But first, I have to get this out of the way. Honestly, I never thought I’d write a post about Substack rankings or growth.

It’s not what I’m here for. All that how to monetise your newsletter or grow your audience blah-blah.

I’m really here for the good stuff. To publish writing from the heart and soul, and read others doing the same.

I want writing that puts guts and blood on the table.

But since joining Substack three weeks ago and launching my first newsletter (which you can check out here), something astonishing has happened.

I’ve gone from zero subscribers and no profile to #13 on the Rising in Literature Chart (as of yesterday, 30th July 2025), after a full week bouncing up and down the Top 100. I also made my first thousand bucks – in fact, as of today I’ve made $1,300.

This all happened without me importing any list of email addresses or subscribers. None of my posts or notes went viral either.

So how did I get here?

Why did my newsletter shoot up the chart? It’s not exactly an easy sell. It’s a serialised intergenerational memoir, about two tragedies in my family, a century apart.

Doesn’t sound like the sort of thing to blow up, does it?

And yet… it’s doing pretty well.

I didn’t expect this success. So although I never intended to come on this platform to write analysis and advice posts like this one, I do feel compelled to share my experience.

At the very least, writing this helps me puzzle through it for myself, but the following also contains useful insights for others hoping to reach a wider audience on here.

A warning though: the insights on offer may surprise you. Because I’m going to be fully transparent.

How did I get here?

Hopefully Substack isn’t going to shadowban me for revealing here some of the inner workings of their chart and algorithm.

But some of what I’m going to tell you has already been announced by Substack.

So how did I enter the Rising in Literature Top 100 leaderboard (initially at number #52) after posting for only two weeks?

First, it’s important to say what didn’t get me here.

I didn’t enter the leaderboard via:

• Bringing a ready-made audience from elsewhere

• Growing my free subscribers

  - Many people I follow grew their free subscribers by more and faster

  - As of today, I only have around 100 free subscribers

• Getting lots of likes or comments

  - Most of my notes have no likes or comments, or only a handful

  - My posts only have reactions and comments from a few close friends

• Securing a bunch of paid subscriptions from strangers

  - All my paid subscribes so far are from people I know

• Referrals

  - I don’t have any

• Viral posts

  - My posts have decent engagement numbers, but I wouldn’t say they’re viral.

When I started out, I was all about trying to grow my free subscribers, or writing a post or note that might go viral. I wanted eyeballs on my words. At first, I actually had no intention of even putting an option to pay for my writing on my Substack.

My gameplan was to spend several months at least growing a free audience.

I joined Substack not to make money on here, but to reach a readership.

At best, I thought I might make a wee bit of beer money.

I didn’t join to write about the platform either or to try to sell advice on growing on here to others.

I joined because I wanted readers for my weird literary stuff.

I love writing, but it can be lonely work.

I was tired from years of writing in the dark. My thing was screenplays, but I just wasn’t getting movies made. If writing is about communication, I was talking to myself.

Earlier this summer, I finished the intergenerational family memoir I’d been working on for years. I was ready to publish. But I knew trying to get an agent or publisher without any following would be a slog. A long and winding slog.

In a former life, I worked for Penguin in London (shortly before it merged with Random House) as an editorial assistant, so I had contacts in the industry and knew a bit about how the game worked. Even with my inside knowledge and connections, I knew I had little chance of breaking in as an author without bringing a ready-made audience and a bit of a profile for myself.

So I opted to publish my memoir in serialised form, one chapter a week, on Substack in the hopes I might:

a) get some responses to my writing from my nearest and dearest, so I wouldn’t feel so alone;

b) show everyone in my circle indeed I was a writer, and not just some guy blagging it;

c) slowly and surely build a small and loyal audience that might help my case when approaching agents and publishers about my book.

Why I moved from free to paid

As I said, my initial strategy was to publish the whole book for free and try to grow my free subscribers as large as possible, so I could approach publishers at the end.

I didn’t even enable payments on my Substack.

Until, a week after publishing my first chapter, a good friend made a pledge of a monthly payment.

When I got the notification, I was surprised. I then had to set up payments and Stripe to accept his pledge.

Over the next few days, three other payments trickled in from friends who had enjoyed reading the first two chapters and wanted to show their appreciation.

Entering the leaderboard

Three days after enabling payments, I was lying on my sofa at the end of the workday, about to switch off my phone for the evening.

Then, a notification popped up:

‘Patrick Loughran is now #52 Rising in Literature.’

I couldn’t believe it.

Just over two weeks into my Substack journey, I was in the charts.

At the time I had less than one hundred subscribers, and only four were paid.

So how had I got there? And how did I rise less than a week later (as of yesterday, 30^th July 2025) to #13 on the chart?

I started doing some digging to understand how these leaderboard rankings work.

Thankfully, Substack themselves give some insights.

In ‘A new view for leaderboards’ (published Mar 27, 2025), they explain the Rising leaderboard ‘highlights the fastest-growing publications within a category based on paid subscription growth’.

What I find wild about this is that you could be growing your free subscribers exponentially, but you won’t place.

When I started out, I was totally focused on growing my total subscriber number.

The leaderboard charts weren’t even on my radar because I thought they were for the big players. Famous authors or influencers with tens of thousands of subscribers. Not little folks like me.

How I entered the leaderboard

To put it simply:

• Four people paid for a subscription in one day

• That’s it!

Once I understood that it was all about paid subscribes, I dropped my ambition to grow my overall subscriber numbers and decided to focus on getting a handful of paid subscribers each day.

My assumption was that if I could climb into the Top Ten or even the Top Five of the leaderboard, it might lead to a huge bump in overall subscribers.

Since my initial goal had been to grow the largest possible (free) subscriber audience, who would hopefully become fans of my book, this now seemed the easiest way to achieve that aim.

The leaderboard would give me visibility, and surely subscribers would follow.

How I shot up the leaderboard

Over the following days, I posted heavily on my social media, showing that I had hit the leaderboard, and asking for help from friends to climb higher.

I made clear I needed paid subscribers to rise on the chart.

I called close friends and family who I thought would be willing to support.

Each day, I managed to get between three and four new paid subscribes.

I should emphasise I don’t have huge social media followings.

I have 500 followers on Instagram and 900 friends on Facebook. On LinkedIn I have a handful of connections. I’m not on any other networks.

Over the following week, I reached 20 paid subscribes, and that drove me to #13 on the chart. Crazy, right? That’s all it took.

That’s the how. But what about the why?

Why did I get here?

Here’s the thing. People started subscribing without me asking them.

They did it because they enjoyed the writing.

How do I know that was the reason? Because they told me.

I genuinely believe I wouldn’t have got a flurry of paid subscriptions from friends if they didn’t believe in the writing.

Which brings me to the why.

To quote Jonathan Nott:

I love how Jonathan puts it (you can read his full essay here).

I knew why I had written my book, and I genuinely believed in it. I wasn’t trying to game anything. So people responded to it on an emotional level.

That also meant that when I started going around with my digital begging bowl to friends and family, and asking them to subscribe, I didn’t feel any shame about it.

I believe in the book so much, I’m totally happy to ask people to pay for it. It’s that simple.

What did NOT happen

To quote Substack again: ‘For many publishers, landing on one of Substack’s leaderboards has opened the door to new subscribers’… ‘Leaderboards bring the Substack ecosystem to life by helping writers and creators find new subscribers’.

I have to say, so far I haven’t found that to be true. I’ve only had a handful of subscribers from outside my real life circle.

And I haven’t seen any bump in subscribers since charting.

Maybe that will change but for now that’s the reality.

What I’ve learned

The reality is, on Substack if you only wear the author hat, you probably won’t get invited to the table. You’ll be scrounging crumbs instead.

If you want to reach readers, you have to be your own publisher. Your own marketing and publicity department, your own sales team, and data analytics wonk, and the managing director who sees the whole picture. Sounds exhausting, right? Well, maybe it doesn’t have to be.

I will say, the last week or so has been a blast. I’m hardly a star on here or anything, but just a little recognition does wonders for your motivation to write and to promote your writing. Far from exhausting, it’s incredibly energising.

So, dear fellow writers, I wish you all the energy and self-belief you require to put your writing forward.

In conclusion

I’ll be writing more posts like this as the journey continues, and I learn new insights about this whole self-publishing ecosystem. Really, I do find it fascinating.

The core of what I’m doing here will remain the memoir though. The blood and guts will remain on the table.

Let me know in the comments below if you have any questions or thoughts you’d like to me address in a subsequent post.

Thanks and love,

Patrick