Advertise on podcast: Sport Stackers: Substack Notes & Social Media for Sports Creators & Journalists

I almost stopped. The YouTube channel for Sport Stackers has been pretty flat. No real growth to speak of. And I kept looking at the numbers thinking, I don’t know if I can keep doing this. But here’s what kept me going. The Substack community is close to hitting 1,000 subscribers. People are actually getting value from this. The growth on Substack is compounding in a way I can see in real time. So I kept going. Burnout is real. But a lot of what we call burnout is actually a planning and pacing problem. When I looked honestly at my own situation, I noticed I didn’t have a system. I had momentum, then crashes. I had output, then silence. So I built something to fix that. I call it the P.A.C.E. Method. Four steps. Simple to remember. Hard to skip. P is for Plan Before you create anything, you need to know where you’re going. For me, that means mapping out themes for the week or the month before I sit down to write or record. It means knowing my publishing days in advance. For Sport Stackers, I aim for Monday or Tuesday on the newsletter. Sunday nights, I record the episode, transcribe it, and build out the content from there. Is it a lot on Sunday nights? Yes. But it’s planned. I know it’s coming. My family knows it’s coming. That makes it easier to protect. The trap most creators fall into is reacting. Rushing because something is due. That’s what drains you. Planning doesn’t eliminate the work. It just means you’re ready for it. A is for Allocate Time is the one thing you can’t get back. So what you spend it on matters. Allocating time means your creative work gets a real spot on your calendar. A dedicated block. A recurring time you actually show up for. Every Sunday night at 9pm, that’s mine. I also separate ideation from production. All week, if an idea comes up, I write it in a notebook. Old school. Pen and paper. Or I leave myself a voice memo. Sometimes I just talk into an AI tool and say, save this for me, we’ll come back to it. That way, when it’s time to create, I already have material. I’m not starting from zero. The last part of allocation is treating your blocks like meetings you can’t cancel. If your boss scheduled something for 9am, you’d be there. Your creative work deserves the same respect, especially on Substack where no one is scheduling it for you. C is for Calibrate This is where honesty comes in. Calibrating means checking in on yourself and your content and asking what’s working and what’s draining you. Then adjusting accordingly. I had a podcast called Land The Talk. Interviewed speakers, CEOs, nonprofit leaders, marketers. Genuinely enjoyed it for a good stretch. But I committed to one season, finished it, and then made the decision to stop. Not because it failed. Because I didn’t have the energy to do it well and also pour into the work that actually had momentum. That was the right call. Calibrating sometimes means cutting. I’m even thinking about it now with these web pages I’ve been building for each episode. They take real bandwidth. I use Claude Code to help with the graphics, but injecting my frameworks and making sure everything is tight still takes time. Some of these frameworks, like Robbin’s Hierarchy of Engagement, I built from scratch. That creative work adds up. So I’m asking myself the same questions I’m giving you: What is your why? How much time can you actually commit? Will you still do this if no one is watching? That last one is the one that matters most. E is for Elevate Growth is what happens when you’re consistent long enough to improve. Elevating means taking what you’ve built and pushing it forward with intention. Not just doing more. Doing better. Each month, I try to identify one area to improve. And every dollar that comes in from paid subscriptions, brand partnerships, or consulting, I put it back into tools and skills. If your first paid subscriber on Substack gives you $20 a month, don’t pocket it. Find a tool that costs $20 a month that helps you reach more people. That’s how you compound. The other piece of elevation is celebrating what you’ve already done before you go reaching for the next thing. I didn’t always do this. I’d hit a milestone and immediately look at what I hadn’t done yet. That’s a fast way to feel like you’re never enough. Take a moment. Acknowledge the progress. Then keep going. The Loop These four steps aren’t one-time moves. They run in a cycle. Plan your themes. Lock in your days. Allocate your blocks and guard them. Calibrate weekly, cut what’s draining you. Elevate by improving one thing at a time. Then repeat. I’ve been around long enough to know the creators who stick around aren’t the ones who started with the biggest audiences. They’re the ones who figured out how to keep showing up. Not out of pressure. Out of purpose. When I stopped chasing numbers and started focusing on the people I was actually helping, things started clicking. The Substack community is proof of that for me right now. If you’re feeling the weight of it, take one of these steps today. Start with P. Just plan. That’s where it begins. Robbin Get full access to Sport Stackers: A Community for Substack Sports Creators at sportstackers.substack.com/subscribe

I spend a lot of time on social media. Comes with the territory. And I keep seeing the same pieces of advice recycled over and over again on every platform, from every creator, dressed up in different thumbnails. Some of it isn’t just unhelpful. It’s actively working against you. I’ve been building in this space for 20 years. I started doing social media before most people knew what to call it. I was booking shows for bands on MySpace and didn’t even realize I was carving out a future career. That’s how far back this goes for me. So when I see stuff spreading online that I know is wrong, I can’t just scroll past it. Here are the five lies I see most. And what I actually think is true. GRAB WEBPAGE HERE: regal-moonbeam-7f1843.netlify.app Lie #1: Post More and the Algorithm Rewards You This one travels fast because it removes thinking. More equals more. It’s clean and measurable. You can count posts and feel productive even when nothing is growing. I’ll admit I used to push a version of this myself. Early in my consulting days, I was telling clients to push out obscene amounts of content. Sometimes 20 posts a day. Consistency builds the habit. Value builds the audience. Those are two different things. When it comes to Substack Notes, I talk about the 555 method. Five notes a day. Five restacks. Five comments. But even then, I tell people: do what your bandwidth allows. If you want to do 1-1-1, no problem. The number matters less than the consistency. Pick what you can actually maintain and stick to it. Lie #2: You Are the Niche This one is sensitive because there’s a version of it that sounds inspiring. Just be yourself. Talk about whatever you want. Someone out there will connect with it. I’m not going to completely knock that idea. But it skips over something important. The people saying this usually already have an audience. They spent years writing about one thing before anyone knew who they were. Then they earned the right to just exist out loud online. For a writer who’s just getting started, that advice can cost you months. Substack Notes moves fast. A reader makes a follow decision in about two seconds. If your profile is a mix of personal observations, life updates, and random opinions, they can’t figure out what you’re about. And a confused reader doesn’t subscribe. Your topic earns the follow. Your voice earns the loyalty. You can still be yourself. You just need to give people a reason to follow first. Lie #3: Better Hooks Will Fix Your Notes I’ve been in this space long enough to know that hooks aren’t new. We were talking about headlines and hooks in traditional copywriting before social media existed. But right now, everyone is using the same hooks. Somebody downloads a free lead magnet with 50 hook templates and just swaps in their niche. It’s exhausting to watch. Hook frameworks are easy to sell because they’re teachable. Takes aren’t. The take is the note. The hook just opens the door. Before you write a hook, figure out what the payoff is for the reader. What are they going to get from this thing you’re creating? Once you’re clear on that, the hook usually writes itself. And here’s a simple self-test. If someone else posted this exact note, would you restack it from their account? If the answer is no, it’s not ready. One more thing that’s helped me personally. Try cutting the first two sentences from a note and see if it reads better. A lot of times the real note starts at sentence three. Lie #4: More Followers Equal More Revenue This one feels true because the numbers are visible. You see the count go up and assume everything is working. But misaligned follower growth doesn’t just fail to convert. It actively misleads you. You keep producing content for the audience that showed up, even if that audience isn’t the right one. The gap between your follower count and your paid subscribers gets wider and you can’t figure out why. The right 300 followers beat the wrong 10,000. Build for the reader who would pay. That means being specific about who you’re writing for and what they’re going to get. Chasing a broad audience feels productive. But broad audiences rarely pull out their wallets. Lie #5: You Have to Be Everywhere I hear this one on almost every consultation call I do. People want to know which platforms they need to be on. Do they need TikTok? Facebook? Instagram? YouTube? X? All of it? My answer is always the same. Pick one. Being everywhere looks like working hard. It usually just means being stretched thin and mediocre in a lot of places at once. If you’re new and trying to figure out where to start, I’d say Substack and YouTube. Those two, in some order, depending on what you’re building. And if you’re already on Substack, start with Notes. It’s the highest leverage platform for Substack writers right now. You don’t need to be everywhere. You need to be undeniable somewhere. These five lies spread because they’re easy to say and hard to argue with in the moment. Volume sounds smart. Being yourself sounds smart. Hooks sound smart. Big follower counts sound smart. But when you actually sit with your numbers, the story gets more complicated. I created a full breakdown of all five of these with specific action steps for each one. You can find it linked in the description of the podcast episode this came from. It’s worth bookmarking. I’m truly grateful you’re here. Whether you’ve been with me for a while or just found this, I don’t take lightly that you chose to spend a few minutes with this newsletter. The internet is loud. Your time matters to me. See you next week. Robbin Get full access to Sport Stackers: A Community for Substack Sports Creators at sportstackers.substack.com/subscribe

I spent a long time tinkering. Tweaking my format. Rethinking my schedule. Watching other writers pop off on Substack and wondering what they were doing that I wasn’t. I told myself I was being strategic. Honestly, I was just overthinking it. What I needed was a simpler way to think about what I was building. That’s where the SYNC method came in. SYNC is a framework from my book, Social Media SYNC. I’ve been using it for a while now, but recently I walked through how it applies specifically to Substack. Four pillars. Each one fixes a different mistake I see sports writers making every week. Here’s what it looks like. ACCESS RESOURCE HERE: https://sport-stackers-sync-method.netlify.app/ S — Simple One idea per issue. That’s it. I know that sounds obvious. But most writers, myself included early on, try to pack too much in. Three angles on last night’s game. A mailbag. A stat breakdown. A personal story. All in one issue. Your reader clicked because they trust you. Give them one clear idea and make it easy to consume. Write your subject line last. Do it after you’ve finished the piece so it reflects exactly what’s inside. And then ask yourself if someone could read your issue in one sitting without having to dig for the main point. If the answer is no, cut something. Y — Yield to Your Intentions Know why you’re publishing before you publish. This one separates people who grow from people who stall. Reactive posting, jumping on whatever feels hot that week, builds a scattered audience. Intentional posting builds a loyal one. I use something I call a Content North Star. It’s a sentence: “I create for [specific reader] to help them [specific change].” Writing it out forces you to get honest about who you’re actually serving. Pick three content pillars and stay with them. Give it three to six months before you decide something isn’t working. I’ve watched so many sports writers pivot their whole brand every few weeks. That’s not a strategy. That’s impatience. Also: track conversations, not just open rates. Who replied to your last issue. Who recommended you to their own audience. That’s your real reach. I had a creator reach out to me recently about a recommendation swap, and that one conversation opened up more than any open rate ever did. N — Natural Be the human in the room. AI can write sports takes all day. It can’t be you. Your stories, your wrong predictions, your honest opinions after a brutal loss, that’s what Substack readers actually support. If your issue sounds like a press release, rewrite it. Tell the behind-the-scenes story. What surprised you while reporting. What you almost missed. Admit when you got something wrong in your last issue. Readers respect that more than polish. Let your personality show in the opener. That’s what makes them come back. C — Change It Up Variety within a consistent framework. Your readers expect your voice. Surprise them with format instead. Rotate through long analysis, quick takes, Q&A, data breakdowns, interviews. Try a recorded conversation about a game and see what happens to your subscriber count. The 90-day variety audit is worth running. Look at which formats your readers actually engage with. Double down on those. Drop the ones that drain you. Building Your Content Universe Here’s where it gets practical. Think of your newsletter as the sun. Everything orbits it. Your Substack Notes, your posts on Threads or BlueSky, your activity on other platforms, those are the planets. Shorter formats that feed readers back to your main newsletter. Podcasts and live streams are comets. Rare, so they land harder. You don’t need to be on camera. An audio-only podcast still counts and the opportunity there for sports writers right now is real. Meteor showers are timely reactions. Something breaks in the news cycle that lines up perfectly with your beat. You move fast, publish something punchy, and stay on brand. When the Spurs advanced to the NBA Finals last night, that was a meteor shower moment. I used it. You can do the same for whatever team or sport you cover. The 70-20-10 Rule This is how I think about my content mix. 70% of your issues should be core pillar content. Deep dives, analysis, stories that define what your Substack is actually about. 20% should be timely and responsive. Breaking news, reader questions, trending topics in your lane. 10% is experimentation. New formats, adjacent topics, behind-the-scenes looks at your process. Try it, measure it, keep it or drop it. This ratio keeps you consistent without going stale. What This Means for You Pick one of these pillars and apply it to your next issue. Not all four. Just one. Maybe you write your subject line last for the first time. Maybe you write out your Content North Star before you start drafting. Maybe you admit in your opener that you got something wrong last week. Small adjustments stack up faster than full overhauls. The writers I see growing on Substack aren’t doing anything magical. They’re showing up with one clear idea, in their own voice, on a schedule they can actually maintain. That’s it. Thanks for being here. I don’t take it lightly that you’re spending time with this. If any of this connected, bring it into your next issue and let me know how it goes. I read every reply. See you next week. Robbin Get full access to Sport Stackers: A Community for Substack Sports Creators at sportstackers.substack.com/subscribe

I’ve been deep in social media for over 20 years. And one word still gets under my skin every time I see it thrown around: engagement. Most advice you’ll find online treats engagement like a metric. Likes, opens, replies, shares. Hit the numbers, grow the list. But that’s not what engagement actually is. Engagement is what happens when a reader starts to feel something about you. And you can’t manufacture that with a call to action. I’ve been thinking about this for a while. What I landed on is a framework I’m calling the hierarchy of engagement. It’s based on Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. Five levels. Each one has to be built before the next one is possible. Here’s what it looks like, from the ground up. GET ACCESS TO THE PRESENTATION https://robbins-hierarchy.netlify.app/ Level One: Trust and Dependability Everything starts here. Before a reader cares about your voice, your takes, or your community, they need to know you’re going to show up. Consistently. On time. With accurate information. This sounds simple. It isn’t. A lot of writers skip this step because they’re already thinking about content quality or monetization. They launch before they have a system. They publish twice in January, disappear in February, come back in March with an apology post. Every missed issue is a trust withdrawal. And trust is slow to build, fast to lose. Reliability is a design choice. It’s not a personality trait. Writers who publish consistently have systems behind them. Editorial calendars. Batched drafts. Pre-publish checklists. They treat the publishing date like a deadline, because it is one. If you haven’t launched yet, write your first four issues before you post the first one. Build the habit before you build the audience. Level Two: Authenticity Once readers know they can count on you, they start paying attention to what you actually say. This is where most sports writers still get it wrong. They write like a press release. They report what happened. They recap the game. They hedge every opinion. Readers are sophisticated. They can tell when someone is performing versus when someone is actually saying something. Your specific voice is the only thing no one else has. There are thousands of sports newsletters. There’s only one written by you, with your obsessions, your history, your way of reading a trade. That’s the product. Write one true, debatable take per issue and defend it. Include something personal, even if it’s only tangentially related to sports. Audit your writing and remove any sentence that sounds like it came from a brand account. Authenticity is what makes readers stay past the first month. It’s also what drives paid conversions. People don’t pay for content. They pay for a person they trust. Level Three: Community and Fellowship This is where things start to compound. Once readers trust you and believe you’re real, some of them will start to feel like they belong to something. They’re not just reading your newsletter. They’re part of the group of people who read your newsletter. That’s a different kind of loyalty. At this stage, your job shifts. You’re not just a writer anymore. You’re building infrastructure for connection. Comment sections. Polls. Recurring features where readers can participate. A Discord or group chat if you’re ready for it. End every other issue with a question and actually respond to the first ten replies. Feature a reader take or prediction in your content. Create community rituals, a weekly pick challenge, a debate of the week, a reader power rankings. When readers are connected to each other, they don’t just follow you. They protect the community. Churn drops. Referrals climb. A reader might skip a post, but they won’t leave the group. Level Four: Validation and Acknowledgement People need to feel seen. Not in a vague, inspirational way. Literally seen. They want to know the writer reads their replies. That their opinion landed somewhere. That they’re more than a number on your subscriber count. When a reader changes your mind, say so publicly. Quote readers by name. Reference a specific reply that added nuance to your thinking. Send a personal thank you to every new paid subscriber for the first 90 days. This level is what separates newsletters people like from newsletters people can’t imagine canceling. When a reader feels acknowledged, canceling starts to feel like leaving a relationship. That’s a different kind of retention than anything a discount code can buy. Level Five: Fulfillment This is the peak. Readers at this level don’t just enjoy your work. They credit it with changing something. A better fantasy decision. A sharper way of watching a game. A new way of thinking about sports media. They evangelize. They gift subscriptions. They tell people about you without being asked. You get there by collecting and sharing those stories. Reader wins. Outcomes. Real-world impact that started with your newsletter. Build a framework readers can actually apply on their own. Write an annual state of the publication, an honest look back and a real preview of what’s coming. Fulfillment isn’t a content strategy. It’s what happens when all four levels below it are solid. You can’t shortcut it. Where to Start Figure out where you actually are in this hierarchy. Be honest about it. If readers can’t count on you to show up, start there. If you’re consistent but writing like a brand account, work on your voice. If you’ve found your voice but readers don’t talk to each other, build the infrastructure. Each level unlocks the next one. Trying to build community without trust doesn’t work. Chasing fulfillment without authenticity doesn’t work. Build the foundation. The rest follows. -ROBBIN MARX Get full access to Sport Stackers: A Community for Substack Sports Creators at sportstackers.substack.com/subscribe

I’ve been watching sports writers on Substack grind themselves out trying to produce everything at once. Long-form articles every week. Notes every day. Newsletters on a schedule they set when they were feeling ambitious. Most of them burn out before they get traction. The thing is, you don’t need unlimited hours. You need a system that works inside the time you actually have. Two hours a week is a real number. I’ve tested it. It works when you build the week right. Here’s how to do it. HERE IS THE LINK TO THE RESOURCE https://sport-stackers-ecosystem-guide.netlify.app/ Start With Notes, Not the Newsletter Most writers go straight to the long-form article. I get it. That’s where we feel most like writers. But that’s also why so many people stall. Notes are where the real growth happens on Substack right now. They’re short. They’re fast. And they tell you exactly what your readers actually care about before you spend three hours writing something nobody responds to. Write three short notes early in the week. Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday works. Each one is just a quick thought, an angle, a take you noticed mid-scroll. A press conference line that bugged you. A stat that told a different story than the highlights did. Post them. Watch what gets restacks. Watch what gets replies. The note that sparks conversation becomes your newsletter. The other two fade. That’s the whole point. The Writing Framework That Keeps It Simple Once you know which idea landed, you write the article. And when you sit down to write it, you don’t need to overthink structure. Start with a five-second moment. A play. A press conference clip. A number that made you stop. Something small and specific. Pull the reader into that moment first. Then extract the lesson. What does that moment actually tell you about the sport, the player, or the game when the cameras aren’t on? That’s your angle. That’s what makes your piece worth reading instead of the ten others covering the same game. Then connect it. Where does this land for someone who loves the sport or covers it themselves? What do they take away from reading your take on this? That’s the whole structure. A moment. A lesson. A connection. You can write a thousand words around that framework without staring at a blank screen for an hour. Show Your Process, Not Just Your Opinion A lot of writers think readers want hot takes. Some do. But what builds trust over time is showing how you actually think. Write a note about the film you watched before writing your last piece. Share the question nobody asked at the postgame presser. Tell readers what you noticed that didn’t make it into the final article. Use specific openers. “Yesterday I rewatched the third quarter and noticed something.” “After the final buzzer I went back and checked the shot chart.” Real timestamps. Real moments. That’s what separates your work from a thousand other sports opinions floating around. When you show your process, readers come back. They trust you. They start to feel like they’re watching you work, and that’s a relationship worth building. The Part That’s Actually Hardest The human posts are the ones most sports writers skip. I understand why. We got into this to write about the game. It can feel weird to write about anything else. But readers subscribe to people, not topics. Share the moment you fell in love with the sport. The game you watched as a kid. The player whose jersey you wore even though your friends thought it was a weird choice. Your actual opinion, especially the unpopular one. Your life outside the sport matters here too. Family. Music. Whatever you do when you’re not watching film. That stuff is part of who you are. Readers bond with who you are, and that bond is what makes them tell someone else about your newsletter. The Weekly Rhythm That Makes This Work Here’s a schedule that keeps you inside two hours a week. Monday: a sports note that shows your process. Tuesday: a human note that shares something real about you. Wednesday: another sports note, a different angle. Thursday: your newsletter drops, built around whichever note landed. Friday: one more human note, something light, something personal. That’s it. The newsletter almost writes itself because you’ve already tested the idea twice by the time you sit down to write it. You can move things around. Make it fit your sport, your schedule, your style. The point isn’t the specific days. The point is having a rhythm so you’re never starting from zero. What This Changes Most sports writers I talk to feel behind. Like they should be doing more. Posting more. Writing longer. Going deeper. The writers I’ve seen grow on Substack aren’t doing more. They’re doing less, but doing it consistently. They’re showing up every week with something small and real and useful. And over time, readers notice that. Two hours is enough. A note on Monday that becomes a newsletter on Thursday. A human moment on Friday that reminds someone why they subscribed. That’s a complete week. You don’t need a media company. You need a system that works inside the life you already have. -Robbin Marx PS Here’s a $20 Buck Gift from Kalshi and easy way to support the community http://kalshi.com/bleav Get full access to Sport Stackers: A Community for Substack Sports Creators at sportstackers.substack.com/subscribe

I was sitting in my kitchen one afternoon thinking about how I explain Substack to people who are just starting out. Every time I try to break it down, it sounds like a lot. And it is a lot. But I realized it’s not that different from learning to cook. You don’t need a hundred techniques. You need a solid recipe. Five ingredients, in the right order, and you’ve got something worth serving. This is that recipe. Ingredient 1: The Base Stock Before you write a single word, spend time just exploring. Go find 10 publications in your niche. Read them. Take notes. What format are they using? How often are they posting? What tone do they write in? You’re not trying to copy anyone. You’re trying to understand the space you’re walking into. Where is there a gap nobody is filling? What are readers looking for that they can’t find? Think of it like walking into a kitchen you’ve never been in before. You’d check the equipment. You’d see what ingredients are stocked. You wouldn’t just start cooking. You’d look around first. Do that on Substack. The writers who last did the research before they published anything. ACCESS THE FREE RESOURCE PAGE HERE https://substack-recipe-sport-stackers.netlify.app/ Ingredient 2: The Secret Spice This is where most writers go wrong. They try to write for everybody. And when you write for everybody, you connect with nobody. The secret spice is your ideal reader. Not a demographic segment. One specific person. I want you to name them. Literally give them a name. Mine is Kevin. He’s named after my late brother (RIP Big Bro). Anytime I sit down to create something, I’m writing for Kevin. Now here’s the part people skip. They stop at the demographics. Age, location, income. That’s fine. But I’m more interested in the psychographics. What does Kevin think about at 2am? What does he scroll for the second he gets in line somewhere? What does he want that he can’t find anywhere? When you know that about your reader, your writing changes. It gets specific. It gets personal. And readers feel that. They feel like the publication was built for them. That’s when things start to move. Ingredient 3: The Signature Dish Nobody else has your combination of experience, perspective, and voice. That’s the one competitive advantage nobody can take from you. So what’s your angle? Not just your topic. Your angle. What do you know about this subject that most other writers covering it don’t? Write it out in one clean sentence. Your publication’s one-sentence promise. For my fantasy basketball community, it’s three words: dominate your league. Simple. Direct. Speaks exactly to the person I’m writing for. Don’t overthink it. The best version is usually the shortest version. And make your publication name just as clear. Skip the clever wordplay. Make it obvious what you do and who it’s for. Ingredient 4: The Prep Station Before you publish anything publicly, have at least four articles written and ready. If you’re planning to post weekly, that’s a month of content in the bank before your first subscriber ever shows up. Most people launch with one piece and spend every week scrambling. That scramble is miserable. It makes writing feel like a chore. It puts you in a reactive, pressured headspace every single week. Write the four pieces first. Get trusted eyes on them before anything goes live. A friend. A family member. Someone in a community you trust. Get private feedback first. Then launch confident, not hesitant. And once you do launch, keep adding to that bank. One or two pieces a week so the reservoir never runs dry. That’s a completely different relationship with your work than most writers have. ACCESS TO WRITESTACK SCHEDULING TOOL bit.ly/writestack Ingredient 5: The Daily Simmer This last one is what actually compounds. * Five Substack notes every day. * Five restacks. * Five comments. That’s fifteen actions a day. Spread them out if you need to. But be consistent. There’s no magic follower count you need to hit before this starts working. It works from day one. Think about a good stew. The longer it cooks on low heat, the more flavor it builds. You can’t rush it and get the same result. This method works the same way. The compounding effect is real and it separates writers who grow from writers who stall. The writers who grow on Substack show up daily. Every day, in the notes feed, in the comments, in other people’s work. That daily presence is what makes the difference. How They Work Together These five ingredients don’t work in isolation. The base stock shapes who you write for. The secret spice sharpens your angle. The signature dish defines what you prep. The prep station sets you up to launch right. And the daily simmer keeps you visible while all of it builds. It’s a full system. Every piece depends on the others. Start with the base stock. Build from there. Don’t rush any of it. I’m genuinely excited to see what you put out. Now let’s cook up! -Robbin Marx Get full access to Sport Stackers: A Community for Substack Sports Creators at sportstackers.substack.com/subscribe

Something changed on Substack and I want to make sure you see it. When someone visits a publication on mobile, they’re not landing on an article archive. They’re landing on a notes feed. It looks like an X profile. That’s not an accident. Substack is telling you exactly what they want writers to do. Over the last 90 days, about 32 million new subscribers landed on the platform. That’s not from SEO. That’s not from outside ads. That’s people coming to Substack looking for writers. And the way they’re finding writers is through notes. I think a lot of writers are sleeping on this. The Notes Feed Is Now Your Front Door Think about what it means for your notes feed to be the first thing someone sees when they land on your publication. Your latest articles aren’t the hook anymore. Your notes are. And if you haven’t posted a note in two weeks, that’s what a new reader sees when they show up. Substack’s algorithm is also rewarding consistency here. Writers who post notes daily are getting pushed out to more people. Small input, compounding reach over time. That’s a real thing happening right now on the platform. I’ve seen writers build their subscriber count almost entirely inside Substack through notes. They’re posting consistently, showing up daily, and the platform is doing the distribution for them. No other platforms. No ads. Just notes. Video Is the Part Most Writers Are Ignoring Scroll through your notes feed and count the videos. There are more than there were six months ago. Significantly more. Substack TV just rolled out on certain platforms, and the direction is clear. They want to compete with YouTube. Whether they get there or not, the signal right now is that video gets preferential reach. The platform is actively pushing video creators higher in the feed. Most writers don’t make video. That’s the opportunity. If you’re willing to post even a short, simple video note, you’re standing out in a feed that’s mostly text. You don’t need a studio or an editor. A phone and something real to say is enough. Images outperform plain text too, so if video feels like too much right now, start with a photo or a graphic. Anything that breaks the scroll. The Feature Nobody’s Talking About Here’s the one that I keep bringing up because I think it’s genuinely underused. Chat. Once someone finds you through a note, the goal is to keep them around. And the writers who are best at retention are the ones building actual conversations with their readers. Chat is how you do that on Substack. Most creators online are broadcasting. One direction. Post something, move on. Chat flips that. Readers respond. You respond back. It becomes a real thread. And readers who feel like they’re part of a conversation stick around longer than readers who just consume. If you’re trying to build any kind of paid tier or revenue stream down the road, community isn’t optional. It’s the foundation. People pay to stay in rooms where they feel seen. Starting one chat thread a week is enough. One question. Let people respond. Show up in the replies. That’s the whole thing. Three Things That Actually Move the Needle I don’t want this to feel like a list of homework. But if you’re trying to figure out where to focus this week, here’s what I’d do. Post three to five notes a day. Short, real, consistent. Doesn’t have to be long. A thought, an observation, something from your week. The consistency matters more than the length. Start one chat thread this week. Pick a question your readers actually have something to say about. Reply to every person who responds. That’s it. Find one writer to collaborate with this month. Maybe you swap recommendations. Maybe you do a live together. Maybe you just start a conversation that becomes something. One collab a month is a reasonable pace and it compounds over time. What the Shift Is Actually Saying Substack built the notes feed, prioritized video, and added chat for a reason. They want the platform to be a place people stay, not just a place they visit to read one article. The window feels open right now. I’m watching writers grow faster on Substack than anywhere else, and most of them are doing it by just showing up in the feed every day. That’s accessible. You can do that. Robbin Get full access to Sport Stackers: A Community for Substack Sports Creators at sportstackers.substack.com/subscribe

I’ve talked to a lot of writers who scroll past Substack every time someone brings it up. They’re already managing Instagram, TikTok, maybe YouTube. Another platform feels like more weight. I get it. But I want to share what changed my mind, and why I keep coming back to this one. You Actually Own What You Build Every platform you’re on right now, the followers belong to the platform. TikTok, Instagram, YouTube. They can ban your account, change the algorithm, or shut down tomorrow. Your audience disappears with them. On Substack, every subscriber hands you their email address. That list is yours. You can take it anywhere. Nobody can touch it. That’s not a small thing. I’ve spent years watching creators pour everything into platforms they don’t own. Substack is the first place I’ve felt like I’m building something that actually belongs to me. It’s Not Just for Writers This is the part people get wrong most often. If you hear “newsletter platform” and think “not for me,” stay with me for a second. Podcasters can host their show directly on Substack. Video creators can embed their content there. Coaches, analysts, journalists, people documenting their lives for their kids. It works for all of them. Substack also has native integration with YouTube and LinkedIn. Your content from those platforms can live there too. It’s becoming a real hub for multimedia work, and most people still haven’t figured that out. Free vs. Paid and Why Annual Matters You set the rules on Substack. Free content builds your list. Paid content builds your income. Some writers keep their newsletter free and put their podcast behind a paywall. Some flip it. It’s your call. Monthly subscriptions get a lot of the attention, at $5, $10, $20 a month. But I’d encourage you to think about annual recurring revenue instead. Here’s a real example. If your monthly rate is $20, and you offer annual access at $45 or $50 total, that’s a deal that’s hard to pass up. Twelve months for less than three months at full price. People take that offer. Stacking value matters too. We give our paid members 555 notes templates from The Creator’s Vault, plus a free entry into The Draftys, our sports writing awards. When someone looks at what they get, the price stops feeling like a decision. Notes Are Where Growth Actually Happens This is the part of Substack most people underestimate. Notes is the built-in social feed. Short posts, reactions, ideas. It runs on its own algorithm and it’s how new readers find you. Not through your newsletter. Through notes. Restacking is a huge part of this. When you restack someone else’s note, you’re sending their work to your audience. When they restack yours, their readers see your name. That’s real growth and it costs nothing. The Money Isn’t Based on Views This one matters more than people realize. On YouTube and TikTok, a bad month means a bad check. Your income moves with your view count. On Substack, your income moves with your subscriber count. Those are very different things. A hundred paying subscribers at $10 a month is $1,000 every single month, whether you went viral or not. Brands are also starting to take Substack seriously. PR agencies are actively looking for newsletter-specific campaigns right now. There aren’t many engaged Substack creators yet. That gap is your opening. A small, loyal list can bring in real sponsorship money, and engaged subscribers are worth more to a brand than passive social media followers. The Timing Is Still Right The best time to start was probably two years ago. The second-best time is right now. Most niches on Substack still have low competition. The people following you on other platforms are already looking for a reason to migrate. They want something more personal, more direct, less noisy. The community energy on Substack is also different from most platforms. People actually support each other. Writers recommend each other’s publications. Lists grow together. I’ve never seen anything quite like it, and I’ve been in this space for a while. What This Means for You Pick one topic. Set up your profile. Write your first post and make it free. Show up at least once a week. That’s it to start. The first post doesn’t have to be great. It just has to exist. Every week you wait is a week someone else in your niche gets further down the road. That’s not meant to scare you. It’s just true. Start small. Stay consistent. Build the thing you actually own. -Robbin Marx Join SportStackers.com Get full access to Sport Stackers: A Community for Substack Sports Creators at sportstackers.substack.com/subscribe

Are you tired of chasing algorithms and marketing hacks? This episode introduces a new Anti-Marketing framework, a new approach to building a flourishing community on platforms like Substack that prioritizes authentic marketing and community engagement. Learn how to foster genuine relationship building and achieve sustained growth, challenging traditional marketing strategies within the creator economy. This substack tutorial provides insights into how to grow on substack by focusing on human connection over transactional volume. Join us 👉https://SportStackers.com Get full access to Sport Stackers: A Community for Substack Sports Creators at sportstackers.substack.com/subscribe

In this video, I share my journey from fantasy sports content to over 8 million views, offering youtube tips to help you replicate my path. Learn about youtube monetization and how to get monetized on youtube, ensuring your content creation efforts also make money on youtube. Get full access to Sport Stackers: A Community for Substack Sports Creators at sportstackers.substack.com/subscribe

The State of Sports Newsletters in 2025 (And How We’re Building Differently) I am writing this from Atlanta right after a live Sport Stackers session with our community of writers, podcasters, and sports creatives. We spent the night breaking down a 2025 newsletter report and pulling out what actually matters for us on Substack. There was a lot of data, but the message for sports creators is simple. Think like a sophisticated operator, even if you are just getting started. Own the audience, do not rent it One of the core ideas we discussed is that sophisticated creators diversify where they show up and collect email addresses, while newer creators stay stuck on free platforms where they do not truly own their audience. When I say free platforms, I mean Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, X, and YouTube. Those platforms are powerful, and I have worked inside that world at NBC Sports, VidIQ, and now through Bleav in Fantasy Basketball and Sport Stackers. But if your entire audience lives on someone else’s app, you are always one algorithm change away from disappearing. Substack is different because you actually own your list. That should change how you behave, even on day one. Engagement is moving inside the email We looked at data from tens of billions of emails sent last year and saw three things that stood out: extremely high delivery, strong open rates around the low forties, and modest but meaningful click through rates. In many email marketing spaces, 30 percent is considered solid. Seeing averages above 40 percent shows how strong the newsletter ecosystem is right now. The next phase of this space will not just be about opens and clicks. It is about interaction inside the email. That means using embedded polls, simple quizzes, and real time content so readers can engage without leaving their inbox. On Bleav in Fantasy Basketball, where we are well past 5,000 subscribers, simple surveys and polls have helped us understand what is valuable and what is not. If you have not tried this yet, start with one clear question in your next send. Why pruning your list matters more than growing it One of the most important ideas from the session was something most creators avoid. Pruning your list. High performing email teams know that removing dead weight is essential to strong deliverability and accurate numbers. When people stop opening your emails for 90 to 120 days or never open anything at all, they become low quality subscribers. Here is what pruning looks like in practice: * Identify subscribers who have not opened in at least 90 days or ever. * For smaller lists around 100 to 500 subscribers, send a simple check in email: “Hey, I noticed you have not opened in a while. Still want content on this topic.” * If they do not respond or re engage, remove them. It feels brutal when you are chasing milestones like 100, 500, or 1,000 subscribers. If 50 out of 500 never open, I would rather have 450 engaged people than a vanity number that drags my open rate down to 15 percent. Do not chase metrics. Chase quality. Sports is a top tier newsletter niche We also looked at which industries had the highest open rates. Podcasts were at the top of the list, followed by categories like history, parenting, music, healthcare, deals, psychology, entertainment, and space. Sports landed in the top ten. That means we are building in an industry where people actually open and read. The attention is already here. The opportunity is in how specific you are willing to get. Go deeper on your niche, then remix Another big theme was that the best content does not have to be mass market. There are niche audiences for almost everything, and more creators are doubling down on specific lanes instead of trying to serve everyone. In sports, too many creators stop at “I cover basketball” or “I cover soccer.” Every sport has layers such as league, format, team, playing style, and geography. Bleav in Fantasy Basketball is a good example of going deeper. The broad niche is basketball, then NBA, then fantasy basketball, then points leagues. I even started narrower with content around one specific fantasy platform and then moved up one level when I realized the audience was bigger around points leagues in general. This is also where you can remix your experience into something no one else can copy. I combined my background as an NBA writer with my work as a creator coach and built a lane helping sports creators grow on Substack through Sport Stackers. That blend of sports media and social strategy is what makes the offer feel one of one. Ask yourself where you can go at least two or three layers deep and what unique mix of skills you bring that others do not. Simplicity as an advantage in the AI era We also talked about how AI has made every lane noisier. You can feel the AI slop in your feeds. Everything is more saturated, more repetitive, and more automated. That is exactly why I am betting on simplicity and human connection. When I wrote Social Media SYNC, I framed it around intentional human connection in the AI era, and that idea shapes how I show up here. I want our interactions to feel less like a polished broadcast and more like a FaceTime call with a friend who cares about your work. I am even restructuring our offers to reflect that. We used to have an MVP resource library packed with ebooks, checklists, and prompt packs, plus a mini free bundle for new members. The data told the truth. Clicks were low, and people with jobs, families, and teams do not have time to read 25 PDFs. So I am sunsetting the big resource library and the bundle. Instead, new community members get a free preview of my book, and MVP members are getting a full copy. That feels like a real, human way to help you, not just another folder of downloads. Less clutter. More connection. Trends driving newsletter growth in 2025 Here are the main trends we walked through and how they show up in our world. * Rise of creator led mediaCreators with loyal social audiences are realizing the power of owning distribution through newsletters. If you already have momentum on another platform, invite those people to your list. If you do not, I would not recommend starting a new social account just to feed your newsletter. Use Substack to grow Substack. * The power of communityCommunity building is a long slog. There is no secret sauce, no shortcut, and no hack that replaces consistency and care. Our own Triple Five Fridays ritual, where we post five Notes, restack five, and comment on five, has become a weekly anchor for Sport Stackers and one of the main reasons the community feels real. * Podcasts gain new steamMore creators are waking up to the fact that newsletter content and podcast content can feed each other. This very session is a good example. One live recording turns into a podcast episode, a YouTube video, and a newsletter article, plus a handful of Notes. Same effort, multiple formats. * Local newsletters are soaringWe are already leaning into this with the Your Knicks, Your Nuggets, Your Mavs, and Your Cavs projects under the Your Sports Media Network. Our Knicks channel passed 1,000 subscribers in about three months with multiple videos crossing thousands of views, all by focusing intensely on one fan base. If you are stuck on what to build, going local or going specific is almost always a good move. Use data to time your drops A practical question that came up was “When is the best time to drop new episodes or articles.” General advice can get you started, but your best times are specific to your audience. One thing that changed our growth curve was paying attention to when our readers and listeners actually showed up. Once we identified our golden hour for publishing, we saw significantly better performance. For me, that window is around mid afternoon, so I like to be active an hour on each side and drop major posts right in that sweet spot. If you are serious about growing, take a week to experiment. Publish at different times, track opens and responses, then lock in your own golden hour. What this means for you this week If you are building a sports newsletter or podcast and wondering what to actually do with all of this, keep it simple and concrete. Here is a quick action checklist: * Claim your lane. Go at least two levels deeper than “I cover sports” and pick a sub niche you are willing to own. * Prune your list. Remove subscribers who have not opened in 90 to 120 days after one human check in email if your list is small. * Add interaction. Include one poll, quiz, or simple question in your next send. * Repurpose once. Take your next live stream or article and convert it into at least one other format such as a podcast, YouTube video, or newsletter. * Protect your focus. If you are a one person operation, commit to Substack and maybe one other platform instead of trying to be everywhere. Treat your current list, even if it is tiny, with the respect and intention most people reserve for 100,000 subscribers. That mindset shift is what separates sophisticated creators from everyone else. Buy My New Book Social Media SYNC: Stop chasing algorithms and start creating connections. My proven SYNC Method transforms digital noise into authentic human connection that drives real results. Discover the framework that’s helped creators and businesses triple engagement while working less, with actionable strategies you can implement immediately. Grab your copy today! FOLLOW ON ALL SOCIAL MEDIA PLATFORMS: @robbinmarx @bleavinfantasy 👉FREE RESOURCE LIBRARY 🔴 WATCH MY TEDx TALK Robin Nathaniel TEDx Speaker | Award Winning Author & Social Media Strategist | Gold Telly Award Winner | Davey Award Winner | Two-Time W3 Award Winner Experience: NBC Sports - Rotoworld, Hashtag Basketball, vidIQ, Fantasy Sports Writers Association Thank you Gameplan Creative, Xavier Dixon, Season Ticket Holder-NY, PhxRisingReport, and many others for tuning into my live video! J

If you write on Substack and feel like your Notes aren’t getting the love they deserve, this new Sports Stackers Experience episode is a must watch. I break down real Notes from top performers and share exactly why they rack up likes, comments, and restacks. Hooks that stop the scroll Your hook decides if people stop scrolling. We look at proven openers like “Dear Substack” and “Hello, Substack verse” that connect you to the right audience fast. One spicy example, “Don’t become a ‘content creator’,” creates instant tension and curiosity to pull readers in. Formatting that makes people read Formatting turns good writing into something people actually finish. Creators swap basic bullets for clean text arrows to make Notes feel modern and easy to scan. Repetition works magic too, like Nicholas Cole’s “and write and write and write and write” that reads like poetry and keeps eyes moving down the page. Keep everything above the fold. No dense text blocks that scare readers off. Short lines and smart spacing mean they get your full point without tapping “more.” Images, GIFs, and screenshots that pop Visuals seal the deal. Test GIFs from Giphy for energy without clutter. Screenshots of stats, graphs, or quotes that make you think “huh, interesting” spark the best Notes. Pair one with a quick reaction, and you’ve got shareable gold. Your invite to the 31-Day Sprint The real fun starts TODAY March 1, 2026. Sports Stackers kicks off a 31-day sprint where writers, creators, journalists, and students post daily Notes. The community restacks, comments, and cheers everyone on. It’s accountability with zero judgment. Watch the full episode for step-by-step examples you can steal today. Then join us and put these tactics to work in the sprint. Watch your Notes take off with real support behind you. Get full access to Sport Stackers: A Community for Substack Sports Creators at sportstackers.substack.com/subscribe

In 2026 you might feel ready to get serious about Substack Notes but still have no idea what to post, how often to show up, or what actually works. This playbook gives you a clear routine you can repeat instead of guessing. The 12 Plays You Need on Substack Notes You do not need to master every feature. You need a small set of repeatable plays that turn Notes into a discovery engine for your newsletter and community. Play 1: The 5 5 5 strategy Use this as your daily base routine: * Five original Notes * Five restacks * Five comments You can batch these in one work block or spread them across the day. Avoid firing off five original Notes back to back like you are on X or Twitter. Spread them out so the platform sees you as consistently active instead of briefly noisy. Play 2: Write like a fan in a group chat Notes should feel more like texts to your friends than polished essays. If you have a group chat about your niche, scroll through it and study it. Look at what lines got the most reactions, emojis, or replies. Notice the slang, the running jokes, and the way people actually talk. If you do not have your own group chat, look at thriving communities in your niche and pay attention to their language. Capture those phrases and vibes, then bring that same energy into your Notes. Play 3: Stop the scroll People are still scrolling fast. Your job is to make them pause. A few simple tools help: * Use GIFs or memes that match your message and grab attention. * Share screenshots of charts, graphs, threads, or your screen, and mark them up with circles, arrows, or simple doodles. * Lead with specific numbers. Instead of writing 15K, try 15,397. Specific numbers feel real and make people curious. Combine one strong visual with one sharp line and your Notes become much harder to ignore. Play 4: One note, one play Each Note should do exactly one job. Avoid stuffing multiple topics into a single post. Do not jump from one team to another to another in the same Note. Pick a single idea, opinion, or story and stay with it. Clear, focused Notes are easier to read, easier to remember, and easier for the platform to understand. Play 5: Repost your best takes You do not need to leave great Notes in the past. First, define what an outlier looks like for you. If you usually get two likes and one Note gets five, that is an outlier. When you spot one, you can: * Rewrite it with a tighter hook or slightly different angle. * Restack the original so it resurfaces for people who missed it. * Copy and repost it as a fresh Note after a few weeks. Judge performance against your own baseline, not against viral accounts. If it did better than your normal, it deserves another run. Play 6: Rotate six content styles Instead of waking up and guessing what to post, decide on a small set of styles you rotate through. For example: * Tips and inspiration related to your niche. * Engagement prompts such as Dear Substack, please connect me with people who write about and then your topic. * Personal posts about your life, your family, or your struggles to build intimacy. * Self care posts that speak to the wellbeing of your readers. * Evergreen niche content that is not tied to last night’s news but to bigger stories and history. * Hard calls to action where you clearly ask people to subscribe, sign up, or support your work. Your exact six may be different, but the point is to choose them on purpose so you are never staring at a blank box with no direction. Play 7: Turn comments into content Comments are one of your best idea sources. When a comment hits you emotionally or intellectually, turn it into a Note by: * Screenshotting the comment and using it as the starting point for a new post. * Taking the topic further, expanding your reply into a full thought. * Mentioning or tagging the person who wrote it so they feel seen and invited back into the conversation. If something in the comments moved you, it will probably move your readers too. Play 8: Show behind the scenes People want to see how you actually work, not just the finished product. You can: * Post selfies while you are recording, writing, or planning. * Share photos of your workspace, even if it is messy or basic. * Post photos of paper notes, Post its, mind maps, and scribbles that show your thinking process. Handwritten and low tech visuals often feel more human, which builds stronger connection over time. Play 9: Use Notes as a practice field Treat Notes as a place to test ideas before turning them into full articles, podcast segments, or videos. If a Note gets more engagement than usual, that is a signal. Turn that idea into a longer newsletter piece, a script, or a segment. Let your audience tell you, through their reactions, what is worth expanding. Play 10: Ask sharp questions Weak questions get weak responses. Strong questions pull out genuine emotion. When you write a question Note: * Be specific and avoid vague prompts. * Ask about real choices, opinions, and pain points in your niche. * Be willing to share your own honest answer, including the good, the bad, and the ugly. If a question makes you a little nervous to post, it often means it is real enough to matter. Just keep it aligned with your values and with the kind of community you want to build. Play 11: Batch your Notes You probably do not have time to hop on all day and post in real time. Instead, set aside a block of time to: * Draft multiple Notes in one sitting. * Mix in your different styles so you are not repeating the same pattern. * Plan when each one will go live, even if you are posting manually. Batching helps you stay consistent even when life gets busy. Play 12: Choose consistency over perfection The biggest trap on Notes is overediting and overthinking. Typos are fine. Slightly messy phrasing is fine. You can always edit later if something really bothers you. What matters most is that you show up often, experiment publicly, and keep talking to your people. Let Notes be the place where you practice and connect, not the place where you pretend to be flawless. How to use this playbook this week To keep it simple, try this for the next seven days: * Run the 5 5 5 strategy at least once per day. * Define your six content styles and write at least one Note in each. * Turn one meaningful comment into a Note. * Share at least one behind the scenes photo or handwritten note. * Repost one outlier Note that outperformed your usual numbers. Follow these plays and Notes will stop feeling confusing and start feeling like a real practice floor for your Substack community. Get full access to Sport Stackers: A Community for Substack Sports Creators at sportstackers.substack.com/subscribe

It is 2026, and Substack might be one of the greatest opportunities in digital history for writers, creators, and independents who want to monetize their audience on their own terms. If you have been stuck on traditional social media or hesitating to start a newsletter, this walkthrough will show you exactly how to set up your Substack publication, write your first article, and prepare to grow. What Substack Really Is (And Why It Matters) Substack is often described as a newsletter platform, but that only scratches the surface. At its core, it is a new media platform that connects readers with creators through writing, podcasts, and video. It is built to help you form direct, meaningful relationships with your audience and to support independent voices. On Substack, you can offer free or paid subscriptions and manage your content and community from a single place. Think of it as an omnichannel media platform: * A blog * A website * An email newsletter * A social media platform * A podcast hosting platform * And next they're rolling out Substack TV! Substack lets you publish and monetize content while keeping most of your revenue; the platform takes a 10 percent cut. For someone who has lived through the eras of MySpace, Facebook, and TikTok and even built an audience of over 127,000 followers on TikTok, Substack is compelling enough to make you want to spend your time here instead. From Sign-Up to Publication: Setting Your Foundation To start, go to substack.com and create an account. Once you are in, the real work begins in the back end of your Substack, where you set up your publication and profile. You will first operate inside Substack’s social media branch, called Notes, which is a feed of posts and updates from across the platform. You will see: * Short Notes * Videos * Written posts * Links to new publications and articles This Notes feed is the central hub where discovery and interaction happen, and it is one of the most innovative social features on the internet right now. To create your publication: * Click the three-line menu at the bottom left of the interface. * Select “Settings.” * In the publication area (which will be blank when you start), click “Create publication” or “Create another publication” if you already have one. * Follow the prompts: name your publication, upload a publication image, and add your profile picture for the publication. As you do this, it is important to understand the difference between your profile and your publication: * Your profile is you: your name, your face, your identity as the writer. * Your publication is the “show” or “brand” that you are producing, such as a sports newsletter or a news-focused digest. If your name is Robbin Marx, use that name on your profile and reserve the “@robbinmarx” handle. If your publication is called “Sports and News,” that is the title of the publication, not your personal identity. Use a real profile photo of your face and your actual name so readers can connect with you as the creator behind the work. Navigating the Dashboard: Your Control Center Once your publication is created, click “Dashboard” in the left-hand menu to see the main control panel for your newsletter. Here you will find: * Home * Website * Posts * Podcast * Chat * Subscribers * Growth * Stats * Payments * Recommendations * Branding You will likely spend most of your time in the Posts section. Inside Posts, you can see: * All published articles * Scheduled posts * Drafts in progress A practical workflow many creators use is: * Draft a batch of posts and save them as drafts. * When ready, move those drafts into scheduled posts with dates and times. * Let Substack send them out automatically. Remember that you also get a public-facing website for your publication. Clicking “Website” shows you how your newsletter appears to visitors, acting as a home base for archives, signups, and discovery. Writing Your First Substack Article To draft a new article: * Click “Create new.” * Choose “Text post” (this is your standard article). You can also choose video post, audio post, new Note, new chat thread, or live video for other formats. Inside the editor, Substack gives you a basic structure: * Title * Subtitle * Body A few key points to keep in mind: * Your title and subtitle are critical for SEO. They should include the core keywords related to your niche or topic. * Use clear, benefit-driven language that tells readers what they will get from the piece. Headings and Structure Strong formatting makes your article more readable and skimmable. Substack’s editor lets you format headings easily: * Highlight a line of text. * Choose “Header 1” for a main section heading. * Use smaller headers (Header 2, Header 3) for subtopics. Each level is slightly smaller than the last and helps organize longer pieces into logical sections that guide readers. Quotes, Dividers, and Visual Flow Many writers underuse Substack’s quote features, which can dramatically improve your article’s visual rhythm. To add a quote: * Highlight a sentence or paragraph. * Click the quote icon in the toolbar. * Choose either a block quote or a pull quote. Block quotes are especially useful for: * Key phrases you want to emphasize. * Pulling out a line as a standalone moment in your article. * Highlighting testimonials or statistics. Other useful formatting tools in the editor include: * Bold and italics for emphasis. * Strikethrough for edits or stylistic effects. * Code formatting for technical snippets. * Links for references or external resources. * Image, audio, and video insertion to make the post more dynamic. * Bullet and numbered lists for steps or grouped ideas. * Buttons for actions like “share this post” or “share publication,” which should be used sparingly. Dividers are another powerful tool. Adding a divider at the end of a section creates a subtle gray line that visually separates ideas and improves flow. For example: * Write a short section. * Insert a divider. * Begin the next topic below that line. This simple move makes long newsletters far easier to navigate on both desktop and mobile. Using Paywalls, Drafts, and Scheduling Substack’s paywall is central to monetization. If you want to place part of your article behind a paywall: * Write your full piece. * Click the paywall button where you want the free portion to end. * Everything below that line will be reserved for paid subscribers. This is a powerful way to: * Offer valuable free content to attract new readers. * Reserve deeper analysis, premium resources, or exclusive insights for paid subscribers. As you write, Substack automatically saves your work. Many creators prefer to: * Keep posts in Draft until they are confident in the content and formatting. * Then choose whether to send to everyone or to paid subscribers only. To schedule: * Click the dropdown next to the publish button. * Choose your audience (everyone or paid only). * Set your date and time. * Adjust options like: * Allowing comments from everyone. * Adding relevant tags for discovery. * Choosing the social preview image and text. When everything is set, select the date and time and confirm “Send to everyone” or the appropriate audience. Substack will handle the delivery at the scheduled moment. Where to Go Next: Growing Your Substack By this point, you have: * Created your Substack account. * Set up your profile and publication correctly. * Learned how to navigate your dashboard. * Written and formatted your first article. * Understood the basics of paywalls, drafts, and scheduling. The natural next question is how to grow your Substack. Audience building, subscriber conversion, Notes strategy, and external promotion are the next layers of the journey. Once you are comfortable in the editor and backend, it is time to focus on getting more people to see your work and turning casual readers into loyal subscribers. To go deeper into growth strategies, check out this article: It breaks down how to use Notes, SEO, social sharing, and collaboration to grow your Substack! Buy My New Book Social Media SYNC: Stop chasing algorithms and start creating connections. My proven SYNC Method transforms digital noise into authentic human connection that drives real results. Discover the framework that’s helped creators and businesses triple engagement while working less, with actionable strategies you can implement immediately. Grab your copy today! Try This Tool WriteStack.io is the tool that helped me gain over 5000 subscribers and land on Substack’s Rising in Sports Top 10! It also helped me to scale my Notes output. It’s totally FREE to try it for 7 Days, but if you’re serious about growing on Substack, I’m confident you will subscribe long term. The first 10 people to sign up using the code: ROBBIN10 get a 10% discount. Tell’em the Sport Stackers sent ya! 🚨Last thing… If you can, please leave us a TESTIMONIAL! It really helps us grow the community. 👉RECORD TESTIMONIAL HERE Subscribe to our YouTube channel 👉YouTube.com/@RobbinMarx 👉FREE RESOURCE BUNDLE (FREE PREVIEW OF MY BOOK) 🔴 WATCH MY TEDx TALK Robin Nathaniel AKA Robbin Marx TEDx Speaker | Award Winning Author & Social Media Strategist | Gold Telly Award Winner | Davey Award Winner | Two-Time W3 Award Winner Experience: NBC Sports - Rotoworld, Hashtag Basketball, vidIQ, Fantasy Sports Writers Association FOLLOW ON ALL SOCIAL MEDIA PLATFORMS: @robbinmarx @bleavinfantasy Get full access to Sport Stackers: A Community for Substack Sports Creators at sportstackers.substack.com/subscribe

If you are building an audience on Substack and still treating it like a “newsletter only” platform, you are leaving serious growth on the table. In a recent conversation with WriteStack founder Orel, we explored why Substack’s Notes feature is the true engine of discovery and how his tool helps creators turn that engagement into subscribers, revenue, and long-term control over their audience. Why Substack Is “Rented Land Insurance” Substack combines the reach of social media with the ownership of an email list, giving creators the benefits of a feed-driven platform without the fragility of followers they cannot take with them. When someone subscribes on Substack, you get their email, which means that even if the platform bans you or changes direction, you still own the direct relationship with your readers. For creators burned by account bans or algorithm swings on TikTok, X, or other platforms, this ability to build a portable audience is a major shift. Substack also forces you to develop a long-form writing muscle while still operating inside a social discovery ecosystem. That mix of depth plus distribution makes it one of the strongest opportunities in the current early adopter phase of the platform, before it matures and growth inevitably slows or becomes more competitive. Substack Notes: The Underrated Growth Channel When Orel first joined Substack almost two years ago, he treated it like a traditional blog: long-form pieces, organic discovery, and recommendations from other writers. It worked, but slowly. Over time, he realized that the number one driver of new subscribers was not the essays at all. It was Notes. Across thousands of creators he has spoken with, roughly 30–70 percent of their subscribers come directly or indirectly from Notes activity. In many cases, that means tens of thousands of subscribers attributable to short posts that travel through the feed and get surfaced to new readers. The most effective Notes on Substack are not generic tips or faceless promo posts. They are personal updates and “building in public” moments. Creators share milestones, failures, wins, and real numbers, such as revenue snapshots. Each transparent update sparks fresh engagement and new subscribers. Many people hesitate to share income or goals publicly out of fear of judgment, privacy concerns, or “jinxing” themselves, but the response pattern is often the opposite. Readers root for you, follow the journey, and want to be part of your next milestone. Inside WriteStack: Built for Substack Growth WriteStack was born out of Orel’s own Substack workflow. He needed a way to generate more Notes, schedule them intelligently, and double down on what was actually working. Once you connect, the first screen you see is a Notes hub where you can write, generate, and schedule Notes in batches. A built-in Notes generator can create new posts based on your existing Substack articles or even files you upload, using your own writing style and voice rather than generic AI language. Scheduling is designed to be as simple as dropping content into a queue and letting it dispatch to the next available slot. You can visualize your entire schedule in one view and rearrange Notes via drag-and-drop to cover your week or month with consistent, high-performing content. For creators who prefer to repurpose, a single Note format that performs well can be duplicated, lightly tweaked, and re-queued, preserving the structure while updating the specifics. The feature that Orel calls the most valuable is Notes Performance, a sortable dashboard of your full Notes history with metrics like clicks, likes, and subscribers. He routinely filters by likes to identify his highest-engagement Notes, then saves those back to drafts and re-adds them to his queue, so he is constantly resurfacing proven winners. If posting the exact same text feels repetitive, built-in AI tools can generate alternate versions that are more sarcastic, shorter, or differently phrased while keeping the underlying concept intact. Community, Conversions, and the Activity Center WriteStack is not just about pushing content out. It also makes creator–reader interaction far less painful. On Substack itself, comments and replies are buried in a noisy notifications tab, difficult to track, and awkward to manage, especially if you navigate away and lose your place. In contrast, WriteStack’s Activity Center pulls everything into a single view, allowing you to respond to comments rapidly with keyboard shortcuts and automatically like comments as you reply. That makes it realistic to handle a large volume of engagement in 15–20 minutes rather than feeling overwhelmed or guilty about unanswered readers. These interaction patterns matter because Orel has data showing a strong correlation between the Notes he posts, the engagement they receive, and the number of signups WriteStack gets as a business. By optimizing for likes and overall engagement rather than just free subscriber count, he funnels more people to his Substack profile, where a simple, goal-driven tagline invites readers to “join” him as he builds WriteStack to 100K rather than just “buy” a tool. Analytics from an external dashboard confirm that much of his revenue originates from visitors who land via that profile link after discovering him through Notes. For creators thinking about paid tiers or selling services off-platform, this same model applies. Use Notes to generate engagement, send people to an intentional profile or landing page, and let that page invite them into a larger story or journey rather than a one-off transaction. Transparency, consistent updates, and smart reuse of formats become the engine that powers both audience and revenue growth. Power Features, Limitations, and What’s Next Beyond its core tools, WriteStack includes an Inspirations feature that lets users see which types of Notes are performing well across the platform, down to specific formatting tricks like repeated letter patterns or year-stamped lists. WriteStack can even filter the broader database by phrases or engagement thresholds, such as Notes with more than 100 likes, to reverse-engineer what resonates before adapting those formats to their own voice. On the distribution side, he is actively testing a collaboration with Buffer so creators can compose and schedule Notes in WriteStack and then syndicate that content automatically to other platforms like LinkedIn and X. For creators juggling multiple channels, especially those managing social for organizations or municipalities, this would help connect Substack’s email plus social ecosystem with the rest of their content stack. WriteStack currently offers a seven-day free trial, making it easy for curious Substack writers to test the workflow and see whether they also become “addicted” to the efficiency gains and growth it unlocks. Try WriteStack! WriteStack.io is the tool that helped me gain over 5000 subscribers and land on Substack’s Rising in Sports Top 10! It also helped me to scale my Notes output. It’s totally FREE to try it for 7 Days, but if you’re serious about growing on Substack, I’m confident you will subscribe long term. The first 10 people to sign up using the code: ROBBIN10 get a 10% discount. Tell’em the Sport Stackers sent ya! Final Thoughts and Next Steps For creators serious about Substack, the playbook emerging from Orel’s experience is clear. Treat Substack as both a social feed and an email list, lean hard into Notes as your primary discovery engine, and share your journey in public through honest, repeatable formats. Add in visual scroll stoppers, prioritize clicks in your analytics, and invest in fast, thoughtful replies to build a loyal audience that follows you beyond any single platform. Tools like WriteStack can compress the time it takes to execute this strategy, turning scattered experimentation into a deliberate, data-backed growth system that supports both your newsletter and your broader creative business. Robin Nathaniel AKA Robbin Marx TEDx Speaker | Award Winning Author & Social Media Strategist | Gold Telly Award Winner | Davey Award Winner | Two-Time W3 Award Winner Experience: NBC Sports - Rotoworld, Hashtag Basketball, vidIQ, Fantasy Sports Writers Association FOLLOW ON ALL SOCIAL MEDIA PLATFORMS: @robbinmarx @bleavinfantasy Get full access to Sport Stackers: A Community for Substack Sports Creators at sportstackers.substack.com/subscribe