Substack Writers at Work with Sarah Fay
Substack Writers at Work with Sarah Fay

Substack Writers at Work with Sarah Fay

How to Avoid The Top 5 Mistakes 99% of People Make on Substack

+PDF

Nov 27, 2025
∙ Paid

I’ve been behind a lot of Substack dashboards.

My 1:1 clients (1000+ of them) are a beautiful cross-section of the different types of people with different interests and specialties, who are using Substack primarily for the same reasons—to get devoted subscribers, earn an income, create incredible opportunities, and produce their best work.

About 99 percent of them have made the same mistakes before coming to see me.

Real growth comes from knowing your Substack DNA and using that as your foundation, but simply learning how to avoid these mistakes will give you a jumpstart—no matter how comfortable or experienced you are (or aren’t) with the platform. (Get on the waitlist for the next DNA Intensive here.)

Below, I show paid subscribers and Premier members exactly how to avoid the top 5 mistakes people make on Substack.

We do it right here. In the post.

Go to it!

All my best,

Sarah

P.S. Scroll all the way down for the PDF as well + and join our Weekly Chat Thread to connect and get your Substack questions answered by members of our amazing community.

Mistake #1: Not understanding that Substack is unlike any other platform

It’s so important to understand that Substack is unlike any other platform and what works on Medium or Instagram or wherever doesn’t work on here.

Substack is its own world.

  • Here’s why:

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