how did I get 1000 subscribers!?
read till the end for a surprise
Estimated reading time: 11 minutes
A THOUSAND human beings have voluntarily signed up to read my thoughts.
I mean, I get it if you clicked “subscribe” by accident but you didn’t have to stay. No, I’m just kidding; please stay.
I think that let’s relax for a week and forget about the usual long-ass-form analytical posts. If you have some reading to catch up, here’s your chance.
This week, I want to share with you a little bit of my writing journey, how it happened, what’s happening, and what’s more to come. And probably some tips.
Why do I write this? Well, one reason was that my memory is already really bad and I need to write down something before all these memories are wiped out of my mind. Another reason was that 1000 subscribers are too beautiful to not write something about (the next time is probably only when 10,000). Also, this is the alternate about page.
how it happened
I didn’t have a calling to be a blogger. Unlike every motivational origin stories of someone-crazy-popular, I don’t have a specific day that I just wake up and decide,
“hey I want to be a blogger in the next 10 years.”
No, I wish that I had that kind of day.
I started blogging as a part of a 30-day blogging challenge in Writing on the Net. It was something I started to do because my friends were also doing it.
But because I did it because of my intense fear of missing out, when the challenge ends, the FOMO ends, and also my writing habits, at least at that point, I enter a break for who knows how long at that point.
I kept on writing sporadically after the challenge, but without that initial momentum and urgency of everyone around me being excited and engaged, my motivation just couldn’t sustain itself. That’s when a year-long writing pause appeared, turning my blog into another abandoned corner of the internet.
You see, during that hiatus, writing didn’t feel like an urgent need. The idea of returning was always there, but without a compelling reason, it was easy to keep postponing.
Then something shifted. After a year of my blog being in stasis, I decided to write again—for challenges again, #vietdenchet and #vietdeuvahay, but this time not because of fear of missing out, but because I wanted to explore my own ideas.
Over the next 30 weeks, I committed fully, and that’s when I saw an upward curve in my subscribers, as shown in the graph below. (why does this sound like an IELTS writing task?) The numbers grew gradually, and my motivation turned inward. This time, writing wasn't just about participation. It became a habit, a genuine pursuit rather than an obligation.
I didn’t start this blogging with a 5-year plan for it as if it would save me from national famine. I started this blog almost for no reason and tried blogging for long enough that I actually know what I can do with it. Crazy how that works.
what did this blogging journey lead me to? (bragging section)
My first talk on blogging 101 so that I knew people would care about my writing journey.
Recording is here if you’re curious.
My very first donations so that I know that I know this is valuable enough.
A few top stories on other platforms.
A few compliments.
A few obviously-not-compliments
Got recommended by 31 bloggers. Kudos to , , , , , , and so many others so that I know there are fellow writers who trust in what I put out there.
1000 people that are willing to hear me talk so that I know my works are valuable for at least a school full of people.
Many, many cool hangouts with other writers so that I know I’m not alone.
I think it’s safe to say that I wouldn’t have continued to do this if I were alone. I was never alone. I had help. I had people who believed in me and my stuff. That’s one thing that I will forever appreciate in this journey.
what do people like the most at this point?
1.
This is my most popular piece yet.
So, about a month into using Threads, I had this moment: “Oh crap, it’s just as toxic as Twitter.” I mean, I really thought Threads might be different, but nope.
I went on a little mission to see if anyone else had analyzed this platform’s vibe, but most articles stopped at 2023 when Threads first launched. Western media didn’t think it was a big enough deal (Threads is not as popular), and in Vietnam, analytical writing isn’t exactly booming.
So, I figured I would write my own take on it. And it blew up. A lot of people relate to what I’ve got to say. If you’re new here, that post is definitely one I’d recommend checking out.
This post’s idea comes when people in Vietnam are arguing over whether a child influencer here is exploited by their parents. I again found no posts expanding on the subject, except those that are highly contextual, like talking about Ryan’s World (I have one myself).
So I decided to write one. With my takes on it. (Halfway through writing this, I realise I might have too many things to say about everything.)
3.
This is the last one. This post is dedicated to the community of Học Cách Học, which was by chị and Mở. The topic was kind of set “how technology is affecting education.” I only have to find my angles on it.
I think that there might have been too many posts about what skills you should still learn in spite of AI, not that many posts about what skills you should not learn because of AI, so I write it.
To sum up my learnings on how to write these things, I think that I enjoy writing from new angles about popular things.
1000 things I learned before my 1000th subscriber
To make this blog valuable for your time, here are 1000 things that I learned before my 1000th subscribers
Read a lot. Like really a lot.
I have seen almost no writers who put out quality work that doesn’t read a lot. Reading means a lot of things; you don’t have to shove your face between paper pages to be legitimately called you’re reading; it can be your kindle, your laptop, your phone, practically anything that can display digital black worms on it.
I would categorise my reading in service of blogging into two categories: 1) reading for research 2) reading other bloggers.
Reading for research means that I need to open 100 tabs on my browser, reading research about the blog topic that I chose in hopes that I come up with a good enough outline before I crack down in tears. Reading other bloggers means that I need to discover elements that I like about a blog, which other bloggers might or might not have been doing, and be decent enough to make it my own thing.
Consistency is the only thing you should care about as a new writer. Viral is good, but in the long run, a few viral posts will only take you a little bit faster. But to keep going, you have to keep pushing out stuff.
Being consistent solves so many problems for you as a new writer. It helps you feel less insecure when you push your stuff outside. It helps you build habits to produce content. It helps you improve your skills. It helps you have an archive full of works ready to show everyone who asked.
There’s a lot of things that I do managing this blog besides just writing and publishing. But without writing and publishing, without having this archive of works to show people, there’s no way for this blog to go any further than being my open journal.
Unless you’re crazy popular, like world-level, then consistency is not that important, but if you’re world-level, why are you reading this?
No one cares about your blog that much—except you. “I wonder what Duy’s writing this week,” said literally no one. Your readers are very likely to spend weeks—even months—not even remembering who you are.
I love Tim Urban and his works, but I spent literally no time thinking about him except for when he has new posts or when I need to find some inspiration from him.
This is good because you can stop worrying about every tiny detail about your blog(s) and start experimenting the heck out of it. Post at midnight. Start drawing for it. Write a poem. No one cares. Don’t worry about it too much. Do what you want with it.
The most insane thing you can do as a writer is to not make friends with other writers. I mean, it’s terrifying when you create something new and you’re on your own. But you’re not. There’re a lot of writers who are trying to do the same things as you.
I think one key difference in why I can write for such a long period this time compared to one year ago was that I have a much stronger community this time. It’s like when you’re going on a path and you’re seeing no one’s around you; it’s hard not to start wondering if you’re lost.
So you shouldn’t suffer this alone. Reach out to writers that you like. Do collabs (doing one with next week). Sharing your ideas. I have friends who listen to things that I’m sure they would not care about if I was not sharing with them, and that alone helped me a lot, especially mentally.
Learn to promote your stuff. No one is going to do it for you. If you mainly operate on Substack, Medium, or Wordpress, open one or two social media sites to tell the world that you exist. Repurpose your content. Learn how to do SEO. Essentially, learn how to get your blog discovered.
Don’t form strong opinions about something until you’ve tried it.
What I mean is that there are things you take as facts that are not actually factual at all. Especially about yourself and about your writing.
I was not a particularly good kid in Vietnamese literature in my high school. Because I spent years being told by pRoFeSsIoNaLs that I suck at writing in Vietnamese, I truly believe so.
And because I sucked at writing in Vietnamese, I must suck at writing a blog in my own mother tongue. But I was very glad to find out that it was not neccessarily true. My guest posts for Mở performed exceptionally well for some reasons.
That doesn’t mean that now I write really well in Vietnamese, but rather that if one day I write another piece in one, that’s not the end of the world.
Update old content. Don’t treat your posts as consumables. Posted and done. Treat it like assets. Regularly update it to match the current events and repost it to your audience.
Back up. Back up. Back up. Learn how to back up your blog data. That includes things like your email list, your posts, your drafts, and one million other things. Don’t trust platforms, especially when it’s not your own. Own things that you have worked so hard for.
Learn how to correctly be a perfectionist.
This piece of advice doesn’t apply if you haven’t written AND published at least 30 posts.
For a long time, people have hated the word “perfectionist” for obvious reasons. However, I argue that you have to be a somewhat perfectionist to actually put out quality work. If you feel like something isn’t working out, start over, try a new approach, and keep experimenting until something fits just right.
It is a painful process. But each time you do it, each time you become a better writer. That is mainly how I learn how to write. And I believe it can work for you too.
to 1000.
Ok, I actually lied. I couldn’t think of 1000 pieces of advice to tell you right now.
But you can ask for them yourself. If you have any problems, questions, or just want to share your writing journey, or seriously any journey, you can always send a message to me. Promise that I’ll reply.
what’s the end goal of the frog society?
Right now, I have no idea. But I think that the fact that the blog is developing will open up a lot of exciting possibilities in the future, like talks, like collabs. And I like doing exciting things.
For now, I will try to put out stuff with the best quality that I can, making my current audience collectively wow, and reaching people that don’t know about me yet but will love what I’m doing.
what a journey!!! congratulations to you and welcome to club 1000!!!!
May be we should create one ?
Thanks Duy for this inspiring post <3 I actually look forward to your blog posts, though not everyday, but for sure more often that I thought hehe.