Deleting 500 Subscribers Was the Best Thing I Ever Did

How a Ruthless Purge Revived My Newsletter

You know that feeling?

That one where you give everything but you’re screaming into nothing?

And that’s where I was with my Substack.

Only 45 hours left!

I was steady writing about things I loved, sharing tips and tricks I’d picked up along the way, but subscriber numbers didn’t seem to be moving.

I was having a huge number of "ghost" readers – people who signed up but never read my emails. 👻
And then it hit me like a lightbulb.

And what if those dead subscribers were keeping me in the dark?

It’s nuts, right?

But consider this: every time you send an email, Substack is listening. They’re looking at opens, link clicks, and people engaging with your content. And when a few non-existent subscribers keep dragin’ that number down, it becomes less inviting for new subscribers and for Substack’s algorithms to read your newsletter.

So, I let my hair down and did something drastic:

I unsubscribed more than 500 unused subscribers.

Yep, you read that right! 👋 And you know what? It was like pressi…