New ways to grow your paid subscribers on Substack

I've been picking up some new tricks. Here they are...

When I started my Substack back in March, I didn’t really have a plan-of-action. I committed to publishing one essay a week but other than that, I had an open mind.

Obviously I loved the idea of growing a massive community and managing to monetise it so that I could live entirely off these weekly essays.

But I was pretty realistic about it all. And I was also just really pleased that I no longer had to pay Mailchimp a monthly fee to host my mailing list.

Also, I was really into the idea of having a good writing routine. I’ve always loved the newsletter side of running a business, and that’s because - well, I’m a writer.

The idea that you could potentially be paid to write those newsletters was a little bit mind-blowingly-magical.

I’d sold online courses via my newsletters but I hadn’t sold the actual words and ideas contained in the email as the product.

So I put out that first newsletter and I was amazed when a subscriber pledged their support, if I decided to monetise it.

Only one. But I only needed one to give me the confidence to try out the paywall.

And once I started adding the paywall, people started paying to read the emails.

I’ve noticed that there are certain strategies that will help you to increase your paid subscribers. Here they are…