After you get bigger, the growth trend will be almost entirely linear. Even ACX/Hanania/Henderson links and mentions don't produce much of a visual uptick. See my stats here, I'm about to enter the bottom of the A-list (currently 9k, projected 12k by end of year):
I appreciate this post. I have a modest Substack and write about policy (my professional field of expertise)
An observation: I will comment on Posts and Notes of my "peers" (in terms of sub #s, topic, etc.) and they *do not* Like/Share/Follow/Subscribe/Reply or whatever.
They are free to do as they wish, and they may not care. And I am not owed a reply.
But, I'm like "Really? That many other people care about this specific part of tax policy?" One in particular was a Jewish writer who frequently writes about Jewish topics. Never reply or even "Liked." --shrug--
Anyway, I try to comment on Posts (not Notes) and be generous with Restacks.
The Substack parasocial relationship becomes mutual if you somehow manage to get any attention from other writers. If they like and reply to your comments and restacks of their posts, the Substack algorithm picks up on that and starts showing them your notes and posts in their notes feed. This is my observation.
If you don't get any response, it might be because either the other writer generally doesn't reply (per your description it seems like the other writers you mentioned might be of the low-engagement, post-and-forget B tier type), or your comment sucks in some way - it's not interesting and positive enough for them to like it, it's not interesting and negative enough to reply, or is simply posted too late, when they no longer care.
You can simply check whether the other writers you mention engage with other comments or not, then proceed accordingly.
Yes, this all checks out and helps me better understand my experience. I think the "B" tiers we are discussing do not care about growing an audience. Cool, I ain't gonna help 'em. ;)
"Instead, I think that humans are a lot like Large Language Models like ChatGPT: they read and train their brains on a bunch of content and when prompted, generate text based on what they’ve learned so far."
I agree, but suspect this may be a bit of an unpopular opinion.
This seems pretty plausible to me. I'm at approximately the same level as you, and probably most of my subscribers have come either from Freddie deBoer's Subscriber Writing (A tier) or a recommendation from Helen de Cruz (C tier).
I see your point, but in the same time some substackers are complaining about missing resonance to their post while blocking everyone commenting. This narcissistic behavior of restacking and commenting your own posts doesn't increase the quality of Substack publications. If no one replies, you should rethink your plot!
Restacking your own posts allows you to reach followers who are not subscribers. When you restack with a note, can provide some kind of hook in order to spark their curiosity so they can hopefully click and read your post.
I noticed that higher tier writers are especially likely to follow but not subscribe (including the ones that followed when accepting a DM request), so it's especially important if you want to catch their attention.
After you get bigger, the growth trend will be almost entirely linear. Even ACX/Hanania/Henderson links and mentions don't produce much of a visual uptick. See my stats here, I'm about to enter the bottom of the A-list (currently 9k, projected 12k by end of year):
https://www.emilkirkegaard.com/p/2024-productivity-by-the-numbers
I appreciate this post. I have a modest Substack and write about policy (my professional field of expertise)
An observation: I will comment on Posts and Notes of my "peers" (in terms of sub #s, topic, etc.) and they *do not* Like/Share/Follow/Subscribe/Reply or whatever.
They are free to do as they wish, and they may not care. And I am not owed a reply.
But, I'm like "Really? That many other people care about this specific part of tax policy?" One in particular was a Jewish writer who frequently writes about Jewish topics. Never reply or even "Liked." --shrug--
Anyway, I try to comment on Posts (not Notes) and be generous with Restacks.
The Substack parasocial relationship becomes mutual if you somehow manage to get any attention from other writers. If they like and reply to your comments and restacks of their posts, the Substack algorithm picks up on that and starts showing them your notes and posts in their notes feed. This is my observation.
If you don't get any response, it might be because either the other writer generally doesn't reply (per your description it seems like the other writers you mentioned might be of the low-engagement, post-and-forget B tier type), or your comment sucks in some way - it's not interesting and positive enough for them to like it, it's not interesting and negative enough to reply, or is simply posted too late, when they no longer care.
You can simply check whether the other writers you mention engage with other comments or not, then proceed accordingly.
Yes, this all checks out and helps me better understand my experience. I think the "B" tiers we are discussing do not care about growing an audience. Cool, I ain't gonna help 'em. ;)
"Instead, I think that humans are a lot like Large Language Models like ChatGPT: they read and train their brains on a bunch of content and when prompted, generate text based on what they’ve learned so far."
I agree, but suspect this may be a bit of an unpopular opinion.
Not enough
This seems pretty plausible to me. I'm at approximately the same level as you, and probably most of my subscribers have come either from Freddie deBoer's Subscriber Writing (A tier) or a recommendation from Helen de Cruz (C tier).
I see your point, but in the same time some substackers are complaining about missing resonance to their post while blocking everyone commenting. This narcissistic behavior of restacking and commenting your own posts doesn't increase the quality of Substack publications. If no one replies, you should rethink your plot!
Restacking your own posts allows you to reach followers who are not subscribers. When you restack with a note, can provide some kind of hook in order to spark their curiosity so they can hopefully click and read your post.
I noticed that higher tier writers are especially likely to follow but not subscribe (including the ones that followed when accepting a DM request), so it's especially important if you want to catch their attention.