Nobody Wants to Read Your Shit, and Other Substack Wisdom

Too Old for This Sh*t: How to Take Your Life Back from an Ageist Society

Photo by Vikas Pawar on Unsplash

Nobody owes us their eyeballs. We get to earn them.

Please, get pissed. Because if your dander is up, maybe you’ll listen. I’m taking a sidestep from my lane to underscore an important piece I read today.

This morning

Linda Caroll

addressed a pet peeve of mine on Substack:

If You're Just Starting On Substack, Don't Make The Same Dumb Mistake I Did

Here’s an excerpt that caught my eye:

If you see a list of “suggested” newsletters, and you see “History Of Women” in that list, there’s no question what it’s about, right?

But if you see xo Linda, Jenny’s Newsletter, Letters From Sue or Bob’s Substack, it’s meaningless. Who the hell is Linda, or Jenny or Sue or Bob? The only people who sign up are people who come from somewhere that they know you — or me. (author bolded)

I’ve been on Substack since September 2024. I’ve enjoyed good growth, and good numbers, both of which are nunna. While I’m not raking in the dough, I enjoy four-digit subscriber numbers because of two things: one, I have a catchy and funny title, and two, I deliver consistently, consistent with my brand promise.

Let’s talk about titles, as Linda does here. It’s your brand promise.

A brand promise is a commitment made by a company to its customers that outlines the value and brand experience they can expect when using its products or services.-Mail Chimp

What’s your personal brand? What do you stand for? What’s important about what you deliver?

Is there any question about what The Free Press stands for?

As someone who has helped small companies pitch themselves to huge ones, this is so very important. I’m going to take this a step further: First, nobody gives a shit about “Bob’s Substack.”

Not that nobody cares about Bob, which isn’t fair to Bob or those who love him.

But for Dear Reader who doesn’t know Bob, NOBODY GIVES A SHIT. There’s no brand promise, no suggestion of what you get, to Linda’s point.

In America alone, let’s use a round number, there are about 365 million people. There are 79 people named Bob for every 100k. Do the math. That makes about 288,350 guys named Bob, just in America, to say nothing of those who slipped out of the USA and are living elsewhere.

So for chrissakes, how can you differentiate yourself from nearly 300,000 people, if all you claim is “Bob’s Substack?”

This means that even if you’re utterly brilliant and your contributions could change lives, you are functionally invisible.

Add to this the widespread complaints that I see all over Substack (and everywhere else) that folks aren’t getting subscribers. As if by hanging out a shingle on Substack, people are going to come running with their credit cards in hand.

Please, folks.

If you joined the Chamber of Commerce, just because you joined doesn’t mean that your listing in the Chamber automatically means that thousands of folks are going to bum rush your door. You have to show up, schmooze, network, market, develop trust. EARN the business.

Yet people here and on Medium (and everywhere else) honestly think that simply hanging out a shingle means thousands in income overnight. You labor and labor yet there are few subscribers. Paid? You must be joking.

Nobody’s reading your shit, in other words, even if it is REALLY good shit.

Back in 2016, Bob Pressfield (it’s Steven, of course, one commenter caught the joke), author of The War of Art, penned Nobody Wants to Read Your Shit: Why That Is and What You can Do About It. That book is lying just to left of my left hand. I strongly recommend that you read this, along with the gorgeous and fabulous book POP, by Sam Horn, who is the master of wordplay and how to name things so that people WANT THEM. One of her first books? Tongue Fu. Nuff Said.

She’s brilliant and funny. I have paid her $500 an hour for her expertise. Those books cost practically nothing. Yet for a few bucks you can get a full education in not being so fucking boring with your title that you are left in the dust by people with funnier titles and lousier writing. Happens.

If you’re a truly good writer (and not many of us are) and you read the utter crap that’s far more popular than yours, you’ll be irritated.

Of course, you and I may be convinced we’re all that and a bag of chips when our writing would only be good lining for a chicken coop. Such is self-delusion. But I digress.

Neither Linda nor I is saying that Bob’s Substack has nothing to say. But all these Substacks with meaningless names are destined to be castaways until such time people get some inkling of what you’re delivering.

That either takes stupendous marketing on your part or at the very least, a wittier, clearer approach to what you deliver.

My logo for the newsletter, Too Old for This Sh*t, got HUGE Brands so excited just about the brand name that they pulled me aside at a conference and begged me for the merch deal. I’m not kidding. I speak to their VP next week.

The title is funny, timely, relevant, and spoke to the souls of all of us. The logo colors and energetic, leaping lady speak precisely to who I am and how I live. When people ask me about my newsletter and I tell them the title, they crack up because they can instantly relate.

That’s marketing magic.

I’m in complete alignment with the brand promise. I also spent the money and time to build a logo (I am happy to share the talent source, she’s terrific, please DM me). Your title, your logo are the gateway drug to your world. If it’s fuzzy, it’s hard to get folks to check you out.

I cannot wait to have a black sweatshirt with my logo to wear to the gym. I’ll be selling them out of my trunk like candy. And no, I am not swimming in money. But I have a decent beginning.

What is your message? What is powerful about what you have to say? How can you encapsulate that into a promise for Dear Reader?

My mentor, who died in 2016 at the age of 92, was a marketing genius. Every idea I had was nowhere near witty enough. She pushed and pushed me to find ways to be more creative.

Her pet peeve was a company name that said nothing about what the products were or did. Altria is a fine example. Some marketing twit was trying very hard to hide the fact that it’s the parent company of tobacco products, Philip Morris.

Linda writes:

But seriously, there’s 2 (sic) paths to picking a great name for your Substack.

One is to tell people what they’re getting. That’s the road History of Women took. Even though I pigeonholed myself and wonder about re-naming it. But when random strangers see the name in a list of newsletters, they know what it’s about.

The other path is to choose a name based on who’d love the things you write about. Couple of examples: The Environmentalist, Oldster Magazine, Alpha Men.

It’s called a niche. Because here’s a thing that so many “marketers” get wrong. A niche isn’t really a topic. It’s a group of people. It’s a fine line, but one that matters.

Know your market. Mine is folks about 40 and up who are tired of being told they’re too old to live out loud. They want inspiration, ideas, stories, hearty laughter and HOPE. They want aspirational examples of folks well past forty living right to the utter edges and loving it, and dealing with the shit that comes with age with humor and gusto.

Who needs your message? That might help drive how you name your Substack. That said, you have Linda’s suggestions, and you have two more excellent resources (above) to help you.

Please stop complaining that “nobody reads your stuff.”

Not everyone who writes a Substack (or on Medium) should (especially if spreading hate is any kind of standard, but again, I digress). And most assuredly not everyone on Substack is chasing subscribers and money. This article isn’t directed at that part of our community.

It is directed at those who are chasing an income and who are frustrated when things don’t happen to plan or fast enough.

We have to give Dear Reader a reason to check us out. Then, if what they find is indeed shit, they will walk. This piece and Linda’s don’t address quality of writing and storytelling. Just marketing, branding, and yes, it is all in a name. That’s the game we play here when it’s up to us to draw in reader eyeballs.

Eyeballs are earned. Readership and paid subscriptions evolve out of consistently good writing which delivers on the promise of our title.

Know who needs your message. Then interview those folks for what irritates, delights, bothers, annoys them. Chance are you’ll hear a phrase that you can turn into a title, a brand, and a promise.

It’s up to you to then deliver.

Let’s play.

Photo by Clark Tibbs on Unsplash

Today is my 72nd birthday and my dog and I are off to play on the Coast. I hope you have a fabulous day.