Screw It – You Don’t Need to Become a Substack Bestseller

There are simpler ways to make $10k/month writing

My Substack feed is overflowing with writers who pound their chest about their best-seller status.

Kudos, you humble bragging idiot.

But I don't give a damn about becoming a Substack bestseller. That orange badge beside my name? Couldn’t care less.

The problem? Many of you writers feel like losers without it. You've got FOMO eating you alive. You're ready to follow the herd like mindless sheep.

This matters especially if you're just starting out with a tiny audience.

Because there's actually a better, simpler, and faster way to make $5,000 to $10K a month without chasing that stupid bestseller badge.

The economics are broken

Good writing can't solve bad math.

4% of your free subs will convert to paid ones. That's the average.

If you’ve got 1,000 free subscribers? That’s 40 paying ones.

Even if you’re a conversion wizard and get 8% to pay? That’s 80.

Now, let's do the math:
$8/month × 80 = $640

Before taxes. Before Substack’s 10%. Before Stripe takes its bite.

What you’re left with?
Isn’t a business. It’s lunch money. Maybe dinner if you skip the appetizer & the dessert.

Now think about what that really means: you’re waking up early, squeezing out content between meetings, and pushing yourself to "deliver value" to… 40 people.

And here’s where it gets even more stupid:
You’re not just writing. You’re writing paid posts. You’re spending hours crafting polished content for a group smaller than your teen’s birthday party.

Want more? Let's do the hourly math.

Say each post takes 3 hours. And you publish two paid posts a month.
That’s 6 hours for $640/month → ~$10/hour.

You’re not building leverage. You’re doing content Fiverr work.

You're destroying your reach

Most people who write online don't lack ideas to monetize their work.

You probably already have a book, course, or coaching offer ideas you could launch.

The problem is that you have NO audience.

You could build a bunch of things, but if you don't have people ready to open their wallets, you're just wasting your time.

So the first thing that you should work on is building your audience.

And how do you build an audience? Certainly not by paywalling everything from day one. Which is basically what becoming a best-selling Substack newsletter is all about. Because it's about paywalling your best stuff.

People need to share. And in order to share, it has to be free.

What happens when you monetize your Substack (and don't have enough subs to make it worth it)

Here’s what no one tells you about having 5 paying subscribers: it f*cks up with your head.

You start overthinking everything:

• "What should I keep free? What should people pay for?"

• "I need something new to write about."

• "Is this idea worth $8?"

So, instead of being able to think long-term and execute on a solid long-term strategy that's going to set you free… You're now caught in short-term thinking. You’ll need to write blog posts for $40/month.

That's going to kill your growth and excitement.

The leak no one's talking about

I've seen no one talking about this.

But the subscription model comes with churn.

What's churn? People who'll cancel their subscription. And this issue is baked into the business model.

Because everyone hates subscriptions. How excited are you about getting your electricity bill?

It's the same way when offering payment plans:

• Some will cancel.

• Some credit cards are going to expire.

• Some will not have enough balance to pay next month.

These variables are baked into the business model.

Churn is like having a leaky bucket. This means that you don't only need to chase new subscribers, you also need to find subscribers for those who left.

Substack is a way to build an audience – you’re not forced to monetize it on this platform (yet.)

Just because you can charge… doesn’t mean you should.

Substack wants you to go paid. Of course, they do. They get a cut. And they deserve it. But that doesn’t mean it’s the smart move.

Right now? You're not forced to go for paid. Does this mean that you're going to miss out on orange badges? Yes. But I'm fine giving these the finger.

So, how you really want to think about Substack is as an audience growth platform.

Exactly like X, LinkedIn, or Medium.

You’re not building a business. You’re building reach. And that doesn’t happen behind a paywall.

Let's finish here

Everyone’s obsessed with "monetizing."
But if you’ve got 73 subs and no traction…

Monetizing is like opening a restaurant with no tables, no signs, and no food.

But if you jump the gun, you’ll turn your newsletter into a desperate side hustle that makes $22 a month and eats your soul.

Use Substack to grow. Not to beg.