This is indeed a distinguishing feature of Substack. However, I think it sometimes contributes to low conversion rates for subscription upgrades. A lot of us who already write on Substack and who subscribe to WAY more newsletters than we could ever pay for find it easy to click "subscribe" when a colleague recommends another newsletter. And this gives a sense of progress when we see the free subscriber count going steadily up. But my paying subscriber count has plateaued for months, despite many attempts to change my model or offer different kinds of value-added content. I hear people with 5x and 10x the free subscribers that I have saying the same. So I'm wondering if we're reaching a kind of saturation point in some quarters or genres?
I was thinking about this the other day -- when I used to write for lit mags, I had a very clear sense of my audience. Typically editors at other journals were a lot like my creative writing mentors, they had a certain sensibility, read many of the same craft books. I knew how to craft an essay in a way that they would find compelling. But I know so little about my Substack readers. Sometimes they reply my Welcome email and explain why they subscribed. But that still doesn't tell me what they'd be willing to pay for. And so I think I'm winning at attracting readers who like my sensibility, just as I was in the lit mag game, but the conversion puzzle is a different thing altogether.
Anyway, a long-winded way of suggesting a question to tackle in a future post!
Oh man, I hear you, the conversion struggle is real! My paid publication's paying subscriber count plateaued really badly in Sept - Nov, it even went backwards for while (arrggh), after having really pleasing growth from June to August. It feels horrid.
I have avoided this topic so far, but you might have inspired me to give it a crack, thanks Joshua.
Yes, I noticed that, although I haven't turned on paid! I didn't expect my Substack to grow substantially in a short time. I started it as part of a larger strategy. In early spring, my husband and I are launching our membership video website on Uscreen. Members receive our entertainment videos. Featuring my magic and my husbands music. And sometimes combining them and including guests as well. Our plan is to also offer my blog and my husbands future blog and courses on magic and music.
So I thought I would begin my blog well before we launched our website, And that’s why I started this Substack in September! Putting me well ahead of the game. For that reason Substack has worked brilliantly for me.
Thank you for this, Karen! You have answered so many of the questions I had about this feature. I’m a newbie here on Substack so still have the training wheels on. I appreciate all you do to help us writers gain the most we can from this community. ✨🫶
I really appreciate this article and your knowledge. All the information I needed was right there, all together! I have done some recommending and received return recommendations but was not savvy in the deeper workings of the concept. Thanks so much.
I joined Substack 3 months ago and grew to close to 900 today. I had no idea about recommendations at the time, so I just recommended any Substack writer recommending me, Lol. It's a valuable tool. 90 of my subscribers come from recommendations, and that's a LOT! It's over 10 percent of my subscribers! My own recommendations have garnered one of those writers 60 subscribers just from my recommendations!
Isn't it lovely that this is such a supportive platform and it's actively encourage to support other publishers here on Substack?
I never enjoyed writing and sharing newsletters in the past but since finding Substack back in April, I love it. Thank you Karen for this excellent advice.
This is such great advice! I would also urge medium and large sized pubs to be open-minded about people who contact YOU for recommendations or collaborations. I’m a small substack, but over the summer I was contacted on LinkedIn by another writer who found my work on substack and asked if I’d be interested in mutual Recommendations. They were new, tiny, and somewhat related to my niche but an offshoot, so I was unsure. But I read their post archives, decided it was good quality so why not? Worst that happens is no traffic, right? To date they have become my single largest subscriber generating tool! My second highest number of subscriptions via Recommendations is also from a publication significantly smaller than mine.
I like recommendation but I have got one problem with it:
I tried recommending a few publications that I enjoy, but I think they are mich bigger than mine in terms of subscriptions. So none of them recommended back 😅 Even though some of them reply and interact with my articles.
I tried asking for recommendations once and the person told me that they have enough and don't want to add more.
So I never asked anyone again 😅
Someone recommended me who I think have a big chunck of audience after I recommend them recently.
I am now focusing on people having similar subscribers volume as myself, maybe that would work better.
I think this is a good idea. It's easier to recommend similar topics or similar volume of suscribers. But, sorry! How do you know the number of suscribers of a newsletter?
Some authors allow the number of subscribers to be shown in their welcome page or their substack profile. Otherwise, I just try to predict it by the average number of people who interact to their posts weekly.
Karen, excellent, thoroughly detailed article on the importance of recommendations!
For those that have tried recommending and seen little reaction from fellow Substackers, hang in there, it will work ... some will take time to respond and if not just move on.
As mentioned in the article, don't forget the blurb as it adds a warm, personal touch and helps your subscriber see the value in the recommendation. It's also worth highlighting and linking other publications within your articles as this is very appreciated (many thanks Karen) and word of mouth regarding your publication will spread over the months.
First, thanks for that screen shot of the welcome page. I never knew recommendations showed up there! Probably because I never see those welcome pages. I've always subscribed to pubs via notes or in posts.
Second, I think recommendations work sometimes for some people. I can see how many subs I've generated for other people and the numbers are impressive! But numbers from pubs who have recommended me aren't very high.
I've noticed that the accounts I subscribe to have a button in the footer of their posts that says "recommend" and I can't seem to get that button on mine. I don't see any option to add it. Any ideas?
Karen, do you know, if we unrecommend a site, will the writer also be notified of that? I'm considering unrecommending a site as I'm not really sure my readers would enjoy it, but I'm worried that the writer will be notified. I hate to discourage any Substack writer. :)
Hi Sue, I don't think writers are notified of an 'unrecommend' by email, though I can't be sure. Lets do an experiment to find out!
I just recommended Tales of a Wayward Yogini, and will 'unrecommend' you soon - purely in the interests of finding out about the notification, of course! Let me know if you got a notification.
Thanks, Karen. Interestingly, I didn't receive notification of either your recommend or unrecommend. It seems to me sometimes the notification of someone recommending you takes a little time. I could be wrong. Let's see if it comes through.
Oh that's annoying. Perhaps I didn't wait long enough between subscribing and recommending.... notifications are not sent if the recommender is not subscribed to the recommendee, until the recommendation starts generating subscriptions.
On the upside, no notification for the unrecommend, which seems good.
Thank you for this tutorial on recommendations, Karen. Your article and it's comments section are a gold mine of useful tips. I am new to Substack and appreciate the information shared here.
I'm late to the party, but thank you for this! One question I have is: how do I add the "Recommend" button that you have at the bottom of your post, where it prompts me to recommend your publication to the readers of my publication? I can't find how to do this anywhere, and I don't see that button in the drop-down menu of buttons to use in my post.
Hi B.A. I didn't add the recommend button myself and I can't see it when I view the post myself. This would be something Substack is doing automatically, and perhaps because they think our audiences have an overlap. They are probably adding 'Recommend' buttons to your posts too.
Ah, thank you so much! You've solved a great mystery. I wondered if that might be the case, but I only saw the button on a couple of Substack posts and I assumed it'd be on *all* posts if it was an automatic thing. I'm not sure why our audiences would have an overlap, unless maybe Substack deems your newsletter of interest to everyone because it's *about* Substack 😅. Who knows. The other newsletter I saw it on is a somewhat philosophical one written by a Buddhist woman, so... back to a being a big mystery when it comes right down to it.
Fabulously helpful, Karen, thank you so much. I've looked everywhere for the answer to that. There's a thread over on reddit.com/r/Substack asking this (that helpfully turns up in search) I'll pop a link from here over there along with a warm recommendation for your terrific explanations and support. Thank you for all you do! 🙇♀️
I recommended two other Substacks so far, but only one is displaying on my Substack homepage. I have to click "View all" to display the other one. Strange - has anyone else experienced this? I thought it should just list them both.
You're right, Trinity, usually you would see them all listed. Substack developers perform quiet split testing of new ideas sometimes, so this could be one of those times. It could also have to do with the size of the screen you are viewing from... responsive websites will shorten lists to make everything fit and look nice.
This is indeed a distinguishing feature of Substack. However, I think it sometimes contributes to low conversion rates for subscription upgrades. A lot of us who already write on Substack and who subscribe to WAY more newsletters than we could ever pay for find it easy to click "subscribe" when a colleague recommends another newsletter. And this gives a sense of progress when we see the free subscriber count going steadily up. But my paying subscriber count has plateaued for months, despite many attempts to change my model or offer different kinds of value-added content. I hear people with 5x and 10x the free subscribers that I have saying the same. So I'm wondering if we're reaching a kind of saturation point in some quarters or genres?
I was thinking about this the other day -- when I used to write for lit mags, I had a very clear sense of my audience. Typically editors at other journals were a lot like my creative writing mentors, they had a certain sensibility, read many of the same craft books. I knew how to craft an essay in a way that they would find compelling. But I know so little about my Substack readers. Sometimes they reply my Welcome email and explain why they subscribed. But that still doesn't tell me what they'd be willing to pay for. And so I think I'm winning at attracting readers who like my sensibility, just as I was in the lit mag game, but the conversion puzzle is a different thing altogether.
Anyway, a long-winded way of suggesting a question to tackle in a future post!
Oh man, I hear you, the conversion struggle is real! My paid publication's paying subscriber count plateaued really badly in Sept - Nov, it even went backwards for while (arrggh), after having really pleasing growth from June to August. It feels horrid.
I have avoided this topic so far, but you might have inspired me to give it a crack, thanks Joshua.
These are great questions to be posing Joshua.
Yes, I noticed that, although I haven't turned on paid! I didn't expect my Substack to grow substantially in a short time. I started it as part of a larger strategy. In early spring, my husband and I are launching our membership video website on Uscreen. Members receive our entertainment videos. Featuring my magic and my husbands music. And sometimes combining them and including guests as well. Our plan is to also offer my blog and my husbands future blog and courses on magic and music.
So I thought I would begin my blog well before we launched our website, And that’s why I started this Substack in September! Putting me well ahead of the game. For that reason Substack has worked brilliantly for me.
Thank you for this, Karen! You have answered so many of the questions I had about this feature. I’m a newbie here on Substack so still have the training wheels on. I appreciate all you do to help us writers gain the most we can from this community. ✨🫶
I really appreciate this article and your knowledge. All the information I needed was right there, all together! I have done some recommending and received return recommendations but was not savvy in the deeper workings of the concept. Thanks so much.
I joined Substack 3 months ago and grew to close to 900 today. I had no idea about recommendations at the time, so I just recommended any Substack writer recommending me, Lol. It's a valuable tool. 90 of my subscribers come from recommendations, and that's a LOT! It's over 10 percent of my subscribers! My own recommendations have garnered one of those writers 60 subscribers just from my recommendations!
Thank you Karen for sharing your valuable advice!
Isn't it lovely that this is such a supportive platform and it's actively encourage to support other publishers here on Substack?
I never enjoyed writing and sharing newsletters in the past but since finding Substack back in April, I love it. Thank you Karen for this excellent advice.
Great post, thanks. Makes me want to ask you to recommend my Substack.
This is such great advice! I would also urge medium and large sized pubs to be open-minded about people who contact YOU for recommendations or collaborations. I’m a small substack, but over the summer I was contacted on LinkedIn by another writer who found my work on substack and asked if I’d be interested in mutual Recommendations. They were new, tiny, and somewhat related to my niche but an offshoot, so I was unsure. But I read their post archives, decided it was good quality so why not? Worst that happens is no traffic, right? To date they have become my single largest subscriber generating tool! My second highest number of subscriptions via Recommendations is also from a publication significantly smaller than mine.
Oh wow that it such a good story, Eric! It should definitely be an encouragement to everyone to keep an open mind about smaller publications.
And I will follow this advice too, thank you.
Thank you Karen this is useful.
I like recommendation but I have got one problem with it:
I tried recommending a few publications that I enjoy, but I think they are mich bigger than mine in terms of subscriptions. So none of them recommended back 😅 Even though some of them reply and interact with my articles.
I tried asking for recommendations once and the person told me that they have enough and don't want to add more.
So I never asked anyone again 😅
Someone recommended me who I think have a big chunck of audience after I recommend them recently.
I am now focusing on people having similar subscribers volume as myself, maybe that would work better.
I think this is a good idea. It's easier to recommend similar topics or similar volume of suscribers. But, sorry! How do you know the number of suscribers of a newsletter?
Thanks.
Yes, I agree Joaquin.
Some authors allow the number of subscribers to be shown in their welcome page or their substack profile. Otherwise, I just try to predict it by the average number of people who interact to their posts weekly.
Great tips, Basma!
wellcome page! I'll look for it. Thanks
Karen, excellent, thoroughly detailed article on the importance of recommendations!
For those that have tried recommending and seen little reaction from fellow Substackers, hang in there, it will work ... some will take time to respond and if not just move on.
As mentioned in the article, don't forget the blurb as it adds a warm, personal touch and helps your subscriber see the value in the recommendation. It's also worth highlighting and linking other publications within your articles as this is very appreciated (many thanks Karen) and word of mouth regarding your publication will spread over the months.
First, thanks for that screen shot of the welcome page. I never knew recommendations showed up there! Probably because I never see those welcome pages. I've always subscribed to pubs via notes or in posts.
Second, I think recommendations work sometimes for some people. I can see how many subs I've generated for other people and the numbers are impressive! But numbers from pubs who have recommended me aren't very high.
But it's still an awesome feature. I love it!
I've noticed that the accounts I subscribe to have a button in the footer of their posts that says "recommend" and I can't seem to get that button on mine. I don't see any option to add it. Any ideas?
I have the same problem. Does anyone know ow to add a rec button to your footer?
Karen, do you know, if we unrecommend a site, will the writer also be notified of that? I'm considering unrecommending a site as I'm not really sure my readers would enjoy it, but I'm worried that the writer will be notified. I hate to discourage any Substack writer. :)
Hi Sue, I don't think writers are notified of an 'unrecommend' by email, though I can't be sure. Lets do an experiment to find out!
I just recommended Tales of a Wayward Yogini, and will 'unrecommend' you soon - purely in the interests of finding out about the notification, of course! Let me know if you got a notification.
Thanks, Karen. Interestingly, I didn't receive notification of either your recommend or unrecommend. It seems to me sometimes the notification of someone recommending you takes a little time. I could be wrong. Let's see if it comes through.
Oh that's annoying. Perhaps I didn't wait long enough between subscribing and recommending.... notifications are not sent if the recommender is not subscribed to the recommendee, until the recommendation starts generating subscriptions.
On the upside, no notification for the unrecommend, which seems good.
Yes, I may experiment one more time, ha, just to be clear.
Thank you for this tutorial on recommendations, Karen. Your article and it's comments section are a gold mine of useful tips. I am new to Substack and appreciate the information shared here.
I'm late to the party, but thank you for this! One question I have is: how do I add the "Recommend" button that you have at the bottom of your post, where it prompts me to recommend your publication to the readers of my publication? I can't find how to do this anywhere, and I don't see that button in the drop-down menu of buttons to use in my post.
Hi B.A. I didn't add the recommend button myself and I can't see it when I view the post myself. This would be something Substack is doing automatically, and perhaps because they think our audiences have an overlap. They are probably adding 'Recommend' buttons to your posts too.
Ah, thank you so much! You've solved a great mystery. I wondered if that might be the case, but I only saw the button on a couple of Substack posts and I assumed it'd be on *all* posts if it was an automatic thing. I'm not sure why our audiences would have an overlap, unless maybe Substack deems your newsletter of interest to everyone because it's *about* Substack 😅. Who knows. The other newsletter I saw it on is a somewhat philosophical one written by a Buddhist woman, so... back to a being a big mystery when it comes right down to it.
Fabulously helpful, Karen, thank you so much. I've looked everywhere for the answer to that. There's a thread over on reddit.com/r/Substack asking this (that helpfully turns up in search) I'll pop a link from here over there along with a warm recommendation for your terrific explanations and support. Thank you for all you do! 🙇♀️
I recommended two other Substacks so far, but only one is displaying on my Substack homepage. I have to click "View all" to display the other one. Strange - has anyone else experienced this? I thought it should just list them both.
You're right, Trinity, usually you would see them all listed. Substack developers perform quiet split testing of new ideas sometimes, so this could be one of those times. It could also have to do with the size of the screen you are viewing from... responsive websites will shorten lists to make everything fit and look nice.
Thanks very much :-) Later on in the day, the others were listed. Perhaps some testing was going on to make things a bit slower, but all sorted now!
I didn't know that recommendation settings are "off" by default so you have to enable it! Super helpful guide. Thank you.