Substack Notes30 Challenge: December 2025 [🎁Christmas Edition]

[Special Christmas Gift 🎁 Inside] Take that ALL-NEW Christmas Edition Monthly Notes Challenge and win amazing prizes.

Yana G.Y.

Dec 02, 2025

∙ Paid

Xo Xo Xo

It’s Christmas time. The BEST time of the year.

Buut, it’s also the best time to gain some subs.

NO rest. NO retreats. NO back down.

Time to get to work before the year ends, so we start 2026 with a fresh new audience ready to convert.

A reminder:

Notes acquisition channel has the highest conversion rate, so you’re MISSING OUT A LOT if you still sleep on it.

This is my free→paid subs conversion rate and it’s stable: NOTES are crushing it! WHY? Because people who come from Notes already **KNOW** **YOU**, from your **NOTES**, so they **CONVERT**.

You don’t need to go viral (although my all-famous custom GPT WILL help you the way it helped the most committed). You just need to be present, so that people can get the taste of you before they hit subscribe (and upgrade).

NOW, this month ONLY: Notes Challenge will be different - ALL NEW Christmas Edition

But before I get into the juicy part, let me introduce the winners from the Last Month Notes30 Challenge ;)

WINNERS AWARDS

I want to personally congratulate all of the members who take their growth seriously and stay active even in times of slower growth:

Marylee Pangman, Author

Congrats to ALL of you! You ARE AMAZING!

I know many others are also active daily on Notes but don’t check into the Accountability tracker, and that’s ok. I see you. Just know that I need to also see you in the tracker, so that I can select you for a Spotlight Session (even if you already had one before ;)) I know that tracker might be boring, we’re gonna have something new (and more sexy) in 2026.

Ok, so the winner is….

….drumrolls please.…

Winner from last month’s Notes Challenge:

→

Marylee Pangman, Author

←

Congrats, Marylee!!! I can’t wait to jump into the session, I’m sure it’s gonna be lots of fun! Looking forward to it!

Award:

→ A spotlight session to talk about your Substack and more. To give you and your Substack more exposure, I will share this session:

all subscribers
my YouTube channel
my BiTES atomic newsletter
my other social media accounts

→ Watch all previous spotlight sessions here.

The Unplugged Hall of Fame

I have to also give a special shoutout to the new names in the Unplugged Hall of Fame who got Notes with at least 100 likes:

Marylee Pangman, Author

Congrats on your viral Notes! You’re LEGENDS!

Notes are simply crushing it right now!

If you have a Note with more than 100 likes, DM me to add you to the Hall of Fame!

(The link to the Unplugged Hall of Fame with the viral Notes is at the end of the post)

Time to kick off the ALL NEW Christmas Edition of the NOTES Challenge - last one for 2025!

The Challenge:

PARTICIPANTS:

This month ONLY: I’m gonna run the weekly sharing boost posts for ALL UNPLUGGED MEMBERS

As usual: Paid and V.I.P. members have their private access to the GPT, and the Viral Notes Writer Course with EVERYTHING below.

What you need to do:

Join the challenge by adding yourself to the Accountability tracker
Write and publish at least 3 Notes per day. You can schedule using this tool
Share your Notes in the weekly thread (you can do that every day until the next post comes on Saturday)

WINNERS AWARDS:

I’m gonna select 3 from the most active people who will win the following awards:

Spotlight with me + Special Christmas Gift 🎁
Special Christmas Gift 🎁
Special Christmas Gift 🎁

🎁 THIS MONTH ONLY: SPECIAL CHRISTMAS GIFTS 🎁

Free subscribers: 6 months of FREE access to the paid membership
Paid members: an additional 6 months of FREE access to the paid membership (I’ll extend your membership)
Lifetime members: an additional 60-minute Strategy call with me (one time)

Rules for the winners selection:

I’ll select three of the most active participants in the Challenge based on the Accountability Tracker. Rules:
- 1. must be in the Accountability tracker
- 2. must have completed the challenge (at least three Notes every day)
- 3. you can win the same challenge more than once but in different months
- 4. you can’t win both Writing and Notes challenges in the same month. If you do, I’ll invite the next most active person for a session
Priority of selecting winners:
- 1. most active among the VIP members
- 2. most active among the annual paid members
- 3. most active among the monthly paid members
- 4. this month only: most active free subscribers
Announcement of the winners: start of next Challenge - 1st day of next month
How do you get the Special Christmas Gift 🎁: I’m gonna DM you with your award
When do we do the spotlight: during next month upon your availability. We’ll do the session only if you’re willing to. If not, I’ll invite the next most active member until I get a “yes”.
How do we do the spotlight: over Zoom. I ask you questions (we initially agree on the list), and we discuss :). You can prepare slides if you want to (not a must, nobody did so far :D). I’ll do the spotlight sessions monthly after the Challenge finishes.
To give you and your Substack more exposure, I will share the spotlight session:
- all subscribers
- my YouTube channel
- my BiTES atomic newsletter
- my other social media accounts

The Substack Notes30 Monthly Challenge

What you need to do?

Add yourself to the Accountability tracker.
Post at least THREE Notes every day. One is not enough, especially if you’re new to the platform. If you have a few thousand subscribers, you can do one/day - you’ll still grow, but you’ll grow much FASTER if you post more. The effect compounds. As you saw in my examples from above, I get just a few subscribers from each Note => MORE Notes = MORE Subscribers!
Take the Viral Notes Writer course. It’s beginner-friendly and it’s only 3 hours of bite-sized easy to digest lessons.
Take the SUBSTACK QUEST Growth strategies - because it all works together as one engine.
Use my custom Viral Notes Writer GPT the way I described in this video (the link to the GPT is below the video). It will turn your idea into 5 viral-ready Notes, you only need to edit and publish. Takes less than 15 minutes/day. Brings you subscribers (as many of you reported). Check out the latest update here.

Use the Substack Pro Studio GPT Bundle to analyze, optimize and schedule your Notes. Posting in the right times is crucial.
Engage daily with at least 5 to 10 Substack members. Apply everything described in this video from the course, and this video from the QUEST.
Share your Notes in the weekly Notes boost post: I will post one each Saturday, you’ll get it in your inbox. The next one comes next Saturday (post on the most recent one till then). I also share it in the chat. And remember to read, like, comment and restack some of the other Notes you like. This is how we help each other grow.
[NEW from the LABS] Use this automation to repost them to social media, so that you grow even more from external sources.
And if you have a Note with 100+ likes, DM me with a link, and I’ll add you to the Unplugged Hall of Fame.

If you follow all of the above, I’m confident you’ll pump your subscribers growth and you’ll see the effect immediately. People who do already report significant progress.

It’s time to make the most out of your paid subscription and get a proper return on your investment! Join that challenge!

The goal?

To gain subscribers who are engaged with your writing and who can (and will) be converted to paid subscribers later.

How?

Follow my system from this short but powerful course: The Viral Notes Writer System. I created it for you. It’s how I get to that high conversion rate.

The Challenge includes (links at the end of this post):

We’ll simplify everything with the course, now you have only 3 things:

Link to the Accountability Tracker. Add yourself now!
PAID MEMBERS ONLY: The Unplugged Hall of Fame (link at the end of the post) - I’ve set a place to display all Notes from the Unplugged paid member community that received 100+ likes. If you have a Note with 100+ likes, DM me with a link, and I’ll add you.
PAID MEMBERS ONLY: Link to the The Viral Notes Writer System course - it’s only 3 hours, and it has EVERYTHING you need to implement my system. In it you’ll find:
- My exact system I used to triple my subscribers growth in a month (takes just 15 minutes per day to write the Notes).
- How to use my custom GPT to adapt it to your niche and audience (+ prompts)
- How to use my custom GPT to grow outside of Substack (+ prompts)
- As well as:
  - My custom GPT Notes Writer trained to write Substack Notes that go viral. I just upgraded its training using tons of data to sharpen it even more.
  - The right way to use the GPT Notes Writer in order to turn likes into subscribers (like me, Jeff and Daniel). Three SIMPLE steps to achieve it (you do the first two only once).
  - ChatGPT Prompting Strategy to help you write more relatable Notes based on data collected for your audience with the standard ChatGPT 4o model.
  - My Content Strategy: what type of Notes get the most traction - I incorporated this in the custom GPT.
  - My Engagement Strategy to attract new subscribers that are convertible to paid. You’ll have three modes:
    - EASY: engage with at least 5 new accounts per day
    - HARD: engage with at least 10 new accounts per day
    - TURBO: engage with at least 15 new accounts per day
  - A set of 11 Notes Templates (including the one that got me 10 200 likes and 167 subscribers) I’m using with a short guide on how to write them and an example from my Notes:
    - Image [with Canva template]
    - Opinion
    - Mini story
    - Mini listicle
    - Mini how-to
    - Mini analysis
    - Success story
    - Personal update
    - Personal Story (based on my first viral Note with 10k+ likes)
    - Journey (based on my second viral Note with 2k+ likes)
    - Comparison
    Image with simple text are performing well. They are highly re-stackable. I’ve prepared a Canva template you can easily edit (see resources below).
  - My Notes Guiding Principles on how to use Notes to gain convertible subscribers. A set of short rules about:
    - How to write powerful hooks
    - What types of Notes to write currently
    - How to engage with others on the platform
  - List of 17 types of Notes Ideas you can easily craft. If you don’t want to stick to my templates, you can use these as references in case you get stuck.
  - My list of 17 Rules of Short Form Writing I’ve proven to be working on Substack. I used them to train the GPT. The majority of these rules also work on Medium, X, LinkedIn, Quora. You can use them anywhere.
  - And how to use the Custom GPT for X, Bluesky and LinkedIn
[NEW from the LABS] Link to the automation template that helps you automatically repost Notes to social media.

You have all this packed in The Viral Notes Writer System course (value $197).

Here’s your Challenge pack of resources: