Collaboration on Substack: One of the Best Ways to Grow Your Publication

One of the biggest mindset shifts I’ve seen my clients make when they are new to Substack is realizing that the other writers aren’t really their competition. This realization often comes with relief.

Many of us arrive here after spending years on social media platforms where attention feels limited. We learn to protect our audience, avoid sending readers elsewhere, and worry that every minute someone spends reading another person’s work is a minute they’re not spending with us. It’s an understandable way to think because that’s how many online platforms have conditioned us to approach growth.

Substack works differently.

One of the things I appreciate most about the platform is that collaboration is built directly into its culture. Writers regularly introduce their readers to other writers, share articles they genuinely enjoyed, build on one another’s ideas, and work together on projects. Instead of competing for a fixed amount of attention, there is an underlying assumption that helping readers discover another thoughtful writer benefits everyone involved.

That doesn’t mean every collaboration is worthwhile, or that you should constantly be promoting other people. It simply means that Substack encourages us to think differently. Rather than asking, “How do I keep people on my publication?” we begin asking, “Who else might my readers genuinely appreciate discovering?”

One of the things I enjoy about collaboration on Substack is that it doesn’t always require weeks of planning or a formal partnership. Some of the most meaningful collaborations happen naturally through everyday participation on the platform.

Perhaps the simplest example is mentioning another writer in one of your articles or Notes. If you’re building on an idea someone else explored, referring readers to a particularly helpful article, or acknowledging someone whose work influenced your own thinking, it’s completely normal to mention them and tag them using the @ symbol so they’re notified. One of the things I appreciate about the writing community on Substack is that this kind of conversation between writers is not only accepted, it’s encouraged.

Quoting another writer’s work also fits naturally into this culture. Throughout my own articles I occasionally refer to work that someone else has written when it helps illustrate a point or gives readers another perspective. In the article I recently wrote about Search, for example, I mentioned Diane Burley’s writing about SEO because she has spent years studying the topic and her work adds something valuable to the conversation. I didn’t need to ask permission to mention her or link to her article. That’s simply part of participating in an open community of writers. Of course, there’s an important distinction between quoting or discussing someone’s work and reproducing it. Credit generously, link back to the original source, and let your own writing continue the conversation rather than replacing theirs.

Restacks work in much the same way. Rather than simply clicking the Restack button, it’s a good idea to tell your readers why you found an article worthwhile. A sentence or two explaining what resonated with you gives your readers context, helps the original writer understand what connected with you, and often starts conversations that continue long after the article was first published.

Recommendations are another form of collaboration, although they deserve a little more thought than simply recommending everyone who recommends you. Last week’s article explored this idea in much more detail, but the short version is this: the strongest recommendations are built on genuine audience overlap. When you recommend another publication because you sincerely believe your readers will benefit from it, everyone wins.

As relationships develop, collaboration often becomes something larger than simply mentioning one another’s work.

Guest posts are one of the simplest ways to introduce your writing to a new audience. Inviting another writer to contribute to your publication, or writing for theirs, allows readers to experience a different voice while giving both writers an opportunity to reach readers who already have an interest in the topic. Unlike recommendations, where readers subscribe based largely on trust, a guest post allows them to experience your writing before deciding whether they’d like to continue reading.

Written interviews are another form of collaboration that I don’t think we talk about nearly enough. When people hear the word “interview,” they often imagine scheduling a video call or recording a podcast. In reality, a thoughtful interview can simply be a series of carefully considered questions sent back and forth by email. Heidi Turner, of Happy Freelancing, did a really great job on thoughtful written interviews, allowing her readers to hear another creator’s perspective (including mine) while still preserving the depth and thoughtfulness that many of us enjoy about long-form writing.

Podcast interviews work in a similar way, although the experience becomes more conversational. Whether you’re appearing as a guest or inviting someone onto your own podcast, you’re introducing two audiences to one another through a shared discussion rather than simply pointing readers toward another publication.

Substack Lives have become another excellent collaborative tool as the platform has expanded its video features. Inviting another creator onto a Live allows both communities to participate in the same conversation, ask questions, and get to know both writers in a more personal and informal way. Rather than trying to cover everything about Lives here, I’ll be sharing a practical video walkthrough next week showing exactly how they work and how to set one up.

As collaboration becomes more common, it’s worth mentioning one small point of etiquette that sometimes causes confusion.

Talking about another writer’s work, quoting a small excerpt, linking to one of their articles, or mentioning them by name are all normal parts of the culture on Substack. These are conversations between writers, and they’re one of the things that makes the platform feel so collaborative.

Adding someone as a co-author or byline on your publication is something entirely different. A byline represents authorship, so it should only be done with the other person’s knowledge and permission. In other words, it’s perfectly normal to write an article inspired by another writer’s ideas and tell your readers why you appreciated their work. It’s not appropriate to imply they co-wrote the article unless they actually did, and you have their permission to add them as a byline.

I also have a caveat to add to this. There are a couple of genres on Substack that many Substackers have noticed are less interested in collaborations of any kind. These genres tend to bring over their competitiveness from the main part of their business. They include Substacks built around topics such as political journalism, finance (especially investment), and often marketing or business in general. The owners of these kinds of Substacks will often - but not always - see any similar Substack as someone competing for their story or their client, and will shy away from actually connecting with them.

Genuine collaboration opportunities don’t come from asking “Will this help me grow?” Instead, you’ll experience a much better long-term effect on both growth and retention if you’re asking: “Will my readers be glad I introduced them to this person?”

Keeping your collaborations authentic and meaningful with that approach changes who we recommend, whose articles we restack, who we invite onto a Live, and who we ask to write a guest post. Instead of focusing primarily on our own growth, we begin thinking about how to create a better experience for the people who have already chosen to spend time reading our work.

Readers trust writers who consistently point them toward thoughtful people and interesting ideas. Writers develop relationships by supporting one another’s work in genuine ways. Over time, those relationships naturally lead to collaborations, recommendations, and opportunities that no amount of networking for its own sake is likely to produce.

On most platforms, growth often feels like a competition for attention. On Substack, some of the strongest growth comes from becoming part of a community of writers who care about introducing their readers to work that genuinely deserves to be discovered.