Followers vs Subscribers

Lesson Six of How to Become a Fiction Writer on Substack

Today’s article addresses everyone as is this is a current and ongoing issue.

If you’ve come to these lessons from outside Substack, though, I still ask you to:

What’s the deal with followers, anyway? It’s an ongoing question. It came up again today, but today, an insider answered.

Dave Pell asked:

And Mills Baker answered:

It’s a very long answer, but it basically boils down to this. Some of the people who follow you would have subscribed if they had not other choice. (He calls this number X".) Some people subscribe to you ONLY because they had the opportunity to follow you first. (This is Y.)

If X > Y then you’re losing subscribers and Substack is losing money.

If Y > X then you’re gaining more subscribers than you would have otherwise, and Substack is making money.

But I have my own viewpoint to share:

If you really don’t like the idea of followers, go to your profile. Click on edit profile. Scroll down to where you can toggle your publications and take it off your profile. Hide it. When you check your follower count on that publication, it will have immediately dropped down to your number of subscribers. Is that what you want? To limit your reach?

No, it’s not.

Do we want those followers to become subscribers? Yes, we do, but even if they don’t, they are part of our reach. When we share our posts, their interaction expands our reach to their subscribers and followers. Our narrow world expands.

Let’s assume that your author Substack has 100 subscribers and 500 followers. As part of following my marketing plan, you start at least one more substack. How many subscribers does it have? One. How many followers? 500.

Okay, you can see the power of followers in helping to ease the loneliness of creating a new Substack, but what if you’re not following my plan? What if you don’t want to create a second Substack? How should you view followers then?

My, you’re full of questions.

Photo by Immo Wegmann on Unsplash

Imagine a target with Founding Subscribers at its very center. Just outside of the small circle is a broader circle, your Paid Subscribers. The circle beyond that is your free subscribers. What’s beyond that?

The most attention and the greatest benefit should be given those in our innermost circles. The inner circle will appreciate the focus, and those on the outside will be drawn in, wanting to be part of that inner circle.

But we need those outer circles to draw from. Some people found success drawing from Twitter in the early days. Some draw from Instagram. Some Youtube. That’s a lot though, to put on new publication, to have to build up that pool of potential subscribers in some entirely new platform.

While I argue that we will always want to look to draw in from the outside, Substack gives us its own social media where we can cultivate a pool of potential subscribers. We call those Followers. They are that next circle

I have 59 times more followers on Twitter than I do on notes. I should, I’ve been on Twitter for 15 years, heavily active, and there were days when that interaction was incredibly strong. Now, though, my relatively small circle of influence on Notes is a much stronger source of subscribers than Twitter can hope to be.

Without followers I have no greater sphere of influence here beyond my subscribers. My only hope is for them to interact and thereby share my posts with their subscribers, but I have a greater sphere of influence. My subscribers have a greater sphere of influence. Our power is multiplied.

Yes, we wish every follower were a subscriber, and yes many of us wish every subscriber were a paying subscriber—or even a founding subscriber—but we can’t imagine that taking away the option to follow would make it so.

Spheres of influence bring us exposure.

Exposure allows us to prove our worth.

Worth drives subscriptions at all levels.

The solution is to focus on your worth.

Well, that’s the end of the article.

Until next time,

I’m Thaddeus Thomas