How to Write for a Living

How to Write for a Living

6 ways to become notable on Substack by boosting your visibility

Get your Notes soaring skyward.

David McIlroy's avatar
David McIlroy
May 15, 2024
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It’s no secret that I’m a huge fan of Substack.

I’ve been on the platform for close to 2 years. In that time, I’ve grown my audience to around 23,000 subscribers across 3 publications (with thousands more followers on top of that).

If you want to build an email-based audience, Substack is the place to be.


Becoming Notable

One of the most effective ways to grow your audience here is through Notes.

Notes is, for all intents and purposes, the social media wing of Substack. It’s essentially a Twitter feed built into the platform where you can post short-form content and interact with content shared by other users.

Notes has been the primary driver of my audience growth on Substack, along with Recommendations.

However, like every attention-economy-based system (and that’s ultimately what Notes is), some users rise to the top of the visibility pool while others feel like they’re sinking to the bottom.

And nobody wants that.

So what can you do to increase the likelihood of your Notes gaining as much visibility as this one on Substack?

Here are a few simple approaches I use on a daily basis to achieve these kinds of results.

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