How I marketed my Medium and Substack

Earlier this week, I exchanged messages with a friend who plans to start writing, and I shared my experience.

I didn’t market my Medium writing, but there is a caveat. I did something early in my writing journey that’s easy to forget; it helped me gain the initial followers.

I frequently interacted with someone with a huge following. Umair Hague! I didn’t interact with him to grow my audience. I commented on some of his doom-and-gloom stories because they annoyed the fuck out of me. He wouldn’t shut up about “collapse.” His every other story literally used the word collapse in the title, as if AI shuffled the same combination of words. I acted on a genuine impulse to react or argue. I noticed I’d gain followers. Then, I started interacting with him a little more purposefully. So, I’d comment and post a link to my story.

So, it’s a simple point — interacting with others helps when you’re building your audience. Interacting with others can also help generate ideas for writing. For example, if I see an opinion that I disagree with, I’d write a story about my opinion. Then, I’d go back to the “trigger” story and mention my opposing opinion in the comments with a link to my freshly written story. Or this variation: let’s say you write a story and then come across someone who discusses the same topic. Regardless of whether you share the same opinion, there is only a benefit from commenting and putting a link to your story with the words “I just wrote on this topic [link]”.