That’s fair.
Sure. @amberose didn’t have an IG for ages and accumulated quite a few reads on her stories. So it’s possible. You can always advertise on the forums and do read-for-reads. I don’t usually recommend those, but sometimes those read-for-readers might turn into genuine readers who will continue reading your story.
I just think it’s harder.
If I didn’t have an IG and hadn’t announced my story, I might still have 10 reads lol.
Whenever I update the story and announce it, I get a huge spike in reads from people who follow me. Without IG, people would actually need to go into the app to see.