Five weeks into Substack, I drew my own map.

I'm offering you a seat at the table.

I discovered Substack by accident five weeks ago. I don’t even remember how. I only remember I found myself in this space after logging in and I felt at home.

You see, in my previous career I did not need social media. I was booked out with a waiting list based only on referrals and application and was the best kept secret among my clients which unintentionally became my marketing strategy. However, in my new role as author, publisher and creative producer I knew I needed to get out there. I joined Instagram and LinkedIn and was shocked. “What a jungle!” I thought. I hated LinkedIn but had to start somewhere. Finally, serendipity led me to Substack.

PC: Goldacht

How it started

With all the activities going on in my publishing and book trailer production business, I went over the settings and got totally overwhelmed. So the first thing I did, I hired the amazing Mia Williams to set up my publication. I briefed her and as she worked on setting it up five weekends ago, I worked in parallel on getting myself acquainted with Substack, getting my clarity and published my first articles just to start.

I never wanted to write a novel

and

The door was ajar

I wanted to write and promote Golden Force World and book trailers. The initial thought was to post twice a week without the paywall, see what happens, and finally decide after 90 days on the next course of action.

Wes Pearce taught me about notes and his model of monetizing on Substack. His article How I Consistently Make $5K / Month on Substack (Without a Single Paid Subscriber) gave me the next steps and I invested in all three of his programs. With Wes Pearce guidance, I started posting every day. A few days later Jim from The Creative Life taught me how to structure my notes with his great piece The Seven Types of Substack Notes.

Derek Hughes ‘ notes like this one saved me from despair and have kept me going.

Then it continued

I read different opinions: publish less, publish more, no paywall, paywall later, paywall immediately, niche is the key, no niche is the best…

I kept on writing one article a week about my adventures as rookie author, publisher and producer and one article a week about Golden Force World. I had made the decision to remain with free content and followed the advice to create digital products.

Then one day I discovered the article How I Made $300K on Substack (And Why Most “Growth Advice” Is Wrong) Here are the three things I took from Amie - Lazy Millionaire ‘s article :

“Everyone and their mother screams “find your niche!” and then you freeze for three months because how are you supposed to pick ONE thing to be for the rest of your life?!? You're not a one-note girl. Neither on I. So skip it. Pick 3 to 5 content pillars instead. These are the themes that represent YOU, and you rotate through them like outfits.”

“Your opinion is the part the internet can't copy and paste, so lead with it every single time.”

“Most beginners wait months to “earn the right” to charge. Backwards! Turning on paid from day one sets the tone that your work has value. It tells readers you mean business.”

After reading Matt Giaro I decided to post more often.

Then Riza helped me put things into perspective with

The Substack Renaissance: A Case Study on How Write . Build . Scale Engineered a $50k/Month Ecosystem

Finally I encountered a researcher who supported me in my decision making. His publication didn’t have the paywall at the time but after having read all of his article which were free, I instinctively looked for the pay button. His publication was the first I subscribed to as paid subscriber. So I realized, that’s it! I now know what I want and what I don’t want.

I was one huge learning richer.

Even if I have all the free content in the world, people will want to pay me after having read my publication. How are they going to pay me if there’s no button?

No to digital courses for now.

Now, about those digital courses… that’s not me. The thought of sitting down and having another huge to do in development with everything going on…no. My intuition kept on screaming no! Please don’t misunderstand me. I’m not shy of camera or content creation. The digital courses at this point in time are not my thing.

I want to write.

I want to share my experience, my adventure, my learnings and my mistakes. I simply want to write.

So here’s my deal.

The paywall is going up. I will write four times a week. Instead of products, my pillars will live as posts. Mike Searles inspired me to start making videos — I may not go live straight away, but the camera is coming. I’ll serialize my novel, Golden Force, for paid readers. And I’ll be here in the comments and the threads, the way a publisher is present to her writers.

Instead of a niche, I’m choosing pillars that represent all three aspects of me.

Build Your Author Brand show who you are to a reader.

Book Marketing Is Storytelling and the continuation of the story.

The long, sustainable game instead of launches and algorithms.

And running underneath all of it, the thread that gave me a direction in my first weeks here, thanks to Joe Pikul who suggested I teach Becoming Comfortable with Being Uncomfortable. So that’s exactly what I’ll do.

I’m inviting you to take a seat.

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I left the boardroom to build worlds.

Mirela Vahdani — founder of GOLDACHT Studio, author of the Golden Force Trilogy goldenforceworld.com