Joyfully Grow Your Substack on Autopilot: Join this NEW Directory & Get Recommended!
I hit 12,000 subscribers. Let’s celebrate with a Recommendations Masterclass (and a big thank-you gift)
I attribute 44% of my Substack newsletter success to — can you fill in the blank? What is it? — recommendations.
Yep, free recommendations!
That’s why I’m hosting a Recommendations Masterclass tomorrow at 3pm EST for paid members.
While I’ve been joyfully growing my soulful newsletter business from zero to 12,000 subscribers, I realized how powerful Substack’s recommendation engine is and that it helps me to grow 44% faster.
That’s why I’m hosting a Recommendations Masterclass tomorrow, on Friday, at 3pm EST for paid members.
As a huge thank-you for reading, supporting, and just being here—I’m offering 40% off the annual membership for the next 48 hours.
👉 Click here to get 40% off forever and 365 days of support from me.
You’ll also get full access to:
✅ The Notes Masterclass (Wednesday)
✅ The Recommendations Masterclass (Thursday)
✅ Access to the entire Substack School course for Beginners
✅ All my templates, replays, and the full membership experience with community-access
✅ And maybe… a surprise or two in your inbox in the next few days. 😉
But first, let me explain more.
One of Substack’s top newsletter authors,Lenny Rachitsky, who has more than 1,000,000 (!) subscribers now and earns millions of dollars with his product management newsletter ranking #1 on the leaderboard in #Business, even shared when he had about 250,000 subs that 78% of his subscribers were coming from other Substack newsletters recommending his newsletter.
In the growth chart below, you can see how fast he’s growing since Substack launched its recommendations feature:
As you can see in the chart above, as soon as the growth feature launched, it was just a hockey stick starting that day.
“(…) the recommendations feature is a total game changer. IMHO it’s one of the most impactful growth features in history (…) and, (…) totally changed the trajectory of my newsletter.”
This is a huge deal, fascinating, and one of the reasons I love email marketing as a marketing expert myself.
All Newsletter Starters Ask The Same Question
“How can I add (more) new subscribers to my list?”
In my corporate job as a brand manager, I have been growing email lists for the brands, products, or services that are under my belt. Kit is great for this because it offers to segment subscribers and I love its analytics for presentations.
In my part-time online business, I use Substack to build my personal brand. Since I’m in the business of helping others start and grow their online presence and most of them are writers, Substack is the perfect place for me. (👉🏻 I talked with media industry expert
about this.(My email list is the most valuable asset in my business because I don’t “rent” just “followers” as on any social media platform.
I accumulate the most valuable audience in the sense that I “own” the email addresses of my subscribers.
From my coaching and mentoring experience I know most people are aware of how important it is to grow an email list but what’s holding them back from taking action is that they feel intimidated.
Fear Not. I’m Here To help
Substack’s recommendation engine is a growth machine!
Instead of implementing a recommendation algorithm such as on Meta, TikTok, or YouTube, Substack decided to ask writers who they recommend to their subscribers.
In essence, writers can recommend other newsletters that they specifically pick and think are awesome.
Once someone subscribes to your newsletter, they see these in these at multiple touchpoints in the subscribe flow:
“Hey, you should check these newsletters out. I think these are awesome!”
Word of mouth is powerful. And you can grow on autopilot! You don’t have to do anything - except of keep showing up for yourself and your readers.
However, I see many smallstackers (writers with a small subscriber base) missing out on this.
What I love is that I can curate the newsletters I want to recommend.
I have control over it.
There’s no algorithm involved.
I Gained 7,722 Subscribers Through Recommendations
Thanks to all the wonderful writers and friends who are recommending my newsletter:
First off, I know in the beginning of this story I said 44%. This is 61% but in the overall stats Substack tells me it would be 44%, so I’ll still go with this number.
My success didn't come overnight. I’d like to thank EVERYONE as this post is part if my 12,000 subscriber celebration party.
Let’s Grow Together - Simple. Easy & full of Joy!
Are you already on Substack or hot on the heels of starting your newsletter this year?
Let me help you.
Unfortunately, on Substack, it’s not easy to find someone (in your niche) to collaborate with.
Share your Substack newsletter link to find collaboration partners with the "Collaboratie Directory of Substack Publications in 2025" I've created and updated for writers, dreamers, authors and creators to grow together.
With your help, this Directory can grow exponentially over time!
I tried some fancy tools to make it sexy but finally stuck to the good old minimalistic spreadsheet from Google.
Try it. It’s Easy! 5 Steps To Goooooo
Do you want to collaborate with others, recommend them, and mutually grow your Substack?
If you say:
“Yes, Kristina. I want to collaborate with others (in my niche)!”
here’s how to join the fun:
Your name - Kristina God
the URL of your Substack publication - www.onlinewritingclub.com (I have a custom domain)
the URL of your Notes feed - www.onlinewritingclub.com/notes
your subscriber number - 12,500
the two main categories your Substack belongs to (category 1 and category 2) - Education, Business* (*the 29 main categories on Substack are Art & Illustration, Business, Climate & Environment, Comics, Crypto, Culture, Design, Education, Faith & Spirituality, Fashion & Beauty, Fiction, Finance, Food & Drink, Health & Wellness, Health Politics, History, Humor, International, Literature, Music, News, Parenting, Philosophy, Science, Sports, Technology, Travel, U.S. Politics, World Politics)👉🏻 HERE’S A FREE LIST OF ALL 29 CATEGORIES (and a guide!) TO DOWNLOAD.
With your help, we can upload this table and it can grow and show you others in your niche or in a category you’re interested in who are looking to collaborate to grow their Substack.
There are more than 290 publications in the Directory.
♻️Restack this post so more gonna see it, please! ♻️
I Launched This Directory 1 Year Ago
I started this a year ago and never really followed up on this (except inside the CLub membership experience). So now I’d love to open this window again.
Since I know recommendations are a huge growth driver, I’d as many as possible to capitalize on it and give back!
If you see your name on the list, please UPDATE it 😁as I know so many of you grew their email lists thanks to recommendations and I’d love to see where you’re now and would like to feature 3-6 people. So if you’re seeing:
“WOW! Back then I had… and now I have…” let me know in the comments!
If you’re new or want to update your data, do it here.
CLICK HERE AND GET ON THE LIST
Trust me that my tech assistant, full-stack software developer Patrick God (my hubby), is gonna create an awesome tool for us to connect and collab.
♻️Restack this post so more smallstackers (with a small subscriber base) like you gonna see it, please! ♻️
It’s all about having fun while growing your list on autopilot.
With so much love and gratitude,
PS. Want to learn evything I know about recommendations? I spent hours learning about recommendations and seeing lots of backends. Join our Recommendations Masterclass and let’s grow together.
I love the sound of this idea which will benefit us all.
This is a remarkable initiative, Kristina.
I've put my name in the list.
Thank you!