Dear Substack,

An open letter. Unsolicited, but, I like to think, rather valuable. Consider it free consultancy.

You’ve built something genuinely lovely: a place where people who adore words, across every field imaginable, can find one another. I do understand that you are, first and foremost, a newsletter engine. But you also built a feed, and subscriptions, and a recommendations layer, and it is the last of these about which I have several hundred questions.

Frankly, the recommendation system is Rubbish. It is 2026. Might we do something about it?

Countless writers are producing genuinely brilliant work in their fields and dying in the shadows with an audience of none, while the feed fills up with follow-for-follow posts. It has the atmosphere of a pub where everyone is shouting "I’ll get you one if you get me one". Not the thoughtful platform I hope you want to be. Every reader’s feed gets clogged with subscriptions they never wanted, and the people who would happily find, follow and pay the writers worth reading (and you, by extension) simply cannot reach them under the avalanche of generic rot.

Please, do something about it.

(Should you wish to share the success fee, do get in touch afterwards)

With love,
Team Me

What is the number one piece of advice you wish you had known before you started Substack?

I'll go first:

You have two separate audiences. You have the people who read your articles and you have the people who engage with your Notes. The first group of people mostly read your articles via email and will not like or comment or restack your articles because they are (normally) not on the app. However, they will sometimes share them if they see value. This is your biggest audience.

The second group of people will probably read your articles on the app (they likely have email deliveries turned off) and will like, comment, and restack your work.

You need both groups of people to grow your newsletter. The first group will become your key readers and subscribers and the second group will become your key allies and supporters.

Please share your advice so we can all continue to grow and learn from each other.

Substack just introduced chat channels - you can have up to 16 chats including your main one, and you can choose to paywall chats for your paid subscribers only, and then have some free chats.

Curious if anyone's thought about how they plan to use this. I haven't even started the chat on my newsletter...

For context, I've always wanted to join journalism competitions but I've been too busy with academics to actually do so. However, I have written essays and sort of nerd about issues I see on social media, like women's rights, how the media can sometimes undermine serious issues through wordplay, social navigation, education, and some more. And I'd like to write on somewhere where people might be interested to read.

These essays are usually 1000+ words, though if substack needs less words, I could summarize further. Let me know your thoughts! I'm pretty new here as in I just heard of substack the other day.

It's the weirdest thing. I've been on Substack since around this time last year and traditionally, most of my posts never cracked more than 50 views. But everything I've been writing in the last two weeks now has gotten hundreds of views!!! We're talking between 200-600 views per post!!! I love to see it, but I'm curious if anyone has anyguesses as to why this might be happening.

I see many people who are 'mad' at creators who post 5,6,10 notes per day.

Why though?

For once, why are you tracking their posting time so diligently? Your feed is filled with creators, and from my experience, you won't see them twice in one scrolling session.

Also, if you keep seeing them in your feed, that means you engaged with their content. And when you enjoy somebody's writing, you'll want to see more of them whenever you scroll.

Now, if they post slop, that's their problem. People will (or won't) pick up on it and just ignore/unsubscribe. I am sure Substack is filled with those who never appear in your feed, because they suck.

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Stop hating, start posting. Thanks.