My First Impressions After One Week Using Substack Notes
29 Aug 2026 #experimentsAs an experiment, I’m writing 30 Substack notes and sharing my favorite posts in a publication.
In January, Medium suspended my account. I appealed and got it back. But they shadow-banned me since then. This month, my posts got around 400 reads. That’s people staying for more than 30 seconds on my posts. At its peak, my posts got 10K reads. That was a good source of book sales.
That’s the problem with curated platforms. Say the wrong words and you’re out.
Some numbers and a suspicious DM
This week, I published first 5 notes in Substack. The best one got 3 likes and ~30 impressions. They brought 4 followers.
The second day, an influencer DMed me asking me what I was working on. I think he’s about to sell something but hasn’t pulled the trigger yet. Good or bad, that’s the only DM I’ve received so far. I haven’t replied to his last message. I don’t know if I will. I don’t like sales call at all.
The feed feels like…the same
The “For you” feed feels…weird?
- Some praising how doomscrolling on Substack feels different from social media. No, it’s not. Feeds are draining. Call it X, LinkedIn, Instagram, Substack…
- Others ranting about creators selling courses on how to create courses. When everybody is digging for gold, sell shovels, right?
- Others sharing 1-only quotes to show off their wisdom.
- Others offering follow for follow to support each other.
- Others begging not to make Substack like all other social media platforms.
I’m still keeping my blog. It’s like working on my garage studio. Substack is for distribution. It’s like taking my best pieces from the garage studio to the Sunday market in the city main square.
For the time being, I’m keeping up with Notes to see where it takes me.
Here’s my Substack, in case you’re there too. My posts and books aren’t going anywhere else.