3 Tips To Start a Successful Substack Newsletter

Linda Lebrun, employee at Substack, gives advice on how to succeed on Substack.

Substack is a popular platform for writers and journalists to publish their content and connect with their audiences. The company has seen immense growth and success and has recently reached 2 million paid subscribers. Behind this success are talented and dedicated employees like Linda Lebrun, who have contributed significantly to the company’s growth and success.

One day, I came across a tweet made by Linda Lebrun who is an employee at Substack. Lebrun’s Twitter is dedicated to increasing education and awareness around Substack, and I found her tweets around Substack to convince me to start writing about my episodes in detail. As soon as I began writing, I developed a liking to the platform and truly believed Linda Lebrun could provide useful tips on how to grow using Substack.

Substack is a platform that allows writers to create and publish newsletters, build an audience, and monetize their content through paid subscriptions. With a user-friendly interface and a range of services, Substack provides a flexible and powerful platform for writers to build their brand, grow their audience, and earn money directly from readers. The platform's 10% fee on subscription revenue is a small price to pay for the editorial, legal, and financial support that Substack provides. Overall, Substack is an excellent platform for writers looking to establish themselves and build a sustainable business model.

If you’re a writer or an artist who feels burnt out by using social media platforms such as Instagram or Facebook that provide little benefit, I highly recommend listening to our episode to learn more about the ways you can use Substack to generate wealth, expand your reach, and create meaningful discussions among your peers.

In our conversation, Linda Lebrun, who works on writer partnerships at Substack, shared insights into the founding of Substack, its services, and how it empowers individuals to use their voices. Linda shared how Substack came into existence and emphasized the importance of individuals using their voices to make a positive impact. She also provided valuable advice for individuals looking to start their own businesses.

3 Pieces of Advice from Linda Lebrun on Creating a Successful Substack

When I asked her how to get started using Substack, she provided three pieces of advice. First, is telling your friends and family, second is consistency, and the third was focused on monetization. With the increasing popularity of Substack, there is growing competition of readers attention. In recognition of this, she says:

“The first thing is, do not be afraid to let people know of what you are doing. Second, the data says that people who are consistent really do much better”.

Linda looked at the analytics and found that the amount of Twitter followers was not strongly correlated to the success of a Substack Newsletter. Consistency on the other hand was much more closely correlated to a successful newsletter.

The third piece of advice Linda Lebrun provided focused on monetization. Linda recommended that creators think of it less transactionally and more relationally. She comments how readers are more likely to support a writer based on their enjoyment of their work rather than wanting to access a particular post with a paywall.

In response, I reflected on one of the recommendations made by Substack. They recommend to not advertise your best content behind a paywall. It can seem like a good idea to create something great and charge for it. However, if it is a good piece of content, it’s much better that it gets circulated widely than only be seen by a select few.

To get all the details on starting a successful Substack newsletter, I recommend checking out the full interview on YouTube, Spotify and Apple Podcasts!