Why Most Writers Might Be Wrong About Being Too Late to Join Substack

Are you just listening or actually trying it out and doing the work?

Photo by Lance Grandahl on Unsplash 

Many people have super high expectations about Substack. It’s just another place for readers to connect with writers who are sharing their stories and the craft they’ve been working on.

Some might say it only works for those who have an audience already, but it doesn’t mean it can work for you if you were only looking for an easy way out in the first place.

A more well-known account does get a head start, not just on Substack, but likely anywhere they go. Yet, that does not mean it doesn’t have a place for you.

Here’s what most writers are missing when growing on Substack:

1. Not knowing what to do first

When you doubt or wait, your initial reader gets confused and leaves you alone. There are writers with big or small followings making new progress every day. Why can’t it be you?

Is your reason valid? And what work have you put into it, for how long?

Many writers get confused between Substack with Medium; the discovery process is similar, but with a lot of manual work upfront.

Take that as a plus, not a flaw, like when you open a business, you do not expect the customer to come pouring in with you without knowing who you are or what you do.

Have you even tried to connect or introduce your shop, right?

2. Not writing for an interest, but rather what they feel

What you feel is important, but first reader has to know what you stand for or what the ball part is about, and then you add on to your personality.

In a way, you’re shaping your character even if you don’t want to. It’s really important in the beginning, even when you may feel like, “I’ll just keep writing, the right person will find me.”

Which I know for a fact, for a new writer, it’s pretty hard to get discovered on any platform. The key is building an identity around your passion for it to present to a group of readers who can find the same meaning in it.

And maybe they have the same purpose as you, great, you just made your digital life easier to stay active.

3. Not wanting to put in the work for others

Yes, anyone can write online, but not everyone grows at the same rate. What’s the secret to growing faster as a newcomer to a platform?

It’s not being the best writer or knowing a lot of stuff about writing.

In this part, I get confused a lot, and often I see writers overdo it without a meaningful purpose.

Treat it as a shelter where writers are looking for help to be seen, but they’re unwilling to admit it, while some are fearless of dropping their links everywhere they see a cursor blinking.

What you need to do is to find the person you want to help, and it’s not scrolling through their profile and liking everything they post.

It’s really about picking one piece of content and starting a conversation.

4. The stage of connection matters

Every writer starts with the same 0 on their dashboard. Even when I start a new Medium account, where no one really knows who I am, it does add another level of intensity around our work.

Yet, that’s not a bad thing at all, if you’re ready for this mess-up and down path of writing online.

The best thing about being a new writer on platforms that value them is that your underdog status is a weapon of mass fuel for the algorithm.

At this point, you’re more unknown than the system itself.

This is the best time to take big and small steps to try things that you’ve been waiting for. The dream and goals that you have — go do it.

You’re already at the bottom; there’s no place you can fall beneath, but only higher from here. In a way, it’s more about building up confidence in what you do and write about.

5. How to show up like you’re ready to work and grow

You can grow by math or by creative workflow.

The simpler way to put it would be that engaging with others needs a strategy, too.

The more common one we find on the internet would be:

• Read 10 notes a day

• Leave 10 thoughtful comments

• Like their work if you really like it

The part that most new writers get lost in is when they go do that on random people that they have no interest in.

Yes, you can try a couple of times to discover more users to turn into your friends.

You may think you’re just doing reps to build up your consistency, but what you’re really doing is showing up for yourself, the reputation that turns into trust.

Once you have your little corner, that is when you start to show more effort into what you write. The difference in results really depends on whether you can buy your audience or earn it through friendship and readership.

There’s a timeline to everything, and sometimes it might look like your Substack timeline has only 9 people who never go to sleep; that is an edge, not something to be unhappy or quit about.

Keep showing up for them and the readers that are looking for you, and you’ll notice that this really has nothing to do with money.

It’s about how to stay in the game while still keeping yourself aware of what you’re doing here or there and enjoying each moment that you mess up.

If you feel it was too late to join Substack, the chances are you’re not enjoying what you’re doing or putting too much weight on something that can’t be easily achieved.

Why do you want to write on Substack again?

Thanks for Reading

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This story was originally published on [Medium] and is cross-posted here for a wider audience.

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