16 Comments
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Jim Highsmith's avatar

Jurgen, thanks for this guide, it will be very helpful to us beginners on Substack.

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Andy Cleff's avatar

What an amazing awesome guide! Thanks for creating and sharing.

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Jen Jordan's avatar

Thank you for this really helpful post. It’s a clear guide to getting started.

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Heidi Hinda Chadwick's avatar

Thank you for this. Really useful as well as very amusing too. Appreciated X

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Atharva Shah's avatar

I have read many guides on Substack growth. This one is the most actionable and result-oriented guide. It not only provides a checklist but also explains the reasoning behind it. The upside of doing what is recommended is highly clear, and the downside is also super transparent. I love the creative line breaks used to show conversations between you and LLMs so much. I took multiple screenshots. You have given me a lot to work with here. Subscribed!

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Jurgen Appelo's avatar

Glad to hear!

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SHAYA's avatar

Thank you ⚘

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Suzanne Skyvara's avatar

Holy macarooney! This is so jam packed with awesome advice. I bow down before all the work and time it took to pull this together. May your karma be 100% positive for at least the next two decades. Have already been digging in and will be bumping up your article views with repeated checks on more things to do.

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Katie Workman's avatar

this is a seriously great beginner substack primer - thank you so much!

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Jurgen Appelo's avatar

You're welcome

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Lynn J. Broderick's avatar

this is great and i definitely wish i would have read this first. By tagline do you mean the website description? is there a best word count? And man I am struggling with the right category for my life essays.... THANKS!

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Jurgen Appelo's avatar

Yes, tagline is short description.

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Daily Better's avatar

Great guide, but quite challenging; I got lost halfway and need to revisit it with more focus. Any tips? I look forward to applying these ideas and beginning to grow. I'll also check the related articles and videos.

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Jurgen Appelo's avatar

Save it and do it section by section. Only continue with the next after you implemented the previous one.

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Yuval Yeret's avatar

Thank you Jurgen - I’ve been on the fence between self hosted (Kit) newsletter and Substack for a while.

What are your thoughts on repurposing “greatest hits” content from an existing blog as part of a substack launch ?

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Jurgen Appelo's avatar

I’d say go for it.

Better than starting from scratch.

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