Where do I find readers?

And why I don’t worry about it anymore

This question comes courtesy of

Write More with Simon K Jones

latest post that doesn’t allow comments and so, in my usual fashion, I’m giving my answer here. You can check out his question (and answer) here:

How do you find readers?

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Upon reading his question I thought, “I’ll just go back to the well and find my answer(s) from previous writings.” Only to discover it’s not a topic I’ve discussed often. Here are the only things I could find from the past that even come remotely close to an answer:

Where to Find People Who Love Opening Emails

3 Steps to Finding (and keeping) Readers

THE “WHEN” AND “WHY” OF IT ALL

I stopped worrying about self-promotion when I joined Substack. Actually, it was about three months after. If you had asked me back then what the best way was to grow one’s numbers I would’ve said, without question, BookFunnel or StoryOrigin. Both are great ways to sell something and at the time I thought great ways to grow an email list as well. I’ve since changed my mind completely. IMHO I would only use them to sell a book I have on Amazon. I’m not sure I would even use the reader magnet tactic to find or grow my subscribers to my Substack, and here are just a few reasons why:

• The readers/visitors from those places are 100% in it just for the freebie and that’s it.

• 100% of them won’t interact with emails afterwords whether it’s clicking links, the Like button, or leaving a comment.

• Statistically my subscriber numbers would be higher but that’s where they would end. My subscriber number would make my other stats look unfairly low.

Again, this has been my experience and I’m sure others have had different experiences and better results than I have. But for me personally I would only recommend using reader magnet services to actually sell something and if the sale happens to also lead to a subscriber because they want more of my work, then that’s a double win.

I think a large part of not just what I write but the quantity of what I write is owed in large part to the fact that I stopped caring about self-promotion this year.

In many ways, thinking back to last year I regret the time I wasted on social media platforms. I could’ve written so much more last year if I had stopped strategizing and researching other peoples methods and trying painstakingly to implement my own sure-fire way to break the code. At the end of the day it was pointless, I got zero growth from it, and what’s even worse is I wrote zero fiction because of it. That last part really drove home to me why I needed to stop caring about that which simply cannot be controlled.

There was another more statistically based “why” I stopped caring about social media promotion that also answers

Simon K Jones

question “how do I find readers?” And it comes from one of my other Substack publications. I’m actually juggling 4 publications at the moment, but one of them served as the best reason for me to stop worrying and just focus on my writing: Beyond the Wizard

If you didn’t know, I’ve been planning (and even wrote a short story already) to write my own reimagining if the Oz story. But as I live and die by research, I decided to take on the task of reading all of the Oz books currently in the public domain. Currently, there are 27 of 40. And I wondered if maybe there would be other fellow readers of classic fairytales who would like to join me. So, last summer I quickly created my second Substack publication. I set it up with a rudimentary welcome email and about page, and even wrote my first post explaining my idea. Then life happened and I literally forgot it even existed for the next 7 months! If not for one of the subscribers leaving a comment on that first post I wrote, asking when I would start posting chapters of the first book, who knows how long I would’ve gone without even looking at that publication.

But boy am I glad I did! I could not believe what I saw. I had over 400 subscribers! And I did the following to make that happen:

NOTHING

Not only did I do nothing but up until January of this year I had written maybe 3 posts to explain my initial idea…

• Zero promotion on any social media platforms

• Zero work on my part to seek out these readers

• Zero engagement from me or follow up email for months.

Honestly, if I had not said my intention was to start sharing chapters of Oz in 2023 this probably wouldn’t have happened. And you could probably easily point out why this growth even happened.

• Oz has a built in audience

• There are plenty of other Substacks doing the exact same formula of posting chapters on a weekly basis.

And you would be correct on all points, however, as I said I’m all about that research. And while not only am I not the first I’m also certainly not the largest of them all. There are other Substacks with thousands of subscribers. Oz is quite niche so I’m not expecting those numbers. Also, I’m doing things very differently. I’m actively engaging with my readers in ways none of the others are doing. Comments and discussions per chapter are up. The Like button is being used as a way to let each other know that we’ve completed a chapter which gives me over 10% engagement even from those less inclined to want to comment. And there is also a monthly update post that wraps up each month’s reading, asks my reader’s questions about future ideas, and most importantly tells them I am a writer of fiction.

It wasn’t until a month into working on Beyond the Wizard that I realized I had found my readers. It was quite by accident and certainly not intentional. At the time I created it I really was just looking for other readers to read with me and hold me accountable for getting at least this part of my research for my story idea done.

It’s also been a different experience for me from even my personal and what I consider to be my main Substack. This one is made up of non-readers that were imported from my BookFunnel magnet reader ventures and those from the Substack discord server, ie fellow writers. It’s strange to say it even out loud but none of my subscribers here are readers. At least not in the way that those subs from my other Substacks are.

I feel comfortable in saying that I’m probably the only writer, or at least writer who one day hopes to publish many works of fiction, at Beyond the Wizard. Everyone who subscribes is a reader first and foremost and are there to read the story. I hope that when I’m ready they will be open to reading my take on Oz. A built in audience.

BUT WHAT IF YOU CAN’T FOLLOW MY BLUEPRINT?

I’m sure many of you might think I’m either A) lucky or B) naive in my planning of how things unfolded. But you’re also wondering how you can do it too if your work either has no commonality with anything ever written before (I assure you it does, as “new” is a word we use incorrectly) or that thing it’s similar to isn’t in the public domain so you can’t do it quite like me. That is where I will turn your attention to another Substack publication of mine: Stardate

It’s got things both in common with and different from Beyond the Wizard. The difference is in medium. One is mainly a television and movie franchise, while the other is mostly based on the books. But the similarity is in the niche audience. Sharing a common love for a thing.

With Stardate I’m simply reviewing each episode. My goal is to watch all of them. From TOS to the latest Picard, Discovery, Lower Decks, and Prodigy and everything in between. Including the movies. In chronological order. And if I can, do it daily. I’m having so much fun doing it! Now, I’m not the first. There have been hundreds, if not millions, of Trekkie fans who annually will go back and binge watch (at a much faster pace than I am by the way) either everything or just their favorite series. That’s not the point. The point is the audience is there. The point is what I’m doing is probably a bit different than anyone else who might be doing it at the same time as me or already has done it. I’m documenting my journey. I’m analyzing each episode. I’m including images and quotes and interesting facts about each episode. By the time I’m done I’ll have almost 1000 posts and probably just as many, if not more, Trekkie friends who were there with me from the beginning. The experiences we will have shared will be pretty freaking awesome. And should I decide along the way that I want to write something in the science-fiction genre, I will have the readership already there. But as with Beyond the Wizard, that thought was very much secondary at the time of creating each publication.

And to try and take this long tangent back to where I started, I am able to do all this, write all this, because I have no longer needed to worry or care about getting those subscribers to my ideas, my publications.

Just like Substack did the heavy lifting to bring me 400+ subscribers to Beyond the Wizard, they are doing much the same work with Stardate and my other publications. And I’m assured that each and every single sub are readers who will open my emails because that is what brought them to Substack to begin with. The continued proof is in my 50%+ open rate on the emails I send. I never got numbers like that on this Substack you’re reading. A reason I think can only be blamed on where these subs originally came from.

CAN I FIX MY SUBSCRIBER PROBLEM?

The short answer is, yes. But I don’t think you’ll like or agree with how I’m going about doing it. If you’re squeamish I suggest stopping here as I basically answered the question I originally set out to answer. The rest is purely experimental and something I would not recommend doing if you haven’t owned and operated a newsletter in multiple facets for more than a decade and therefore understand the implications of what I’ve done.

Step 1: I removed all subscribers who have not opened my emails I over a year. This process got rid of nearly 1/3 of my subscriber list. But it also shows me truer numbers when I look at my statistics.

Step 2: I’ve all but stopped sending my non-fiction writing as emails. From now on my subscribers will only get my fiction and monthly updates as emails. Everything else I write (like what you’re reading now) will be treated like a blog post and not emailed. I will share links to my non-emailed writing in my monthly update emails. This will mean a huge reduction in the number of emails I send monthly from nearly 10 to 3 but it will hopefully show what my main objective is for this Substack which is to be about my fiction stories.

Step 3: I intend to get back to fiction. I’ve been spending too much time talking about it and hardly any time doing it. This is the main reason why I have Beyond the Wizard and Stardate. They are my creative motivators. They allow me to think creatively in ways I haven’t been able to do in a long time. When I think back to the times I did the most fiction writing it was when I went to the movies multiple times a week, went to Broadway shows (yes, in NYC) often, watched my favorite tv shows, and went to museums. I did things that would naturally instill a desire in me to tell a story. The pandemic, brought about so much change in my life, such as my ability to work from home permanently, but it also stifled my creativity. I’m trying to get it all back one day at a time by bringing back some of the things I had forgotten I enjoyed doing.

I hope all of this leads me to more fiction, friendships that would likely never have been possible before, and that you gained something by reading all that I had to say.

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I also hope I don’t grow complacent and that opportunities for me to participate in some way to my growth besides just creating content comes my way. But in the meantime, I continue to thank Substack for allowing me to just write and leave the rest to them. So far, I have no complaints.