Finding Readers

Kristen's Way

A lot of people have been asking me how I grew my Substack. Here’s the honest answer: one newsletter and one reader at a time.

I started on Mailchimp. No one was reading my musings, but I put an article out every week anyway. At first, I tried to sound like the publishing houses I had left behind. New York City perfection and polish to my bridge and tunnel (or in my case, many trains). The kind of person who comfortably wore suits and heels all the time even though I really wore sneakers and changed at my desk.

I could feel myself losing myself while I was literally living my dream life. I am and always will be a bookworm whose life was literally saved by books. I can’t treat books and the people who create them like we’re just selling staplers and paper towels and the powers that be often made me feel like I had to. But it is hard to pretend you’re someone you’re not for very long.

This is me: a mom to two neurodivergent kids who refuse to live in boxes and forced me out of my own. Slightly feral. Always wearing book themed t-shirts and yoga pants usually covered in ice cream. I love my family, my dog, Ben & Jerry’s, my tight very close group of friends who force me off my couch and make me interact with them grumpy and introverted and sometimes as in my own head as I am.

I feel like you’re all part of that group too.

One of my editing clients once told me she felt like she had been stranded on the side of the road. She had no water and no gas, but I was the one person who stopped and saw her. And I picked her up and literally carried her to the finish line. I want to do that for all of you too. But obviously I can’t, so I started this newsletter.

I look at so much of the other publishing advice out there and it feels like just another way to keep people out. Writing is hard. It often feels like you’re opening up a vein in a dark cage alone. Finding readers and publishing should not be. No one helped me when I was small and alone and struggling. I will never be the person who doesn’t help as many other people as I can.

When I started looking around I saw so many people spending so much time telling you how to write and not leaving you any time to actually do it. Plus, the only “right” way to write is to write like you. That’s why most of my articles are general and under 3-4 minutes. I want you to quickly read my advice, disregard if it doesn’t work for you, and go!

So every week, usually on Thursday morning unless I have time to sit and think beforehand, I sit and write to everyone else that feels alone but has so much to say.

I channel all of you amazing writers. And my mailman, who shows up every day through all kinds of weather and brings me checks. I channel him too.

So don’t let anyone make you feel like you can’t grow on your own.***

It might be quiet. I was here for almost two years before I became a “Substack bestseller” - which I feel is really just an excuse to make me pay for something. But I didn’t care. I have something to say and I think it is important for people to hear it.

Even if for you’re only talking to yourself for a minute. That’s all you need.

Warmly,

*** Editing is still my main job and my main source of income. This newsletter started as a bonus — a way to share what I’ve learned and help more writers without a developmental edit price tag attached. But it would be impossible to do everything that comes with it alone.

The words, thoughts, advice, and opinions are mine alone. But I definitely don’t run what I jokingly imagine as the future Kristen Weber Empire by myself. My main job is still editing, and I also have a family, a life, and plenty of interests outside the internet.

I think we need to normalize having help behind the scenes. I rely on a few amazing people who help keep this newsletter, my social media, and all my many ideas moving forward. There is no shame in needing support to build something bigger than yourself.

First, Stephen Knezovich, who somehow helps turn my endless notebook scribbles and feral energy into actual plans. He shapes the look of this newsletter, talks through every big idea with me, and helps me turn them into real things like pamphlets, a YouTube channel, and other marketing I never would have had the time to organize on my own. He was the first one who recognized what this could be and how much I needed to share my tiny newsletter louder than I was capable of doing on my own. That alone is invaluable.

I also rely on Anna Hall for beautiful design work, including my pamphlets and upcoming books, and Elaini Caruso for proofreading. Even editors need editors. Elaini and I worked together at Hachette Book Group years ago, and it genuinely makes me so happy that we still get to work together now.

The team at Better By Friday Media helps me tremendously with social media, strategy, and making sure all the things happening inside my brain actually make it out into the world in a way people can find. They make social media so much more fun than I ever thought it could be and I feel like they’re my paid best friends.

You absolutely do not need a team to be a writer. But between editing books, motherhood, my neurodivergent brain and trying to keep all these ideas alive, I know I’d be overwhelmed without mine. I also talk a lot less to myself and a lot more to real people these days and, while I am still a grumpy introvert at heart, my energy has always been come sit with me and I love that they - and you - all do!

If you’re enjoying what we’re all creating and want to keep me and my team in ice cream, upgrade your subscription here!