My Substack stats for 2023

Plus, a sneak peek on what's next for The Write-Life Balance

Photo credit: engine akyurt

If there’s anything I’ve learned in the thirty-six years I’ve been on earth, it’s that I’m most fulfilled when I follow my curiosity—even when it makes zero sense to anyone else.

So when I moved my book-centric email newsletter to Substack and published an essay about my husband’s cancer recovery, the positive response honestly flabbergasted me. Since then, I’ve consistently posted twice a month, with a semblance of a content calendar for the next year. It’s proof that when you focus on building a habit and (do your best to) stop worrying about the outcome, amazing things happen. Like:

Growing my subscribers by 89% 📈

I’ve written email campaigns for some of the biggest software companies in the world, but nothing is more gratifying than writing about the topics you care most about—and having it resonate from strangers from other parts of the world.

Of course, I wouldn’t be much of a marketer if I wasn’t using percentages to make the growth seem more grandiose than it is 😉. But considering I only have 10-12 hours a week to work on my manuscript and write this newsletter (which includes researching topics, vetting interviewees, recording and editing audio, writing the darn thing, and promoting it), I’m happy with the trajectory of adding 1 new subscriber a week.

Launching The Write-Life Balance interview series 🎙

The project initially started out as publishing conversations I was already having with my writer friends. But thanks to the single time I took part in a Substack roundup, I met amazing people and booked out my calendar for the rest of the year! Plus, these interviews have finally given me a use case for my year of voice lessons—think this scene in The King’s Speech.

Sustaining a 50% average email open rate (despite nearly doubling my subscribers) 📬

Since Substack doesn’t allow for A/B testing of subject lines, one of my biggest concerns in the move from ConvertKit was a hit to my email performance. 12 months later, that number is holding steady, which is well above industry standards.

(If someone knows how to generate an all-time open rate percentage on Substack, please enlighten me! Constantly reminding myself that Substack is a publishing platform first, and not an email service provider—but hopeful they’ll eventually add in some advanced reporting and data fields for personalization.)

But what I love most about Substack is that it’s captured the best parts of the online reader / writer experience and merged them into a product-driven publishing tool.

Google Reader (R.I.P) wishes it could be the Substack mobile app. You get the clean reading experience of Medium, but with more robust email newsletter capabilities. The welcoming community reminds me of the early days of LiveJournal and deviantART. And last but not least, it’s transformed my itty bitty list of family and friends into a publication where writers and artists can explore what it means to reach your creative potential.

So I’m excited to announce that for 2024, I’ll be exploring creative potential through the following three themes:

Mind. Body. Spirit.

Of course it’s important to master our craft—that’s 80% of what helps us progress to the next level. But I’m most interested in navigating the other 20% of life that hinders our progress. Like the inner monologues that try to convince us we’re better off doing something else; or how to navigate the constraints of our physical health; or tackle the existential crises that make us wonder why we’re putting ourselves through such exquisite torture.

You’ll be seeing these themes emerge in my interviews for the upcoming year, plus personal essays reflecting on how I’m applying those lessons in my own creative practice.

So whether you’re a long-time reader or a new subscriber, I can’t thank you enough for supporting my vision. I’m excited for next year and can’t wait to discover what we’ll learn about creativity together.

WRITE 👩🏽‍💻

Interviewing other writers has been hugely impactful for my writing, and recently

Heidi Fiedler

invited me to share what I hope my daughter will learn about creativity from me. My answer:

My parents are Vietnam War refugees and if you’ve ever read the history of Vietnam’s colonization, you’ll quickly realize that this is a country that fought for independence for nearly almost 100 years…so I write stories so I can heal some of the ancestral trauma buried deep in DNA as a result of war, immigration, and assimilation. I hope that one day, my daughter also learns to transform suffering into beauty through whatever creative medium she chooses.

More thoughts on my (lack of) creativity as a kid, avoiding burnout, and how motherhood changed my writing practice.

Sophia Le: Healing Ancestral Trauma Through Writing

LIFE 🏡

Does the world really need another gift guide? (Answer: Always.)

Aliza Sir

and

Aja Frost

asked me to share a gift I’m excited to give, and my immediate answer was this Mini East West Prism necklace that I have been wearing non-stop (mine is green onyx, my niece’s will be in amethyst.) I also own the Padma pendant, which I wear on days I work at my daughter’s preschool. With 22 kids to wrangle, I need all the strength it can offer me.

Full gift guide below, which I may have referenced to bolster my Christmas list. (Seriously, I need these walking shoes!)

Issue #31: A guide to the gifts we're most excited to give

BALANCE 🏋🏻‍♀️

After a recent annual health exam, my doctor challenged me to take up strength and resistance training 4x a week—and I was not pleased to add one more thing that eats up into my writing time. Luckily,

AXIOS REMOTE FITNESS COACHING

understood my time constraints and designed a circuit workout that complements my morning yoga flow. Compare that to trainers I’ve worked with in the past who drag me to the gym and hand me a barbell; or even worse—convince me that running is enjoyable.

Moral of the story? If you’re shopping around for a coach, look for one who won’t turn you into a version of themselves. The chances are low I’ll ever become an Olympic powerlifter, but if doing a few dumbbell curls is going to help me write my book better, then I’m willing to take the challenge.

READING 📚

All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr. This is one of my favorite books of all time, and now I get to dissect with a writer’s lens. I’ve been studying how to build an effective story crisis, and think Werner Pfennig’s characterization is a great example of what Story Grid refers to as a “best bad choice”—turn 15 and work at the same mines that killed his father, or build on his radio technology talents at a Nazi secondary boarding school.

STREAMING ⏯

Proof that I watch little TV: While writing up above’s synopsis, I just discovered the recently released Netflix adaptation of All the Light We Cannot See. I’ve been bugging my husband to read the book—dare I say I found something we can watch and enjoy together?!

COOKING 👩🏽‍🍳

Thanksgiving was a quiet affair, so we stuck to a simple menu: Honey mustard leg of lamb, cauliflower potato mash, green beans with chanterelle mushrooms, and this fruit jelly mold I made with my daughter, inspired by this Struggle Eats episode. I suspect it’s possible to make vegetarian-friendly with agar agar flakes—perhaps that will be my challenge for Christmas dinner.

Happy December,

Sophia :)

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P.S. For a trip down memory lane, here’s the story of how

The Write-Life Balance

started as a rejection letter.