Definitive Guide To Making It On Substack

According to the rules

You like writing? That’s so cute. Here’s how to do it properly, or YOU WILL FAIL ON SUBSTACK!

Photo by Brett Jordan on Unsplash

Step 1: Curate Your Moral Safety

The feed is full of certain takes.

A take is anything that constitutes an opinion delivered with enough authority that nobody asks when you formed it. (Usually five minutes ago or after consulting with a customised LLM.)

These takes are distilled enough that a restack doesn’t feel like much of a risk.

A restack is the fastest way to become responsible for a discourse you barely read.

Better believe that restacking is reputationally binding.

If you even once dare to restack someone who said something questionable in 2022, even if it was ironic or about sourdough, that’s your brand alignment now. Your grandchildren will inherit that sourdough.

Restack only after you’ve scrolled their entire feed and conducted a light forensic audit of their personality, politics, pastry history, and whether they post daily for maximum strategic association.

God forbid you just thought something was funny, or useful, or just like, need to restack to maintain your presence in the Al Gore Rhythm.

Step 2: Develop A Voice That Already Has A Readership

Oh look, a viral take about late stage capitalism and a fortune cookie quote meant to make you feel better about yourself, because that’s what we’re all here for. No one appears to have typed in a fugue state after crying over their own bank account, though.

Need a voice that sounds like it already has a readership and a Linktree. You’d better be someone who knows what they’re talking about.

I practice mine when I’m in the shower.

Start rehearsing your origin story for when journalists inevitably profile you by making sure your early posts can be retroactively framed as intentional. Even the one about your Tesco Clubcard was conceptual groundwork. Do this by making sure your Substack sounds formative, and not like you opened your account after a breakdown, job loss, mania high, or because online mentioned how you get rich off of your writing.

You need a niche, but not one you fell into naturally, as enjoying what you’re doing doesn’t fly here. Need to offer value. Make sure your strategic positioning says you understand market positioning, even though you don’t. Some random on YouTube said you need to be someone who has something to offer, as well as look like you meant this whole trajectory from the start.

If unsure, sound sure. If spiralling, refine the spiral into something quotable. No one wants to restack raw panic unless there’s something in it for them.

Step 3: Understand The Invisible Ropes

You know those velvet ropes they have in museums that cordon off the riff-raff from the goods while also signalling where you’re allowed to stand so you get the right amount of experience as everyone else? Well, they’re here too, only invisible, but that doesn’t matter because every cunt will tell you what your experience should be. It looks a lot like everyone else’s.

Always have a take, okay. Don’t just say how weird something is. That is amateur, and you will get accused of being from Twitter ten years ago or something like that. Need to frame and contextualize a take to imply you’ve read at least three essays first. Even if you formed it while taking a shit.

You were constipated.

Be casually witty. Never try-hard witty. Insightful is good, but it’s more important to sound literate because the illusion of reading widely will carry you further than the act itself.

If you put your PhD credentials in your bio, be aware that you may never again express uncertainty, nor have a sense of humor. Also, everyone will know how much student debt you’re in.

Don’t you dare ramble unless it’s controlled, organic rambling that suggests you have your finger firmly on the pulse of social media hot topics.

Step 4: Master The Metrics Without Looking Like You Care

If you’re ill, post anyway. Consistency builds trust. Trust builds…something. Numbers, I think. We like numbers but never obsess over them because it’s giving insecure.

Even though the entire premise of Substack is that it’s a newsletter platform where people subscribe to receive posts via email, meaning subbing is the number one mechanism behind the platform, like that’s the whole deal, but still everyone cries and cheers about losing or gaining one as if it’s some shocking development, instead of the one metric the whole thing is designed to measure.

One heart.

Two hearts.

Nothing for a while.

It’s probably the time of day. Definitely not your writing. Did you make sure to publish when the majority of your subscriber base are just waking up, going to bed, at lunch, commuting via public transport, at dinner, in the bath, or on the toilet? Because that’s when most people are on their phones now. Check the location of your subs for optimum traction.

If necessary, consider relocating.

But also, posting needs to happen when you’re awake and ready to hit publish, only you have a fucking life, so you should use the schedule thing even though you don’t know where it is or how it works. Then, when you come back online, go straight to check the outcome of said scheduled post and be under or overwhelmed at the response. Then post a note about how you just woke up and saw all this and, Omg thanks, everyone.

Step 5: Perform Transparency Strategically

And if you’ve been too ill to post, make sure to come back and let everyone know you’ve been too ill to post because people really do care about that shit. Mainly because transparency builds intimacy and intimacy builds retention and retention builds revenue, even though you’ve never made a penny. You don’t even have paid subs turned on for gods sake!

Pivot to the type of vulnerability people can relate to. Talk about how one time you doubted yourself, but then you got over it because your period came (male version of hormone fluctuation goes here), and end with a takeaway.

Draft a piece about a childhood memory that shaped the Cluster B personality you are today. Redraft it with a better ending. Delete that because it sounds like you tried too hard. Add a joke so it doesn’t look like you care. Remove the joke because it looks like you care too much about not caring.

Step 6: Optimise Your Humour

Give humour a try, but don’t punch down because nothing says you’re not someone to sub to than 9/11 humour. Also, don’t punch up either, unless it’s fashionable to punch up this week.

Reply to comments in a way that sounds like you, but better. Also, mustn’t look like you’re trying, which is different from not trying, okay. But absolutely try to be zany or well-read without looking like a try-hard.

Someone has posted a line so effortlessly viral it makes you wanna kill yourself. Why doesn’t your brain work like that? It’s also hilarious in a way you’ve not seen anyone else do.

So, you should emulate them. Don’t plagiarise, obviously. Write something more relevant to you. This is your Substack after all, and your community is here for your take and hilariously unique worldview that only you can produce.

Consider writing nothing ever again.

Step 7: Panic About Blacklisting

You’re likely blacklisted if the post didn’t take off. Google “Can you get blacklisted on Substack” and double check your post doesn’t have swearing or anything that might make people uncomfortable because, god fucking forbid, you offend someone.

Documenting your offence makes for great content.

Did you know people can report you here? Read all about a Substacker on Reddit and how their whole account got suspended with no idea why, and no way to contact anyone for a resolution because everything is AI now.

Speaking of AI.

Let’s fucking not.

Go back and tighten that second paragraph. You’ve used too many commas, and they’re incorrectly placed, you illiterate fuck, and you also need to be more concise.

God forbid a think piece has some fucking personality to it. Introduction. Thesis. Three supporting points. Mild self-deprecation. Insight. Call to action. That’s how you write an essay. Don’t forget the call to action, or they’ll forget you exist.

I should tighten that second paragraph.

Final Step: Act Natural

Post a Note. Absolutely do not sit there refreshing to see if it gets a ❤️ within five seconds. And if it doesn’t, delete it after a couple of hours so it doesn’t look suspicious and call it an experiment.

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How fun is Substack?

Completely organic and requires no effort whatsoever.

Anyway.

Going to post this and then pretend I don’t care what happens because I am authentic and creative like that.

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