I appreciate the post is trying to help but I find it lacking substance or detail, so I'll share my findings (as it's about enlarging the share of the pie for everybody):
1) Use data from free email unsubscriptions to determine if you're publishing 'too frequently' (it is also a warning flag for low quality content). I've found that publi…
I appreciate the post is trying to help but I find it lacking substance or detail, so I'll share my findings (as it's about enlarging the share of the pie for everybody):
1) Use data from free email unsubscriptions to determine if you're publishing 'too frequently' (it is also a warning flag for low quality content). I've found that publishing once every three days (for my style of content) minimises the rates of unsubscription. In contrast, I found publishing daily drove a spike in unsubscriptions because the email notifications are seen as spam.
2) Use data from free email subscriptions to determine how long an article should 'stew' for. If an article is popular and you keep seeing additional free subscriptions, *don't* publish a new article, as the new article "bumps off" the older one. Instead, observe for when the free subscriptions start to 'peter out' and *then* publish.
As an analogy, it's a bit like a comedian who tells a joke. If the audience laughs, let them finish laughing before you tell the next joke. If you try to force the next joke, they either don't hear it, or you interrupt the laughter. If, however, the audience doesn't laugh... you need to tell a new, better joke quickly!
3) Don't affix yourself to a specific time. International audiences will have crazy different timezones. So your 3am publish might be their late evening. I've tried to datamine best time of day... it seems to be *for the audience* their best time of day is either early morning or late evening... but because of timezone differences, you won't be able to "hit" that mark most cases, so don't worry.
4) Don't affix yourself to a specific day. Unless you're writing something that is synchronised (say you analyse the DOW or you need to publish a report before XYZ event)... don't worry because readers will get notified. Yes, you could publish weekends only, but people will want to go outside, relax and do other things, where as, during weekdays, they might sneak a read at your Substack during work.
Quality of feed and an even pace (but not too frequent) seems crucial.
5) Oh... and market your Substack in places where it is relevant and people will be interested. If your Substack is based on knitting, suggest it to knitting groups. If it's based on flowers, suggest it to flower groups. Don't try to throw it out at random; find targeted interest groups first.
I'm not as big as other Substackers, but I am one that is built from the ground up.
Great advice, thanks. Really useful. I particularly get the point about time zones. I aim (just to give myself a certain working rhythm) to post early on Fridays. But as I'm in Tokyo, that actually means Thursday evening in the US. And nighttime in Europe. So there seems little point in fretting over timing.
BTW for planning my content (which are essays that need some research) I use Notion, which comes with ready-made templates for content publication.
RE: 4) the only thing you could do is to look at the highest number of subscribers for one region and time it for morning or evening for those, but to be honest I think that over time if you build a good audience then they will make time to read your content, be it upon immediate delivery or in the immediate days after.
I appreciate the post is trying to help but I find it lacking substance or detail, so I'll share my findings (as it's about enlarging the share of the pie for everybody):
1) Use data from free email unsubscriptions to determine if you're publishing 'too frequently' (it is also a warning flag for low quality content). I've found that publishing once every three days (for my style of content) minimises the rates of unsubscription. In contrast, I found publishing daily drove a spike in unsubscriptions because the email notifications are seen as spam.
2) Use data from free email subscriptions to determine how long an article should 'stew' for. If an article is popular and you keep seeing additional free subscriptions, *don't* publish a new article, as the new article "bumps off" the older one. Instead, observe for when the free subscriptions start to 'peter out' and *then* publish.
As an analogy, it's a bit like a comedian who tells a joke. If the audience laughs, let them finish laughing before you tell the next joke. If you try to force the next joke, they either don't hear it, or you interrupt the laughter. If, however, the audience doesn't laugh... you need to tell a new, better joke quickly!
3) Don't affix yourself to a specific time. International audiences will have crazy different timezones. So your 3am publish might be their late evening. I've tried to datamine best time of day... it seems to be *for the audience* their best time of day is either early morning or late evening... but because of timezone differences, you won't be able to "hit" that mark most cases, so don't worry.
4) Don't affix yourself to a specific day. Unless you're writing something that is synchronised (say you analyse the DOW or you need to publish a report before XYZ event)... don't worry because readers will get notified. Yes, you could publish weekends only, but people will want to go outside, relax and do other things, where as, during weekdays, they might sneak a read at your Substack during work.
Quality of feed and an even pace (but not too frequent) seems crucial.
5) Oh... and market your Substack in places where it is relevant and people will be interested. If your Substack is based on knitting, suggest it to knitting groups. If it's based on flowers, suggest it to flower groups. Don't try to throw it out at random; find targeted interest groups first.
I'm not as big as other Substackers, but I am one that is built from the ground up.
Great advice, thanks. Really useful. I particularly get the point about time zones. I aim (just to give myself a certain working rhythm) to post early on Fridays. But as I'm in Tokyo, that actually means Thursday evening in the US. And nighttime in Europe. So there seems little point in fretting over timing.
BTW for planning my content (which are essays that need some research) I use Notion, which comes with ready-made templates for content publication.
All very good points.
RE: 4) the only thing you could do is to look at the highest number of subscribers for one region and time it for morning or evening for those, but to be honest I think that over time if you build a good audience then they will make time to read your content, be it upon immediate delivery or in the immediate days after.
Thank you! Very interesting, especially 1 and 2.
Great advice! Also, advice that actually makes sense!