How To Succeed (and Fail) as a Human Writer in an AI World

Hello Friends!The other day I had a conversation with Natasha K. She’s just getting started on Substack and she asked for some advice on growth strategies. I realized I hadn’t done an article like that in a while so I thought this would be a perfect opportunity to tell you all about my latest thoughts on this topic. I started Substack on January 30th, 2023 with 2 subscribers (one was me). I imported about 50 emails from a Mailchimp list, but I didn’t import any of my subscribers from Medium. I didn’t want to import a bunch of emails and then have my account get flagged when they were all marked as spam. However, if you have emails you trust, importing them can be a good strategy to jumpstart your newsletter.In 2023, I was making good money on Medium. That was the peak of the Boost program and I was dedicated in my role as a Boost nominator. Although the Boost program is still going, it is not as large a part of Medium today as it was then. Boost is not yet officially “dead” but last month was the first one where none of my nominations were accepted.I’ve been writing long enough to know that change is inevitable and you always need to be on the lookout for new opportunities. Either these platforms change ownership or they start tinkering with their payment algorithm or any number of things can happen that will tank your earnings.So, I set up my Substack account in 2023 so it would be available if I had the need to pivot. I didn’t do anything with it for almost a full year. In around March of 2024, I started taking the platform more seriously. So, I subscribed to Kristina God, and that really helped to jumpstart my following.Followers and subscribersCurrently on Medium I have 53,000 followers. Most of those came from a 3 or 4 month period in 2023 when I regularly received in excess of 5,000 new followers per month. Medium had changed up how they displayed their leaderboard during that time, and I was a top writer in around 20 different categories.In other words, my growth was largely due to dumb luck. The lesson from this is that you should remain on platforms. Sometimes they do some tinkering behind the scenes and it benefits you.Since then, my growth has been consistent but slow. In contrast, my follower count continues to rise on Substack.You’ll notice that the rates vary. That’s inevitable. The important thing is to not waste energy thinking it’s “something you did.” Just put your head down and keep working. Don’t compare your success to the success of others. Your journey is your own.Some people have an audience that just takes a little bit more time to find. Rest assured that your people are out there and they are very much in need of your story. Also keep in mind that our society changes from year to year. Attitudes change, and you might find that the things you’ve been saying for decades suddenly become fashionable. Maybe your personal influence reaches a critical mass which results in an explosion of popularity.Just keep at it.How to finance your writing habitWriting is a revenue insecure profession, so you have to create a variety of revenue streams. Keep in mind that you only lose your chance of succeeding if you quit. Your objective is to give yourself as much time as possible to write.A lot of aspiring writers find the time to write and then they waste it watching television instead. It’s like how a new parent learns they must sleep when the baby sleeps. Managing your time and creating content to sell is the most critical part of all of this.You don’t have to be loyal to any platform. Use them all. They all have different advantages. Submit your work to other markets. Do whatever you can to increase your visibility and keep earning. If you have to supplement your writing income with a part-time or full-time job, there’s no shame in that. Just do whatever you have to do to keep writing.How to gain paid subscribers on SubstackThe mechanism of Substack is that you look for followers which you can hopefully capture as subscribers. Then you work to upgrade the subscribers to paid subscribers.One of the main growth tools internal to the platform is the notes feature. Notes works like a social media platform. You provide a comment, and you gain visibility depending on the popularity of that comment.Every week, I do a livestream with Nick Paro in which we discuss our notes of the week. We pick either our most popular note, or the one we feel is the most important. Notes are generally short form content, but I’ve seen people post entire articles as notes.Engagement is the objective with notes, so it’s effective to post things that are a little bit controversial. You want people to share and comment. But you don’t want people to block you, so take care.I’ll often use notes to challenge injustices in our society. I stand by everything I write, even if sometimes my audience objects to how widely I cast the net. That kind of engagement gets these notes seen, and I feel there’s an appalling lack of accountability in our country.I’ve heard that people have success with the kind of sickly-sweet inspirational posts you see on greeting cards, but I don’t have experience with that. I’ve read testimonials that suggest people have had success with AI generated notes, but I avoid those like the plague. AI creates an “uncanny valley” response in me, and I generally block when I suspect it’s being used.You should feel free to experiment. Write poems. Use bold letters. Use all capital letters. Do anything you can think of to stop people from scrolling, and if you find something that works, do it again and again!Keep in mind, too, that notes is a feature that’s internal to the platform. If you can figure out ways to pull in subscribers from other platforms, you should implement those.Follow and engageThe most basic growth strategy is to follow and engage with other writers. When I first started on Substack, I went to my favorite creators and followed all their followers. A lot of them followed back.When you follow on Substack, you end up seeing people’s notes. Whether you’re on Substack or any other platform, people start to remember you if you routinely leave thoughtful comments on their work. Just be active and authentic and good things will happen.Remember that you can be a little controversial in your notes and articles, but you should always be courteous in your comments. You must avoid the pitfall of allowing some NPC to provoke you into a hostile argument.The way many of these systems are set up, other readers might get the impression that your harsh comments are directed at them. You absolutely have to be true to your personal integrity whether you’re posting an article or a comment. Don’t be provoked by a bot.If somebody leaves a comment that you feel warrants a response, take a deep breath and write it as an article instead of a comment. Don’t waste your time on efforts that are very likely to hurt you and have absolutely no chance of helping you. If it’s impossible to answer a comment politely, then block that profile and move on.Be available for livestreams, classes and other interactionsI’ve grown to really enjoy doing livestreams with other creators. I think that’s the best way to introduce yourself to another audience. Whenever I meet new writers I try to have three-way conversations so I can introduce them to each other. I have several friends with subscriber lists in the 10k to 20k range. When the three of us sit down and broadcast to all our followers, we’re reaching a very large audience. If you get one new paid subscriber from such an effort, it’s totally worth it.It’s also important to assist writers at every level. There are several people that I brought on for a livestream when they were just starting out who have gone on to generate much larger followings than I have. Today, when they invite me on for a talk, I’m the one who gains new subscribers.I genuinely believe that the best way to grow your following is to do favors for other writers. Come up with creative ways to promote their work. They’ll remember this, and they’ll remember you as they continue to grow.Mind your mental healthI always advise new writers to shut off their statistics. If you are spending the whole day fretting over your earnings, you’re wasting energy that should be going into content creation. Years ago I made it a rule to check my earnings once a month. You have to do a deliberate assessment with a clear head. If you’re checking every day, you’re not evaluating useful data.Remember too that you shouldn’t blame yourself every time your earnings go down. Sometimes platforms change how they calculate payments. Sometimes paid subscribers lose their jobs. Often, paid subscribers leave because there was some mix up in the payment. It is unproductive and inaccurate to assume that you are at fault every time your earnings take a dip.Don’t waste your energy fretting about things you can’t control. Instead, focus on positive action. Keep going forward. Lift up writers every day. Worry doesn’t help you. Instead, spend your time creating content.I have fallen into a routine where I publish 3 posts a day and I do dozens of notes. My weeks can have anything from 4 to 8 livestreams. Don’t worry about making things perfect, just keep writing, learning, and improving.Be authentic, persevere, and good things will happen!You all make this newsletter happen! Thanks for your sponsorship! I have payment tiers starting at as little as twenty dollars a year.Upgrade at 30% offUpgrade at 40% offUpgrade at 50% offUpgrade at 60% offI’m so happy you’re here, and I’m looking forward to sharing more thoughts with you tomorrow.My CoSchedule referral linkHere’s my referral link to my preferred headline analyzer tool. If you sign up through this, it’s another way to support this newsletter (thank you).I'd Rather Be Writing is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Get full access to I'd Rather Be Writing at walterrhein.substack.com/subscribe