398 Substack subscribers in 14 weeks – and why that’s not the part that matters to me

Who: Rebecca Lindell
What: Walking the Earth: A Camino Journey – a publication on the Substack platform
Format: Content & media · global market, English
Started: March 2026
Audience: 398 subscribers at 14 weeks (100–1,000 range), plus engagement on posts – likes and comments
Payers: 1 paid subscriber
Promotion budget: $0
Income: not yet
Status: active but stalled
Channels: text social media, communities & forums, offline & word of mouth, collabs & shoutouts

What worked: Four evergreen posts as a soft launch, then Substack Notes – one of which took off
The result: 113 readers before that Note and around 40 more from it; 398 subscribers at 14 weeks, one of them paying
The catch: mass-subscribing to nearby publications to speed things up stopped growth cold, and she chose not to keep chasing the algorithm

I’m a freelance writer and editor with a three-decade background in journalism, public relations and marketing. I’ve always loved to write – in fact, that’s what inspired me to become a journalist. But I found, after writing for other people and institutions for so many years, that I had lost my own writing “voice.” Substack offered me an opportunity to create my own publication and platform. A chance to get my own voice back out into the world. Whatever becomes of this project, I’m glad that I have recovered my own writerly voice and that I am now projecting it out into the world.

Three years ago, I walked the Camino de Santiago, a 500-mile pilgrimage walk across northern Spain. While doing the walk, I found myself writing every day and posting on Polarsteps, an online travel journal. Friends and family were responding to my posts and encouraging me to find a wider audience. I didn’t know how to do that, so I actually found a random “travel writing consultant” online who reviewed my work and encouraged me to start a Substack journal. I had not really heard much about Substack prior to that. I’m a researcher (often prone to analysis paralysis), so I spent the better part of the year learning about the platform and trying to work up my nerve to start publishing on it.
I texted and emailed people in my personal contacts list and told them about my new Substack and invited them to subscribe. I even sent an email to my dentist so that she could share my project with the people on her staff. I posted on Facebook and Instagram and LinkedIn that I was doing this. I didn’t want to nag people, so I didn’t ask repeatedly. But I mentioned it when it felt natural.

I had this Camino journal – about 60 entries, full of stories and reflections and thoughts and descriptions. I decided I’d post one a week, and turn each journal entry into an essay with a beginning, middle and end.

I then talked to a Substack marketing expert. I paid her about $250 for her advice, because I didn’t want to waste time trying to figure out the platform. She advised me to create some “evergreen” content in addition to the weekly journal entries. So I created a few posts about the practical and emotional aspects of walking a Camino. So I made this my “soft launch.” And these four posts gained a lot of likes and comments and brought in quite a few early subscribers – my first 100, to be exact 113, by the time I formally began the weekly series. It took another seven weeks after the four-week soft-launch period to get my next 100. Then I started posting the weekly journal. That’s been a slower road to walk (much like the Camino itself). But I seem to have a loyal following and readership, and they really do engage.

My single biggest channel is Substack itself. I post an essay weekly, and I try to engage with others’ posts and Notes when they engage me. I try to be sincere. I don’t have a promotion budget. Substack is capricious – sometimes a Note will catch fire and sometimes one that I’ve crafted and that comes from my heart will generate zero engagement. Sometimes an obscure comment I’ve made on someone’s Note will gain a lot of likes and attention and then it seems to stay in the algorithm. It all seems very random. And when I dial back my Substack engagement, Substack also seems to go quiet on me, and stay quiet, until I’m all in again at 1000 percent. It feels like a very costly platform, energy- and time-wise, that way.

Generally, I just try to engage, and I try to follow new people regularly. One strategy has been to “adopt” and follow all the subscribers and followers of Substacks that are very similar to mine. When I do that, I usually get a nice bump in subscriptions, but it seems many more just ignore me, so I’m not sure that’s a high-payoff strategy.
I’ve had some fun collaborations so far – I was invited to do a Q&A with another writer in my category, and I just did a livestream interview with another Camino writer on Substack, which was a new experience and fun.

I may have topped out at close to 400 subscribers but I can’t complain. I’m sure I could move the subscriber needle if I created more evergreen content, posted like a maniac on Notes and tried to woo new subscribers that way, but this channel is not paying me and I don’t like living so much of my life in front of a screen. My hope is that I’m building a platform for myself as an essay writer, a travel writer, and a writer who can speak to people who share my sensibilities. I don’t tend to meet tons of people like that in my everyday life, so having this community meets that need.

I was gaining good momentum and I thought I’d try to ramp it up. So I tried subscribing to a lot of other Substacks that were in spaces sort of adjacent to mine. I figured I’d show up in the feeds of their readers. What happened after that was interesting: everything ground to a screeching halt. I didn’t know if Substack was trying to “punish” me for pretty transparently trying to ramp up exposure – but I suddenly found myself with a lot of subscriptions to publications I really wasn’t interested in, with nothing to show for it. So then after a couple of weeks I unsubscribed from a bunch of them.

I’m still engaging with my core readership and the people who keep showing up on my Notes feed. I seem to have my little “community” of loyal readers and we engage with and support each other. That’s great – I have developed an affection for these folks and their returned support really boosts my morale. But I think if I want to expand, I’ll have to consciously expand that circle and go looking for new “friends” elsewhere on Substack. I’m not sure I have the energy for that, so it is what it is for now.

Next month I’ll be doing some traveling – actually doing another shorter pilgrimage walk in southern France, the Le Puy – and then in the spring of 2027 I want to do a longer Camino. I do not want to be immersed in Substack during those periods; I don’t even really want to engage with comments on the posts I’ll schedule for while I’m gone. It’s a little disheartening to realize that on Substack, “if you snooze, you lose.” You need to stay active and engaged to keep growing. But I’m going to have to disengage sometimes, because I really want a life outside of this platform.

I am not exactly sure. I posted a Note on Substack that went sort of viral. Or perhaps I was recommended by a creator with a larger audience. Whatever it was, I was suddenly garnering scores of new subscribers for a couple of weeks. That Note got over 700 likes and a lot of engagement; it brought me about 40 new subscribers, maybe more – I know a lot of people went from that Note to my profile, poked around, and decided to subscribe from there. There seemed to be some “magic” in the algorithm, or perhaps my natural audience – long-distance walkers, Camino buffs, midlife women dreaming of change – just found me.

Growth’s slowed down considerably since then. I seem to be stuck at just under 400 subscribers. It’s weird because there was this explosive growth, and I am now just treading water. I guess I would have been sadder if I had stalled out at under 100 readers. I’d love to keep growing, but as I said, the channel isn’t paying me yet. So I will take this bit-by-bit approach and actually concentrate more on putting out my best writing because truthfully, that’s where the enjoyment is for me: in the act of writing and publishing itself.

I write for other Camino junkies and for people seriously (and not so seriously) considering walking a Camino. There are people who dream about it, and I write for them. People say my posts make them feel like they’re walking the Camino along with me, so I hope to give people that experience, through writing about the specificity of my experience. People who really like to walk also seem to respond to my work.

And – and this is the big one – midlife women (even younger women) who are really dreaming and struggling to bust out of the roles and structures we’ve all been forced to live in. So much of my journey was internal and reflecting on my limitations. I like to bring people into those struggles, so anyone who’s struggling with, say, complex trauma (as I do), repressive messages from society, or emotional healing seems to respond to my work. I try to write very honestly, and I try to find the meanings and lessons underneath my struggles, so my insights seem to resonate.

I have no idea. I’m hoping, I guess, for another moment of Substack magic where growth will take off again – though the fact that I’m less willing to hustle for it doesn’t seem to make that so likely. I have paid subscriptions as totally optional right now and I’m not offering anything more for paid subscribers, so it’s no surprise I only have 1.

There’s another truth here though, and it is that I actually have much, MUCH more to write about than just the Camino. I am a highly reflective person; I read and absorb a lot, and when I’ve shared my thoughts on other platforms, I’ve literally gotten hundreds (if not thousands) of likes and responses. I don’t want to sound cocky, but I have a confidence that I can connect with people through writing, and I think there’s even greater opportunity for me to do that when I am not just being a “Camino writer.” I love writing about the Camino though, it’s my “happy place,” but thinking like a business person, I think there’s even more opportunity for me to expand and monetize if I turn myself into some sort of “mid-life woman growth expert,” validating the experience of what it’s like to be a woman in this society, and also a woman in mid-life. I’ll get there. I’m just not ready to shift gears just yet.

Generally you can’t get book deals or other such things these days unless you already have an audience, so Substack is helping me build that and we will see where it leads. I think of it as an investment in my long-term visibility as a writer.

Weekly essays from a 500-mile pilgrimage across northern Spain – the walking, and the reflection that comes with it. For Camino junkies, for people who dream about doing it, and for midlife women trying to bust out of the roles and structures we've all been forced to live in.

Walking the Earth: A Camino Journey

Rebecca Lindell

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