How to Actually Grow on Substack and Make A Lot Of Money
A totally serious, absolutely essential guide you’ll regret missing
I know! I am fabulous for not being a gatekeeper and using a the no-fluff approach.
You’re welcome 😊
Let’s dive in, shall we?
Step one: Start a Substack
Step two: Write about writing on Substack.
Step three: Tell everyone how much money you are making on Substack.
Step four: Teach other people how to make money on Substack.
Step five: Make even more money because people who want to make money on Substack are now paying you to explain how you make money on Substack.
Congratulations 🥳
You have created the perfect online business:
Let me teach you how to grow your business so I can grow mine.
The product is not really writing but your dissatisfaction with your current life and your hope.
Hope that your newsletter will replace your job.
Hope that 1,600 subscribers will magically generate $11,400 a month.
Hope that you too can quit your sensible career, buy the enormous house and become “free”.
Then, once enough people are selling the same dream, someone announces that Substack is saturated.
But don’t worry.
They have discovered the new way.
Maybe you need to go to their webinar.
Maybe you need a mastermind.
Maybe you need a three-day retreat in Puerto Rico.
Maybe you need their revolutionary AI system, which has been lovingly assembled from the teachings of six other gurus selling exactly the same thing.
And somewhere at the bottom of the page, in very small print:
The average person who buys online marketing information gets little to no results.
But who reads that?
Not the hopeful person who has just spent forty minutes hearing about the $27,000 presentation, the multimillion-dollar company and the wonderful life that could possibly (maybe) one day be theirs.
Emotionally, the pitch says:
This could be you.
Legally, the disclaimer says:
It probably won’t be.
And when it doesn’t work?
The business model is never questioned.
You are.
You didn’t believe enough.
You didn’t take enough action.
Your mindset was wrong.
You lacked discipline.
You weren’t sufficiently committed to your own freedom.
Convenient, isn’t it?
The guru keeps the money. You keep the shame.
Is everyone doing this a scammer? No.
Can some of this information be useful? Of course.
But we should at least be honest about the loop.
People are making money teaching people how to make money, so those people can eventually make money teaching more people how to make money.
It’s a hamster selling other hamsters the secret to winning the wheel.
And apparently this is what we now call freedom.
Personally, I am trying something deeply unfashionable. I want to create work that is useful because it is useful and not because it promises to turn you into me.
I want to write because I have something to say.
I want to earn money, yes. I like paying my bills and buying food but I do not want a business that requires me to constantly activate your dissatisfaction so I can sell you the next level.
Maybe real success is not endless growth.
Maybe it’s meaningful work, enough money, a decent nervous system and a life you still have time to live.
Terrible marketing, I know, but I actually feel free and my integrity is not available as an upsell.
Love, sarcasm and truth.
Eva :)
P.S. I kinda talk about ‘meaning over money’ here in case you wanna watch.
Great post.
Truth.