How to be a better writer, faster, with or without Substack
Let's be honest: the Substack propaganda is awful here.
Hello Friends,
Years ago, I went to a Michelin star dinner with a woman who made herself millions of dollars by creating email lists and dropshipping a product - a digital course. She signed up for one of the largest dropshipping/affiliate marketing platforms in the world. Her story was as compelling as anything you’d hear:
She was a single mother who lost her job due to a chronic illness. She looked everywhere online to find a way to make money to support her family. She discovered affiliate marketing and had nothing to lose.
One morning, she awoke to well over 100,000 likes, subscribes, follows, emails, and, most importantly, money.
How did she do this? I asked, the sweater of my elbow falling into the bowl of soup. She sipped on her Dr. Pepper and said, “emails”.
Oh, it’s that simple. EMAILS.
How do you get people to sign up for your emails?
There are plenty of gurus and $100 per month newsletters on here that will tell you how easy it is. It’s not. It sucks. And I’ll explain why it sucks.
The reason I was at this fancy dinner with this woman who testified to the heavens above that she simply sent emails out to build a following and become the frumpy millionaire before me (no shade, I’m super frumpy, too) is because she had a product to sell. The product she sold: weight loss pills. The weight loss pills would soon be taken off the market. But the getting was so good for a while. I know this because I worked for a company in competition with those weight loss pills.
Now then. You have to have a product. And you need to talk about this product often.
But this is substack, what product are you selling? Your writing. Close. YOU.
You don’t pay for advertisement, you don’t need to hack your way into a strategy. You need to be consistently talking about YOU or your writing.
When we talk about saturated markets, we need to start talking about SUBSTACK WRITING as one of those markets. It’s gross and annoying now.
But there is, nevertheless, a market for it.
Many writers want that get rich/50k subscriber win on here and so they’ll risk it all over again for yet another self-help book. Only this time, they’re doing it on Substack.
All you have to do is be consistent
There will always be the siren call of sharing your substack and growing a community (here, there, everywhere). And I want to be clear: there is room for all of it. But if you want to write, then write. Your audience WILL find you. But making writing part of your hygiene is key.
My favorite book on writing
It will never be a substack newsletter. It’s Stephen King’s On Writing. Here’s why:
I got rid of my T.V. after I read it.
It never speaks down to the reader. It truly is an encourage piece of text that makes you feel like you can and should write when you can and should write.
It is true in having flaws as an author.
It’s super fast with plenty of meat.
I’ll tell you this: to be a better writer, write daily.
Some days you’re going to write garbage (as my very new, very unstable substack is evidence).
Once a block (however tiny or big) hits, embrace it. Walk away and almost forget your login to substack. Just live and breath.
Come on back to your writing and write awful again. Then good again.
Strategizing your content calendar
If you’re going free on Substack, give killer content anyway.
This is because when you put your writing at the forefront, it will pay off. And since you’re not managing any ad spend or growth hacks, you need to double down on making your writing as interesting (if not grammatically correct) as possible.
I’m looking at you, me.
1. Decide how often you’re going to post and when
Notice I didn’t say how often you’re going to write. You need to write daily. I mean post. You need to come up with a schedule for that and commit completely. Do this consistently for a couple of months to really see the score.
This is me being totally unhinged because I couldn’t get my strategy together—>
2. Respond to Substack articles you like
Honestly, I am pleasantly shocked at how many GREAT WRITERS there on here. If you like someone, tell them. It is truly good for the writer’s soul.
A subscription gets you:
• A fast email that reads like it is from your friend
• FREE ARC of my novel, TERRIBLE HIDING PLACES: A NOVEL
• FREE access to chat my dumb ass up anytime.
• An invite to jump on a do-it-ourselves podcast to discuss writing
• Weekly boosts
3. Share your substack articles to X and the like
You can’t not.
• Posting a beautiful piece of writing means sharing it too.
I used to work for a company that told us that distribution was just as important as the act of writing itself.
Obviously, as writers, we don’t want this to be true. But it is. As soon as you can, share a link to your work— literally anywhere. Just do it all the time, consistently, and then get back to focusing on your writing.
A quick note from Emma K. Wallace
It feels as if everything is CONTENT and everyone needs and AUDIENCE otherwise, as writers, we will all curl up and die.
