Anyone here making money with SUBSTACK?

If so, enlighten us with how you promote your substack account, how you engage your readers, and please share any monetization optimization tips you may have learned the hard way.

Thank you in advance!

I'm interested too. There's a blogging subreddit and one guy keeps plugging this Substack as the end-all be-all of making money with blogging now. I want to see some proof.

what is substack? never saw before

I was a subscriber to a few substacks during the pandemics.

It's nothing special, just a newsletter. Depending on how well you connect with your audience you can convert readers to a paid subscription.

pocketttt said:

what is substack? never saw before

Click to expand...

It's essentially a Patreon for bloggers I guess? Lol.

blackbeans said:

If so, enlighten us with how you promote your substack account, how you engage your readers, and please share any monetization optimization tips you may have learned the hard way.

Thank you in advance!

Click to expand...

Friday the weekend I got an substack email with links to others (sources) one was a women who has a audio podcast and make 6 figure with that, damm I deleted this email too fast into the trash folder.

It sounds nice you create good content having 100 paid subcribers you set the price at $9 so you make $900 every month.
But I heard it's hard to get 100 paid subs or more, I not have a clue how some people make 6 figures with substack , so need 10.000 subs or more to reach 6 figures a year depend on the price you set.

I have not found a good guide on the web over the weekend.Type in podcast in google and all is full with youtube podcast (video podcast) which is not really a podcast, a podcast is only audio.

For me it looks like videos ranking good and have good amount of views in youtube video podcasts too.
But only audio podcasts not in youtube.

So for substack which content works best? Articles, audio podcasts, video podcasts, long form content?
Are substack paid subscribers stubborn staying within that circle or are they open minded to click on the link in your substack profile, who is going to your website where you offer your services ?

Getting clients with substack ?
Good free method to get fast 100 substack paid subscribers every month ?
To get paid from subscribers you need a Stripe account ?

I wonder people today are crazy about third party platforms follow them all (most of them) but when you do this model on your own website, also have a paywall behind your content thi swill be a hard way to get 100 paid subs within one year I guess, but with these third party platforms not. It's silly, manipulated human behaviors ?

These are my questions today...

Marco69 said:

Friday the weekend I got an substack email with links to others (sources) one was a women who has a audio podcast and make 6 figure with that, damm I deleted this email too fast into the trash folder.

It sounds nice you create good content having 100 paid subcribers you set the price at $9 so you make $900 every month.
But I heard it's hard to get 100 paid subs or more, I not have a clue how some people make 6 figures with substack , so need 10.000 subs or more to reach 6 figures a year depend on the price you set.

I have not found a good guide on the web over the weekend.Type in podcast in google and all is full with youtube podcast (video podcast) which is not really a podcast, a podcast is only audio.

For me it looks like videos ranking good and have good amount of views in youtube video podcasts too.
But only audio podcasts not in youtube.

So for substack which content works best? Articles, audio podcasts, video podcasts, long form content?
Are substack paid subscribers stubborn staying within that circle or are they open minded to click on the link in your substack profile, who is going to your website where you offer your services ?

Getting clients with substack ?
Good free method to get fast 100 substack paid subscribers every month ?
To get paid from subscribers you need a Stripe account ?

I wonder people today are crazy about third party platforms follow them all (most of them) but when you do this model on your own website, also have a paywall behind your content thi swill be a hard way to get 100 paid subs within one year I guess, but with these third party platforms not. It's silly, manipulated human behaviors ?

These are my questions today...

Click to expand...

I keep seeing posts/tiktoks about people making money with Substack

From what I can gather, it's all about building multiple income streams from your one substack "brand"

You can upsell book, get subscribers, sell premium memberships, even do POD

I tried to build a free newsletter where I share my biz dev experience and no BS. Substack restricted the whole thing saying problems with subscribers (even though they all came from their platform) and after multiple failed attempts to get the support to solve the issue, they banned my account.

Tried to do some white hate thing after a long time, and it went arse over tits in the beginning.

blackbeans said:

I keep seeing posts/tiktoks about people making money with Substack

From what I can gather, it's all about building multiple income streams from your one substack "brand"

You can upsell book, get subscribers, sell premium memberships, even do POD

Click to expand...

bonzo90 said:

congrats on the 330 uploads that is a lot of videos glad to see you are sticking with it and finding success

Click to expand...

But how to promote this substack? On twitter, facebook or does substack itself will bring the traffic like as medium ?
Does a substack convert good with direct affiliate links , like many affiliate marketers do it on twitter and youtube ,pinterest....?

Little downside with all these third party platforms: I want the twitter traffic going to my own website or going to the direct affiliate link, instead that the twitter traffic goes to a platform like substack- you should build your own business, your seo rankings, your list, not build a busienss for others...
(I hope you understand my meanings)

blackbeans said:

I keep seeing posts/tiktoks about people making money with Substack

From what I can gather, it's all about building multiple income streams from your one substack "brand"

You can upsell book, get subscribers, sell premium memberships, even do POD

Click to expand...

This is I not understand, does the substack platform sharesvpromote my content to others,target people?

Or must I bring myself my own followers from FB or Twitter to my substack to convert them into paid subscribers?

The same with audio podcasts, where I get listeners and paid subscribers?

I not understand these concepts, a platform where I can upload my content, but they mit have own traffic base like Medium,Twitter or FB, I must do all the promotion stuff myself .

So these platforms like Tiktok too, exist to bring my social media followers and traffic to them, not to my own website...

I just received a substack system email saying that people on their platform are making six figures

Yep these platforms telling you such fairy tales that you will make six figures with them, be honest, they not telling you that the traffic (most of them) stays on the platform and will not going to your external website.

So with this in mind, most platforms exist to do exact this. Or you must bring your traffic and followers from your Twitter (example) platform to them- not to your own website.
Another genius wef strategy from these rich genius elite- right?

Ok, at the end you only have to options to get traffic to your website to get leads or make cold traffic sales;
paying for ads or have good seo skills to get a decent ranking.

My theory is when you use substack and promote it on your FB or Twitter , th efree organic traffic or your follower traffic will then go to substack instead to your own website.

Interesting is substack shows on their website a few references:

"The Bear Cave
One year after starting The Bear Cave without a pre-existing audience, Edwin Dorsey was earning more than $300,000 a year on Substack."

"Bari Weiss
Six months after starting a Substack, Bari Weiss has more than 90,000 readers. Her annual revenues are more than $800,000 a year, and rising."

"The Charlotte Ledger
Tony Mecia, a local news veteran in NC, turned on subscriptions for his Substack after one year of writing. In 2021, the Charlotte Ledger is on pace to
earn $175,000 in annual revenue."

"Emily Atkin of Heated
Emily Atkin started her publication on the climate crisis in late 2019. Six months later, she was earning a six figure salary and focusing on the publication full-time."

Then I ask myself why most of us here on BHW struggle to make it to six figures with substack ?
And think deeper, how these people (references) done that, all on free organic traffic, or doing poromotion , or do they have a media agency behind their back, or doe they had a good social media follower base before ?

Is there no a good blueprint guide to show you how make six figures on substack within six months ? A good guidet/ wso would be real helpful.

Marco69 said:

My theory is when you use substack and promote it on your FB or Twitter , th efree organic traffic or your follower traffic will then go to substack instead to your own website.

Interesting is substack shows on their website a few references:

"The Bear Cave
One year after starting The Bear Cave without a pre-existing audience, Edwin Dorsey was earning more than $300,000 a year on Substack."

"Bari Weiss
Six months after starting a Substack, Bari Weiss has more than 90,000 readers. Her annual revenues are more than $800,000 a year, and rising."

"The Charlotte Ledger
Tony Mecia, a local news veteran in NC, turned on subscriptions for his Substack after one year of writing. In 2021, the Charlotte Ledger is on pace to
earn $175,000 in annual revenue."

"Emily Atkin of Heated
Emily Atkin started her publication on the climate crisis in late 2019. Six months later, she was earning a six figure salary and focusing on the publication full-time."

Then I ask myself why most of us here on BHW struggle to make it to six figures with substack ?
And think deeper, how these people (references) done that, all on free organic traffic, or doing poromotion , or do they have a media agency behind their back, or doe they had a good social media follower base before ?

Is there no a good blueprint guide to show you how make six figures on substack within six months ? A good guidet/ wso would be real helpful.

Click to expand...

It is easy to get baited into this because most people don't understand the trick.
What trick?
The trick is to leverage keywords when you have high authority. So for influencers with a lot of power they can just choose to talk about any trend like substack but it is just a trending topic to talk about. It is just a keyword and they leverage the trending topic to draw people in.
Think about it like this. Take a very competitive keyword:
Make passive income online
So this is very hard to rank for even for popular influencers.
Something less competitive that is trending perhaps:
Substack
Now influencers start to smell money because if substack starts to associate with MMO keywords then you get like a snowball effect.
So substack is just a name that is leveraged to suck people in and the goal is to get subs and affiliate link clicks etc. CTA whatever.
The thing we are missing?
Taking the long journey and build authority.

For once, I can claim expertise in this field!

Substack is a platform that enables bloggers and journalists alike to create their own publishing platform, with or without a paywall.

The platform pays for itself through subscriptions.

To generate engagement, in fact, a great deal is done on LinkedIn, and the recipes are the same as for blogs/content sites: promote on social networks, do guest posts, make promotional offers if your articles are behind a paywall.

To create subscriptions - which means making people want to give you money every month - you really need to have an active community, which is why a lot of journalists do this. We already have a community.

For whom Substack is not at all suitable:
- affiliate/dropshipping (forget it);
- those who want to have their hands on the technical side (that's why I'm not on it);
- those who want to promote video/photo content (Patreon is more suitable).

For whom Substack is suitable:
- freelance journalists who want to monetize their articles (yes, we eat every day too);
- bloggers;
- those with no tech profile at all;
- those with a specific B2B community;
- those who are really able to produce content on a very regular schedule to engage their community.

The buddy who uses Substack publishes a weekly newsletter.

Alternative to Substack: Gumroad, which is pretty good and which I had seriously considered. The only reason I didn't pursue it was that the VAT rate wasn't customizable, and I have a separate VAT rate (not 20%).

Marco69 said:

But how to promote this substack? On twitter, facebook or does substack itself will bring the traffic like as medium ?
Does a substack convert good with direct affiliate links , like many affiliate marketers do it on twitter and youtube ,pinterest....?

Little downside with all these third party platforms: I want the twitter traffic going to my own website or going to the direct affiliate link, instead that the twitter traffic goes to a platform like substack- you should build your own business, your seo rankings, your list, not build a busienss for others...
(I hope you understand my meanings)

Click to expand...

To promote your Substack, you can invest mainly in Twitter and LinkedIn. Your target markets are professional networks, B2B and, of course, email marketing.

No, it's not at all suitable for affiliate or dropshipping.

No, Substack doesn't take care of your communication; the platform provides a technical solution and that's where it ends.

blackbeans said:

I just received a substack system email saying that people on their platform are making six figures

Click to expand...

Yes, but as with all other platforms (Twitch springs to mind), this is far from the majority.

Alpha1404 said:

For once, I can claim expertise in this field!

Substack is a platform that enables bloggers and journalists alike to create their own publishing platform, with or without a paywall.

Click to expand...

Any ideas on how to grow reader base?

As for a classic blog: engaging content, promotions on social networks, etc.
Depending on your niche, I'd tell you to get involved on LinkedIn and leave one or two pieces of content freely accessible, just to bait the crowds.
And if you have a professional niche, there's nothing to stop you from doing some email marketing.
For example: "You're a decision-maker in such and such a field. By subscribing to my newsletter/Substack, you won't miss out on any information vital to the development of your business".

Alpha1404 said:

As for a classic blog: engaging content, promotions on social networks, etc.
Depending on your niche, I'd tell you to get involved on LinkedIn and leave one or two pieces of content freely accessible, just to bait the crowds.
And if you have a professional niche, there's nothing to stop you from doing some email marketing.
For example: "You're a decision-maker in such and such a field. By subscribing to my newsletter/Substack, you won't miss out on any information vital to the development of your business".

Click to expand...

I am unwilling to sacrifice my professional linkedin profile to shill a substack though.. I guess I could advertise on linkedin

sofia_djaro said:

I am unwilling to sacrifice my professional linkedin profile to shill a substack though.. I guess I could advertise on linkedin

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Blogging on Linkedin and making direct contact will bring you return (ROI), Substack not, it's only for journalists nort fo rthe mass of bloggers, influencers, business coaches, affiliates whatsoever.

Happy sunday!

Have you thought about other newsletter platforms that’s not substack?