Posting consistently: Setting goals for your publication
Define what success looks like to you and what you can uniquely offer readers
In part one of our series on building an editorial strategy, we look at how setting goals in line with your version of success is the key first step to making a writing habit. Visit the full series.
Are you a writer who is romantically in love with your writing, or are you a writer who really enjoys writing and you would like to make a living out of it? Because they’re two different things, and they don’t need to be in conflict with each other. But for sure, if you don’t treat your writing like a business, then you should forgo the expectation that writing beautifully will make you money. –
Listen on: Doomberg is willing to make some big calls
Substack writers who set out to make a living from doing what they love need to think in part like entrepreneurs, setting a clear strategic vision and goals.
At some point in the nascent years of your publication’s growth, this will mean taking time to think about what success means to you, where you’d like your publication to be in three to five years, and what tactics you could follow to get there. For many writers, this is the first key step, a shift from writing sporadically to getting into a writing habit with a clear focus.
Goal-setting doesn’t need to be complicated. It can start on a scratch piece of paper on your desk.
This post will lead you through a goal setting exercise and at the end, challenges you to make your goals concrete.
First, ask yourself: Why do you want to write on Substack?
There are a wide range of reasons to create a publication. Getting clear on your personal motivations can help you shape goals to get started, grow, and earn money for your work. Consider whether you are…
Writing to earn an income: Then understanding who your audience is and why they value your writing is essential. Are you a subject-matter expert who does a job for your audience? Do you provide a public service that people are willing to pitch in for? Or do you help people connect with other like-minded individuals? Knowing who your audience is and why they value your work will help you answer the question of what to offer them.
Writing to grow an audience: Then, much like writers who want to earn an income, understanding who your audience is will help you grow. If right now, growth is more important than earning an income, you might spend more time thinking about where your audience is spending time now. Ask yourself: What can I uniquely offer? What do people want? And where do those two things overlap? You might optimize what you create to be sharable in different spaces where your potential audience spends their time.
Writing to build community: Then, again, understanding your who and why are the first questions to ask. If a community is a group of people who continually come together around something they care about, then create a rhythm that your subscribers can show up for and engage with.
Writing for fun: Then your most important audience is yourself—what is it that will bring you joy? Create constraints so you can experiment and write on your own terms.
For the first 18 months, my newsletter was more of a side gig for me both mentally and financially. I invested a lot of time in it, but I didn’t stick to a regular schedule and my posts weren’t always rigorously reported. In August 2022, I decided to make the newsletter a priority. […] I very quickly saw a return on my investment and have since tripled my paid subscriptions.
has morphed into “Wow, I’m actually earning some money here” territory. —
Read on: How Melinda Wenner Moyer’s Substack helped sell 25,000 copies of her book
Keep your reader in mind
Great strategies for writing often begin with understanding who your audience is, even if it’s just yourself to start. Aligning what motivates you with what readers will help set you up for success.
Our friends at
, a publication and podcast about the nuts and bolts of community building, encourage you to ask two deceptively simple questions:Who does your writing bring together?
Why will people rally around your writing?
Newsletters, like other subscription-based media, perform best when they’re highly targeted to your readership. If you’re writing for everybody, you’re writing for nobody.
Who
Ask yourself: Who are my most important readers? What are they like? And of those, who brings the energy now?
Describe this group of people in one or two sentences.
Include the key traits they bring as readers (e.g. relevant skills, interests, experiences, or backgrounds).
Why
Now that you know your “who,” ask yourself: Why will readers return to my writing? Jot down your answers to these questions:
What does this group of readers need more of?
What’s the change they desire?
What’s the problem they could solve together?
If you need help, consider some of these reasons why readers might rally around a publication:
Examples of publications with a clear who & why
Who: Writers
Why: Skill development. Improve as a storyteller (also, fandom of a beloved professor and writer).
Who: Software engineers and managers
Why: Guidance. Navigating big tech and high-growth startups.
Who: “People who are pissed off about the climate crisis”
Why: Collective impact. Staying informed so that readers can take action.
Hung Up by
Who: People interested in pop culture
Why: Fun. Hunter’s writing makes readers laugh.
Make your goals concrete
To cement your goals and intentions, put them down on paper. Here are a few exercises you might consider:
Pen a future milestone post. Some writers share a yearly review of how they are stacking up against their self-made goals in milestone posts. Write the post you hope to publish a year from today talking about your success.
Add a number. Self-defined metrics can be a valuable way to look back and measure your success later. Keep these numbers realistic, and be prepared to alter them later if you find you didn’t quite hit them.
Refresh your publication description. When you start your Substack, you also write your About page and one-line bio. This can be a great time to define your goals, put a number on what success looks like for you, and begin planning how to get there. You can come back to refresh these elements once you’ve met your goals, too.
Over to you! Have you set your publication goals recently? What did you find challenging or exciting about the process? If you did one of the exercises above, please share it with us on Notes:
This post is the first in a series of three posts on building an editorial strategy to underpin a consistent writing habit. Check back here tomorrow for the second post on formats.
As I have to start somewhere I will start here: gonna end my year with (at least) 12 posts in my Substack. Buckle up! There's a ton of work to do ☺️
Feeling the same!
Helpful! I appreciate how the advice in this article is applicable to those of us looking to build an audience from the ground up, rather than the old advice of “Step 1: Let you existing 100,000 followers on (insert name of other platform) know you’re on Substack!”
My 2023 writing plan was to post one consumer tech-related article per week. I’ve followed through on that, for the most part (one week I wrote an obituary for my dog, Stinky, so not tech-related, but c’mon). I think simply that one year block of even trying to write will be very helpful to making a plan for next year. I’m currently considering lessons learned from this year of writing, to evaluate what I’m good at, who enjoyed it, where I should focus, how I should brand, etc. Looking forward to a new and improved strategy for 2024.
Condolences about Stinky... 😥
"Writing for fun: Then your most important audience is yourself—what is it that will bring you joy? Create constraints so you can experiment and write on your own terms."
This is largely me (along with writing for community). I wish Substack highlighted people and newsletters like this more.
I found that turning on paid subscriptions helped ensure I deliver a consistent product. Now that people are paying for it, I feel guilty if I miss a week.
I hesitate to turn it on exactly because I'm afraid that I won't be able to publish enough. I write very long newsletters that need a lot of research.
I have paid turned on... right now, it's for people who say 'You go!" and who just want to support me..
🥳
it works... :-D
I think so long as you manage expectations and are upfront about how many newsletter subscribers should expect to receive, you don't need to worry too much. For example, you could say to expect 5-6 per year without committing to a regular release schedule.
This is an approach I hadn’t considered. Perhaps because I read too much about publishing weekly or even multiple times a week. I thought about sending something out bi-weekly but it would still be a stretch. What you propose on the other hand is more doable. Thank you.
I love that Substack has us thinking about our goals on the platform.
And I have a cautionary tale for you.
The Dangers of the Six-Figure Book Deal: What goal setting should really be about
This post offers a healthier way to think about goal-setting, plus, at the end, a very clear way for you to do it alongside other writers on Substack. https://open.substack.com/pub/serialize/p/the-dangers-of-the-six-figure-book?utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
It was just coincidentally scheduled for this week.
I've written for years, but have failed to get into a groove here on Substack. I'm blaming the fact that The Good Husband retired and is always in town and in my house! (Yes, it's technically his house, too, but c'mon!) I'm also a grandmother now, which has changed my routines; but I'm feeling a void and I know I'm responsible. The people I love are not stifling my writing. That block was built by my failure to prioritize and set boundaries. Unsurprisingly I think those two things create a lot of issues for many of us. So I'm taking back control and this three-part series is a good refresh and reboot for me to get back to what I know works for me.
My goals are simple:
1. Two-three regularly scheduled posts per week
- One original poem with background commentary
- One original painting or photo, accompanied by an essay or explanatory text
- In January, a weekly prompt with reader-submitted work and comments to build community
2. Build portfolio to prep for chapbook and manuscript submissions
3. Create audience and following
- 2,000 free subscribers
- 100 paid subscribers
Here we go, fellow writers! Looking forward to creating and seeing what you create, too.
All Best, Kim
Love to see this! (And it's not just for beginners; even experienced writers can use a regular look at this, I'd imagine.)
I'm writing since one year and even though I had a pretty good idea of my 'What', 'Who' and 'Why', while going once again through this exercise I realised two things:
1. I am focusing on the wrong stuff at the moment.
2. I never communicated my 'Why' to my readers.
This is something to reflect on in year two.
Can you have more than one “Why”? I want to write for 1) fun; and 2) to bring joy to my readers. Our media is filled with bad news and articles designed to illicit fear. Yet, each day has many opportunities for good and/or humorous things to happen. Why not share those experiences too?
I also decided to pick 2 x 'Why'. ☺️ One is short term and one is long term.
I find this relatable too! I’ve got more than 1 why as well 😊
This is brilliant! I started posting three months ago, setting myself deadlines for a weekly column about interesting moments in my life to be posted every Thursday. I had wanted to start this for six months before committing to the forced deadline. Once I did, I looked FORWARD to it and couldn’t wait to get to the next one. I even got ahead and banked a few to run during weeks when I travel or simply am not feeling creative.
Interestingly, after a nearly 50 year career in the television business as a writer, producer, director and marketing executive, I started by creating a list of 20 great stories from my years working with some of the biggest stars in entertainment, from Fred Astaire to Johnny Depp. What sprung from that surprised me…another 20 column ideas not related to the entertainment biz at all, but from my own life as a world traveler, parent, actor on the local musical theatre stage, and even a stamp collector (believe it or not, I think you’ll find this coming Thursday’s column on my lifelong relationship with the hobby fascinating)!
What’s unique about my columns is that I’m pulling much of what I wrote directly from the journals I started writing nightly as far back as when I was 16 years old. Having all of that resource material allows me to recall events long since forgotten, and bring a contemporaneous element to each of my columns. My columns are not presented chronologically…I jump around from the 1970s to the current day and years in between so there’s always something fresh and unexpected for the reader.
God bless my high school English teacher Morgan McSweeney and actor Charlton Heston (you’ll find out how and why in a future column) for inspiring me to write for myself every night for almost 50 years now.
I’m grateful to Substack for the continuous flow of ideas. Once I reach 25 or 30 columns I’ll create a paywall and charge for access to everything more than six months old. I believe that if I have enough material for 100 columns, I’ll have a book to publish already written!
Please check my column out and follow me…while it’s all free! It won’t be forever!
I have suddenly found myself wanting to kick my Substack into gear after doing a collaborative post with my one of my pals that I've met on this platform (hi @bookhousebroad)! Now I'm aiming to do one collaborative post a month, either with other creators or even just with people I know who I share interests with (in the realm of music, or pop culture which has influenced my own artistic development as a songwriter). This has led me to think about the other 'pillars' of my newsletter and how I can have a rolling, four-week schedule for 4 different kinds of posts, to really solidify what I present every week and create consistency and reliability for readers.
Hi Olivia, I just started my substack but love yours - hopefully we can collab in the future!
hi Inga! thanks for subscribing :) I've just taken a look at your substack & will sub in a min. looking forward to seeing where it takes you.
Start with WHY. Income, community, and fun are all important. Consistency is key but is different for everyone; I try to shoot for 2-3 posts per week that take <5 min to read.
Here is my WHY: https://yuribezmenov.substack.com/p/why-i-write-how-to-subvert-subversion
I decided to start a Substack to brush my English and share Russian poetry and reflections of a Russian citizen with good people here. Writing in foreign language is hard, but I discovered I actually enjoy posting and commenting.
I'm starting a new newsletter with the aim to provide value to athletes both amateur and pro to help them navigate the sports world by offering guidance on communication. Everything in this post is valuable. Looking forward to reading and learning more to help me towards gaining 400 paid subscribers and point them towards my book.
Thanks for the excellent post. We normally say to the writers we work with that there are two types of goals: output and practice. Having an output goal - like words on a page, time/days spent writing - can be very helpful to give you direction but practice goals can be helpful to get you started. Practice goals are about habit and showing up and they work because they make your process more apparent. If 'stopping procrastinating' is your practice goal then understanding how you procrastinate and what you do instead of the writing is key. Forgive the blatant promotion but anyone interested can read more in our book: Written: How to Keep Writing and Build a Habit that Lasts.
I believe starting with why is the most sure-fire way of beginning to not only write but also find spark and energy to continue with what you are capable of writing to your audience. It makes me as a writer let myself out and explore the topic with passion, zeal, energy and high-voltage determination. With your why, you won't get tired and writing will just flow as you experiment different issues with deep expertise. With why, you get clarity of what you want to do with your newsletter and align your newsletter mission with your values. In my Startup from Africa newsletter, I write about problems and possibilities in Africa which I am passionate about. But, I explore my newsletter mission from different angles ranging from technology, politics, economy, financial, and many more, so my audience will get highly curated and broad-based topics about Africa. Therefore, I can write as many posts as I can to not only inform but also inspire my audience with a social impact of my work.
I would like to start "something," definitely not a newsletter or blog but perhaps, a chapbook. I am not certain that poetry is something that is attractive to many readers and I do want to attract readers. I am very open to suggestions as to how to begin.
My original goal was to write a memoir. This goal has morphed into a memoir through poetry. I believe my audience is lovers of poetry However that may be restrictive. I have a title already prepared.
Any suggestions would be graciously received.
There are more poetry lovers on Substack than you might think! Start writing and publishing, refine as you grow.
Thank you for your feedback. How do I find them and what is the next step?
Search for and subscribe to poetry substacks. I’m a fan of Poetry Outlaws. Write and publish regularly. Be patient.
Thank you. As I asked someone else I'm not familiar with substacks. Any advice you could be appreciated for example where do I write in publish? I also speak to text due to a disability so forgive me if there are some errors.
I'm not sure I understand. You have a Substack; that's where you publish. Select "New Post," write something you want others to read, then publish it. There's more to it, but that's how we start.
Thank you. I think U got it. I didn't know what a substack was.
Welcome to Substack, Concetta!
Thank you very much.
Thank you for liking this post. I am not used to this platform so don't know how it really works. Any help would be appreciated.
Short stories? I'll try and publish one a week. Starting Friday 15th.
literally my second issue that i published this past weekend is about asking myself the questions of who what and why i’m writing and if i’m built for the writers life! love the great timing.
My goal is consistently posting 1 free article a week, but also building my side premium content
Writing regularly and frequently is just good practice if you're at all serious about writing, period. What I am turning over in my head right now is brand identity, which is related to the "Why?" question. My goal is that my Substack and my self-published writing should reinforce each other, gain audience for one, maybe gain audience for the other. But I am not sure whether it is better — given that I'm just starting my Substack — to focus exclusively on a niche (in this case, playing, publishing and selling games) or to branch out into related topics in which many in the audience for that core topic are also interested. Would it dilute my brand, or would it draw in more potential fans for when I branch out from writing roleplaying games into writing fiction?
I am just getting started with Life is a Journey! Helping resource as I get started, write weekly, and build a community
I’ve taken the pressure off my writing by focusing less on getting subscribers and more on consistency and quality.
I’m working on creating poems and a space that people can look forward to every week; A space for those even mildly curious about poetry, wellness, growth and their intersection
I love that this post acknowledges the people who are writing for fun or to build a community and not just those ready and building a business.
I started here in mid-June and set an initial subscriber goal of 100 by September. Unfortunately, life showed up as it does, and a family member was very ill. And so I wrote throughout it all, but with less of a growth focus and more of a cathartic one. I have reached 59 subscribers now, and I am grateful for that, but now that life has realigned a bit, I can more consciously get back to my growth 'why'. This has been very helpful. I may even reach 100 by September's end. Thank you for sharing.
My goal has been to post consistently and I also outlined a 12 month growth goal. What I'm still pondering is a premium vs free content strategy. Much harder to define but I'm getting closer!
Thanks so much for this! Do you have any guidance for how to find out from your audience why they follow you? Is it a good idea to ask? I have a decent following at the moment. About 800 free, 27 paid. I would love to get to 100 paid, and maybe 2000 (or more!) free? So how can I use me present subs to help do you think? Any advice gratefully received. Thanks!
I don't think there's anything wrong with asking them. Post (with thanks to your faithful subscribers, of course) about how you're interested in what they get out of your work, why they find it worthwhile to follow you. They can respond in the comments. Direct interaction with your readers is incredibly valuable information and a morale boost, too. One reason I love selling my books at conventions is that I can see and feel how people react to them. I also meet up with people who bought something from me at previous shows, and not only do they compliment me, but I learn a lot about how they used what I wrote in their Dungeons & Dragons game.
Definitely writing for fun, community and an audience. Largely I'm writing for my own enjoyment and to improve and hone etc, hoping that anyone who does read and returns shares a similar sense of enjoyment.
This was helpful! My goal is to publish every Friday and provide guidance for how to stay politically engaged, while not losing our minds in the process.
Thanks for sharing these tips. Found some things I need to start doing now my Substack is gaining more and more subscribers quickly.
Refreshing the about page after awhile is good advice. Did not consider doing that until just now.
Me too. Seems like a good way to refresh goals/identity/image.
Thanks for the positive reinforcement 😊
I'm new in Substack and starting from scratch. I love how this article can be applied to newbies and beginners like me.
I had plans to do a lot today, and I may have done some of this already, but then this post came out and I am sooooo addicted to doing goal setting, and development and there was new stuff to think about so.... (there has to be a name for this sort of addiction). Thank you for the post :)
thank you for sharing! This is very helpful for me as a beginner to maintain and grow on Substack!
literally my second issue that i published this past weekend is about asking myself the questions of who what and why i’m writing and if i’m built for the writers life! love the great timing.
Thank you for this. I am all over the place with subject matter and audience, finding it difficult to hone in on any one of the things I find myself musing over. I believe a niche can be less niche-y - but at the same time, I have to figure out that small matter of audience!
Love this, essentially the thinking like an entrepreneur part. Given my subscriber goals, I'm starting to devote real time to strategic partnerships in addition to the writing, of course.
Thank you for this series. I appreciate seeing what other writers are doing to manage cadence and reasonable goals.
My main focus is to grow to 1000 free subscribers and have astarted a reward program to incentivize sharing. Has anyone done this? Would love to learn from you.
Writing to save the planet, or to raise hell, maybe to represent unrepresented persons & movements... but if no one sees it, then it's really just a diary. ~ school of lowered expectations
helpful in getting started in building an audience..
Right now, I have several publications on substack that are called, Roger's Substack. Roger's Substack is about everything political that has ever touched a nerve. . . It's also about psychology and how we often react when confronted with the obvious -- our inherent desires.
As someone who's trying to build the habit of sharing what I think, and more importantly (to me), writing what I think for myself, this is a wonderful start to the series! Thanks a lot Substack! I love being a member of this community.
Great article with concrete ideas!
Rings true! All these suggestions are basically the opposite of my substack presence. So that works out, lol
More disciplined planning and strategizing as described here sounds like a way to get my hobby publication Philopita better noticed.
Thank you for the wise suggestions!
I know I'm a bit late, but how do I access parts 2 and 3? 😳
I hope to have 100 subscribers by the end of the year. Stay tuned. :)
This has been very helpful. It affirmed what I am already practising. But I now know that I should commit to completing Part 1 of my ten-part writing project at the end of 2024. I have already scoped the entire project. Each part is made up of 10 chapters. That means I would have completed ten chapters at the end of 2024. I will package them into a Part 1 manuscript, edit it, and submit it for publishing. I want to publish a Part per year. This is a beautiful, life-long writing project. I see myself consolidating all ten parts into a comprehensive compilation.
Correction/additions to previous post:
Retired life coach here.
First comes the thought, sometimes including detailed design of a dream , all existing in the "very light energy" of the metaphysical world . This is the beginning, the source energy of all things .
To make a dream/ thought actually live in the physical world, requires action. Action lives in the physical world, a much "heavier type of energy" demand.
Next - arrives "Trouble at the Border" ! (Maria Nemeth Phd)
Some say it takes ten times more energy to take action than to think/ dream about it!
Without action, the thought simply remains a dream in the metaphysical space.
Action support tools include setting a clearly defined goal, with a specific goal date, and finding an accountability partner.
SMART Goal design is quite a helpful tool:
Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relative (applicable to a particular intention such as to be a successful author) and Time based.
Accountability partners come in all shapes and sizes. A trusted friend, family member, associate, teacher, coach , and/or a place which supports you with tools.
It is important to remember that when sharing your goal with someone else, you definitely want to include the description of the goal and the committed completion date.
Plus, give that person permission to ask you where you are in your process.
And of course, you would want to let the person know when and perhaps where you actually have completed your goal.
When writing is the goal subject matter, then publication opportunities are certainly quite a valuable accountability tool to state your goal "out loud".
Good Luck everyone. You are up to something big !
Just worked through this post in highlights and notes on my read it later app (Omnivore) and I found it to be a hugely valuable exercise.
Great information especially for someone like me who is new to Substack. This article has motivated me to write one entry per week and encourage others to share my post as I build my audience. I am writing a book about being an introvert/ambivert and look forward to sharing my story. Any introverts/ambiverts out there interested in following my journey, please let me know. I'm looking forward to continuing to grow and learn from others on Substack. Cheers to all of us making an impact on the world!
I love how this focuses on actual strategy instead of just 'write whatever you want and the following will come if you follow your heart' which is not necessarily the case and doesn't happen automatically.
I only started my substack this month so looking forward to see there it goes!
This may be what I need to get myself at the table writing rather than faffing about with pointless housework...so by December 31st - Have written 2x newsletters every week consistently, Have 100 total subscribers, Have 2 paid subscribers who are not related to me...and as a bonus -Have printables ready to share with paid subscribers...
Good luck everyone!
Does anyone else detest the idea of community? I don't want a community - I want individual people who like my writing, preferably thousands or more, but still just individuals. As a reader, I don't want to be part of a community - I have a 1 to 1 vertical relationship with people whose writing I enjoy. I don't care who else likes them, and I don't want anything to do with their other fans.
Anyone else feel this way? Anyone making this concept work?
Hi everyone! I've been encouraged to start my blog by Australian writer John Birmingham (Alien Sideboob), who writes satirical articles about current affairs in Australia. Living in Australia, I would like to address an audience in Europe. Does anyone in the US, UK, or Australia/New Zealand have any experience attracting an overseas audience to their writing?
Perfect timing. I do need to figure out which of my various interests I would like to pursue.