1,000 subscribers

Thank you!

In March 2022, I decided: I’m going to write about chess.

I created a website, juntaikeda.com.

I published 17 posts up to January 2023.

The total number of people who subscribed over those 10 months were…

36.

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In February 2023, feeling like I needed a change, I started over, here on Substack.

Fast forward to the present, and you can imagine my surprise, after having 36 subscribers in 10 months, at having reached 1,000 subscribers after 8 months.

A steady increase over 8 months

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Here are 6 reasons I’ve had more luck in 2023 compared to 2022:

• Platform: Substack has become more and more popular, and it seems to be warm and welcoming environment for readers and writers. While I learnt a lot writing on my website, it was difficult to reach an audience/form a community there.

• Sharing: I was lucky to have those with established Substacks/platforms sharing my posts—especially Ben from

  Perpetual Chess Link-Fest
  for featuring my posts in his Link-Fests, and he and Martin from
  Say Chess
  , among others, for Retweeting my Substack post shares on Twitter, widening my exposure. (Now, unfortunately, it’s difficult to get engagement on PostTweets linking to Substack)

• Recommendations: Half of my subscribers have found Infinite Chess from other chess Substacks. I’m grateful to my fellow writers and chess lovers—thank you (you can check out the Substacks I recommend here).

Some of the Substacks recommending mine

• Writing quality: My pre-Substack writing was pretty awful. Since early 2022, I figured I should make an effort to learn about writing, so I read something like 20 books, in English and Japanese, on blogging/writing/marketing. Though input helps, consistent output—publishing, like OTB for chess—is the best teacher.

• Lichess: I was reposting on my Lichess and Chess.com blogs and reaching a lot of people on Lichess, so I decided to continue there—I enjoy the discussions in the threads. I’ve probably missed a few, but I try and read every comment and engage with readers, as more people have left feedback there than on Substack.

• Language: On my website, I was writing posts in English and Japanese. I realised I need to split my writing into two platforms, one for each language, for readers.

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Where to next?

It feels strange to write a whole post about this Substack, but 1,000 is a nice milestone, and I wanted to take the opportunity to thank those who’ve supported me, and all of you for joining, since February. I’ve received a lot of kind and encouraging words both in person (at tournaments) and online, which never fail to give me a boost. This post is only #31—it’s nice to think about having hundreds of posts on here one day.

But I’m getting ahead of myself. (“see this? he stopped at 35 posts after writing this.”)

I have a long list of ideas for posts, a few drafts in the works, and I’m planning new things for this Substack. Writing has become one of the best things in my week, and although it’s never easy (just recently, I was dreading opening the Lichess comment thread to my latest repost, fearing that people will say it’s no good), hard things feel meaningful, and I’m glad I took the plunge to start publishing my writing.

My aims are to:

• write about chess with honesty and creativity to help others with their game

• explore the infinite number of motifs within the mirrors of chess and life, and

• create places where like-minded people can connect and converse.

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What do you enjoy reading about, and what would you like to read more about?

As always, feel free to leave a comment or reply to this email with your thoughts.

Thanks for reading, and see you soon in the next post.