How Substack Saved Social Media

Photo by Alex Knight on Unsplash

In the last 12 months, I've:

• Grown my Substack newsletter by 11,000 subscribers

• Gotten 200 paid subscribers on Substack

• Interviewed the Co-Founder of Substack

• Launched a writing cohort on Substack last month

As you know, I quit writing on Medium last July. For a while afterwards I was a shell of myself.

My average monthly Medium views went from 70,000 to 12,000 in two years, and it was a disaster for me professionally. I asked myself questions like:

• "Am I actually a good writer?"

• "Did the internet outgrow me?"

I had a real crisis. At the end on Medium I found myself writing uninspired B.S. that worked in the past, trying to recapture the magic of the glory days. And my views kept tanking. I started writing about, gulp, INTERNET DRAMA. I wrote about a girl who went viral on Twitter for her 13 boyfriend requirements. It got 6,000 views, but I hated writing it.

I felt so ashamed. I was better than this. Because Medium became a dumpster fire, I had to scrape the bottom of the barrel to get attention. So I made a decision. I told myself that my enjoyment is more important than going viral.

And I quit Medium.

I was still making $600 on Medium every month. I had 60,000 followers. I'm sure I could've "played the game" and continued to make money, but you know what?

I hate playing the fucking game.

I've been writing online since 2017, and you know what? I'm tired. Are you tired, too? I'm tired of the clickbait, and the fakeness, and having to "game" the system to get views.

I'm tired of curators determining what I write about.

• Curators like this -> Write about it more

• Curators don't like this -> Don't write about it anymore

That's such a crappy way to determine what to write about, don't you think? What if you loved writing what the curators didn't boost? You should write something because you want to write it, not because curators are more likely to "Boost" it.

Somewhere along the way, Medium really lost itself. It used to be a fun place to write as a blogger. Now you're doomed to obscurity unless you please a faceless booster.

I decided to join Substack last July as a one last ditch prayer to the universe.

Thank God I did.

Substack single-handedly restored my faith in blogging online. "Why is Substack so different, Tom? It's just another blogging platform!" I hear you say.

Well, a few weeks ago I interviewed Hamish McKenzie, the Co-Founder of Substack. He used to work for Tesla, and he told us that Substack is to social media what Tesla is to the automotive industry.

A Tesla is just a normal car. Not revolutionary. But what they did was change the power system, which is VERY revolutionary. Everything in the supply chain changes. Everything at the source of power changes. Instead of digging a well, extracting oil, sending it to a refinery, and then building internal combustion engines.. you just get power from the sun and pump it into a battery.

It's transformative.

Substack changed the game like Tesla by changing the incentives. Instead of earning money from ads or by getting "boosted," you earn money when people pay you for a subscription.

You better be writing some good shit if you want someone to become a paid subscriber. This naturally creates:

• Less clickbait

• Less divisive content

• More enjoyment for the writer

In the summer of 2023 I was an absolute mess. I hated what I used to love: writing! I hated it because the incentives of traditional social media put me on an endless hamster wheel for views. It made me write stuff I hated.

On Substack you see articles do well with titles like "An ode to my shoes." Not clickbait. Not exactly interesting either. But they do well! How? Because the author built a relationship with their audience through weekly emails. There's trust, and love, and appreciation there. There's a relationship.

I'm sorry, but on Medium you can't build a relationship with your audience. Not when 1% of your followers see your post if you aren't boosted.

I'm not even arguing that you can make more money on Substack than Medium.

What I'm arguing is that Substack can give creators more fulfillment.

• It makes writing fun again.

• It helps you create your best writing.

• It gives you an actual relationship with your audience.

I feel like Medium is a bustling, crowded, loud city.

Substack is a cabin in the woods.

And that cabin feels fantastic.

I have a secret.. I actually have a Substack course. And it's bloody brilliant. I made it in May but I haven't had time to promote it because of my Substack cohort in July. So I'm promoting it now.

And I'm doing a special summer sale ending this Friday where you get 25% off the price.

I call this course Substack 1,000 because it's designed to take you from 0 subscribers to 1,000 in less than 6 months. I know, it's a lot to promise, but I've developed a system that will take you there if you follow it step-by-step. I promise you that.

This system helped me grow my Dad and I's newsletter by 770 subscribers in three months.

It's 23-lessons, 3 hours in length, and has 6 modules:

• Module 1: An Introduction to Substack

• Module 2: Setting up your Substack newsletter

• Module 3: Developing your mindset

• Module 4: How to get your first 100 subscribers

• Module 5: How to write world-class articles

• Module 6: How to get 1,000 subscribers

One thing I was SUPER aware of is that a lot of my audience is Medium people. Some have no clue what Substack is, and others feel overwhelmed by it.

Because of that, I added some lessons at the beginning to help complete beginners. I have a 15 minute lesson in Module 1 that shows you what everything is on the Substack website. It's like a grand tour of Substack. It's awesome. I promise.

I also teach you, step by step, how to start your newsletter and what you should and shouldn't turn on. I made it very easy to understand, because I love you all.

Modules 4-6 are where the "meat and potatoes" are, and I promise for anyone who wants to write better Notes, articles, or headlines, these lessons knock it out of the park.

Normally the course is $400, but it's $300 until Friday at 5 PM EST. There's also a 3 month payment plan, and I've lowered that monthly payment down to $125 from $150.

As a special bonus, I'm giving course purchasers:

• Medium Mastery 2023 ($1,000 value)

• 60 interviews with blogging experts ($1,000 value)

• Three 90-Minute Notes Trainings ($150 value)

• 2 months of access to my Discord community ($50 value)

Medium Mastery was my flagship Medium course from 2023, and there's still a lot of good information in there. It's 5+ hours long. I also have 60+ hours of interview footage with blogging experts from past virtual summits I ran the last 5 years.

The 3 Notes trainings teach you, step-by-step, how to write a viral Note of mine. I make them for paid subscribers to my Mind of a Writer newsletter, and I'm adding them on for you here.

My Discord community has 100+ Substackers inside, and we share Notes, articles, get feedback, do monthly Note writing sprints, and get our questions answered about Substack. That's a lot of bonuses and value for $300!

Sign up for Substack 1,000 at a 25% discount right here.

Hurry! This sale ends on Friday, August 23rd, at 5 PM EST.

If you're looking to make writing fun, grow your following quickly, and escape the social media rat race of Medium, Twitter, LinkedIn, and other platforms, get started on Substack before it becomes too saturated.

Let me know if you have any questions by replying to this email.

Cheers.

Tom Kuegler