Which best describes your current stage: just launched, under 500 subs, 500–2,000, or 2,000+?

If you're not taking Substack Notes seriously yet, this is your sign. Notes are my #1 growth lever — and this is the tool that runs the whole system. My Notes Tool does the heavy lifting: - Write a month of Notes in one sitting — it pulls from every post I've ever published so the voice stays mine - Show up daily without touching the app — schedule weeks in advance - Keep earning subscribers from old wins — best-performing Notes auto-republish every 4 weeks - Clear every comment in minutes — all engagement in one feed, reply with voice text - Know what's actually converting — Substack analytics in one clean dashboard - Post when your audience is online — it tells you the exact best time If Notes feels like a chore, this turns it into a system. Drop a 🚀 if you want my weekly Notes batching workflow next. -

Hey everyone. Good to be here. I'm Derek, a writer and creator based in Manchester. I run the Irresistible Writer which delivers practical writing tools to paid subscribers every week. I came to this the way most people do. Writing on the side, posting into silence, not entirely sure I hadn't missed my window. I kept going anyway. Now I run paid cohorts and live masterclasses, and earns enough that I handed in my notice. That part still catches me off guard when I think about it. The thing I'm probably most proud of sits outside the subscriber count. I landed paid commissions from national magazines and got radio work, without a platform, without contacts, just by understanding how to pitch. I've since built a programme teaching exactly that. Writing, for me, has always been the engine. Every piece you publish is a small asset. It finds people, builds trust, opens doors you didn't know existed. That's what I'm here to talk about. Looking forward to learning from everyone here.