Good to know about inactive users as dragging down numbers and how Substack algorithm works. I read too many posts of people showing how to dramatically grow my audience and make my living writing. I’m a bit numb from all of those posts as so many times these same people want me to pay them for their secrets. Since my Substack is free and will remain that way I won’t be signing up for those classes. I also wonder how many of these authors can keep the big numbers up over time. I agree that a small but engaged audience is better than lots of subscribers or followers who never respond or even open my posts. I focus on being consistent with my science fiction newsletter each week and sometimes I get great engagement and other weeks it’s crickets.
I’m just going to be stubborn and keep writing. My audience has grown slowly and some weeks I lose people. I’ll take a look at my numbers and see if anyone needs to be dropped from the list. No doubt there’s a few. If I take that step then there won’t be notice as clearly they aren’t reading me now.
I work 7 to 8 weeks ahead on my newsletter and have them all scheduled and ready to go. This really cuts down on the stress of meeting a weekly writing deadline. Also if something happens in my life the newsletter is on autopilot and launches.
Great article. I do not treat substack as a social media site. I am seeking engagement and dialogue. I hope people decide to go more organic versus chasing numbers. That is so twitter 2010
Yep, I read it… and I pride myself on not falling for ckck bait. Good job. And as someone who just put up a substack site (5-things-I-did) it was really interesting and useful. Sigh…I should be so lucky to have too many subscribers…maybe someday.
I don't see the point of purging my subscriber list, not that I'll get on your case for it. From what I know, the practice was a relic of the old mailing list system where you pay for every email you send (or something like that, it's been a while since I delve into this topic) but since Substack doesn't charge for your emails, what's the point? Sounds like wasted work to me. And yes, I'm being ironic since that's of the reasons the robot argue for removing "inactive subscribers". But as for the other reasons, I remain unconvinced. The "poor algorithm signal" is just a speculation by the robot, same with email deliverability issues. Then there's the "lower engagement rates" which is just an ego thing, tbh. No one's seeing it but you, so why are you getting up in your feelings over that?
But that's just my take. Maybe I'm just justifying my decision not to purge my subscriber list, lol.
Looks like I didn’t get wiped! I am curious though—what about the quiet readers (I know I have a bunch). And what about the readers who don’t open emails and only read in the app?
Wow that is really informational. I'm new to Substack so this is helpful.
Good to know about inactive users as dragging down numbers and how Substack algorithm works. I read too many posts of people showing how to dramatically grow my audience and make my living writing. I’m a bit numb from all of those posts as so many times these same people want me to pay them for their secrets. Since my Substack is free and will remain that way I won’t be signing up for those classes. I also wonder how many of these authors can keep the big numbers up over time. I agree that a small but engaged audience is better than lots of subscribers or followers who never respond or even open my posts. I focus on being consistent with my science fiction newsletter each week and sometimes I get great engagement and other weeks it’s crickets.
I’m just going to be stubborn and keep writing. My audience has grown slowly and some weeks I lose people. I’ll take a look at my numbers and see if anyone needs to be dropped from the list. No doubt there’s a few. If I take that step then there won’t be notice as clearly they aren’t reading me now.
Thanks for an interesting and thoughtful post.
Thanks for your comment Bruce! Sounds like you have a good system, keep it up
I work 7 to 8 weeks ahead on my newsletter and have them all scheduled and ready to go. This really cuts down on the stress of meeting a weekly writing deadline. Also if something happens in my life the newsletter is on autopilot and launches.
Great article. I do not treat substack as a social media site. I am seeking engagement and dialogue. I hope people decide to go more organic versus chasing numbers. That is so twitter 2010
Yep, I read it… and I pride myself on not falling for ckck bait. Good job. And as someone who just put up a substack site (5-things-I-did) it was really interesting and useful. Sigh…I should be so lucky to have too many subscribers…maybe someday.
I don't see the point of purging my subscriber list, not that I'll get on your case for it. From what I know, the practice was a relic of the old mailing list system where you pay for every email you send (or something like that, it's been a while since I delve into this topic) but since Substack doesn't charge for your emails, what's the point? Sounds like wasted work to me. And yes, I'm being ironic since that's of the reasons the robot argue for removing "inactive subscribers". But as for the other reasons, I remain unconvinced. The "poor algorithm signal" is just a speculation by the robot, same with email deliverability issues. Then there's the "lower engagement rates" which is just an ego thing, tbh. No one's seeing it but you, so why are you getting up in your feelings over that?
But that's just my take. Maybe I'm just justifying my decision not to purge my subscriber list, lol.
I dont think it really matters, it just bothers me to have a bunch of deadweight
As one of the growing army of authors who refuse to have anything to do with Fake Intelligence I did not read the Robot Bit here....
very good Maurice
Looks like I didn’t get wiped! I am curious though—what about the quiet readers (I know I have a bunch). And what about the readers who don’t open emails and only read in the app?
if you read the section about the filters I used you'll see that I filtered by subscribers who fit the following criteria:
-email opens in last 6 months: 0
-posts viewed in last 6 months: 0
-activity: 0
This is AND not OR so it's targeting the people who don't open emails don't read posts in the app, and don't interact in any other measurable way. :)
It’ll be interesting to see how this changes your engagement numbers after the purge!
I did see that… are you sure it really knows? I suppose I thought it couldn’t know unless you come to the post FROM the email.