Your favorite writer’s favorite writers: Our new recommendations feature

Writers are growing by recommending each other

One month ago, we released a small but mighty feature called recommendations for writers to directly endorse each other’s publications on Substack and readers to find more great things to read.

Our hope was that recommendations would help writers’ publications be discovered by new readers. We’ve been paying close attention to see if that hunch would prove true.

What writers are saying about recommendations

Writers are reporting back that receiving recommendations has accelerated the growth of their Substack publications, whether they started with a few readers or already had thousands of subscribers. 

Will Lawrence of Product Life:

Will Lawrence ⭕️ @will_lawrenceTO

@hamishmckenzie Can you guess when I started to get recommendations? Seriously though, great work.

Nikita Petrov of Psychopolitica:

Nikita Petrov @NikitaSPetrov

On @SubstackInc's new recommendation system: I have a small newsletter, 1.2k readers (psychopolitica.com). I sent some 150 subscribers to the newsletters I recommend (psychopolitica.substack.com/recommendations). 14% (!) of my current subscribers found me through recs (thanks, @GlennLoury).

psychopolitica.substack.comPsychopolitica | Nikita Petrov | SubstackRussian psychedelia in exile 🍄. Click to read Psychopolitica, by Nikita Petrov, a Substack publication with thousands of readers.

Lenny Rachitsky of Lenny’s Letter:

Lenny Rachitsky @lennysan

Legit growth inflection right after Substack launched their recommend-other-newsletters feature. Thank you Substack.

Ali Abouelatta of First1000:

Ali Abouelatta @abouelatta_ali

Shoutout to the growth team @SubstackInc! Just ran my monthly reports and Substack contributed 34% of my growth in April, up from 4% in March!

Not only that, but we’ve found that when it comes to recommendations, you get what you give: Writers that make a recommendation are three times more likely to be recommended in return. 

Based on promising early results, we’re excited to see that when one writer recommends another, everyone wins. Readers find new publications to enjoy, receiving writers see their audience growth accelerate, and the “giving” writers see a bump in subscribers themselves.

This feature is available for all writers, podcasters, and other publishers on Substack, so if you haven’t tried it yet, here’s how to turn on recommendations:

Recommendations are just one feature of many that our teams have been working on to help writers grow their publications. Here are a few more of the improvements we’ve rolled out in recent months:

• An upgraded reading experience: With the new Substack iOS app, upgraded reader profiles, podcast player and web reader, reading work from your favorite writers has never been better. 

• Improvements to SEO from our dedicated SEO team has been steadily making sure your articles appear in search results.

• Eight new leaderboards added in the last year: fiction, parenting, humor, fashion & beauty, international, writer favorites, and featured recommenders.

• Expanded search on Substack: Publications covering a wide variety of niche subjects are now easier to discover than ever. 

• New reader onboarding experience: Readers signing up to Substack via our homepage are connected with writers and publications matching their interests.

We’re just getting started. Stay tuned for more to come.