Why Your Substack Isn’t Growing (And How to Fix It)
These actionable strategies are helping me grow by 1,000+ subscribers every month.
You check your subscriber count every day.
It goes up by one, then nothing for a week. You post again. Still no movement. You wonder if you’re wasting your time.
You’re writing regularly. You’re sharing on social media. You’re doing what everyone says to do.
But the audience just isn’t growing.
It starts to feel personal. Maybe you’re not good enough. Maybe your writing doesn’t connect. Maybe other people are just better at this.
I used to feel the same way. But I wasn’t missing talent. I was missing a system. Because once I fixed that, everything changed.
Now I’m averaging over 1,000 new subscribers every 30 days.
No paid ads. No lucky break.
Just a clear process that actually works.
In this newsletter, I’ll show you what strategies actually worked, and how you can apply them to grow your own audience on Substack.
One feature changed everything for me.
It wasn’t a new writing technique. It wasn’t a growth hack. It was something already built into Substack, sitting in the dashboard the whole time.
Recommendations.
To recommend a publication, go to your Substack dashboard, click on “Recommendations,” and choose a few newsletters you enjoy.
As you grow, the people will recommend will also be able to grow their audience. And obviously, the same also works in reverse.
Most writers ignore recommendations. And for months, I did, as well. I thought growth had to come from the outside. Social media. Word of mouth. A big-name shoutout. But I was missing the most reliable growth tool inside the platform itself.
When you recommend another Substack, new subscribers are shown those recommendations right after they subscribe to your newsletter. So, while other people are growing, your subscriber count is increasing, as well.
Substack Notes is one of my best growth tools.
I use it to tell short stories. For example, a kid discovering a love for reading at the library. Two friends talking over coffee. A stranger writing alone in the corner of a cafe. These are moments people recognize. They feel familiar, even if they haven’t lived them exactly.
That familiarity is what makes people stop scrolling.
People like. They comment. They restack. And that activity signals to Substack that the post is interesting, so the algorithm shares my Substack Note with more people. Some of those people click on my name. They check out my profile. And if they like what they see, they subscribe.
None of this happens by accident. It works because I treat Notes like its own kind of writing.
Not just a place to promote, but a place to connect
My growth on Substack didn’t come from luck. Instead, it came from small actions repeated over time.
I networked with writers and got a few new recommendations each week. I posted short stories on Notes.
Here’s a final tidbit of advice I wish someone told me sooner…
You don’t need to do everything at once. Add a few recommendations. Write one good Note this week. Keep it short, but make it count. Say something that matters.
Then do it again.
If you stick with it, growth becomes predictable. You stop hoping, and start building. You stop wondering if your work will reach people, and start seeing it happen.
The tools are here on Substack. So are thousands of readers. The question is whether you’re ready to be found.
And if you are, you’re closer than you think.
If this edition of Writing Wednesdays resonated with you, share it by clicking the restack button. It’s completely free and could give someone the encouragement they’ve been looking for.
Thanks, please 🙏
Matt, your Notes are always delightful. I look forward to reading each one.