How Did I Get to 100 Paying Subscribers on Substack?

It wasn’t an accident. But…

Karen Cherry
3 min readApr 24, 2023

Today I read a thought-provoking piece by @DavidBClear that claimed successful online creators aren’t capable of explaining how they became successful. That they shouldn’t give advice about how to succeed because they don’t know how they got there.

Hmmm…. I love David’s work but I’ve got some problems with this idea.

In his post, David warns new creators not to buy into the success porn industry, which is full of gurus and expensive courses and mentoring sessions. And I’m totally on board with that.

But (were you sensing a huge BUT was coming?). But.

[So, for context, I’m in the middle of writing a book about how to succeed on Substack. OMG am I peddling success porn?!]

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Karen Cherry

Substack writer. Secret tree hugger. Aussie business owner with >$20K revenue on Substack. Refusing to dumb it down.