Training Camp #1
023: how to promote your work on substack!
As a Substack Veteran™, you wouldn’t imagine how many DMs I have gotten asking me for tips and tricks on how to grow an audience here, an audience that certainly differs from the one you’re seeing lately (bots and people that just come and go), and my answer to these DMs has been consistent, so I thought I’d share some of what I learned on promoting my work with you guys!
If you do some of these things, I’m VERY proud of you, and you’re doing amazing, if you don’t do any of these things, try them and thank me later. I have accumulated a very considerable amount of Substack knowledge over the time I’ve been around, so I’ll make this a series if you’d like.
Promoting your work with teacher Ames (she’s back!)
1) Find your voice and be true to yourself.
Before promoting your work, you obviously have to focus… on your work.
What will you write about?
Who is your ideal reader?
Answering these questions has nothing to do with being clear about your niche, I hate that, and I think that you should write about whatever you want. You’ll have an idea on what will be the main focus of your newsletter be as you go, though. It’s usually what you like to write about the most, or what you keep gravitating towards, even though you don’t mean to. You can’t even imagine what a poet’s grocery list transforms itself into, sometimes. They can’t help it.
Either way, if you want my advice, I’d say that your voice matters more than the topics you choose to discuss. Focus on bettering your work and finding your voice first. Whatever it is, don’t forget to be honest. People remember honesty and people remember vulnerability, after all, it is what makes us human and it is what makes us relate to each other. Life.
2) Trust yourself and have trust in your craft.
Once you’ve found your voice, you need to fully trust it. You need to have trust that you did the best that you could with what you had, that you explored everything there is to be explored within that topic in particular.
Look at your material a billion times!
Sit with it!
Perfect it as much as you can!
Post!
Only post something when your heart can’t hold it anymore, you know you did the best that you could, you believe in your work, you trust it enough.
Before posting, you could do the Coco Chanel method (delete more and more words as you re-read), or you could do the Amanda method (add more and more words as you re-read), whatever your heart desires, and whatever you feel like is necessary to your work, since it’s your work and not anyone else’s (remember that).
3) RESEARCH THINGS BEFORE YOU EVEN POST SOMETHING!
This is an extra one, if you’re about to post something on someone else’s work, whether that is a book, a TV show, a fashion brand, write a draft, sit with it and:
Take notes on books about it, maybe watch documentaries about it, take notes of all kinds of media there is on what you’re researching, that gives you much more credibility
That’s my favorite thing to do when I read a book that I enjoy and that I feel like writing about, that’s why the
posts take months to come out (it’s always a joy when they do). Just because you’re writing for a social media platform doesn’t mean it has to be sloppy. Even people that used to write for Wattpad got book deals. Be organized and passionate.Taking notes is IMPORTANT, and you can make it as fun and as inspiring as
!