A lot of us on Substack use Notes wrong, and it’s not good for the platform, the community, or longform writing.

When people write a brilliant longform piece, they put a message into a bottle and send it into the sea hoping someone might find it. Substack doesn’t make it easy. It has almost no mechanism for discovery, and those it once had are increasingly removed or buried. The content it promotes is based around engagement, which focuses on the few big accounts from writers who had giant platforms before they got here. That’s on Substack, but what happens next is on us.

Notes is the only mechanism on Substack to help others discover those bottled messages. So use it to both share your work, and great pieces you find here. That’s the ONLY way anyone will ever find them. X downranks links. Facebook is slop. Reddit doesn’t like it. Linkedin is for selling people like multi-level marketing. If you don’t use Notes to promote great longform writing you stumble upon, how will anyone else ever find those messages in bottles?

The writers I admire here most are always generous. They share pieces and praise from great writers with only 50 subs but amazing insights. I now try my best to follow their lead (although I can do better). I’m seeing less of this, however, and more Notes that are just snarky tweets, well-posed instagram photos, or now TikTok reels are coming. If you think people can’t find great writing here, you can do something about that to help.

Share brilliant things you discover on Notes.