Chasing Numbers: A Meta Substack Post about Substack Growth

I started this Substack as an experiment, not a performance. Somewhere along the way, I forgot that. This piece is about how easy it is to lose sight of why we create, and what happens when we start measuring our worth by numbers instead of connection.

I’ve been writing daily reflections here on Substack since late May. As some of you know, I started this account on the advice of a literary consultant who told me I’d have trouble selling my memoir without a platform. That was a hard thing to hear. I wasn’t ready to come out of the closet as a therapist who has struggled with her own mental health. I sure as hell wasn’t going to put myself “out there” on social media, especially not somewhere my patients could google my name and learn everything about my internal world.

Still, I had worked hard on my memoir, writing it, editing it, and doing the hardest work of all: sharing it with people I love. I wasn’t ready to be public, but I also wasn’t ready to give up. So I did my research and decided to try my hand at Substack, the only platform where I felt I could be fully anonymous, and see if there was an audience for what I had to say.

My plan, at least initially, was simple: write short essays that touched on topics from my memoir. I didn’t tell anyone I was doing this. It was an experiment, designed to give me information. I had no expectations, only curiosity. My plan was to write one essay every other week and post a chapter summary in the weeks between. To be honest, I had no idea what I would write about. I thought I had already said everything I needed to say in my book. Turns out, I was very mistaken.

Once I started writing, I discovered that the more I wrote, the more I had to say. I keep thinking I would run out of ideas, but so far, I have written at least one essay every day since I began this experiment, and I have learned far more about myself than I bargained for.

At first, my subscribers grew rapidly. For the first two months, I gained roughly five hundred new subscribers each month. I didn’t measure my success by numbers then, because I had no context for what was typical. I had no idea what agents or publishers were even looking for. What I measured instead was connection.

Each response, each comment, each moment of resonance felt like a hit of dopamine. People were reading what I wrote, and more than that, they were relating to it. Over time, I began to share my Substack with people who had known me for years, and later with people I had met more recently. What I found was this: every honest reflection I shared brought me closer to others. Sometimes it deepened existing relationships; sometimes it created new ones with people I knew only from this strange little corner of the internet.

The more I shared, and the more I read and engaged with others, the more others shared with me.

But something shifted over the past two months, and I am not proud of it. Instead of looking for connection, I caught myself chasing growth. Looking back, I can now see that the shift came when my numbers stopped growing rapidly. I felt I had done something wrong, or at least that I needed to do something differently to reignite interest. It wasn’t even about finding a publisher anymore. It was about finding worth, about getting the hit of being wanted. Without realizing it, I was chasing the fleeting high of being noticed instead of the steady nourishment of being known.

I did this even knowing that chasing numbers has never served me well. Not the pounds on the scale. Not the calories for the day. Not the pace on my watch, the grades on an exam, or the subscribers on a screen. Numbers are external. The growth that matters happens inside, and there are no metrics that can measure it.

I have learned this lesson the hard way many times, and yet I started posting notes that didn’t come from my heart but from a place of wanting numbers. I reached out to writers I thought might subscribe to my work, regardless of whether I was interested in theirs. I wasn’t sure why I did it, but it felt familiar. Now I see it for what it was: the old instinct to put on a mask, to look good, to seem enviable, and to hope that would attract people. I was counting on feedback to make me feel good about myself instead of finding that steadiness from within.

So while my essays continued to come from the heart, I started trying to game the algorithm. I lost sight of what fills me up: reading other people’s work, connecting with those reading mine who were also trying to grow on the inside.

Eventually, when my numbers started moving backward, I slowed down to try and understand. Here is what I came to: numbers are not why I am here, and when I start to focus on them, I lose sight of what matters most: reading, responding, and connecting. I think maybe my readers feel that too. Maybe that is why some of them unsubscribed. So I decided to make a change, and in doing so I realized what a perfect metaphor this is. When I get caught up in numbers or in what others think of me, I start performing. I try to attract others with what I think they want rather than by being my authentic self.

It has taken me until my forties to finally see how that pattern doesn’t bring anyone closer. It pushes people away. I know it, but I still need to relearn it more often than I would like.

The friendships that have formed and deepened here, the ones built on ink (or perhpas pixels) and honesty, are what keep me writing. That is why I am here. That’s what I am reminding myself now.

And so I am trying again to return to what began this whole thing: curiosity, not performance. Authenticity and honest connection, not numbers.

If there’s one thing Substack keeps teaching me, it’s that growth worth chasing can’t be tracked on a graph. It lives in the quiet exchanges that happen between posts, in the way a story lands with someone miles away, or how another writer’s words open something inside me. I am learning, again and again, that the algorithm that matters isn’t about visibility at all. It’s about vulnerability and connection.

*If this resonated, please leave a quick comment so Substack knows to to show it to others. Thank you!