[Free course] How to grow on Substack by 500+ subscribers per month
Substack is the easiest platform on the internet to grow on right now—but it will only be like this for 3-12 months.
Substack is the easiest platform on the internet to grow on right now—but it will only be like this for 3-12 months.
How do I know?
In 4 years, I’ve grown to nearly 100,000 followers on X, close to 40,000 on LinkedIn, and built an email list to 10,000 subscribers before I purged it to keep only the engaged readers.
So I know a thing or two about growth.
And I can tell you this:
Substack is the best attention arbitrage on the internet (right now).
But unlike other social platforms, you’re not just collecting followers—on-platform borrowed audience.
You’re collecting subscribers—off-platform owned audience.
That’s why it’s such a great opportunity...
For those who know how to grow on it while it’s easy.
And I keep seeing creators charging $100, $500, even $1,000 for “Substack growth courses.”
Which, honestly, feels ridiculous to me.
Growth here is simple once you understand how social platforms work. The knowledge isn’t worth that kind of money.
So instead of selling a course, I turned mine into a free newsletter.
Here’s everything you need to know to grow on Substack by 500+ subs per month:
Why It’s So Easy to Grow on Substack Right Now
Social platforms move through three stages:
Early → Mature → Late.
Each stage is defines by the supply and demand of content vs. attention.
In the early stage, there’s a lot of users (attention) but not enough new posts (content) to create an endless scroll.
That’s where Substack is right now.
Your content can go viral and stay visible on the timeline for 30–60 days. The algorithm keeps resurfacing your past posts because there isn’t enough new content to feed the demand.
But this window doesn’t last forever.
Within 6-12 months, Substack will enter it’s mature stage. the demand will begin to average out. Which means it will become harder to go viral and attract new audience members.
Within a year or two, as more creators join, Substack will shift into the late stage—when there’s too much content and not enough attention.
At this stage, growth slows down and only the best creators stand out.
That’s why you need to act now.
Build a brand and body of work that stands out before the platform matures. That way, when growth gets hard, you’re already one of the creators people recognize, trust, and seek out.
That’s how people like Dan Koe still dominate every platform even in late stage markets—they built their foundations early.
This guide will walk you through establishing your foundation in 3 phrases:
Position – who you are, how you’re different, and how you help people
Produce – how to create compelling work people want to consume
Promote – how to get your work seen so you attract an audience
Let’s start with positioning...
For more in depth resources on how to write and grow on Substack, consider becoming a paid subscriber.
You’ll get:
Custom GPTs for writing headlines, notes, and newsletters
Full guide on how to get your first 100 paid subscribers
Guides on how to turn writing into a full time living
1) Position—Who are you and why should I care?
Positioning is simply how you’re different from other people in your niche.
The easiest way to think about it is comparison.
If you put an apple next to an orange, the differences are obvious.
One is red, one is orange.
One is crisp and sweet.
One is juicy, the other is tangy.
But you only notice those differences when comparing them side-by-side.
That’s positioning.
Your potential readers need the same clarity when they see your Substack.
They need to instantly understand who you help, how you help them, and what you’ve accomplished.
When you answer those three questions, people can quickly decide:
Is this the kind of fruit I actually want?
It tells them exactly what they’ll get from subscribing and why you stand out from everyone else writing about similar topics.
Let me use my own positioning as an example.
I help writers, creators, and storytellers earn an income online as AI-assisted ghostwriters.
My team and I have generated 2 billion social impressions, produced $4 million in client revenue, and before all of that, I taught as a college instructor.
My profile makes all three pieces clear:
Who I help
How I help them
What I’ve done
That makes it easy for someone to decide if my work is for them—and it shows why I’m different, because I have years of credibility and results behind me.
But if you’re a beginner, you might be thinking:
“What if I haven’t accomplished anything crazy or noteworthy?”
Positioning isn’t only about credibility.
It can come from your unique process, your personal story, your way of writing, the results you’ve produced, or the experiences that set you apart from others in your niche.
It can also come from what you’re working towards instead of what you’ve already achieved. Such as learning to write, becoming a ghostwriter, or writing your first book.
The important thing is that you HAVE done something or ARE doing something.
Credible people don’t just sit around studying.
They live in the arena.
Action Item For You: Define Your Positioning
Answer these three questions:
• Who do you help?
• How do you help them?
• What have you accomplished? Or... What are you working towards?
Once you’ve written your answers, rewrite them into a simple bio using my framework:
Who you help & how → credibility, social proof, or personal anecdote
Add that updated version to your Substack bio.
After that, go through the quick profile optimization guide I’ve included.
It covers your profile picture, banner, and welcome email.
But we’re not going to obsess over these details—your growth won’t come from a perfect profile. The real growth happens in the next section, when we dive into creating great work that actually stands out and brings subscribers in...
Bonus: Quick Profile Optimization Guide
1) Profile Picture
Use a clean headshot that gives off a good vibe. It doesn’t need to look overly professional—just match the tone you want to convey.
2) Banner
Honestly, this doesn’t matter much. It can be a lifestyle photo or a simple custom graphic with your value proposition. Think of it as a quick vibe or credibility check—either show your lifestyle or show your authority.
Reference 3-5 of your favorite creators and emulate their approach.
3) Bio
Keep it simple and clear. People should instantly understand what they’ll get by following you and what you write about.
4) Welcome Email
For your welcome email, there are a lot of valid approaches.
The best way to learn is to find three creators you really like, study how they structure their welcome emails, and then take the parts that resonate and make them your own.
A few elements you may want to include:
Thank them for subscribing
Share a bit of your story and why you do what you do.
Let them know who you help and how you help them.
Give them a small bonus—something like a template, a checklist, or a resource.
Link to three of your best posts so they immediately get value and understand what your work is about.
A good welcome email just sets the tone. It doesn’t need to be complex. It just needs to make people feel happy they subscribed and excited about what comes next.
2) Produce—Creating Content Where People Care About the Creator
A lot of new writers and creators struggle to publish work that actually attracts subscribers.
They post every day.
They write about their interests.
They share personal stories.
They try viral hacks.
They rewrite whatever’s working for other creators.
And still…nothing.
People might read their posts, some might even go viral, but they fail to attract subscribers.
You might be wondering why this happens—and more importantly, how to avoid it.
How do you actually create Substack content that makes people want to subscribe?
The trick isn’t just to create great content.
It’s to create great content that makes people curious about the person who created it.
Think of it this way:
People don’t love Einstein’s Theory of Relativity—they love Einstein.
People might love the Mona Lisa, but the real legacy belongs to Da Vinci.
The same is true for Substack—just on a smaller, more intimate scale.
Your goal is to produce work that makes people think:
“Damn, who the fck created this?!”
That means your content can’t just be generic tips anyone—or AI—could write.
It can’t be a rehash of what everyone else is already saying on Substack.
And it can’t just be optimized for virality.
Viral content might get you attention, but it doesn’t necessarily get you subscribers.
Content that attracts subscribers is different.
Subscriber-attracting content shows proof that you’ve done (and are doing) cool, interesting, or difficult things.
It shows that you have a unique perspective worth paying attention to.
It signals that your life, your work, or your ideas are noteworthy and newsworthy.
In other words, you’re either building in public, learning in public, or living in public.
Let’s break each of these down in more detail.
The Authenticity Arc: Principles → Process → Proof
Principles, Process, and Proof are the three types of content where people won’t just enjoy consuming it, they’ll also be curious about you, the person who created it.
It starts with Principles, which are the easiest to imitate, and moves toward Proof, which is the hardest to fake.
Think of it as a spectrum:
Simple insights anyone can copy → all the way to undeniable evidence that you’re doing real things, learning real lessons, and accomplishing real results.
When you use all three of these intentionally, your content shows that you’re a real human with a real point of view—someone who’s actually moving, building, experimenting, and thinking in public.
And that’s what makes you a credible person worth following.
So let’s break each of these down and look at how all three appear as actual content types you can create.
1) Principles (Learned Insights)
Real lessons, insights, and principles you’ve learned that readers can apply today.
What I learned this week
What I’m noticing in the industry
Example:
2) Process (Open your box)
What you did, step-by-step, while you were doing it. Screenshots, templates, workflows.
How I do [thing]
Behind the scenes of how you work (with screenshots or videos)
Example:
3) Proof (Show receipts)
What happened this week? Wins, mistakes, stories, experiments, outcomes.
What I tested this week
Mistakes I made (and fixed)
Case studies (before/after, receipts)
Example:
This combo proves you’re real, useful, and newsworthy...
Make It Newsworthy, Not Just Viral
Readers don’t subscribe to a hit post; they subscribe to an unfolding story.
Your updates should answer:
What are you building next week that I don’t want to miss?
Use this mini-arc:
Now: “Here’s what I’m building/testing this week.”
Next: “Here’s what I’ll report back on next week.”
How: “Here’s exactly what I did so you can either avoid the same mistakes or achieve the same results.”
When I published the “$315,000 tiny writing business” breakdown, it wasn’t “tips.”
It was now, numbers, next—and it converted ~90 subscribers and a high profile podcast invite in a week.
These types of posts make your writing feel like a hit Netflix show where people can’t wait to see what happens next.
But what if you don’t feel newsworthy?
My answer is that you are—you just haven’t built the perspective to recognize it yet.
If you’re learning something, building something, working on a project, solving a problem, starting a business, losing weight, reading books, going to university, pursuing a goal, or overcoming any kind of struggle…
You are newsworthy.
Your audience just needs to know what clear goal you’re working towards so they can follow you on your journey.
The real issue is that you haven’t built the habit of reflecting each week to see the value in your own experiences. And you might be a little scared to be raw, vulnerable, and human on the internet.
This is normal.
I do my best to post each week about the mistakes I’ve made, the money I’ve lost, and the embarrassing moments I’ve suffered.
Are they hard to publish? Yes.
But they almost always end up being the content my audience loves the most.
The same will be true for you...
Once you slow down long enough to think, you start to notice that your life is full of stories, lessons, and moments that translate perfectly into Substack content.
And once you find the courage to write raw, you’ll attract a real readership faster than you once thought possible.
And that naturally leads to the next question:
Once you start seeing your life this way, what types of content should you actually be creating—and how?
Types of Substack Content to Create (& How Often to Post)
There are really only four types of content you can publish on Substack.
They are:
1) Notes
Short ideas, quick insights, small reflections—your most frequent content.
Great for attracting new subscribers but they fail to build trust and true audience loyalty.
Post two to five per day.
2) Newsletters (also called Posts)
These are your long-form pieces: stories, guides, reflections, essays.
They build relationships with your audience and can attract new subscribers if they go viral on the timeline.
Aim for one to two per week.
3) Podcasts
Completely optional, but a great way to riff, speak naturally, build trust, and collaborate with others.
Do one per week or bi-weekly if you enjoy being on camera and have the time.
4) Substack Lives
Again optional, but useful if you like going live or want subscribers to actually see and interact with you.
Every two to four weeks is plenty.
As for how to write each format, that’s outside the scope of this course.
You can find my full guides and AI prompts for writing viral Substack notes that attract subscribers here:
And you can subscribe (or stay subscribed) to my newsletter for future deep-dives on writing different types of newsletters—story-driven issues, thought-provoking essays, and the AI prompts I use in my personal workflow.
All of that is coming very soon.
Action Item For You: Build Your Content Calendar
1) Post 2–5 shareable notes per day (minimum two).
One should focus on what you’re building or doing right now. The other can be a story, an insight, or something more reflective.
2) Publish one newsletter per week that shows your authority, recaps what you built or learned, and goes deeper into your world.
3) Optionally do one podcast episode every two weeks that dives deeper into a previous newsletter you’ve published.
4) Optionally run a Substack Live every 2–4 weeks where you answer audience questions live.
Now, with all that said, here’s something many people on Substack miss:
They think they can just publish great work and magically grow. They assume quality alone will carry them.
But today’s Substack ecosystem doesn’t work that way.
Because producing great work is only half the battle.
The other half—the half most people ignore—is learning how to promote it in a way that actually gets seen and actually attracts real subscribers.
And that’s what we’re going to cover next...
3) Promote—Get People To See Your Work (& Subscribe)
Since coming to Substack, I’ve been amazed by the number of amazing writers I come across.
But I’ve been even more surprised, by how little people see and engage with their writing.
It’s like nobody sees their work.
They don’t have a writing problem.
They have a marketing problem.
You need to be both a writer and someone who knows how to self-promote.
Because amazing writing on its own doesn’t matter if nobody sees it.
Now, that doesn’t mean turning into a marketer who uses outdated, salesy tactics or writes in a way that feels inauthentic.
It just means discovering a tasteful way to get people to see your work and to know that you have a newsletter that can genuinely transform their lives.
And that’s why we need traffic—people seeing your work.
I’ve discovered 3 main ways to get traffic on Substack.
And these work no matter how many subscribers you have or how new you are to the platform.
1) Algorithm Traffic—The School’s Introductions
Imagine you’re the new kid at a school.
You know no one.
The teachers pair you with classmates, introduce you around, and help you fit in.
That’s the algorithm.
When you publish on Substack—whether a post or a note—the platform shows it to some of your subscribers first. And a small number of people who don’t follow you (yet hehe).
If enough of them engage, it expands your reach, showing your work to similar readers across the network.
It uses simple signals like keywords (“writers,” “entrepreneurs,” etc.) and engagement rates to decide who else might like it.
The algorithm is helpful for visibility early on, but don’t depend on it alone.
It’s slow and unpredictable.
And favors creators with bigger audiences.
You’ll grow much faster once you combine it with the next two methods.
2) Manual Traffic—Making Friends Yourself
Content traffic is when the algorithm or other people bring readers to your work.
Manual traffic is when you go out of your way to introduce yourself and make friends.
Think of this as the scrappy stuff:
Commenting thoughtfully on posts from people who already have the audience you want.
DMing people you genuinely want to connect with and can actually help.
Joining paid Substacks or communities where your ideal readers hang out and engaging meaningfully so they get curious enough to check out your work.
This manual work is time intensive.
And probably not what you want to be doing each day.
But it’s powerful for making friends and increasing visibility.
And the good news?
It doesn’t take that long to pay off.
If you can connect with even 10 to 20 people who genuinely love your work and engage with it regularly, that alone can give your content a huge boost in the algorithm.
So, here’s some advice on how to comment and DM people authentically:
1) When Commenting
Share short personal stories related to the post—something that shows the advice works or adds a new angle.
It brings your personality to life and makes people curious about who you are.
2) When DMing
Read the person’s work first, then send a genuine compliment about something you enjoyed or learned from in their latest post or Note.
Keep it simple and human.
You’re just chatting with people like friends.
That’s all it takes to start building your initial reader base and it works.
I actually did this myself for four straight months on Substack before I had any posts do well.
I’m not giving out theory here.
This is advice I’ve lived and I’m grateful I put in the time to do it.
3) Collaboration Traffic—Getting Invited To The Cool Kids Parties
Collaborative traffic comes from things like Substack Lives, newsletter recommendations, and cross-promotions with other writers in your niche.
These get you inside the Substack community.
Connecting you with writers who already have active readerships.
This works for growth because it’s like having a cool kid in school tell others you’re cool too.
It’s ‘coolness’ by association.
The bigger your audience gets, the easier it becomes to land these kinds of opportunities.
But you don’t need to wait until you’re “big” to start.
Reach out to creators around your size—some a little bigger, some a little smaller—and offer to collaborate.
Invite them to do a Substack Live with you.
If you’re not into video, offer to recommend each other’s newsletters.
And if the vibe is good, suggest a cross-promotion, where you each share one of the other’s posts with your audience.
From my own experience:
Collaborating on Substack Lives have been incredible for connecting with new audiences and answering questions live.
Newsletter Recommendations have helped me grow by about 50 new subscribers a month.
Cross-promotions are newer for me, but they’ve introduced my work to audiences I wouldn’t have reached otherwise and some of those readers stuck around.
You don’t have to do any of this.
But if you want to accelerate your growth, these collaborative opportunities can give you a serious boost.
Final anecdote:
I posted for 4 months on Substack without getting much engagement or growth.
Then Natasha Tynes, Jari Roomer and Claudia Faith each invited me on their podcasts. I’ve grown by a minimum of 500 subscribers per month ever since.
That’s how powerful collaboration can be.
Action Items For You: Promote Your Work
Spend 15-30 minutes a day leaving comments and engaging thoughtfully with people in the Substack community.
DM 5 new people a day to connect, swap insights, and expand your network.
(Optional) Do one collaboration every two weeks to accelerate your growth and expand your readership faster—Substack live, podcast, recommendations, cross-promotion.
If you follow this guide and actually implement the advice, you can grow on Substack by 500+ subscribers per month.
But even then, the point isn’t just fast growth.
The real goal is to build something people are genuinely excited to tune into.
You want to take up mental real estate in your readers’ minds. You want to make the most of the platform while it’s still relatively easy to grow—so that when it eventually gets harder, you’ve already established yourself as an authority.
By then, you’ll be the person people recommend to their friends.
When someone enters your niche on Substack, your name will be one of the first they hear.
That happens because you’re sharing real goals, doing real things in public, and giving people something meaningful to follow.
It makes you inspiring, noteworthy, newsworthy, and worth paying attention to.
If you have any questions about anything in this guide, feel free to DM me on Substack.
I’m happy to help or clarify anything.
This was fun.
Thanks for reading.
PS. Don’t forget to take a friend out for lunch with the money you just saved on Substack growth courses ;)
—Taylin
PPS. I’m opening up a new, higher-touch way to work with me to grow on Substack, improve your newsletters, and earn as a writer.
You’ll get direct 1-on-1 feedback from my cofounder and I, each week, on your newsletters, notes, and Substack growth strategy.
I’m only offering this to 3 people right now. Send me a message if you’re interested :)
I’m bookmarking this one! Thanks for being so generous with your time by outlining all of this. I’m going to start with my tagline and see if I can clarify it with your tips. Lots of good stuff thanks again.
The power of community truly is unmatched, and I'm glad to see that you've seen the same in your experience here.