The people who already want to hear from you — and where they're hiding
The hardest number in publishing isn't a million. It's a hundred. That first hundred readers is the gap between writing into a void and writing for someone, and the strange truth is that most writers already have more of a path to those hundred people than they realise. They just can't see it yet, because they're looking at platforms with millions of users and imagining they have to compete for strangers' attention from day one.
You don't. You need to find the people who already have a reason to care.
Start closer than feels comfortable
Your first readers almost never arrive from a cold search. They come from existing relationships — people who already trust your judgment, follow your life, or share your obsessions. That sounds obvious until you consider how many writers skip this step entirely, launching a newsletter or a blog and waiting for an algorithm to deliver an audience that only pays attention to writers who already have one.
Post something you've written to the place where you already talk to people. That might be a personal social-media account, a community forum you've been a member of for years, or a group chat. You're not spamming — you're showing people who know you that you've made something. The ones who respond with genuine interest are your first readers. Capture them: invite them to sign up for your email list, or follow wherever you publish. A list of twenty people who actually read what you send is worth more than five thousand passive followers who vaguely remember your name.
Don't underestimate the power of emailing people directly, either. Not a mass pitch — just a quiet, personal note to a handful of friends or colleagues who you genuinely think might be interested. Something like: "I've started writing about X; here's the first piece. No obligation, but I'd love to know what you think." Some will ignore it. Some will forward it. That forwarding is where early word-of-mouth begins.
Go where your readers already gather
After you've activated your existing network, the next move is to find communities organised around the thing you write about — and participate in them as a reader and thinker before you ever mention your own work. This is the part that requires patience, but it's genuinely effective.
Every niche has places where people congregate: subreddits, Discord servers, Facebook groups, newsletters with active comment sections, forums, Slack communities. If you write about personal finance, there are dozens of well-trafficked communities where your ideal reader already spends time. If you write literary fiction, there are reading groups, book-club forums, and communities on Goodreads. Become a recognisable, useful presence. Answer questions. Recommend things. Disagree thoughtfully. When you eventually share something you've written — and it should feel natural, not promotional — people will click because they already associate your name with value.
Platforms like Medium have built-in discovery through their editorial curation and topic tags, which can put your writing in front of readers who are actively looking for pieces on a given subject. Substack's Notes feature and its reader-network mechanics allow new writers to be surfaced to subscribers of adjacent newsletters. Ghost is a stronger tool for writers who already have some audience and want ownership; it doesn't have the same built-in discovery. None of these platforms will do all the work, but understanding how each one's discovery mechanism actually functions helps you work with it rather than past it.
Make it easy to share, worth sharing
A hundred readers compounds — but only if what you're writing is the kind of thing a reader wants to pass along. This doesn't mean you need to go viral. It means you need to write something specific enough to be useful or true enough to be felt. Vague writing about vague topics doesn't travel. A piece with a real, specific claim — one that makes a reader think "I've never heard it put that way" or "I need to send this to someone" — earns a kind of organic reach that no growth hack replicates.
Include a frictionless way for readers to subscribe or follow at the end of every piece. Not an aggressive pop-up or a guilt-laden ask — just a quiet, clear invitation. Many readers who love a piece forget to do anything about it unless the next step is obvious and low-effort.
Cross-posting, done honestly, extends your reach. If you publish on your own site, a version of the piece can live on Medium with a note pointing to your newsletter. If you post to Substack, a thread summarising the piece on a social platform draws in readers who'd never have found the original. The work travels; the audience follows.
The number is closer than it looks
The writers who reach their first hundred readers fastest are almost never the ones who had the biggest existing platform. They're the ones who took their existing relationships seriously, showed up consistently in communities they genuinely belonged to, and wrote things specific enough to share. A hundred readers who chose you — who signed up, sought you out, and opened your emails — is a foundation; growing readership from that point on becomes a question of depth, not just numbers. Build the hundred first. The rest follows.