The Right-Reader Method: Part 2

The original posts 5 & 7 in a streamlined format, plus new material

FIVE

Substack metrics are lovely when we’re getting started. They give us the feedback we need to feel like we’re accomplishing something, and I couldn’t be more grateful for the positive feedback loop they created. Having said that, they can be a trap.

Know your goals. Base your decisions on those goals, not chasing the next point in the Substack video game.

What are your writing goals and what goals do you have for Substack in helping you achieve those goals? How much time do you want to give to Substack and what do you expect in return?

To answer the question about time, it might be important to know how long your newsletter should be and how frequently it should come out. According to this article at reletter.com, when considering all LinkedIn newsletters and all free Substack newsletters, the average had a length of 451 words and published every 19 days. The top 50 publications, however, averaged 871 words every 13 days.

They couldn’t gather information on paid newsletters because of paywalls.

You could have a Trojan horse publication and an author website, post weekly on both, and still have time to work on your fiction and maintain a life. With Notes, you can maintain your presence on Substack.

What about “monetization”? Across Substack, there are about 2 million paying subscriptions which account for 5.71% of all active subscriptions. My suggestion is that you turn on the paid option and don’t worry about it. Work on fulfilling your awesomeness contract, and people will begin to support you. When they do, it changes your mindset. This is real. This is possible. With a paid subscription or two under your belt then you can reconsider your goals about making money on Substack.

I asked people on Notes if they had expectations for getting paid, and very few really cared. They had other goals. Some were just looking to share their stories and build an audience. Some saw Substack as a means to motivate their writing process. Many wanted to bring people over to their books. All of those are legitimate goals. It doesn’t matter what you want, if you know what that is, you’ll be more likely to achieve it.

Once we know our goals, how do we get from where we are to where we want to be?

One concern I have about where we are is our followers. As we begin to make these changes, we’re still fishing in the same follower pool. We’re going to have to take some proactive steps to expand our reach into new waters.

Although we need to move beyond our fiction followers, they’re still an asset in this journey, obviously so, when it comes to our fiction, but they’ll react to our articles as well. As we work to grow in the new categories, their engagement will give our work the boost it needs. Even so, don’t neglect the work of follower expansion.

We’ve all seen the complaints about people following instead of subscribing. The truth is, we can only subscribe to so many publications before our subscriptions become meaningless. Being quick to follow and slow to subscribe makes sense, no matter how frustrating it is as a publisher. If you’ve chosen to expand beyond one Substack publication, the issue switches from a negative to a positive. We can’t carry our subscribers from one publication to the next, but you only have one pool of followers. You start your first Substack with no followers and your second with hundreds.

SIX

For fifteen years I was a Twitter devotee until I found Substack. I continue to use it because I have a presence there, but it’s not what it once was. It’s important to have a presence outside of Substack and create a funnel for bringing in subscribers from the world at large. I’m currently doing that in two ways that I’d recommend.

The first in Bookfunnel. To be useful, you need to pay for the $100/year level which will enable you to collect emails of people who claim a free copy of your book. Even if you don’t think you have a book, you do. For your non-fiction publication, this is important.

First, pertaining to fiction, The Free Bookstore will help promote any giveaways you join, and they’re a great way of securing new subscribers for your author site fast.

As for non-fiction, some quick research told me that users have had mixed results. “Hit or miss” they called it, because it’s rare to have genre-specific non-fiction promotions.

We’re going to solve that problem by growing focused communities at Post Op. The primary function of the communities is to support one another’s posts and develop relationships within your category, but it also gives us the capacity to run book giveaways that are category specific and thus more meaningful.

As of August, 2024, I’m currently campaigning to put together such a promotion for self-help publications. Please reach out if you’re interested.

These will work even if you don’t have a book to give away. For that, we’ll repurpose material from our Substacks. Use your articles to put together a small book, create a cover on Canva, and suddenly you’re ready to go.

Your cover needs to look good and professional, but it doesn’t have to be fancy. Communicate what your Substack is about. Normally, I would be saying book, but in this case the book is your Substack, and the Substack is what you’re promoting. If you’re using the Right-Reader Method, be sure to communicate that core theme from your fiction that is the heart of your non-fiction publication.

My next recommendation is something that’s new to me but which shows promise. Get active on Instagram and explore either Salesmorph or Manychat, applications that will allow your readers to trigger a DM by commenting with a key word you provide. Salesmorph is less well known but gives you more free uses and is cheaper once you do start paying.

SEVEN

It's important to remember that my marketing plan is not the only way. I was reminded to make that point when I met Fiona Tate. She explained what she was doing (and I’ll get into that soon) and asked questions about implementing my plan.

My first suggestion was to change nothing. She has a marketing plan, and there’s no advantage to switching without cause.

Most of us are desperate for an idea. My solution won’t fit everyone either, but hopefully the bank of possibilities I can suggest will grow overtime to encompass more authors.

Fiona writes exclusively about vampires, depressed vampires. I’ll bet many of us have considered serial sites like Wattpad, and that’s Fiona’s plan. Her fiction seems a perfect fit. She’ll hook readers on those sites and sell subscriptions on Substack for an advanced read. It’s a good plan.

She has articles and fiction on her Substack, and in many ways, her plan works as the opposite of mine. After hooking people with fiction about depressed vampires, she’ll have them as an audience for her articles on depression as well.

If Fiona were to use my plan, she would still want to take advantage of the double nature of her fiction. She wouldn’t build just any site about depression. It would still be vampire themed, first, because it’s a good hook for getting people in to read about mental health, but second, because this is how she’d secure the right reader for her work. They’d come for the vampiric wellness and be thunderstruck by the fiction in the same vein.

If Fiona were to combine the concepts, this is what I’d advise. Her current plan is to build up ten episodes before placing work on the serialized fiction sites. Build up a bigger backlog while you create your subscriber base with your depression site with the vampire vibes. You can do more than ten because the draw at these serialized sites is having a chunk of fiction to read. Episode by episode, release five for free, at every location, except start with Substack first, so that when you release that first episode on Wattpad you have more to offer on Substack: the next four episodes free. Everything after that is behind a paywall. Then, as you release on Wattpad, another chapter on Substack becomes free. Why? Because part of the draw to switch sites will be that they can read more chapters at no cost and be ahead of everyone else. Then they keep reading ahead, but it’s going to cost them a few dollars a month. By now, they’ve discovered the articles and feel understood. The site supports and encourages them, and that, more than anything, is going to drive those paid memberships. They’ll pay because they appreciate you.

When you draw people in from outside Substack, your website is going to be important. They need to be able to find the important information. If serialized fiction is your draw, they need to know where to start and where to pick up if they’ve come from Wattpad and have read the first several episodes. Clarity in organization is vital to not lose the readers.

If you’re drawing from Substack, your readers might not ever see your website.

EIGHT

I’ve seen newsletter growth broken down as follows.

Early: less than 1k total subscribers or growing a <100 subs a month

Growing: less than 50k total subs, or growing at < 1k subs per month

Scaling: more than 50k total subs, or growing at 1k+ subs per month

A downside of this marketing plan is the need to start over with one or more new newsletters and build ourselves up all over again. It’s better than when we started our first Substack in some ways because we have followers, but it’s still a shock when a new article gets a third of the views you’d get at the older site.

During that early stage, the communities at Post Op and Literary Salon are vital and will create the relationships you’ll carry with you when you move into later stages of growth.

How many newsletters fall into that scaling category? One fact worldmetrics.org shares is that the largest Substack in the Health & Wellness category has over 50k subscribers. That’s as close as I came to getting an answer when I asked Google how many Substacks have over 50k subscribers. In the H&W category, it may only be one.

That will change over time.

We should know that a non-fiction approach isn't a promise of a quick start, and we inherit the problems non-fiction sites have with growth by implementing this system. Meanwhile, fiction publications have a reach limit that prevents our biggest players from reaching the same success their non-fiction counterparts have enjoyed.

Also, the fundamentals of marketing still apply. I discuss launch-week marketing here.

A few of the fundamentals regarding Substack include: post on a schedule and be consistent. Interact with comments and on Notes, without always promoting your work. The best promotion is being interested in other people. Instead of complaining that nobody reads your posts, engage with your community at Post Op or Literary Salon. Remember that accounts that are larger than you will grow faster than you. Don’t get discouraged.

Write the best material you can. Be kind and supportive.

Know your goal and how you intend to reach your goal. That will help guide your choices.

I’ll see you in the stacks, and until then,

I’m Thaddeus Thomas.

Additional Resources:

Wander Wealth — writing, digital products, marketing, and building a profitable online business with Claudia Faith

Mastering Drama — learn character-driven storytelling from Dan Lyndon

The Tall Tales Fiction Critique Community — writing and story feedback hosted by Addam Ledamyen

Literary Salon — a fiction community and a marketing plan that hunts readers

Post Op — building a community around your publishing category

Free Bookstore — promoting your book magnets

You can also follow along with me as I implement the Right-Reader Method. My author Substack is ThaddeusThomas.com, and my non-fiction publications are The Sibyliad and Our Deeper Stories.