where “I’ll follow you, and you do the same so we can grow.”

Okay… but that’s not real growth. It’s not real, and you don’t need it.

Because at the end of the day, these fake followers aren’t interested in your content or in you as a person—they’re just interested in the numbers on their profile.

Sorry, not sorry.

Overcrowding DM

Some of you might take offense at this. I’m sorry about that.

There are some gurus (I won’t mention any names) who “preach” that you should message at least 3–5 people a day to share your posts.

I’ll tell you from my own observations why this doesn’t work.

I’ve spoken with many creators here on Substack, and like me, they share the opinion that they get frustrated by receiving 10 requests a day from people they don’t know at all, who are promoting their post and practically make you feel obligated to read it.

Where’s the personal connection?!

After all, we’re all human here, and I don’t think we should treat each other like “just another like.”

I also get these kinds of messages every day.

Some are from people with whom we’ve already built a great friendship, and I’m grateful they remind me when they’ve posted something, because I follow a lot of authors and miss some posts.

Others are from people I’m seeing for the first time. No “Hello.” No “Hey, I just wanted to say hi…”

Just a “Well, look, I posted something new—read it.”

Or even ones that have been gnawing at my guilty conscience for weeks: “I uploaded my book to Amazon. Buy it to make it a reality.”

But I don’t even know you!

I got a little carried away with the explanation. My point is that messages like these, without a personal connection, will land in the trash. Nothing else

Posts from quantum physics lectures

This is the biggest killer of interest. And let me tell you exactly what I mean.

People here don’t want “informative content”. They want a stance.

They want to know what you think, why you think it, what has hurt you, what has changed you. Neutral content is invisible.

If I want to read an informative text about coffee and its benefits, I’ll open Wikipedia or ask an AI.

I want to know your story and YOUR experience with the topic.

I want to know what you’ve been through and how it made you feel.

And dear reader, believe me, there is no topic that cannot include your opinion and experiences. There simply isn’t.

Even if you’re writing about the biology of a dog’s brain, you can still include your own experience.

For example (which is why I’m using this specific example), I recently downloaded one of the books by The Dog Whisperer (judge me if you will, but the situation is SO dire).

And the book doesn’t start with how to teach my dog to shake hands or what exercises to do outside so it doesn’t bark at other people and animals.

It started with the dog’s brain. Biology, how it thinks, psychology, and so on.

Even before I got to the training techniques, my own mind was blown by just how much we’re actually getting wrong in our communication with our dogs. But that’s a topic for another time.

So yeah, speak your mind. Write things from your own perspective, not in Wikipedia style.

“I’m waiting for Substack to discover me”

No, no, no, and no.

Many people believe that if they write well enough, the platform will “push” them.

No.

Substack isn’t a parent checking to see if you’ve brushed your teeth. You have to put yourself out there, connect with others, and get involved.

Maybe you post 1–2 Notes a day, occasionally upload a post, and then disappear, magically hoping that the next day you’ll wake up and have reached a dozen people.

Substack isn’t a storefront where you put your product on display and wait for passersby to like it enough to buy it.

If you just upload and close your laptop, you’re more likely to go unnoticed than to have anyone hear your words.

Substack is a community. Join the conversation and don’t rely on that magical creature called “the algorithm” to do the work for you.

These types of posts will always remain free, but if you’d like to support me, the best way is with a cup of coffee☕

☕Keep me caffeinated

P.S Have you seen the new templates for Notes yet?

GRAB YOUR NOTES TEMPLATES

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Not just read it, but really absorbed it?

Sometimes I look at Substack and see the same thing over and over: people chasing likes, comments, and clicks, as if that were the real currency here.

But if you stick around a little longer, if you look between the lines, you realize something else:

Not all reactions are the same.

And not every “view” is genuine.

Deep engagement isn’t “lots of likes,” “lots of comments,” or “lots of traffic.”

And I’m writing this post because I’m angry.

I’m angry at the gurus who preach that “deep engagement” means lots of comments and likes.

I’m furious at the propaganda that pushes people to engage under posts and Notes solely with the idea that this comment will guarantee them a new subscriber.

I’m furious because there are still people here who take your money just to tell you, “Well, to increase your followers, just engage with 30 people a day, whether you like the post or not. Most of them will follow you back.”

Not to mention those who teach others not to even read.

“Copy and paste the text into ChatGPT and tell it to write a comment.”

I’m furious because we are writers.

Whether or not what we write appeals to everyone, we leave a part of ourselves in every single post.

The lack of likes or comments is infinitely better than 100 comments from people who never actually read our story.

That’s why today I want to share with you how I see deep engagement through my own eyes.

Deep engagement is when a person doesn’t just read, but sees themselves in the content.

And we’re not talking about the thousands of comments that say “That really hits home!” or “Thanks for saying what I couldn’t.”

After so much time on Substack, I feel like I’ve become an expert at spotting AI-generated comments. And to this day, it still saddens me.

Let me give you a little behind-the-scenes look at what happens after I publish a post.

I get incredibly excited, eagerly waiting for someone to share their opinion or experience on the topic.

The first comment notification arrives!

I’m on cloud nine and almost fall off the couch with excitement.

I open it… BAM… the usual generated comment.

And the feeling is just like when we were kids and were promised that very raspberry-flavored lollipop we’d been waiting for weeks, only to drop it on the ground the moment we got it.

But let me tell you something: you can’t measure deep engagement with metrics. This is the kind of engagement you feel.

Deep engagement is when someone doesn’t just react, but responds.

One of my favorite comments is “Great job” or “Wonderful work!”

When my partner and I started writing on Substack, we created a little inside joke every time one of us posted.

We always greeted each other with “Amazing work!”

And as funny as it was, it was also sad, because we noticed that in most cases this wasn’t a comment from someone who had actually read our post, but from someone who responds to every post in the same way, someone who doesn’t risk revealing that they haven’t read a single line of the post.

On the other hand, I absolutely love comments where the reader shares their own experiences and thoughts.

Many of our post topics have come from such comments, which we’ve written with great pleasure.

☕Keep me caffeinated

And quite often, such comments either make me cry or manage to calm me down after a rough night of crying

Deep engagement is when someone keeps coming back.

Would you believe me if I told you that I have a few posts I’ve saved and go back to them at least twice a week just because it makes me feel better than a session with a therapist?

I follow a ton of writers here on Substack and never go a day without reading something. But there are certain authors I just can’t stop following.

I know when they post, when they’re active, roughly what time they’re on Substack, and I eagerly await their new Note or Post.

They’ve left such a deep impression on me that they’ve become part of my family.

My partner and I often talk about you.

For example, wrote this wonderful post. On the day she published it, my partner and I read it together, and then we spent the whole day discussing the topic she had written about.

So, you have become part of our little family.

Deep engagement is a silence that carries more weight than a hundred likes.

Sometimes the strongest reaction comes from someone who doesn’t write a word, but opens every post you make.

They don’t comment, but they read to the very end.

They don’t make themselves known, but they’re there.

This is the silent audience that keeps Substack alive.

These are the people who don’t say much, but feel a lot.

These are the people who don’t show up in the stats, but show up in your words.

That’s exactly why I encourage you to keep writing. Because just because you don’t have 1K likes doesn’t mean no one is reading you.

Sometimes people just don’t click the “Like” button, but that doesn’t mean they didn’t see themselves in your words.

They’re just quiet readers who don’t make a fuss about their existence. They’ve settled comfortably on their couch and are reading with the utmost calm, immersed in the coziness of their home, and for them, a single like doesn’t mean much, but reading all the way to the very end is the greatest support they can give you.

And that’s a lot. That’s pure gold.

After all, when we buy a book from a bookstore, can we leave a like?

It’s the same with silent readers. They have value and are important.

So, dear writer — don’t stop writing. Someone needs your words right now

Deep engagement is a connection.

It’s not a metric, nor is it just a set of numbers.

Deep engagement is when someone doesn’t just read your text, but feels a little less alone because of it.

And it’s not something you can achieve with a strategy or tricks.

I suppose I should apologize for the over-the-top emotion, but at the end of the day, we’re writers.

We pour our feelings onto paper or in this case, onto the blank screen.

If you like my work and want to support me, a coffee is always a great way to do so

Keep me caffeinated

© 2026 Creative Hub. This publication is protected by copyright law.

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Sometimes I open Substack and feel like I’m watching the same movie over and over again. The same headlines, the same mistakes, and the same “why isn’t anyone reading me?”

And it’s strange, because the people inside are writing great stuff, but from the outside it looks like they’ve put a padlock on the door and then wonder why no one’s coming in.

There’s a moment when you’re scrolling and you see yet another “My Story” or “Reflections,” and you just want to say: okay, but who is this for?

Because if I don’t know the author, if I don’t know why I should care, if I don’t feel like this is for me—I just keep scrolling.

Because my brain is already overflowing with everything else trying to grab my attention.

And this is exactly where the problems with headlines begin.

Titles like “My Story,” “Reflections,” “Thoughts,” and “Update” don’t work

They don’t work not because they’re bad words.

They work great if you’re Taylor Swift or one of those authors who has 200,000 subscribers and can write “Hello” and still get thousands of clicks.

But for most people on Substack — especially those who are just getting started — titles like these sound like internal notes.

Like something you’re writing for yourself, not for the reader. And that’s the key point: the reader doesn’t know who you are. They don’t know why they should care about your story. They don’t know what they’ll get if they click.

And actually, as harsh as it sounds — they don’t have to guess.

Right at the beginning, when I started my Substack, I had a few personal stories, one of which was titled “Wedding Invitation.”

In short, it was a story about a past relationship of mine where I ended up completely alone on the other side of the country, and in the end, they dumped me to marry the man they’d promised they’d leave.

One of those “And they lived happily ever after… but not exactly” stories.

I poured my heart out and wrote down everything that had ever crossed my mind about those events. I’d even say the post was pretty saucy, haha.

But despite everything I’d written in it, no one read it.

And today, looking back on that memory, I’m not at all surprised why.

How on earth would a reader guess that “Wedding Invitation” would be something so personal and iconic?

Surely you, too, would assume that I’m inviting you to my wedding or offering to design wedding invitations.

Headlines consisting of just 1 or 2 words almost always get lost in the crowd

This is another classic.

“Marketing.”

“Silence.”

“Habits.”

“Lesson.”

And then the author wonders why no one is clicking.

The truth is, these headlines offer nothing for the brain to latch onto. There’s no context, no promise, no emotion, no reason to stop scrolling. Just a single word that could mean everything or nothing.

Readers aren’t obligated to figure out what we meant.

If the headline doesn’t speak to them, they just move on. Not because they don’t respect your work, but because their attention is limited and they have to conserve it.

With so much content online and so much information competing for the reader’s attention, headlines that say nothing simply don’t stand a chance.

Titles that are too “clever” or cryptic

This is my favorite category because I see it most often in talented people who are simply trying to sound deeper than they need to.

“When the wind stops speaking.”

“The silence between two decisions.”

“The crack in the ordinary.”

And I sit in front of the screen and wonder: is this poetry? An essay? Politics? A personal story? A book review? Something about psychology? Or did the author just decide to be mysterious?

The problem isn’t that the title is beautiful.

The problem is that it says nothing. The reader doesn’t know what awaits them inside. And when they don’t know, they don’t click.

And yet the content is so good and beautiful in most cases that I feel like screaming, “LOOK AT THIS POST, IT’S UNIQUE!”

A good headline isn’t clickbait

I’m happy to debunk the myth that only clickbait headlines are successful.

If you’ve ever searched — on YouTube, Google, or even TikTok — for how to write viral headlines that people simply can’t ignore, you’ve surely heard this advice: Write headlines that sound almost impossible and incredibly enticing, regardless of whether the post’s content actually lives up to them.

Sounds familiar, right?

Okay, but… readers will click in once, read what it’s about, and realize it has nothing to do with the headline.

And bam… we’ve just lost the trust of our most loyal fans.

No one on Substack wants to look like a YouTube thumbnail with a red arrow and a shocked face.

But we still need to be specific enough about what the reader will actually get from our post.

A good headline isn’t clickbait. It’s honest and clear.

It says: “Here’s why this text might be useful, interesting, or at least relatable to you.”

Clickbait promises something it won’t deliver.

A good headline simply tells the truth in a way that makes the reader feel invited.

On Substack, you’re not just competing with other writers

This is something a lot of people forget.

You’re not just competing with other newsletters.

You’re competing with people’s fatigue.

With their work.

With their worries.

With TikTok, YouTube, Instagram, Netflix, Spotify, emails, notifications, homework, kids, cats, dogs, world news, personal crises, and a hundred other things that scream louder than you.

That’s why your headline needs to be clear and specific.

It should be an invitation, not a riddle your reader has to spend three days and three nights figuring out.

How to Write Clickable Headlines Without Sounding Cheesy

There’s no magic formula, but there are a few principles that work almost every time.

Read more

“How the hell did this person get 3,000 new subscribers in two days, while I’m still struggling to get my first 200?”

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If you’ve been on Substack for more than a week, you’ve probably already been through this.

And you’ve probably felt as thin as a sheet of paper while watching some “rising star” suddenly explode with growth that seems almost… supernatural.

Welcome.

This is for you and for everyone who has fallen for one of the big Substack scams at least once.

Sudden Growth: 500–1,000 Subscribers in a Day or Two

Let’s start with my favorite trick.

The one that makes new creators wonder if they’re cursed.

You see a creator who had 120 subscribers yesterday.

Today they have 980.

Tomorrow—1,400.

And you say to yourself:

“Okay… I must be doing something fundamentally wrong.”

But the truth is much more prosaic:

People import huge email lists from outside sources.

From old newsletters, old projects, clients, friends, some dusty CSV file they found on Google Drive.

And Substack counts them as new subscribers.

Boom.

“Sudden growth.”

But that does NOT mean these people are actually reading them, that they have a community, are growing organically, their content is better, or that they’ve discovered some secret formula.

Sometimes their traffic is even suspiciously low compared to the number of subscribers.

With every new subscriber, your traffic goes up by 1 view per person.

Here’s a screenshot of a creator with a huge number of subscribers and ridiculously low traffic, just so you can see how hollow these numbers can be.

For reference only

A creator with 3,000 subscribers gets approximately 18-20,000 monthly views

Here’s a truth worth remembering - A large audience doesn’t mean a lot of attention.

☕Keep me caffeinated

The Fake “Paid Subscribers” Count

This is my other favorite trope.

A creator who sells content on “growth and success on Substack.”

They claim to have over 1,000 paid subscribers.

Sounds impressive, right?

Of course, we won’t name names—it’s unethical.

But…

Every week, they give away paid subscriptions for pennies.

Literally.

Sometimes for $1 sometimes for 50 cents.

Sometimes for a “special promotion” that’s so special it’s cheaper than a coffee from a vending machine.

And the system counts them as paid subscribers.

The stats look impressive.

But in reality, it doesn’t generate real revenue, nor is it sustainable.

And it’s definitely not fair to the people who are trying to grow organically.

And the worst part is that it misleads small creators into thinking:

“What am I doing wrong? Why don’t I even have a single paid subscriber?”

But the truth is simple - Not everything that looks like success is actually success.

Engagement pods

Small groups of people who artificially like and comment on each other’s posts.

They create the illusion of activity.

But this isn’t a community — it’s a barter system.

“I’ll like your post, you like mine.”

Almost the same as “follow for follow.” And then you see a creator you know who posted something that went viral in seconds, and you wonder, “Okay, is my content just not good enough that people don’t like it?”

But the truth is that likes aren’t “I read the post and I love it,” but simply a game of exchange.

Revenue screenshots without context

Someone shows $1,200 a month.

But they don’t tell you that it’s from 3 corporate clients, not from Substack.

Or that it’s from gifted subscriptions, or that it’s from an external audience that has nothing to do with the platform.

I’m writing all this because I’m tired of some of the creators on Substack messing with their readers’ minds and, instead of giving them a helping hand, just making them think that this isn’t possible for them and that they’re constantly doing something wrong.

What do all these things do?

They make people panic, compare themselves to others, think they’re falling behind, and feel small, inadequate, and invisible.

And that’s sad.

Because Substack is a place that’s supposed to be about writing, connection, and community.

Not a competition over vanity metrics.

Slow growth is normal.

A real audience is hard to build.

20 real readers are more valuable than 5,000 dead email addresses.

Trust is earned over time, not with tricks.

And one more thing… You’re not slow. You’re just real.

And real things grow slowly, but they grow strong.

If you’re here, if you’re writing, if you keep showing up again and again

You’re already doing something most people will never do.

Don’t underestimate yourself.

Don’t be fooled.

And above all, don’t give up just because someone else has decided to play with a stacked deck.

You’re playing the long game and it always pays off.

Recommend to a friend and win prizes. Sharing is caring❤️

Refer a friend

If you like my work and want to support me, a coffee is always a great way to do so

Keep me caffeinated

© 2026 Creative Hub. This publication is protected by copyright law.

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I want that for you too, which is why today we’re going to talk about how to optimize your articles so they appear directly in search engines other than Substack (Google, Bing, DuckDuckGo, etc.)

Have you noticed how, when you search for something on Google, for example, one of the first results you see is an article on Substack?

The reason for this is good SEO optimization.

But first, take your FREE Substack Guide ❤️

GET YOUR FREE GUIDE

What the heck is SEO?!

I first heard that term when my partner and I were active on Etsy and developing our ideas there.

Back then, all we knew was that these were some kind of keywords we were required to include for some unknown reason.

To me, it was completely baffling what this mysterious word SEO meant.

Until I got a little more interested. And so I don’t waste your time talking all day about terms and dry, boring facts, I’ll explain it like this:

Imagine you’re writing an article on how to start a newsletter on Substack.

You write the article, title it “My Thoughts on Writing Online,” and publish it. Google has no idea what it’s about. No one will find it.

Think of SEO optimization as a label on a jar, for example.

Because your article is like a jar full of something, but Google doesn’t know what’s inside. Whether it’s pickles or strawberry jam.

By using an SEO-optimized title, words, and phrases, you’re telling Google, “This is what it’s about—show this article to people who are searching for exactly this in the search engine!”

☕Keep me caffeinated

3 Important Parts of SEO Optimization for an Article

Keywords

These are the words people actually type into Google.

This is the reader’s language, not the author’s.

Google doesn’t guess. It looks for matches between what someone types into the search engine and what you’ve written in your text.

For example, you’re writing an article about growth.

You title it: “How Not to Give Up When No One Is Reading You.”

It’s a nice title, but Google doesn’t know what that means.

If you naturally include phrases like these in the text and the title:

• “how to grow Substack”

• “how to increase my readership”

• “how to get more subscribers”

…then Google says, “Ah, this is an article about Substack growth.”

You don’t have to cram them in, just make them sound like a normal person talking about the topic.

And you don’t even need to change your title on Substack.

You can have an SEO-optimized title working behind the scenes while your poetic and beautiful title is displayed on Substack.

Here’s how to do it:

And if you have no idea what to write, here’s a prompt you can use with AI to find the best headline for your article:

Read more

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I believe Substack is one of the few places where people don’t just come to scroll. Many of us (myself included) are here to be part of a community or to build one.

Because let me tell you something, it’s very lonely at the top if you don’t have a community growing alongside you.

And for me, that’s the meaning behind everything I do.

For you to be part of everything I do and for us to celebrate our successes together.

When I was little, no one ever picked me in gym class

You remember those gym classes where you have to split into teams and each captain picks their teammates?

Well, I was always the last pick, so I spent the whole class watching the game from the bench.

Back then, I may not have attached such deep philosophical significance to it, but I knew I felt like an outsider, and I wouldn’t have wished that feeling on even my biggest childish enemy.

I see this dynamic at play on Substack sometimes, and it makes me deeply sad.

That’s exactly why, in my opinion, one of the most important things here is to build communities and include as many “kids on the bench” as possible in them.

Because, after all, that’s why we’re gathered here - to find ourselves and support one another.

And I’m not just talking about group chats or private messages here.

When the audience participates, the work ceases to be a monologue.

One of the most powerful things I’ve noticed is that people return to places where they feel their voice carries weight.

You don’t have to ask them about everything. But when you give them space to influence things, even just a little, they start to feel like co-authors.

People stay where they feel their absence would be noticed.

A while back, I wrote a post in which I mentioned, among other things, that I was wondering whether to start a new series like this.

I wasn’t sure, I just threw it out there as an idea. Several ideas appeared in the comments that were better than anything I had come up with.

And a few weeks later, the series was a reality! The interest in it was particularly evident, and I believe it helped many of you, which makes me even happier.

That was the moment I realized how powerful the feeling of creating together is.

When you involve people in your content, you give them something that’s missing on most platforms

A sense of belonging. Not “audience,” but “we.” And that “we” is why Substack works so well for creators who don’t just want to be followed, but to be discovered.

Sometimes the simplest thing is to share a thought that isn’t fully formed yet and say, “I don’t know if this is any good. What do you think?” That’s not a weakness, it’s an invitation.

And people love invitations that aren’t staged.

Other times, you can take a comment and turn it into a topic. Or tell a subscriber a story that made you look at something in a new way.

Or show how someone else finished your thought better than you did. That doesn’t make you any less of an author. It makes you more authentic.

It’s also a great way to always have inspiration for a new topic to write about!

A community isn’t built with grand gestures. It’s built with small openings that you leave open.

There’s something else we often forget: people want to feel useful.

Not just entertained and impressed, but truly useful. When you give them a chance to contribute, they come back because they feel their presence matters.

If you want people to stay, give them a place to settle in.

What we’ve achieved together is all thanks to you being here!

I’d like to use this post to thank all of you who are here — everyone who reads, comments, and inspires me every single day.

I know how cliché it may sound, but if it weren’t for you, I wouldn’t be here either.

That’s exactly why I want to give you a small gift, which I hope will be useful to you.

GRAB YOUR GIFT NOW❤️

Keep shining and spreading kindness in this world ❤️

Recommend to a friend and win prizes. Sharing is caring❤️

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☕If you like my work and want to support me, a coffee is always a great way to do so

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© 2026 Creative Hub. This publication is protected by copyright law.

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Don’t worry. Most people do exactly that. I used to, too.

Every time I scroll through Chat, I see the same pattern: a sea of “New post!” notifications, a few polite hearts, and then silence.

It doesn’t look like a conversation, but like a hallway where everyone is slipping flyers under doors without looking up.

But here’s something I wish someone had told me earlier: Chat wasn’t created for announcements.

It was created for connection.

And connection is what actually makes a Substack thrive. Not the perfect texts, not the clever headlines, but the feeling that there’s a real person on the other end who wants to be there.

These are the tips I wish someone had told me about Substack. 📢 Today, I’m sharing them with you completely free as a gift for being my subscriber.

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I realized this on the day something upsetting happened to me, and I decided to ask my readers in the chat how they deal with it.

I asked what they thought about hate on Substack, whether they’d encountered it, and how they handled it.

Within minutes, people started responding.

They shared their stories and experiences with it, encouraged me, and sparked a conversation I was happy to be a part of—one I wished would never end.

I was so inspired and excited that I kept checking to see if anyone had said anything new.

Then it dawned on me that people don’t open Chat to promote themselves, but to feel close to the authors they follow.

And most of us completely miss this opportunity.

When you use Chat only for links, you’re actually saying, “I’m here when I need you.”

But when you share thoughts, questions, unfinished ideas, or little confessions, you’re saying, “I’m here with you.”

And that’s the point of Chat. To make new connections, get to know your readers better, and let them get closer to you.

I started sharing things before they became posts.

Questions I’m genuinely seeking opinions on, sometimes asking readers what they think about a topic I’m considering. Sometimes I tell them I’m stuck and ask how they would approach it. Sometimes I just share a little something from my morning. Something that would never make it into an official post, but fits perfectly in Chat.

And the most surprising thing was how this changed the way people read my actual posts.

Once they’ve already chatted with you in Chat, they’re no longer strangers

But none of that happens if Chat is just a bulletin board.

We often forget this: People want to participate.

They want to feel that they matter to the creator they follow. And Chat is the easiest place to give them that feeling.

And honestly, it doesn’t require a strategy. It requires you to show up as a person, not as a spokesperson.

Let them be part of the process, instead of presenting them with the final result like a museum exhibit.

If you do this regularly, Chat stops being a place where you post links. It becomes the place where your audience starts to feel like it’s yours.

And if you have no idea what to ask or post when you open Chat, here are some ideas that work for any audience of readers

Start a thread at least once a week where other authors can share their work.

After all, this is also a place where we can share interesting articles and texts. Think of it as a way to support your readers, because many of them are writers too.

This way, you’re telling them that they matter and that you care about what they do.

I often start threads like this in my chat and read all your posts with interest. Here are some other authors who also regularly start such threads:

Ask questions about their experience on Substack

We all face challenges and excitement here, and I believe we all want someone to share our experiences with—and who would understand us better than those who are already dealing with them?

This type of question sparks conversations and is a way to find even more friends here

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The first step to solving a problem is realizing there is one.

Growth on Substack doesn’t die from lack of talent, but from small habits that no one notices in time. Not dramatic mistakes, but tiny misses that pile up until one day you realize you keep writing… and nothing is moving.

And there comes a moment when you say: “Okay, clearly I’m doing something wrong, but what?”

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The first mistake is silence.

And here we’re not talking about the creative silence when you don’t know what to write on a blank page, or the silence in the room while you read an amazing post from a writer you just discovered.

We’re talking about the silence many creators give to their readers or to the authors they read.

It’s something I notice often, and it’s not as hidden as it seems.

Many creators write great pieces, but never open the door for conversation. And then they wonder why growth is slow.

But first, take your FREE Substack Guide ❤️

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I’m sure you’ve seen it too, and maybe even experienced it.

Lots of comments under a Note/Post and not a single reply from the author. No connection with the reader.

And when you feel like you’re talking to a wall, you shift your attention to people who are actually talking to each other - and you go there.

The truth is simple: if people don’t feel like they can talk to you, they won’t talk about you.

And Substack grows fastest through word of mouth.

You write as if you’re in a studio, not in a kitchen.

Other social media platforms have scared us so much of imperfect creations that at some point we’re afraid to hit “Publish” just because it might not be “perfect.”

Believe me, there’s no such thing as “perfect.”

The most real and best posts have a few missing commas and a chaotic thought in the middle. There’s no better way to show your authenticity than allowing mistakes that, in reality, your reader doesn’t even notice or judge.

People here aren’t looking for perfect writing.

They’re looking for a person. And when you sound like a person, they come back. When you sound like a presentation - they close it and move on.

You wait for inspiration instead of creating a rhythm.

Many people publish chaotically - three posts in one week, then silence for a month. And then they wonder why the algorithm doesn’t “like” them.

The algorithm has no feelings. It simply can’t show something that doesn’t exist.

I know perfectly well how frustrating it is to have a publishing day and not a drop of inspiration. You sit in front of a blank screen waiting for inspiration to fall from the sky.

Here’s a suggestion from me:

Every time I get an idea for a good topic and I’m not in front of my computer to write it down, I record it as a voice note, scribble it on a receipt when I leave the store, or drop it in a chat with my partner.

I try to go out more often or observe what creators on Substack struggle with the most.

At the end of the week, I gather all my notes in one place and write my posts for the week ahead. That way, every week I can feel calm knowing that even if I don’t have inspiration on publishing day, I have content ready to share with you.

You’re not using Notes.

I know it sounds strange, but many creators shy away from Notes because it feels “small.” In reality, Notes is the fastest way for people to discover you. You don’t need to be funny or brilliant.

You just need to be there.

One of my strongest days on Substack was when I posted a single sentence that had been on my mind, and it reached people who had never heard of me.

Sometimes one sentence does more than a long post.

If you’re wondering what to post on Notes, here’s one piece of advice from me:

Use Notes as if it’s a chat with your best friend.

No dry facts or theories - be yourself, and you’ll be surprised how many people think like you and want to talk.

You’re not involving your audience in the process.

This is a silent killer of growth. When people don’t feel part of something, they don’t stay. And involving them isn’t complicated.

You can ask for their opinion, use their stories (not to steal content, but to get inspired and include a reader’s story).

You can turn a comment into a topic or show how someone completed your thought better than you did. This isn’t a trick, it’s a way of saying: “I see you.”

Think of yourself and your readers as a group of friends walking around the city and talking. Start conversations, ask questions, show interest, and involve them in the process.

Happiness lies in sharing your wins with your readers.

You think you need to be “interesting.”

You don’t. You need to be honest.

People can tell when you’re writing to impress and when you’re writing because you have something to say. And they always choose the latter.

I’ll give you a personal example. Some time ago, I was completely blocked. I was writing, but nothing sounded like me.

I posted one sentence in Notes: “I don’t know what to write today, but I know I don’t want to fall behind.”

A subscriber replied: “Write about that. About falling behind.”

And that’s how one of my posts was born.

And readers joined the comments - not because the post was “interesting” or because I said something “smart,” but because it was real and unfiltered.

If I had to sum it all up in one sentence, it would be this: growth comes when you stop writing like an author and start writing like a person talking to other people.

📌And in your opinion, what are the most common mistakes authors make on Substack?

Leave a comment

Recommend to a friend and win prizes. Sharing is caring❤️

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☕If you like my work and want to support me, a coffee is always a great way to do so

Keep me caffeinated

© 2026 Creative Hub. This publication is protected by copyright law.

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Everywhere I hear that Notes is where you get the most subscribers, and that it’s the only thing you can rely on for growth.

But what if I convince you otherwise?

Your posts are a hidden machine for new subscribers—it’s just that no one talks about it

Most of us on Substack write articles that people like, but they don’t subscribe.

And that doesn’t mean what you’ve written is bad. Оn the contrary, it’s great! It’s just that there’s no strategy.

Using the word “strategy” might sound cliché and wrong, but that’s exactly what’s missing.

The truth is simple: An article that gets attention isn’t just text. It’s an experience that leads the reader to a single feeling: “I want more of this.”

But first, take your FREE Substack Guide ❤️

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How a High-Converting Article Works: Not Theory, but Reality

I’ll share the framework I use for my own articles—the ones that bring me the most subscribers.

The specific things I do to make the subscription a natural extension, not a “sale.”

And it’s not something complicated or a big secret guarded with tooth and nail, it’s just that nobody talks about it. Or if someone knows it, they won’t tell you.

I believe we should help each other. That’s the whole point of why we’re gathered here, after all. Let’s not keep you waiting - let’s get right to the point.

How to Structure Your Article to Drive Subscriptions

Here, we’re getting down to the nitty-gritty. No empty talk, just what actually works.

But before we dive into what to include in your post and how to turn it into a subscriber magnet, let me answer a frequently asked question:

When should I publish my post?

I often get questions from you about how many times a week, on which days, and at what times you should publish posts. I’ll explain how I do it and how I decide when to publish my posts.

First, let’s start with how often.

In my opinion, the best approach is to publish 1 or 2 posts a week.

I’m guessing you’ve heard somewhere that if you post every day, you’ll see the fastest growth, but that’s not really true.

By posting absolutely every day, your previous posts don’t have time to gain the traction they need, and instead they “compete” with the next new post, which has to reach a larger audience.

On which day should I publish a post?

I definitely don’t recommend doing this on the weekend, since traffic on Substack is significantly lower on weekends than on weekdays.

For me, the best option is to publish one post on Monday and the other on Thursday, so that both posts have enough time to be promoted and grow.

What are the best times to post?

There’s no universal formula here, and the only advice I can give you is to experiment.

For me, 6 p.m. in my time zone works best, since I’ve found that most of my readers are on the other side of the world, and when it’s 6 p.m. here, it’s either morning or early afternoon for them.

But I only came to this conclusion after a few experiments with posting times.

Let’s move on to HOW to turn your post into a machine for attracting new subscribers.

Start with a question that makes them stop and think

And here, we’re not talking about something dramatic or scandalous, but a question that taps into their real problem.

For example, if you’re writing about unconscious childhood trauma, a question that would be perfect for your audience to relate to is something like:

“Have you ever found yourself running away from a situation without understanding why?”

This is the moment when the reader realizes whether this is for them or not.

And this works better than any “hack.”

Recently, I found a creator on another platform this way who helped me train my dog. His content didn’t start with direct advice or stories, but with the question, “Does your dog pull like a truck, too?”

Bam, I didn’t even think twice and hit the “Subscribe” button.

Because I realized this person was talking about exactly what I needed.

People need just one sentence to know if they’re in the right place. And you have the chance to tell them in one sentence, “Hey, this is for you!”

Use the “Subscribe” button

My approach to structuring a post is to remind readers that if what I write resonates with them and they want to be part of these conversations, they can subscribe to my newsletter.

But I don’t say “Subscribe if you like it”. Instead, right after the question i placed at the beginning, I simply leave the “Subscribe” button.

Nothing pushy or obligatory. Just this small change has increased the number of new subscribers coming from my posts.

Give them a sentence that makes sense of the chaos

I’ll continue with the example of my dog.

After the initial question, the next thing this person said was

“Your dog isn’t pulling because it’s injured or just has that kind of personality, but because it’s stressed.”

That’s the first “aha” moment. Plain and simple, it’s the short sentence “Why is this happening?” or “Why is this important?”

Aim to include insightful sentences in your post.

These are usually sentences that would look great as a Note.

What I do after writing a draft of my post is review it one more time and check if there are any sentences that would sound good on their own as a Note.

If there aren’t any, I reread what I’ve written and try to find a part of the text where I can say something more that could be restacked on Notes.

How can you ensure your article appears in Google search results and attract new subscribers from there?

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