10 Vital Mistakes I Found After Reviewing 500+ Substack Profiles

Inspiration and Education: Why are they problems, and how can we rectify them?

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I also published this important article on Medium and my website. Thank you for sharing it with the beginners in your circles.

Image designed by the author with a photo from Pexels

Dear friends, Happy weekend! Today, I want to share some key findings of my recent observations on Substack to guide and inspire. If you are a new writer, understanding the key messages of this story is critical for your success. This can be useful for established writers, too, especially for those who struggle to find paid subscribers.

Every platform or tool requires some effort and time investment. No matter how friendly or effective a platform is, taking it for granted is a big mistake. Each platform is unique and requires a different strategy, plan, and tactics to become successful. Substack is no exception to this rule. However, mistakes are natural and essential for growth. Rather than mistakes, I call them lessons learned daily using a cognitive restructuring technique.

Over the last 12 months, I have had the privilege of reviewing and completing health checks for over 500 Substack profiles or publications created by my proteges and collaborators as a giveback activity or as a low-cost service of my Substack Mastery Boost Pilot. My findings helped those freelance writers grow fast; some even became bestsellers.

I also used the findings of my observations and interactions in my Content Strategy Marketing Insights publication and two books about Substack. I link them here if you are interested in checking them out:

Substack Mastery (most chapters are available for free on Multiple platforms)

A Powerful Toolkit for Advanced Substack Newsletter Mastery

All my books in digital and audio formats are uploaded to my relevant publications on Substack. You can find Substack books on the Content Strategy Marketing Insights publication.

Through this extensive experience, I identified more than 100 different issues. However, in this post, I will highlight the top 10 mistakes. Correcting these mistakes can significantly enhance your publication’s performance and growth.

I will briefly explain the patterns I observed among beginners who struggled and the patterns among bestselling authors who excelled, which offer valuable insights. I will ask a few prompting questions to inspire you to think about each finding, aiming to make it a helpful piece for you.

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Mistake #1. Underestimating the Impact of Substack Notes

I start with this one, as growing on this platform can be very difficult without using Substack Notes unless you bring your audience from other platforms.