Starting on Substack From Zero

Messy starts, deliberate steps and what happened when I began nurturing my newsletter in 2024

💡 This piece is part of The Editing Spectrum’s Publishing Foundations — tools for the early days.

I’ve made it freely available as part of my ongoing experiment with reader-supported publishing. If it sparks something for you, and you want to support this kind of work, reshare this piece with your friends on Substack.

---

In 2024, nurturing won.

But I’ve got to tell you something quite embarrassing: nurturing is messy.

It’s not a straight line. It’s full of stops, starts, stalls and plenty of moments when you wonder if it’s even worth it. I’ve been there.

When I started taking my newsletter seriously back in January 2023, I was recovering from burnout. I was newly diagnosed as autistic, a first-time mom and trying — for the first time — to truly embrace my needs as a neurodivergent person.

I didn’t know if I could ever have an online creative home for myself. One that wouldn’t exhaust me. One that would feel like a place where I could show up as me.

At first, it was messy. There were days I didn’t know what to write (I still have those days! Read about creative chaos here). There were days I wanted to give up. Days I questioned whether it would ever work.

But by 2024, I had grown from those 12 readers to just over 1,300. And I remembered that my instinct to nurture what I love has always been on my side — even when all the business books told me that “nice girls don’t get the corner office.”

Through everything that life, writing, editing and entrepreneurship have taught me, I’ve learned that nurturing something authentic takes time. It takes patience. It takes small, deliberate steps forward — even when it feels like nothing is happening.

And when you stick with it, somehow, luck finds a place to land.

Why I’m sharing this now

In 2024, the Substack landscape started to change.

I started seeing more and more “gurus” joining the platform with massive followings, loud claims and cookie-cutter advice about how to grow your newsletter.

That’s not my story.

And if it’s not yours either, I want you to know this: You don’t need a pre-existing platform to get started.

➡️ But you do need to nurture a newsletter in order to create momentum inside it.

➡️ Publishing essays and putting your head in the sand isn’t enough.

➡️ There are more working parts to pay attention to, if you feel ready and called to build momentum.

I want to share my growth numbers with you from 2024.

But I want to be clear that they’re the result of nurturing — not migrating a list or from hundreds or thousands of relationships I had nurtured outside Substack and pulled in with me.

My audience is here because of the work I did on Substack, using its Substack discoverability network and starting to give my work some visibility (I was invited to the Content Spark Summit). No social media funnels (though I’m trying to give Instagram a completely fresh makeover/experiment in 2025).

In 2024 I was showing up, serving my readers, working really hard, trying a lot of new experiments and figuring out what a sustainable process looks like for me.

Here’s how that translated into real numbers in 2024:

📈 Readers: 1,323 → 3,451
💌 Paid Members: 43 → 200+ (and growing!)
💰 Newsletter Revenue: $12,900 (just over $10k after fees)
🛠 Digital Guides & Workshops: $6,000
💬 1:1 Work: $8,000

This all happened in the midst of:

• Re-launching my career after a major life pivot (autism diagnosis, burnout, first-time mom).

• Building entirely new working systems from the ground up.

• Having ~12 hours of childcare per week.

None of this came easily. I juggled a lot, shifted a lot. I worked hard. I had a few clients throughout the year, whose revenue I took and poured back into paying a designer to help me start building a few of the pieces you see in this digital library.

And I know it might sound like I’m turning into a guru when I say this, but I know from more than a decade of being an entrepreneur that we all learn through osmosis. We learn by finding someone who has depth of experience, diversity of thought, similar values and is further down the road from us.

So I say this with as much sincerity as I can muster in an online newsletter: I can help you learn how to nurture your newsletter, too.

OK, I did bring a few things with me…

Of course, if you’re anything like me, now that I’ve made a promise about growing your newsletter, your skepticism radar is probably blazing right now.

What’s the catch, Amanda?

Are you wondering how I managed to grow a newsletter from scratch?

Here’s the catch — or, more accurately, the leg up — I did have when I started my Substack:

I’m a longtime writer and editor, with years of experience in both print and digital editorial production. In 2012, I transitioned into marketing, data analytics and online audience nurturing work. This means I have been studying buying psychology, reader journeys and the intricacies of how this all plays out in online spaces. Since then, I’ve also worked behind the scenes on my partner’s two software acquisitions and as an advisor to other entrepreneurs, which gave me a unique lens into how tech and startups (like Substack) tend to work under the hood.

On top of that, I’ve been an entrepreneur since 2014 (including a boutique content agency with a self-publishing press) and am also a certified in mindfulness awareness instruction.

Through all of this, I’ve seen how important it is to take leaps and learn how to coexist with uncertainty.

But I’ll let you in on a secret: publishing a newsletter still drags me out of my comfort zone more than I ever expect.

And the reality is that for all that experience I mentioned above, none of it had ever quite clicked for me personally. All those skills, all that knowledge — it had never congealed into a plan that worked for me, with my voice, my original ideas, my writing. I was great at building things for other people — other brands, other voices, other companies. But when it came to creating a system that was sustainable for me, I still had to start from scratch when I came to Substack.

That’s the part of my story I want to be honest about. Even with years of experience and a unique set of skills, this process was messy, imperfect and full of trial and error.

It wasn’t until I leaned into nurturing — focusing on momentum instead of perfection, clarity instead of complexity — that I finally found a way to bring it all together.

And now? I can confidently say that I’ve built a creative home online that is working for me. One that feels authentic, energizing and sustainable. One where I can show up as myself — and, it turns out, also help others build the same for themselves.

Come nurture your newsletter in 2025

Over the next year, I’m going to walk alongside you and share everything I know to help you nurture a newsletter that feels like yours — one that belongs to you and truly resonates with your readers.

I didn’t bring 10,000 followers or a social media megaphone to Substack. When I started, I was working with just 12 readers, no pre-built systems, and no network. But I did bring a commitment to figuring out what works. And in 2024, I showed myself that iterative, sustainable growth is possible.

What I’ve learned is that building momentum doesn’t require a massive audience. It requires showing up, being willing to be proven wrong (and pivot) and a willingness to nurture the right things at the right time.

And that’s what I want to help you do.

I’ll help you break this process down into manageable, actionable steps, focusing on one core theme of newsletter nurturing at a time. Along the way, I’ll be sharing everything I’ve learned from years of editorial production, my work as an editor, strategist, creative advisor and my experience as a long-time entrepreneur. I’ve adapted and rebuilt the best tools and strategies so they work for today’s newsletter landscape.

This month, we’re starting with reader knowledge — understanding who your readers are, what they care about and how to learn about them through polls and surveys. It’s one of the most foundational (and overlooked) aspects of newsletter growth, and I’m excited to dive in with you.

If you’re a paid member of The Editing Spectrum, I’ll also be showing up live once a month on Zoom to answer your newsletter strategy questions, brainstorm solutions and help you nurture your newsletter every step of the way. (Read more about my memberships here.)

We’re going to do this together. Step by step, without overwhelm. Because whether you’re starting from scratch or scaling what you’ve already built, I know in my heart that nurturing works every time.