90 Comments

The past 30 days, 59% of all my subscribers and 10% of my paid subscribers came through the Substack network.

The Recommendations launch was huge, and has effectively tripled the growth of my newsletter. I love how it's writer controlled and we could make some existing writer relationships "official" and forge new ones.

Keep on shipping awesome features helping platform discoverability and writers helping each other!

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As a long-time writer and producer I feel more looked-after than ever in my career. I have spent a year building slowly (sometimes one sign-up per day was the goal) my newsletter, and in the past four weeks the Recommendations option and these other strategies have kicked in and the newsletter seems to be gaining its own momentum. That is exciting (and a little disconcerting to be honest!) I really do feel that as hard as I'm working, Substack is doing a lot of heavy lifting to support my writing. The Substack Grow and Go trainings and networks have been valuable and have kept me going during the slow times. And now the network truly seems to have my back as the sign-ups roll in and I just carry on with the deep reading, thinking, and writing on my topic of classic literature. All of that to say - yes, grateful. Thank you.

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I feel the exact same way. It feels so good to be so supported as a writer!

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Wow. Thank you for taking the time to send us this note. It means a lot to hear this from you!

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Of course! It is all true and I could say much more!

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I’m super grateful for the ecosystem Substack has built and the community you’ve fostered — I *might* be writing my newsletter without it, but I wouldn’t be having nearly as much fun.

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988 of my 5,087 newsletter subscribers came from within the Substack network. That means 1/5th of my subscribers I would not have been able to find on my own!

Not to mention, there are 107 publications recommending my newsletter right now which have added hundreds of subscribers to my newsletter. It is so crazy to me that there are that many people who would recommend my newsletter to a friend. I could never have imagined!

All of this is to say I feel very supported as a writer here. And I love being able to support writers I love too. And all we have to do is read and write! Substack handles the rest!

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That's really great.

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Wow Elle that is an incredible # of recommenders!

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It’s truly shocking!

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Over 40% of both my paid folks and total list came through Substack. I am incredibly grateful for the ways in which Substack helps my platform grow, since I'm not great at promotion and would rather just be free to write. I still have to promote myself, but it's nice to know how much Substack is helping.

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27% of my subscribers already had an account on Substack 👍

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Yep! I'm seeing a significant increase in my new subscribers coming in from the Substack network, vs. the website I built my newsletter from, which has driven most of my new subscribers.

When I first came to Substack, that site drove about 94% of my new subscribers; over the last 30 days, it has driven 63%, so that's great to see.

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Wonderful Terrell! Thank you for going on this journey with Substack, and sticking with us so long.

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The feeling is mutual! It's been a blast to be a part of, and I'm really grateful you guys are there, and have made it what it is. Even though we haven't met in person, it's been great to meet and get to know so many of you over Zoom/email/etc. Really excited to see where things go.

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I have generated hundreds of subscribers for others and hundreds of subscribers have been generated for me, you guys rock!

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So grateful to be writing here. I have felt authentically supported by Substack since day one. It gives me hope that the internet is reshaping itself toward collectivism, reciprocity, and interdependency. I just hope substack is mindful of replicating harmful strategies with things like leaderboards. Curation comes at a cost. Small publications might be producing exquisite work, so numbers don’t necessarily equal value or quality. Please keep this in mind. The pressure to scale just so you can be visible is exactly why so many of us left Medium, etc. thanks!!

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True. I think quality is the USP of Substack. This differentiates it from other content creation platforms.

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This. Content ranking and algorithms do more harm than good. Keep it organic. Keep it equitable.

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Over the past 90 days, I have received 42 new paying subscribers. Of that, exactly 21 have come from non-substack sites and 50% have been due to substack's features. I charge $5 a month in the fiction space (https://shortstory.substack.com). I also publish monthly stats on new free signups and new paid signups if anyone is interested. Lastly, as others have mentioned, recommendations really are an amazing new feature. If anyone here wants to get a free paid 1 year subscription in exchange for a recommendation, just let me know! My email is shortstorystack@gmail.com and I don't bite!

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Amazing amount of paid subscribers!

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I calculated it just now: 22% of my total subscriber base comes from the Substack Network! That's huge. Recommendations has been especially helpful for my growth.

Thanks for these tools and the ones you're currently working on!

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There is nothing but consistent support from Substack, and the community you have built for us is terrific. I believe the vast majority of my subscriptions are from within your network—thanks!

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Substack has a great vibe. Could we be called substackaphiles or stackaphiles or subaphiles? Just thinking out loud... I like the middle one. Cheers

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The ecosystem that had been built seems to be working exactly as intended which is amazing to see.

Personally I think Substack is one of the few *actually* innovative tech companies around today. When the business model is not predicated on ad dollars, time on app, gamification and all of that other nonsense it seems that you can make moves that actually benefit the consumer and creator alike, rather than addicting them and make them cheapen their art to make the metrics move.

I don’t think people realise how huge this is. Not only are their people making a living via Substack (I’m one of them) but there are people making a living putting out stuff that is *weird* rather than mere crowd pleasing ‘content’

Substack makes ‘1000 true fans’ a real possibility.

So kudos to the whole team.

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A huge portion of my free subscribers came via the network. Almost all of my paid subscribers did. Recommendations are now driving a steady number of signups as well.

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I am surprised that 12% of my subscriptions are from Substack because I don’t think I show up on the leaderboards anymore because I write erotic lit 😂. Love this community though!!

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