Hey there.
So, on my 2nd run I came up against this. I had more than a 30% die off. So, I wanted to know why. And after many hours of research, and many many sites of hearing the exact same thing has shown me my errors. I was drowning my seeds, and that's what you are doing, just in your soil. m0use is right, there is nothing wrong with directly in substrate. But it is the one that is least successful, mainly because its the most hard to control.
The most successful way, is to use a propagator and and peat pellet or mineral wool. Now most ppl starting off don't have these. So on my recent diaries you will see germination 101 its under, it goes into dept how to. So I'll just give a quick summary here and if you wanna have a look for yourself if you need more details or dm me.
The next and most common is glass of water. So, what you want to do is drop your seeds in room temp water min 18c- max 25c for 12-24hrs. As soon as you see a tap you can take it out and then move to paper towels (this i explain in diary) but you want to keep the temp between 20-25c and the PT to be damp and no water standing on the plate as again, you'll drown your seeds.
Good luck pal.