Conquer the "Is There Anybody Out There?!" Stage of Your Publication

It too shall pass

Hi,

This week’s post is inspired by that horrible feeling we’ve all experienced as newsletter creators, the dreaded feeling of shouting into the void, when you feel like you are writing (writing, writing) but no one is listening.

You’re a few months, or more, into your new newsletter venture and you’ve hit a wall. You’ve been writing, writing, writing…. And publishing, yes that too. 

But no one seems to be reading. You listen for a sign that someone is out there. But all you hear is

Crickets. 

I call this the “Is there anybody out there?” stage of a newsletter. 

Don’t despair: it will pass. 

How to make it through this stage (with your sanity intact)

Firstly, give yourself a pat on the back. To get to a point where you are writing and publishing consistently takes major effort. 

Most people give up before they send their 6th email. Hell, most people never get around to starting a newsletter at all. 

So yay for you, and your consistent posting. 

Celebrate where you’ve come from

At this point, you might feel like you are going nowhere but you have actually learned plenty and achieved a lot already. 

• You’ve learned that newsletter creation takes a lot of time and effort (more than you imagined, right?);

• You’ve grappled with the tech and got it (sort of) figured out;

• You’ve gained a subscriber or two, even if you don’t know quite how that happened. 

If you feel like you don’t know enough, relax. Remember, a few months ago you knew even less.

Acknowledge the overwhelm

A few months into a newsletter, many creators start getting impatient for GROWTH. 

At this point, they start reading, watching, consuming every post, video and tutorial they can find about how to grow; how to SEO; how to get more readers; how to do social media better; how to… Frankly, it’s exhausting. 

Everyone gets overwhelmed at this point. It’s perfectly normal to feel freaked out by how much you don’t know yet and how much you are NOT doing.  

So acknowledge the overwhelm. You’re feeling overwhelmed because you’re excited by the possibilities for your newsletter and want to grow it faster and better.

After you’ve acknowledged the overwhelm, step back and try to focus on the most important thing. 

Which is: keep writing.

🍒 Past post: Reduce Newsletter Overwhelm (A Recipe for Calm) 🍒

Give yourself permission to be lazy

If every newsletter you publish takes 10 hours to write, and no one is reading, you’re going to feel disappointed. That’s totally normal. 

The great news is that while your audience is small, you can afford to be a little lazy every now and then. 

This is the time to experiment with making life (just a little) easier for yourself. Could you make your emails shorter, or alternate between long and short emails? Could you reduce the frequency of posting, or re-publish someone else’s work every now and then (with their permission)? 

Being lazy will allow you some breathing space so you can keep hitting “send” even if you feel like no one cares. Best of all, if you keep hitting “send” regularly, the process will gradually become easier. 

Let yourself be seen

Getting more subscribers is hard. But if no one knows you have a newsletter, it’s not just hard, it’s impossible. During this stage, your number one focus should be writing. But you also need to get your newsletter in front of people. 

There are a million articles with advice for getting more readers. In the interests of avoiding overwhelm and keeping you sane, here are the only three things you need to worry about right now:

1. Know where your ideal readers hang out

2. Interact with an ideal reader at least once per week

3. Let people know you have a newsletter

For example: (1) Your ideal readers are in the Junee Town Facebook Group (2) You join the group and help a new resident find a dancing class (3) You prominently display your newsletter in your bio and occasionally link to it when sharing helpful content.

OR (1) Your ideal readers follow the mushroom hashtag on Twitter/X (2) You regularly comment on a major #mushroom account’s Tweets/Xs (3) You link to your newsletter in your Twitter/X bio. 

🍒 Past post: Get More Subscribers by Tweaking Your Socials 🍒

Embrace a survival mentality

Getting past the “Is there anybody out there” stage of a publication is all about persistence and survival. 

At some point, you’ll start to see some results. One day you will hear a lone reader’s voice coming back to you from the void. But if you don’t keep posting, that day will never come. 

Persistence means keeping going when you can’t see the end, even when it feels like you will never get there. It can help to imagine you are an old-time explorer, seeing a new country for the first time. You never know what will be on the other side of the hill, but if you don’t keep trudging you will never find out. 

Persistence means focusing on putting one foot in front of the other. Focus on the process of writing and publishing. Keep at it week after week, even if it sometimes feels like you are getting nowhere. 

At some point during this stage, most creators realize that the biggest challenge of everyone’s newsletter journey is just showing up every week. And if you can do that, you are already winning. 

If you don’t keep walking you’ll never find out what’s beyond the next hill. Photo by Billy Pasco on Unsplash

Brace for the next stage

If the “Is there anybody out there” stage of becoming a newsletter creator sucks, don’t despair, there is another stage just around the corner. The good news is that in the next stage, you’ll have a good publishing schedule, a nice set of past posts and will be starting to get more readers. 

The bad news is that you still won’t be out of the woods. The sad fact is that a newsletter is never ‘done’. Even the most successful newsletter creators need to constantly tweak, review and improve to keep growing and winning. 

Most of us will never be entirely happy with what we’ve achieved. Got one thousand subscribers? Not enough, you’ll want ten thousand! Get to ten thousand? You’ll be wishing you had one hundred thousand. 

The next stage will always be waiting for you, just out of sight around the next bend. That’s the beauty (and horror) of newsletter creation. 

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That’s it for this week. I hope you are doing okay if you’re in the “Is anybody out there?” stage. If you’ve got any survival tips drop them in the comments.

Karen

P.S. Shout outs to 👋 Emily, who jumped on a call with me late at night from her home in Turkiye while her children slept, and 👋 Anna, who says Substack sucks at Italian! - so lovely to meet you both! And to 👋 Geylon who I haven’t met but who noticed I skipped a week recently (.. and hopefully didn’t notice I’m posting this a few days later than usual😁).