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Catrina Haze's avatar

Love the practicality, but doesn’t this risk turning Substack into a billboard? How do you maintain reader trust when every post ‘leads somewhere’?

Also, I have seen many Substacks like @teoocriss here with 9,3k+ subscribers whose niche is purely Vibes (even the blog title is "perfume & letters") 🤷🏼‍♀️ I think you can monetise those purely with paid subscription or reader donations. I mean, without a product as an extra offer.

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Yana G.Y.'s avatar

That’s the thing - that somewhere can be a paid post as well. And the leading part doesn’t have to be “buy this” type of message, but rather a link to something related which is a product / service or even freebie. Selling through helping and delivering value - that’s the game for me :)

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Catrina Haze's avatar

Absolutely, Yana! 💛 You're right. I love that framing: selling through helping. I just strive for a delicate balance between offering value and preserving the intimacy that makes platforms like Substack feel different from mainstream content. Maybe the key is transparency and intention — letting the reader know why you’re linking out, and making sure it always serves them first.

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Yana G.Y.'s avatar

Thank you Catrina. Connection with the reader is very important. The truth is people love to buy, they just hate to be sold to. So it’s all about how you sell, or to be exact: how you present your offer. You can make money without a single “buy now” call to action.

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Kevin Burciaga's avatar

This post was well done. I wish I had known this five years ago.

Quit talking about life lessons and talk about tangible solutions.

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Yana G.Y.'s avatar

Me too, thank you so much, Kevin

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