Shadowing Practice: Substack for Beginners: The Complete 2026 Tutorial - Learn English Speaking with Video
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Substack isn't just another newsletter platform, it's the place where most new writers are making their first dollar online right now.
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And in this video, I will show you exactly how it works and how you can take advantage of this opportunity.
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Look, everyone is talking about Substack right now, and maybe you've heard it's where writers are growing their audiences rapidly.
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Or maybe you're just tired of posting into the void on social media
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and you want readers who actually care about your work.
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Well, here's what nobody explains.
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Substack is actually three platforms in one.
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And if you don't understand all three aspects, you are leaving money and readers on the table.
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My name is Sinem Gunel.
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I've been writing online since 2018.
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I've built an audience of over 80 ,000 followers on Medium.
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I'm running a newsletter with over 30 ,000 subscribers on Kit.
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And I've launched the WriteBuildScale publication on Substack in 2024.
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Since then, we've grown to over 20 000 subscribers with more than 800 paid members
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and over the next few minutes you are going to understand
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exactly how substack works not just the basics everyone is talking about
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but the actual system
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that separates the 99 who quit from the one percent of writers who built thriving writing businesses online
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and stick around until the end
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because i'm going to show you the one substack feature nearly nobody uses correctly so here's what we're going to cover today.
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First, what Substack actually is versus what people think it is.
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Then I will walk you through the three -layer system, your profile, your publication, and the secret social layer.
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And after that, we will dive into the dashboard, the money side, and finally the exact growth playbook that actually works right now.
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Now, first things first, I want you to forget everything you know about newsletters.
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Because calling Substack a newsletter platform is like calling YouTube a video storage website.
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Technically it's true, but it's missing the whole point of the platform.
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Instead, think of Substack as a hybrid between medium email service providers like Kit and short form platforms like Twitter,
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but also much more than all of that.
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Let me show you what I mean.
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When you write on Substack, you're not just sending emails, you're building a solid foundation because you own your audience and your content.
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This means you can easily take your work anywhere else republish
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and leverage what you're building for years
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or even decades unlike medium where only the algorithm
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and boost nominators decide who is seeing your work
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or social media where you're one algorithm change away from invisibility
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substack is giving you direct access to your readers inboxes think
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of substack as a three -layered cake layer one is your
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newsletter this is what goes into your readers inboxes layer two
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is your publication this is your home on the web
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and layer three is the discovery network that consists of notes recommendations
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and sometimes even search most writers only use layer one
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and that's why they struggle to grow
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so let's master all three of them we're starting with your profile versus your publication
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because this is where 95 of beginners mess up immediately.
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So pay close attention.
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You have two separate entities on Substack.
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Your profile, this is you as a person, think of it as your profile on Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, or Facebook.
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See how mine shows my face and my bio, which explains what you can expect from me as a writer and my publication.
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This profile follows you everywhere on Substack.
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When you comment on something, when you publish a note, when you engage with others, people see your profile.
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And through your profile, they can then check out your publication.
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Now here's a quick tip almost nobody mentions.
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Your profile picture shows up in tiny sizes in most places.
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So make sure you use a clear headshot that is really recognizable.
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Now let's move on to your publication.
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This is your brand, your newsletter, your business.
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See how Rifle Scale has its own logo, its own about page.
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It's navigation bar.
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It looks like an own website, and this is where your actual content on Substack lives.
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Now, here's why this matters.
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You can have multiple publications on Substack under one profile.
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There are literally writers running three different newsletters, one on productivity, one on parenting, and one on fiction writing, all from the same profile.
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That's not necessarily what I would recommend doing unless you have a ton of time on your hands, but it's an option you have.
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Now for your publication here's what actually matters.
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Your publication name needs to be either SEO friendly
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and very clear such as the productivity newsletter
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or it needs to have some sort of memorable brand name like right bill scale.
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What matters most is that you don't use your personal name as your publication name.
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Well unless you are famous and you know that it's not going to do any harm.
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If that's not the case you really want to keep your profile and and your publication name separate.
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The next thing is your navigation bar.
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This is prime real estate and most people ignore it.
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At write .skill, we have different pages that serve different purposes.
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We run our podcast on Substack and we also link to this YouTube channel.
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We'll link to our flagship program, Substack System, and we have an extensive about page where we describe our paid tier in detail.
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These links in our navigation bar help us consistently make sales
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because people see them since they're prominent
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and a lot of people click through the navigation bar as their first action steps on a publication
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and you really don't want to waste this precious space okay
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now let's get to the part where things get really exciting remember
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when i said substack has a social layer that's notes and
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if you're not using notes on substack you're literally being invisible
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and here's why when you publish a newsletter mostly your existing subscribers will see it
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because it will show up in their inboxes.
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But when you publish notes on Substack, the algorithm can show it to thousands of potential readers who have never seen your work or profile before.
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But here's what everyone gets wrong.
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They use notes like they would use Twitter, for example.
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They post random thoughts, tweets, arguments.
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And on Substack, most of that is just noise, because right now people love that Substack is still different from platforms like Twitter, Instagram or LinkedIn.
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So here's what I recommend doing on notes instead.
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Follow the 3 -2 -1 formula.
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Every week, try to post three valuable notes.
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These can be full of tips, insights, or frameworks.
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Then do two engagement posts.
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This can be questions, polls, or discussions.
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And once a week, try to do at least a soft promotion, either of your paid tier, of a paid piece of content, or anything else that you're currently working on.
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Now, here's another feature that's pure gold, restacking.
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This is like retweeting, but even better.
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When readers restack your post with a comment, it goes to their audience with their comment.
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And one restack from the right person on Substack can literally
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lead to dozens of new subscribers for you without you doing any extra work.
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Now, how do you get restacks?
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You make your content restackable.
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Every post you write, think of creating a screenshottable moment, create something that people want to share with their audiences.
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And there are two ways I want you to think about restacking.
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You want to make sure that you have these bits
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and pieces in your content that are restackable so that people want to share your work with their audiences.
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But you can also use this feature to show up in
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your own notes feed more frequently by restacking your own or other people's content as well.
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Now that's nodes and I want to share with you the other primary type of content that you will create on Substack.
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Your posts, which are also your newsletters, your emails.
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Now one of my favorite things about Substack is that the user interface is really simple, clear and clean.
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This means it's really straightforward to write your first couple of posts on the platform.
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If you are brand new to the world of online writing, you can easily create a new post, plug in your title, and start typing.
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And although the interface is really clean, you have a lot of formatting options to make sure that your pieces are visually attractive to the reader.
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You can use dividers, add images, buttons to encourage people to subscribe if they come across the post on Substack and are not subscribed to your work yet.
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And of course, you can also add a paywall
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if you are running a paid tier and want to lock certain parts of your content.
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Now, another of my favorite features on Substack is
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that you can look into the behavior and engagement of your readers when you open your subscriber list.
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Because what you see there is not just email addresses.
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You also see who your most engaged readers are, who your paid subscribers are, and who might be a potential customer in the long run.
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You can set up different filters to select only your paid subscribers, for example ball.
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You could also use this filter to email only your paid subscribers, or you can go into the filter and only select people who have been commenting on your work lately.
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And you can also filter simply by their activity status.
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For example, you could say that the activity status is five stars.
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This will be your most active subscribers who open and read most of your emails.
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And since those are your loyal readers, you can make them different offers.
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You can reach out and say thank you for their support
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and you can really get created with different types of campaigns that speak to different groups of your audience members.
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Now let's get to one of the juiciest topics, monetization.
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One of the most frequently asked questions among sub stackers is
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when should i go paid
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but that's the wrong question the right question is what should i charge for
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if you know what you want to charge for you can reverse engineer
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and decide on the best time to launch your paid tier
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because here's the truth you can turn on paid subscriptions from day one
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if that's what you want to do
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but how you do it determines whether you make five fifty
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or five thousand dollars a month
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and there are three primary monetization models on substack there is
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the paywall model where some of your content is free
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and you have premium content behind the paywall there is the support model where everything is free
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and paid is optional when people want to support the creator
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and there is the community model
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which means free subscribers get your content paid subscribers get community access of course you can also mix
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and match and use a combination of these three options at right bill scale, for example, we have a variety of different content types
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that go behind our paywall so that there is a major difference between our free and our paid content.
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For example, we offer live workshops where only our paid members can join live or receive the recordings.
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Or we offer in -depth guides with PDFs and workbooks for our paid members.
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Now, let's talk about pricing for a minute.
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Most sub -stackers charge $5 to $10 per month and encourage monthly upgrades.
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What we recommend doing instead is setting your monthly tier to be a little more expensive
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and making your annual tier more attractive so
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that you can keep people in the loop for a longer period this is a win -win
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because they get a discounted rate and you get more touch points
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and opportunities to actually serve your readers
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but here's the key you need to position paid subscriptions as
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a transformation not just more information don't say get access to paid posts instead say something
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that will show them what they are missing out on
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if they don't upgrade all right now let's get to the
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part you actually came for let's talk about how to grow on sub stack
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when starting at zero your first stage this is your foundation
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this is where you want to get from zero to 100 subscribers in this phase you want to make sure
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that you are set up for success you want to optimize your profile including your bio your picture and ensuring
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that it's really clear what you're doing for your readers you
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also want to nail your publication basics such as the name
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the logo the about page ideally you also start a little start here section
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so people know what to do when they come across your work
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and in the best possible case you create three pillar posts
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that are really representing the kind of work you want to do on Substack.
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This will convince your early readers to subscribe and follow your content.
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Now, once that's tackled, you enter what we call the warm lounge phase.
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Here, you want to already spread the word.
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You can import any contacts that you have from other platforms.
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You can share your work on social media and announce that you now have this publication.
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And ideally, I recommend
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that you subscribe to at least five different publications in your
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niche to see the best practices of other creators on the platform as well
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and at this stage you also want to start to connect
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leave at least five comments thoughtful comments on other people's notes
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and start to connect with them and also make sure
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that you are showing up on notes at least once per
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day this should get you to the first 50 to 100 subscribers
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if not your positioning might be off and it might not be clear why people should actually pay attention to your work.
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In the next stage, you want to get from 100 to 500 subscribers.
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This is the phase where you already have some social proof.
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And it's time to accelerate.
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It's time to build up on the strong foundation that you have built.
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What you can start doing here is leveraging guest posts and collaborations, for example.
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You can find publications with similar topics and similar audiences and offer to write a guest post for them.
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You really want to focus on how you can provide the best possible value to their audience.
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And when you do that, you can also leverage Substack's recommendation feature.
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Because when someone subscribes to you, Substack automatically shows them other publications that they might also be interested in.
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And if you get recommended by the right publications, you will literally grow with the right subscribers on autopilot.
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Now you can start to gather recommendation partners by just recommending others first.
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They will get notified and if they like your work they might just recommend you back
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but you can also build these relationships intentionally in notes comments
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or in your private messages you can directly ask publications of similar sizes
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if they want to do recommendation swaps at right build scale
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we have gained 7 000 subscribers just through recommendations this is
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massive now before we wrap up let me save you months
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of frustration here are some of the mistakes i see on the platform every single day
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and why you should avoid them mistake number one is the
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typical perfectionist trap you might be busy writing one perfect post per month instead of a good post per week
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but the truth is that frequency beats perfection
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and your judgment of a piece might not be the same
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as your audience's sometimes you have to ship something before it's a hundred percent perfect in your judgment
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so you can get feedback and iterate.
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Mistake number two is the closed loop.
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If you only send emails on Substack and never post on notes, it's basically like having a store without a sign outside.
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The shop is there, but nobody knows about it.
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Notes can really be your discovery engine on the platform, so don't miss out on them.
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Mistake number three is being unapproachable.
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Real human connection and social proof matters.
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People want to see the person behind the publication on Substack.
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Even if you don't want to share too much of your personal life, you want to make sure you sprinkle in some personality across your work
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so people can connect with you on a deeper level.
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Mistake number four is treating Substack as a one -way street.
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Never engaging with other writers and ignoring the fact that these are actually people on the other side of the screen.
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Substack is a community.
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And the writers who grow fastest are the ones who comment, restack, and build relationships.
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And mistake number five is to make a generic promise.
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You don't want to say something like, subscribe to my newsletter.
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Nobody wants to subscribe to a newsletter.
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Instead, you want to give your readers a good reason to
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care about your work by focusing on how you can truly help them.
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Look, here's the reality.
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Right now, Substack is having its early YouTube moment.
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The platform is exploding readers are hungry for quality content
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and the algorithm actually helps new writers
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but this window won't last forever every platform eventually gets saturated you can either start now
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when it's still relatively easy to grow or you can wait until next year
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when everyone and their mother has a sub stack
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and let's be honest the writers who are making six figures
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on sub stack today they're not necessarily better writers they just started
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and they figured out the system that makes it work for them.
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And now you know most of the basics as well.
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If this video helped you understand Substack, hit subscribe so you don't miss out on any of the newest videos about Substack growth.
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And if you're brand new to the platform and want the templates, swipe files, and frameworks to get started the right way,
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check out our Substack starter kit in the description box below.
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I'll see you in the next one.
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Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson
This speaking lesson is built on the video “Substack for Beginners: The Complete 2026 Tutorial”. The speaker keeps coming back to these words: substack, publication, paid, subscriber, reader. This video has 242 sentences and 3063 words to shadow. The speech runs for 17:35. The speaker talks at a natural 174 words per minute, close to everyday conversation. 86% of the words are among the 3,000 most common in English; the rest is worth studying before you start.
Key vocabulary in this video
15 words from the video worth learning, with pronunciation and meaning:
| Word | Pronunciation | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| publication noun | /ˌpʌblɪˈkeɪʃ(ə)n/ | The act of publishing printed or other matter. |
| subscriber noun | /səbˈskɹaɪbɚ/ | A person who subscribes to a publication or a service. |
| reader noun | /ˈɹi.dɚ/ | A person who reads. |
| newsletter noun | /ˈn(j)uzˌlɛtɚ/ | A periodically sent publication containing current events or the like, generally on a particular topic or geared toward a limited audience. |
| layer noun | /ˈleɪ̯ɚ/ | A single thickness of some material covering a surface. |
| subscribe verb | /səbˈskɹaɪb/ | To write (one’s name) at the bottom of a document; to sign (one's name). |
| tier noun | /ˈtɪɚ/ | A row or range, especially one at a higher or lower level than another. |
| recommendation noun | /ˌɹɛkəmɛnˈdeɪʃən/ | An act of recommending. |
| filter noun | /ˈfɪltɚ/ | A device which separates a suspended, dissolved, or particulate matter from a fluid, solution, or other substance; any device that separates one substance from… |
| navigation noun | /nævɪˈɡeɪʃən/ | The theory, practice and technology of charting a course for a road vehicle, ship, aircraft, or spaceship. |
| algorithm noun | /ˈælɡəɹɪðm̩/ | A collection of ordered steps that solve a mathematical problem. A precise step-by-step plan for a computational procedure that possibly begins with an input… |
| connect verb | /kəˈnɛkt/ | To join (to another object): to attach, or to be intended to attach or capable of attaching, to another object. |
| publish verb | /ˈpʌblɪʃ/ | To issue (something, such as printed work) for distribution and/or sale. |
| stack noun | /stæk/ | A large pile of hay, grain, straw, or the like, larger at the bottom than the top, sometimes covered with thatch. |
| leverage noun | /ˈlɛv.(ə.)ɹɪd͡ʒ/ | A force compounded by means of a lever rotating around a pivot. |
Phrasal verbs you will hear
| Word | Pronunciation | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| check out verb | To record the departure or withdrawal of someone or something (such as guests, employees, books, etc.). | |
| come across verb | To change sides; to cross over to work for the opposition. | |
| figure out verb | To come to understand; to discover or find a solution; to deduce. | |
| mess up verb | To make a mess of; to untidy, disorder, soil, or muss. | |
| reach out verb | To extend one's hand(s) forward; to reach for something. | |
| set up verb | /ˌsɛt ˈʌp/ | To make ready for use. |
| stick around verb | To stay; to linger; to remain. | |
| wrap up verb | To cover or enclose (something) by folding and securing a covering entirely around it. |
Grammar in this video
The structures the speaker uses most, with the exact words from the video:
| Structure | In the video |
|---|---|
| Present perfect continuous have/has been + -ing — an action that started earlier and is still going on | I've been writing · have been commenting |
| Present perfect have/has + past participle — a past action that still matters now | you've heard · I've built · I've launched |
| Relative clauses who / which + clause — extra information about a person or thing | posts, which are · people who have · ones who comment |
| Passive voice be + past participle — the focus is on what happens, not who does it | are not subscribed · are set |
Pronunciation to watch
The speaker uses 34 contractions and reduced forms, such as you're, don't, I've. Say them the short way, as you hear them.
- The “th” sounds: algorithm /ˈælɡəɹɪðm̩/, gather /ˈɡæðɚ/, thoughtful /ˈθɔːtfəl/, thrive /θɹajv/
- The “sh” and “zh” sounds: publication /ˌpʌblɪˈkeɪʃ(ə)n/, recommendation /ˌɹɛkəmɛnˈdeɪʃən/, navigation /nævɪˈɡeɪʃən/, publish /ˈpʌblɪʃ/, subscription /səbˈskɹɪpʃən/
- Long words — get the stress right: publication /ˌpʌblɪˈkeɪʃ(ə)n/, recommendation /ˌɹɛkəmɛnˈdeɪʃən/, navigation /nævɪˈɡeɪʃən/, necessarily /ˌnɛs.əˈsɛɹ.ə.li/, productivity /ˌpɹɒdʌkˈtɪvəti/
How to practise with this video
- Listen to the whole video once without speaking and note the words you do not know.
- Start at 0.75× speed, shadow it sentence by sentence, then go back to normal speed once it feels easy.
- Record yourself and compare with the original, paying attention to words like publication, subscriber, reader.
What is the Shadowing Technique?
Shadowing is a science-backed language learning technique originally developed for professional interpreter training and popularized by polyglot Dr. Alexander Arguelles. The method is simple but powerful: you listen to native English audio and immediately repeat it out loud — like a shadow following the speaker with just a 1–2 second delay. Unlike passive listening or grammar drills, shadowing forces your brain and mouth muscles to simultaneously process and reproduce real speech patterns. Research shows it significantly improves pronunciation accuracy, intonation, rhythm, connected speech, listening comprehension, and speaking fluency — making it one of the most effective methods for IELTS Speaking preparation and real-world English communication.