Writer Girl Summer

I dubbed this summer Writer Girl Summer, because seriously, who wants a “Hot Girl Summer,” when you can have a Writer Girl Summer?

Exactly.

To my surprise Writer Girl Summer really worked out. I went from being a Substack skeptic to a fan. And I managed to almost double my subscriber count.

So, in celebration, I’m sharing what worked for me.

Before we get started, it’s important to note that when I say almost doubled, I mean I went from 323 to 633 in three months. Not 1M to 2M or anything crazy. Just trying to keep your expectations reasonable here. But this is part of WHY I wanted to write this article. I’m a normal Substacker. Outside of this article, I write about travel and my life as an American expat in Nigeria.

When I was searching for articles on how to grow, I had a hard time finding one from someone who was not a Substack coach or growth “expert.” And many of them were clickbaity, full of pay funnels and even cringey.

So here ya go. Plain, simple, not paywalled. Here’s what worked for me: Notes. They’re a simple, free sound bite on what you wanna say to the world. These are my tips on how to use them to grow and honestly improve your entire Substack experience.

1. You gotta start somewhere, but don’t write into a void.

For a good while when I posted on notes I would get nothing. Not a single heart. Not a single comment.

It felt like writing into a void, because I was. No one was seeing my notes.

And this is probably where a lot of people give up. But please don’t!

You just need a small group of solid Substack friends to get you going. My best advice for meeting these people is to do a notes challenge. A lot of Substack growth coaches offer them and sometimes you do have to pay to get into them, but for me this was worth it.

I did Sarah Fay’s notes challenge and can’t recommend it enough. That’s where I found my first few Substack friends. Once I had a solid core group I was able to finally build some momentum.

2. I took the summer to lean in.

I recognized early on that for once, I actually had some margin for writing and decided to make the most of it. I spent a whole day reading articles on how to grow using notes. Some said to post 1 per day, others said 5-7 per day. So, the first challenge was sifting through this mixed advice.

Yes, I had the margin, but also had two kids, was working to re-lease our Texas house and wanted to enjoy my summer so I went with 1-3 per day. If it was a busy day, 1 was fine. If I had lots of time and ideas, I wrote 3.

No guilt for less or celebration for more. I decided Writer Girl Summer was about being serious about writing, while also prioritizing my actual non-writing life.

In addition to leaning into my own notes, I leaned into other people’s. If someone commented, I commented back. I would check them out, maybe even follow or subscribe if it resonated with me.

At first this felt like work, but I started to love it because I realized I was learning from other writers and articles (see the amazing baggage tip on the note below). This is gold!

Subscribe now

3. Your notes have to be quality but shouldn’t take much time.

This feels contradictory but stay with me.

Many articles I read said to try to stay between 50-120 words with notes, so in general I do try to do that. But I also don’t stress if I’m slightly over or under. Human emotion isn’t restricted by word count. And that’s what we’re going for here. One human connecting with another human.

Say something real. Tell us something true you didn’t want to admit. Or something you’re scared of. Ask us a fun question about what you write about (for me this is travel and life abroad.)

Don’t overthink it.

If your note took more than 15 minutes to create, you’re thinking too hard. If you’re consulting with AI you’re not thinking hard enough. It’s not that I think there’s no place for AI in writing or editing (that’s a whole different article though), it’s just that we want to hear from YOU!

My best performing note, which actually ended up going viral, was a short, heartwarming story, rather than a travel tip or gorgeous picture. You can read the full story behind it here.

The thing is little heartwarming stories are more challenging for me to write than travel tips, but because this one did so well, I still try to challenge my writer muscles every few notes and write one. None have touched how well this one did so far, though.

4. Find your lane(ish).

I watched my performance on each note. Not in a highly technical, NASA spreadsheet type of way, but in an overall what’s working for me? kind-of-way. Because Writer Girl Summer wasn’t about becoming neurotic. It was about figuring something out as a real human person, not a robot.

For me, aside from my viral note, I learned that travel and simple notes about my life in West Africa seemed to resonate best (see examples below). This was one of my most pivotal observations, because then I had a topic to work from which really helped me think of more ideas for notes and how to frame what I wanted to say.

Note linked HERE.

Note linked HERE.

I don’t think that you should NEVER post anything outside of your “topic.” After all, we’re all human beings that are experiencing this wonderful, chaotic and sometimes hard thing called life, but in general, allow your topic to help frame up the majority of your notes. I found this to be really helpful.

5. You don’t get to decide what a note does once you release it!

This goes for all writing but remember, it’s about how it lands for the reader, not how you felt about it.

Some of the notes I thought were the best went nowhere, and the note that went viral, I thought would get 2 likes.

Here’s what’s important: you wrote the note and it’s in the universe.

You released it.

You did your job.

Now let it go.

A side note to this point: Viral isn’t the goal.

Don’t get me wrong, going viral was awesome. It was very validating. I even had a floral shop reach out to me and offer to send me a bouquet of flowers in exchange for allowing them to share my story on their page. And for a real hot-second, I felt like an actual influencer.

But I’ve read in many places (and Sarah Fay also echoes this) that if your goal is to build a quality community, you don’t need to go viral. In fact, sometimes going viral just adds subscribers who aren’t engaged at all.

What you should aim for is consistent, quality notes that can help you find and build an engaged community.

In the end, numbers aren’t my biggest win from Writer Girl Summer. I really thought that would be. But my biggest win is that I genuinely love the connections I’ve made. And I feel like I’ve even been able to travel through their pictures and stories in a weird but real way.

The camaraderie I’ve found here also makes Substack a lovely platform to be on. Out of the 28,000+ likes I got on my viral note, I can count the ugly comments I received on one hand. That’s pretty unique.

As an expat, I spend my summers in the states, but Writer Girl Summer surprised me, because while being in my own home country, I feel like my whole world grew a little.

P.S.

If you’re wondering how I ended up as an American expat living in Nigeria, I share that full story here.

P.P.S.

In an effort to pay it forward, I want to shout out a few of my OG Substack friends. I’m honored to be doing this writer journey with them and all of you!

1. Vivian. She is such a rockstar and fellow expat living in Portugal, but NYC lover at heart. Also, an organization and down-sizing guru. She writes both The Expat Diaries and How to Stuff Your Home.

2. Greg and Tammy from Postcards At Our Pace. They are those crazy people who sold all their stuff and are traveling the world! Omg. Life goals. I love hearing about their travel ambitions and all about their cute dog Brody too.