How to Grow on Substack

Without spending all day on social media

Karen Cherry
4 min readNov 30, 2024

Hey I’m Karen, a Substack publisher with >$20K in annual revenue on the platform (and no, I don’t earn subscription revenue by teaching people how to use Substack).

Today I want to talk growth: what it (really) is, how to get it, and what to do if you aren’t getting enough of it.

But I’m not going to share how I got to a gazillion followers. Because (1) I only have a few thousand people in my audience (2) You’ve probably already read a hundred posts like that.

Instead, I’m going to share my framework for growth that anyone can follow — whether you want a thousand readers or a million. (By the way, you can absolutely succeed on Substack and make a real impact with just a few hundred subscribers, don’t let anyone else tell you any different).

What is growth (really)?

In Substack, growth is simply getting new subscribers each month, and losing fewer subscribers than you got. Growth is when the chart showing your subscriber numbers goes up and to the right.

Growth is when your subscriber count chart goes up and to the right. Screenshot: author

Growth happens when people sign up to read, and stick around for a while before unsubscribing.

In Substack, we’re all obsessed with growth because we all want to make an impact with our work…

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Karen Cherry
Karen Cherry

Written by Karen Cherry

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

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