How To Get More People To Read Your Substack Articles
(5 fixes for writers who hate marketing)
If you opened this, you might be over there thinking…
“BLERGH! Why aren’t people reading my articles? I spent so much time, I poured my heart and soul into it and I just don’t get why people aren’t reading these. Substack is supposed to be a long-form friendly platform. I’m writing long-form. So what’s happening??”
Come hither.
Let’s have a chat.
Because I feel your pain.
Writing is about a lot of things.
It’s about being vulnerable. It’s about sharing your journey. It’s about giving the reader something they can leave with, remember, even something that changes their lives if you did it right.
So if it’s all of these things, where do you even start? And better yet… how do you make it easier?
In this post I want to give you some simple reframes to apply to your posts… well actually, to your whole publication, to get you on the right track and moving toward your goals.
Here’s the first place to start…
You gotta Zoom OUT.
Put the pen down for a second. Stop click-clackin’ on your ‘pooter. You need a plan. Even if you thought you had a plan (and you probably have a grand plan — something amazing. But it’s time to break down that plan into tiny bites for everyone to digest.
By ZOOM OUT, what I mean is this:
What is the PROMISE of your entire publication?
Take a moment. Think about all of the posts that you’ve written and all the posts you want to write. What is the outcome you want the exact person who came to your publication for the right reasons (the reasons you envision them coming for) to have?
Is it… a plan for XX?
Is it… answers for XX?
Is it a list of things to do?
Is it just ONE thing to do?
Is it action items or something to ponder?
Is it a way (specifically) to think differently about something?
Once you answer that, you can zoom back in.
Next you should think about what those answers are. There might be a few. What are specific, tangible one-at-a-time things you can give to them through your articles?
I like to think of it like a little baby. Picture a 1-year old baby. Maybe 15-months. She’s trying to learn how to communicate. And you envision that one day she’s going to give a speech at Harvard when she graduates. But today she still needs to say “mama” and “dada” and “more” when she wants more mashed up banana.
You can’t teach her the stuff she’s not ready for yet.
So often I see writers trying to cram everything into just one article. You just want your reader to really get it. Get that thing you already know. But by cramming more into the article, that makes it harder for them to take action, even if it’s a new idea or a new realization.
Especially in today’s day and age when everywhere you look there is content. I honestly feel like we’re FULL. We’ve got TOO MUCH. We need bite-sized pieces.
Ok — so how do you do that??
For each post you just gotta just pick one thing based on the promise of your entire publication.
Let’s break it down.
Here are the five fixes starting with the first one I just talked about:
Your publication needs a promise — what does someone get from subscribing, in one sentence? If you can’t finish “every week, I help ___ do ___,” your readers can’t either. This is the zoom-out most people skip.
Every post needs its own promise related to the overarching promise — the diagnostic: “after reading this, you’ll be able to/realize/take action on ___.” If you can’t finish that sentence before you start writing, you have a brain dump, not a post.
The title of your post has to state the promise, not hint at it — this is the biggest mistake I see on Substack. Clever titles lose to clear ones, but most people are using clever. Most likely because titling is hard and AI does it for you, and you pick the first one it gave you. Instead, I want you to ask yourself if that title would make you want to open it. Here are a few of my best titles. The first one: don’t you want to know what you’re skipping? The second one makes you think, “WTF is a ‘worldview manifesto’ and why should I post that instead of a Note??” it is curiosity-provoking but it gives you an idea of what you’re going to get inside, and there’s an outcome wrapped up into it.
Your format has to deliver the promise — listicle, deep-dive, case study, Dear Abbey — the format is the container that holds the promise. Wrong container, broken promise. Format makes things easier to write (and understand in some cases) too and can be totally tied to the outcome you’re trying to achieve (more on that in my next post so make sure you’re subscribed!)
One CTA, and only one — at the end of your post, you want to ask your readers to do something. What do you want them to do? Comment? Share the post? Go and read another post that will deepen what they just got from this one? Give them one call-to-action and that’s it. Don’t give too many things to do at the end, and save that CTA for the thing you really want them to do.
This is sort of marketing. Well, it is marketing. But in this case we’ll just call it writing with direction.
When the architecture’s right, people understand what they’re there for and what they’re going to get. A lot of times it just takes a few tweaks.
Then the “marketing” mostly happens on its own because people share posts that delivered what they promised. How cool is that?
Want to go deeper on this, and plan out the architecture and outcome of your Substack? Go read this: Stuck on Substack? Stop Writing. Start Designing.
Tracy, this is such a useful piece because you make marketing feel less like self-promotion and more like honoring the reader’s time. I appreciate the emphasis on promise, because many writers begin with what they want to say before clarifying what the reader will receive, realize, or be able to do afterward. The baby-learning-to-speak image works especially well, since it captures how easily writers can overload one post with material the reader has not yet been prepared to carry. Grateful for this clear reminder that good writing needs direction, architecture, and one faithful promise delivered well.
Clarity is one of those things that people talk about often but no one seems to actually follow.
I love how you broke this down because I think it can be confusing at first. And forcing yourself to know what the exact promise of your post is before you write it is the thing that helps you write a coherent article.
Great job 💪