The Substack Podcast

Welcome to our new podcast, The Active Voice. It's about how great writers are reckoning with the challenges of the social media moment, how they find the space for themselves to create great literature and journalism despite the noise, and how to make a living amid the economic volatility of the 2020s.In the first episode, Substack co-founder Hamish McKenzie talks to George Saunders, one of America's greatest living writers (and author of the wonderful Substack Story Club). You can listen to it and subscribe at read.substack.com. This podcast is called The Active Voice because we enjoy the double entendre, and because it is about the writer in the arena: the writer who, despite the pressures of the social media moment, has the courage to say what they believe needs to be said; the writer who finds a way to speak truth to power; the writer who seeks understanding over takedowns. This podcast is for those who know that what you read matters and that great writing is valuable. I can't wait to share all these conversations with you. The Active Voice is produced and shared using Substack for podcasts. Find out how Substack makes a richer podcasting experience, supporting multimedia and subscriptions, and fostering a direct relationship with your listeners here.  This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit on.substack.com

We asked Robert Reich to share his advice on learning to use his writing and drawing skills to illustrate his Substack. Read on for Robert’s advice, or listen to him read it aloud above.This is the fifth in a recurring series of longform writer advice, following Alicia Kennedy’s advise on learning to listen, Embedded’s Kate Lindsay’s advice on creating trust with your readers, Lance’s Anna Codrea-Rado’s advice on learning to celebrate just how far you’ve come, and Mason Currey’s advice on creative growth.Could you use some advice or inspiration from a fellow writer about creativity, motivation, and the writing life? Submit your question for consideration for a future advice column by leaving it in the comments below. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit on.substack.com

We asked Helena Fitzgerald to share her advice on navigating isolation as a writer. Helena writes Griefbacon—a newsletter on the weirdness of relationships for “the last people at the party after everyone else has gone home.” Listen on for her experience of solitude in writing, or listen to her read it aloud above.Dear writer, how does isolation play into your writing experience? When do you crave it, and at what point do you seek support, collaboration, or edits? How do you come up for air when the loneliness of writing becomes too much? *This is the fifth in a recurring series of longform writer advice, following Alicia Kennedy’s advice on learning to listen, Embedded’s Kate Lindsay’s advice on creating trust with your readers, Lance’s Anna Codrea-Rado’s advice on learning to celebrate just how far you’ve come, and Mason Currey’s advice on creative growth.Could you use some advice or inspiration from a fellow writer about creativity, motivation, and the writing life? Submit your question for consideration for a future advice column by leaving it in the comments on Substack. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit on.substack.com

Are you a podcaster, audio creator, or author of a sound-focused publication? Next month, Substack will open applications for our next intensive: the Summer of sound. In this month-long immersive workshop, we will invite a select group of writers and audio creators to deepen their focus, build a strategy, test techniques, and grow their publications into sustainable projects. Applications will open on June 9, 2022, and close on June 21, 2022. To be eligible for this opportunity, applicants need to have an existing publication on Substack with at least 5 posts. If you want to kickstart, revive, or grow a podcast, audio show, or sound project on Substack, now is the time! To learn more about podcasting and audio tools, check out our resources and our support articles.We are looking for writers and creators with a substantial audience, growth potential, and a strong desire to grow an independent media business on Substack. Once selected, participants will dedicate a considerable portion of time in late July and August to developing their publication strategies, experimenting with our features, and learning from experts.We’ll share more information as we prepare to launch the application in June.Read more: How to move your podcast over to Substack and Podcasting questions answered This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit on.substack.com

One year ago this week, writers and the Substack team started gathering in weekly Office Hours discussion threads together for the first time. In 38 threads with tens of thousands of comments, writers shared bold ambitions for publishing on Substack, swapped sharp insights on growing an engaged email list, and celebrated milestones like going paid.A year in and the discussion threads continue, with writers learning and navigating a new chapter for online publishing. Together through Office Hours, Substack writers have authored advice for the future.In 1997, Chicago Tribune columnist Mary Schmich wrote an essay as a hypothetical commencement speech entitled “Advice, like youth, probably just wasted on the young.” Going viral, the essay was adapted and shared as a spoken word song by Baz Luhrmann. “Everybody's Free (To Wear Sunscreen)” was an instant hit. Today, we bring you Substack’s remix from lessons and advice writers have shared over the past year in Office Hours read by Jackie Dana, one of the generous Office Hours stewards.Everybody’s free (to connect with each other)Writers and readers of the class of '22:Connect with each other. If we could offer you only one tip for the future, connecting with each other would be it. The long term effects of engaging have been proved by data scientists whereas the rest of our advice has no basis more reliable than our own meandering experience. On behalf of the writers of Substack, we will dispense this advice now:Don't wait for your writing to be perfect, or the time to be just right. Neither will happen. Your publication will likely be quiet for a while. Keep going anyway. Building something good takes time. The only real short cut is luck, and that’s no real strategy. Don't try to do this alone. The actual writing part usually has to be done alone, with distractions turned off and a faintly unhealthy supply of coffee to hand. There's usually no getting around that. But the part where you're coming up with ideas, or trying to think bigger and bolstering your confidence and hopes...don't try to do that just by sitting by yourself. If you need the door closed when you're writing, try flinging it open when you're not. Learn wildly. Connect madly. Allow yourself to be corrected. Being gracious in the face of criticism is a good way to take the venom out of it. And make lots of good friends who are doing something like what you're doing.  As writers, we are all in this together so we need to do our best to help each other grow and succeed. Slow and steady is entirely normal growth. Some people come to Substack with an enormous platform already. Some people grow very quickly for a variety of reasons (very few of which are actually controllable). The vast majority of us just plug along, trying different things, without ever having insane overnight success. Doesn't mean you can't be successful, it just means "slow and steady" is entirely normal growth, and success is subjective and depends on your own personal newsletter and goals.Extra slow days shall pass. It's hard but just keep writing good copy during the plateaus. They too will end.Dive deep into your niche. The average person on the street may not understand the appeal of your Substack, but you'll gain loyal subscribers and face less competition than if you go mainstream. Don't feed trolls. Don't allow them to ruin your day. Just block them and move on.Celebrate at milsteones. Exclaim: Bravo!!!!! This is awesome! Way to go! That's huge - congrats!!!Remember: engagement is not just likes and comments, but also conversations between you and your reader in their inbox. Ask questions. Propose ideas. Agree. Disagree. Agree to disagree.Be careful with the advice you take to heart and put in practice. You might find yourself saying, “I actually didn't follow that advice, and I'm happy I didn't.”But trust us on connecting with others.We also want to take a moment to pause and say thank you to the writers who have made helping other writers at Office Hours this year a central rhythm in their week by attending the majority of sessions, and generously answering other writers questions. We hope you'll join us in giving the following writers a virtual applause. Jackie Dana, Cole Noble, Sarah Miller, Alison Acheson, Elizabeth Held, Michael Fritzell, Geoffrey Golden, Mike Sowden, E. Jean Carroll, Melanie Newfield, YouTopian Journey, Paul Macko, Joan Demartin, Chevanne, Lloyd Lemons, Karen Hoffman, moviewise, Петър, Emily Miller, Heather Johnston Brebaugh, Linda Tapp, Rishikesh Sreehari, and Asha Sanaker.Join us for Office Hours today Each week on Thursdays, we gather the writer community and members of our Community, Product, and Writer Development teams together in a written discussion thread like this one to answer writer questions for an hour. Whether you are returning to the thread to celebrate one year of Office Hours or joining for the first time, we hope to see you today. Together we will answer your questions on publishing, growing, or going paid on Substack.Do you have a favorite memory from Office Hours? A sharp insight that you learned that you’ve taken with you? Someone you met in the discussion threads that you’ve stayed in touch with? We’d love to hear about it in celebration of one years of hosting Office Hours. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit on.substack.com

On respecting your energy needs so creativity can thrive, from Emma Gannon of The Hyphen. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit on.substack.com

On learning to listen, from Alicia Kennedy of From the Desk of Alicia Kennedy Podcast. Subscribe at on.substack.com

Just like Substack gave writers the freedom to be writers again, the Substack model of podcasting will bring the format to its pinnacle. Subscribe at on.substack.com

We asked Kate Lindsay, co-author of Embedded, to share some writer-to-writer advice about creating trust with your readers.  Subscribe at on.substack.com

As the year draws to a close, we asked Anna Codrea-Rado to share a piece of writer-to-writer advice about taking stock of one’s creative accomplishments. Anna writes Lance, a publication all about building a freelance career without burning out. Read on for her advice, or listen to her read it aloud above.Dear writer,How do you stop to recognize what you've accomplished? And how do you refocus and refresh when starting a new chapter?Dear writer,On the eve of a breakup, a past boyfriend said to me that I’d never be happy because I’m always looking for something else.Over a decade later and the memory of that remark still stings. Not because I regret dumping him, but because he’d touched on something that I was (and still am) prone to doing: ambitiously going after something but not stopping to appreciate its fruits. I share this relic from my relationship graveyard to confess that I too struggle to recognize my accomplishments. And before I can attempt to answer what you can do about that, first I want to ask: why can’t you recognize what you’ve accomplished? Earlier this year, I wrote my first book and while I knew it was a huge milestone, I couldn’t feel it. So much so, that I felt uncomfortable whenever other people told me how proud I must be of myself. I started calling this inability to see my own success "productivity dysmorphia.” The pursuit of productivity spurs us to do more while at the same time robbing us of the ability to savor any success we might encounter along the way. As for why it happens, personally, I think the biggest culprit is our toxic work culture which not only moves the goal posts, but then tells us that if we miss, that’s our personal failing. The pursuit of productivity spurs us to do more while at the same time robbing us of the ability to savor any success we might encounter along the way.There’s a badly wrapped gift to be had here: This stuff isn’t your fault! This partly explains why I’ve only ever had mixed results in my attempts to do something about it. Because believe me, I’ve tried all the hacks for recognizing my achievements. The big one is writing down your wins at the end of each day. Seems like a no-brainer for a writer, right? Make yourself feel better about your writing by writing about it? And indeed, scribbling “Wrote 1,000 words today” in my bullet journal does make me feel smug. When I’m fretting about my newsletter, a game I like to play is zooming in and out of the graph in the “Subscriber” tab. There, I can see my growth over the last 30 days, 90 days, and all time. My 30-day chart looks like a rollercoaster; a rickety track of dizzying climbs preceded by stomach-flipping descents. Then I toggle to the 90-day view and things look a little gentler. At the “all-time” setting, all the bumps are smoothed out into a healthy line that clearly points upwards. At that distance, I have an uninterrupted view of how much further along I am now from my starting position. These tactics (or maybe it’s better to call them reflections) have definitely helped me better appreciate my achievements, but only ever after the fact. It’s a bit like how I experience the benefits of exercise, not so much in the moment of doing it, but only after a period of inactivity when I feel terrible for its absence. As the French political theorist, Germaine de Staël wrote, “The human mind always makes progress, but it is a progress in spirals”. And so, I don’t think the move is to throw out these acts of reflection, but rather to accept their limitations. “The human mind always makes progress, but it is a progress in spirals” ~ Germaine de StaëlThen the question becomes, how can we recognize our accomplishments in the moment? For me, the answer lies in getting back to why I write in the first place. I believe that the writing subjects we’re drawn to aren’t random. Richard Bach, the American writer said, “We teach best what we most need to learn.” And I think the same is true for writing—I write best about the things I need to work out for myself. I find this to be particularly important to remember at the close of one chapter and the beginning of another. And if you too are at a similar crossroads right now and struggling with which direction to take next, try asking yourself the following question: Even if no one read me, what would I write about? It’s easy to lose sight of why you’re even writing in the first place, so recentring can be a powerful way to help you get unstuck. Asking yourself this simple question will help you reconnect with your writing and remind you why you’re even doing it in the first place. You’ll be surprised how clearly the answer will come to you. And remember, the sheer act of even asking these kinds of questions is a celebration of how just far you’ve come.Sincerely,AnnaThis is the second in a recurring series of longform writer-to-writer advice, following Mason Currey’s advice column on creative growth. Could you use some advice or inspiration from a fellow writer about creativity, motivation, and the writing life? Submit your question for consideration for a future advice column by leaving it in the comments below, or entering it (with the option to remain anonymous) using this form. Subscribe at on.substack.com

Listen now | He describes Substack as "social media purified by conscience" Subscribe at on.substack.com

Four years ago today, Bill Bishop launched the first-ever Substack publication. Get on the email list at on.substack.com

Last week, ​Substack hosted a live Q&A with health and parenting experts aimed at answering questions about the latest data on kids and COVID, including back-to-school safety, vaccine timelines, and risk trade-offs. Get on the email list at on.substack.com

Learn how to serialize a fictional novel on Substack with Elle Griffin of The Novelleist. Get on the email list at on.substack.com

Last week, we hosted a workshop with Tony Mecia of The Charlotte Ledger to discuss covering local news on Substack. Tony worked in journalism as the business reporter and editor with the Charlotte Observer before he decided to strike it out on his own. He started The Charlotte Ledger and grew it the old-fashioned way, building relationships locally and relying on word-of-mouth from friends. Today, The Charlotte Ledger is a thriving business with a team of freelancers and regular contributors.Writers like Tony have paved the way for independent local news on Substack. In our workshop, we brought together the greater community of local news writers to learn from Tony’s experience and absorb best practices for local news publishing on Substack.  Hamish McKenzie, the co-founder of Substack and a writer himself, hosted the interview with Tony and discussed his journey publishing, growing, and going paid. At the end of this post, we also share Tony’s quick tips for polishing your newsletter.The interview has been edited for length. You can listen to the full interview as a podcast in this post. To sign up for future writer interviews and workshops, head here. Why do you care so deeply about local news?My background is in local news. I worked as an editor and reporter here in Charlotte for more than 10 years. I saw the connections that you can make here reporting, and how important it is to have somebody in your local community who is watching out for citizens, not paid for by marketing or advertising, and who can actually report honestly and straightforwardly. We've lost that, especially in smaller to mid-sized markets like Charlotte. As local news in Charlotte weakened, I started looking at my options. I wasn’t going to move somewhere else. I don't want to move to Washington or New York for a job in journalism. I've lived here for more than 20 years. My home is in Charlotte and I care about Charlotte. So I thought, well, maybe I can start something.At this time, there were a lot of national newsletters – Morning Brew, The Hustle – but there weren't a whole lot of folks using the newsletter format as a vehicle to report original local news.Tell me about the moment you decided to go independent. What were you most nervous about?The difference between writing nationally and locally is that your potential audience is a lot smaller when local. If I'm writing about cybersecurity or technology or national politics, the whole country may read that. Charlotte's a city of about 900,000 people in a county of 1.1 million in a region of 2.3 million. But I just thought, let’s try it. I started in March of 2019. The first editions went to 12 friends and family members. My mom was very happy to get it. I posted it on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn, since our focus is business-adjacent news in Charlotte. I asked that folks read, and if they liked the writing, that they please tell people about it. I had no idea what was going to happen. What I found was the readership just kept growing. The total list is just a very steady upward line. That made me think, okay, I've got something here. We were publishing three mornings a week, and it was all free at that point. How did it feel making the leap to paying subscribers?The Charlotte Ledger was free for almost an entire year. The typical advice from Substack is to wait three months, or less in some cases, before going paid. But I was nervous that our growth would slow down once because we'd be putting a lot of writing out for paid subscribers that would no longer be shareable.That actually hasn't been true. That first day when we turned on the paid subscriptions, I expected that a handful of people would sign up, but money just started pouring in. It was a few thousand dollars, and I thought, wow, this actually resonates with people. People are willing to pay for this.It was a tremendous feeling. It wasn’t as if it was so much money that I could retire, but it was a good feeling to know that what you're producing is worth something to somebody.If I had to do it over again, we probably wouldn’t have waited an entire year before turning on paid subscriptions. That hesitancy was just because of my nervousness. Waiting a year, with no income, with no revenue coming in is a long time. It worked out – my wife works, and we had some severance from a previous job and all that – but in hindsight, we should have turned on paid a little faster.Why did you decide to cover business news rather than just local news in Charlotte?I'm not opposed to doing local news, and we do a fair amount of general news, but our theory has always been that we want to do writing that's better than what's already in Charlotte, and we want to do writing that's different than what's already in Charlotte.The number of business reporters here in Charlotte had declined, and I saw an opening content-wise. My background was in business news. It’s something that I knew and felt comfortable covering. There's a pretty big market for it in Charlotte. We’re a business town with banks and tech companies. It's a pretty big city. Business writing also has the advantage that if the newsletter is useful to an employee, they can charge the subscription cost to their company as a business expense. What wisdom can you pass on to other local news writers who are considering Substack?Two things. First, it's hard for journalists whose background is in reporting a story to all of a sudden have to think like a business person. But you need to think about your audience. There's a temptation with local journalism to think, “I'm writing about Charlotte, so anybody in Charlotte is going to be interested in it.” To succeed, you’ll need to hone that down a little bit more. Ask: Who are you trying to appeal to? And how will you find them? You need to think strategically about who the people are who are most likely to read your work, then determine where they hang out physically or online and how you could reach them where they are. Use your marketing or business brain on those strategy questions.Second, you're not alone. I've gotten a lot of good advice from fellow local news writers – City Hall Watcher in Toronto, The Mill in England. I'm not saying that we've got all the answers, but we've done this for longer than most people in the local news space on Substack. Steal good ideas from other people.Tony’s quick tips for local news writersDon’t overthink your paid vs. free strategy. The Charlotte Ledger has days of the week where their posts are free. Their “paid days” are Wednesdays and Fridays. On occasion, they cover free topics that may be outside their publication scope because the team believes they may be shareable.Let free readers know what they are missing. For every paid post, The Charlotte Ledger sends out a shorter “teaser” version to their free subscribers. If free subscribers want to read the rest, they need to subscribe. Because of this tactic, The Charlotte Ledger sees new subscriptions even on “paid days.” Include guidance about subscribing at the top of every email. “Although we don’t want to be ‘annoying,’ we do have to think like a business.”To promote locally, consider partnerships. There are no magic growth hacks with local news. Instead, you’ll need to do a lot of little promotions consistently. Partner with a variety of people in your community to get in front of different groups. Tony has partnered with Charlotte’s local radio station, local Facebook Groups, and even hosted an awards show to ensure members of his community bump into The Charlotte Ledger. 10,000 readers is a useful benchmark. If you believe you can build a list of 10,000 free readers, you have a strong chance of converting 10% (1,000) of those people into paid subscribers. That’s enough to support a livelihood.Hoping for more tips on how to start a local news publication on Substack? Check out our comprehensive playbook here. Spotlight On is a series of live events hosted by Substack. The goal is to learn from writers across categories who have experienced success on Substack. Join us for our next Spotlight On: Fiction with Elle Griffin. Get on the email list at on.substack.com

In early June, we hosted an interview with Mike of Nongaap Investing to discuss finance writing on Substack. Mike is a former activist investor who writes about investing, corporate governance, board dynamics, and the power of incentives. We asked Mike to speak in part because he’s a lot of fun, and also because ​Mike’s an inspiring example of the success we are seeing many finance and investing writers experience on Substack. He’s doing so well that he even turned Substack into his full-time focus and sits among the top paid publications in our Business category. Linda Lebrun of the Substack Partnerships team hosted an interview with Mike and discussed his journey publishing, growing, and going paid. At the end of this post, we also share Linda’s quick tips for polishing your newsletter.The interview has been edited for length. You can listen to the full interview as a podcast in this post. To sign up for future writer spotlights and workshops, head here. What surprised you most about what happened when you started writing on Substack? The biggest surprise was that anyone would even read my writing in the first place. My goal was just to become a more focused thinker for myself, not for anyone else. To get such a positive response very early in the process was a shock. I’m still shocked, even today, that anyone would pay to read my stuff. I just checked, and I think I’m number two in the Business category. That there are enough people out there that not only want to read about corporate governance but want to read it enough to pay a few dollars a month, remains amazing to me. What benefits did writing have for your career as an investor?The forward button for a newsletter may be the most powerful networking tool you’ll ever have. That endorsement is social proof of someone who followed you forwarding your writing on to someone they respect. I tell folks who are trying to break into the investing world not to wait until they are in an interview or pitching a stock to put themselves out there. Your writing or thinking doesn’t have to be perfect to get started. Think of writing as a journey where you are iterating and demonstrating how you look at the world and how you think of the world. Doing that will help you find other people that respect and align with your own perspective, instead of trying to purpose-build a pitch or a stock thesis retroactively. It seems that meeting people has been even more satisfying than the business value you’ve seen from your Substack.Absolutely. I think Substack is an even more powerful networking tool than a business tool for the average writer. You can 10x or 100x your professional reputation as long as you stay authentic with what you’re trying to do. People pick up on that, and you’ll build a real bond. The people who you really want to reach in life – the really interesting thinkers – everyone in the world wants to get an introduction to them. Few things actually open the door like a thoughtful piece focused on that person’s company or preferred style of investing. If you say something thoughtful, they’re more likely to come to you than they would in any other networking effort. You’re demonstrating that you would be an interesting conversation. What are key pieces of advice you have for writers who are just getting started?Don’t be afraid to grow slowly. There’s sustainability when you’re willing to go slow. I know there’s pressure to build up your subscriber base as quickly as possible. That’s a valid way of doing it, but for me, it was important to not feel like I needed to push all of my writing out at once because that wouldn’t have been sustainable. You need to make sure that you find a cadence that fits your style and your life, because this is a marathon, not a sprint. Substack is a business, but it’s also a personal development tool, a networking tool, and for me, an opportunity to get better as an investor. You’re going to get better with every piece you put out, and you’re going to slowly build an audience that will hopefully help you push the forward button and spread the word.Linda’s quick tips for finance & investing writersCustomize the “About” page to explain what readers can expect from you.Customize your “Thank you for subscribing” email. Consider including examples of some of your best past posts so new readers can dive right in.Include a preview image before you share a post. Consider using Unsplash to source images.Fill out your writer profile to demonstrate knowledge about the topics you cover.Social sharing helps people know your publication exists. Two helpful, simple tips for promotion: include your Substack link in your social media bios and pin a Substack post to the top of your social media profiles.Spotlight On is a series of live events hosted by Substack. The goal is to learn from writers across categories who have experienced success on Substack. Join us for our next Spotlight On.Should we be hosting a Spotlight On session with you? Tell us more about your Substack here. Get on the email list at on.substack.com

We spoke with Nathan Tankus of Notes on the Crises, who writes about the pandemic-induced global depression and how policymakers should respond to it. Get on the email list at on.substack.com

We spoke with Paula Forbes of Stained Page News, a newsletter about cookbooks. For her, it’s a place to geek out about cookbooks - where she can write about news, recipes, and upcoming releases. Get on the email list at on.substack.com

We spoke with Terry Nguyen of gen yeet, a newsletter about Gen Z culture, memes, and trends. Get on the email list at on.substack.com

We spoke with Fiza Pirani of Foreign Bodies, a newsletter that destigmatizes mental illness, centered on immigrant and refugee experiences. Get on the email list at on.substack.com

We spoke with Francine McKenna of The Dig, a newsletter about accounting and corporate governance issues. Francine analyzes the most widely-held and widely-shorted companies in the world. Get on the email list at on.substack.com

We spoke with Zach Haigney of The Trip Report, a newsletter covering the business, policy, and impact of psychedelics. Get on the email list at on.substack.com

We spoke with Kevin Muir of The MacroTourist, a newsletter about trading and investing that aims to make finance fun. Get on the email list at on.substack.com

We spoke with Erin Cook of Dari Mulut ke Mulut, a publication covering news across Southeast Asia. Get on the email list at on.substack.com

We spoke with Nikhil Krishnan of Out of Pocket, a newsletter that’s tackling healthcare with an entertaining and approachable voice. Get on the email list at on.substack.com

We chatted with Tony Mecia of The Charlotte Ledger, a publication focused on local business news in Charlotte, North Carolina in the United States. Get on the email list at on.substack.com

We invited Delia Cai, author of Deez Links, to speak to an audience of Substack writers in New York about how she grew her newsletter to 2,700 signups. Delia started her daily media newsletter as an intern at Atlantic Media.This transcript has been lightly edited for readability. You can also check out the slides from Delia’s talk..TakeawaysBe your newsletter’s wingman. Talk it up to everyone.Borrow other people’s audiences to reach new readers.Build credibility by getting other people to write about you.Why Delia started a newsletterI write a newsletter called Deez Links. It’s basically a daily-ish media newsletter that sends you a link to something worth reading, tied to the larger media industry.I started Deez Links four years ago, when I was just out of college. I had an internship at Atlantic Media that was cool, and not cool, in that I spent all of my time just reading news about the industry, and I was writing corporate memos. It was cool because I was learning a lot about digital media, but I was also just sitting in a cubicle all day, not interacting with other humans. This was 2015, 2016, around when newsletters like Today in Tabs and Ann Friedman's newsletter were getting a lot of hype. I was reading those and I was like, “This is so cool. I want to try to do this. I want to try to write in some kind of outlet that isn't just in corporate memo speak and maybe I can just do this for my friends and it will just be a funny thing that I do during the work day.”So I started Deez Links. It was on TinyLetter. I made the logo in three seconds in MS Paint. It was an extremely lo-fi situation.I sent it out to my friends, friends from college, and friends that I worked with and I was just like, “I'm going to do this every day. Let me know if this is interesting.” I had no real aspirations for it other than just getting in the practice of writing about something every day.Deez Links grew to about 500 subscribers by 2018, which was fine. It was mostly people that I'd met on the internet, or just people that I knew personally. Then I moved it to Substack in 2018, and since then it's gone through this amazing growth trajectory to where I had 700 subscribers and got a shout-out in New York Magazine and Vanity Fair. We're also doing this merch store which is really cool, which has taught me a lot already about ecommerce and supply chains.Deez Links was mostly people that I'd met on the internet, or just people that I knew personally. Then I moved it to Substack in 2018, and since then it's gone through this amazing growth trajectory to where I had 700 subscribers and got a shout-out in New York Magazine and Vanity Fair.Looking back over those four years, it seems like there's this very calculated path to growing the newsletter, and I have to be totally honest and admit there was not. I was just bumbling along. This was my passion project. I just tried a bunch of things, so I’ll share with you the three buckets of things that have worked out for me.Be your newsletter’s wingmanSo the first one is super obvious. It's just to be your newsletter's wingman.I think the really wonderful thing about newsletters is they're so personal. They're tied to you and your name most of the time. Bring it up to your friends, your work friends, while applying for a job. I put my newsletter in my resume. And I was like, “I don't know if this is work appropriate, but this is what I got.”When you start a newsletter, you may not have a lot of cred to go off of. You don't have a built-in audience unless you're already a writer on other platforms, and I didn't have that. I was just out of college.Your first 500 subscribers are going to be the people who are just naturally invested in you, your friends and your mom. So you should make your newsletter an extension of yourself and bring it up all the time when you're talking to people in your circles.I think the trick to this is always consider how to widen that personal circle, whether it's going to meetups, going to hangouts, or interacting with people on Twitter and making Twitter friends, which is my favorite thing. That way you're always adding to the circle and you're being your own best advocate for the newsletter.Then at the end of the day, after you've bonded and had a normal human social exchange, you can say, “Yo, I have a newsletter. I write about X, Y, and Z. I would love to know what you think about it.” Telling them to Google it, or even texting them the link, is super easy. That way, you’re treating it as a way to stay in touch with people that’s less weird than, “Can I add you on LinkedIn?” It's like “Hey, we bonded. Do you want to support my art a little bit?”, which feels like a more natural ask.Borrow other people’s audiencesThe second tactic  I stumbled upon was borrowing, or being exposed, to other people's audiences. I think this is the most effective one.I ended up coming across this tactic in three different ways. One was with classifieds. When I first started out, I was thinking, “I'm a young woman in media. I feel like other young women in media would like this newsletter, what are they reading right now? What am I reading right now?”I loved Ann Friedman's newsletter. She had this huge subscriber base, mostly women, and her newsletter is tied to current events and news as well. I feel like that's my audience. And she does this thing where she’ll place classified ads on her newsletter. It costs $50 to write a 140-character line about why you should subscribe to Deez Links and put the link in there. So that went out in her newsletter and I got 70 subscribers from doing this, which doesn't sound amazing, but when I first started out, it was like great. I didn't have to meet 70 people to do this. I just put an ad in this newsletter with a very loyal following.The other tactic that I accidentally came across, in terms of borrowing other people's audiences, was doing weekly Q&As. I first had this idea in 2018 where I was like, “I'm just going to do a Friday Q&A with someone in media, just ask them questions about their job.” Like if you cover Congress, what do you have to wear? What does that mean? Or if you do PR for the avocado industry, do you get free avocados? Just dumb questions that I would ask my friends anyway.I started doing them with my friends, and then once I ran out of friends to bug, I started branching out to people I really admired on Twitter, people I knew from work. And just realized this golden rule of how the internet and media works: if you interview someone, they're very likely going to share it with their following, and that's how you get exposed to their audience.If you interview someone, they're very likely going to share it with their following, and that's how you get exposed to their audience.For example, I did an interview with Alana Hope Levinson, the Deputy Editor of MEL magazine earlier last year. When it came out, she shared it with her followers. And she had a huge Twitter following. Then MEL magazine tweeted out to all of their readers, and I was like, “Oh, this is how it gets done.” With each weekly interview I do, I've noticed I get a handful of followers, especially when it's someone who has a very loyal following and audience of their own.Finally, honestly, the single biggest boost I got in terms of sign-ups was through a newsletter swap with this lifestyle site called The Good Trade. I wasn't super familiar with them, but their managing editor reached out to me at some point last year. I don't know if she found me through the classifieds, but she was like, “I love your newsletter. We have one, too, it's called The Daily Good. It seems like maybe we would have the same kind of audience. Let's do newsletters.” And I was like, “Yeah, sure.” But I had no idea what that even meant. I was just like, “I'm open to anything.”What I found out it meant was basically just plugging each other's newsletters. They wrote their own line and I put it in mine. So I wrote, “If you love a good semi-spicy newsletter, subscribe to Deez Links and you get a daily-ish link to something gossip worthy happening in the media industry.” And that was it.As soon as their newsletter went out, my inbox was just completely spammed and I got 400 sign-ups in one day from this. And I was like, this is really crazy. I didn't even know this community, this audience existed.Get credibilityThe third bucket of tactics is to get institutional cred. I mean that in very loose terms. One of the biggest things that worked out for Deez Links was when this email platform called Revue wanted to do a survey of the top media newsletters in the industry. It was a very unscientific poll. They were just reaching out to people in newsletters and saying “Hey, can you plug this poll? We just want everyone to take this survey.”So I put it in my newsletter at the time and said, “Hey guys, if you like this newsletter could you vote for Deez Links in this survey?” I only did it because I thought maybe it would be really funny if we got in the running. But it turned out that enough of my subscribers voted for Deez Links that it showed up in the top five between America Press Institute and Digiday Media, really legit places.When this came out I was like, “Oh my God, this makes us so legit.” And so again, people in industry were talking about it, there was a lot of buzz. A lot of people were like, “What is this one that I don't recognize? I'm going to Google it and subscribe and see what the deal is.” So when that came out I got about 200 subscribers.Finally, the one that I'm most proud of is when Deez Links was named in Vanity Fair. I'm going to be totally candid and tell you it's because the editor who wrote this piece is a friend from college. When she was researching this piece, she talked to me and was like, “What do you think? What are some people that you think would be good to talk to?” And so I was like, “You should talk to the Substack people. You should totally mention these newsletters.” We just bounced ideas off each other. Then she just did me a hugely gracious favor and quoted me directly and included Deez Links in this piece about the state of newsletters. That was huge, because it felt like this vote of confidence. When this piece went out, I got around 200 or 300 subscribers and bragging rights forever.I do want to acknowledge that there was a huge advantage in terms of starting my newsletter when I had a day job in media, and still do, and it automatically exposes me to this whole network of people with these followings and power, like the way the Vanity Fair writer had when she was writing this piece.I also want to acknowledge that there is nothing that media people love talking about more than their own industry. So that also was a huge help. But nevertheless, I do think that no matter what industry your day job is in, no matter what your newsletter is about, it's a really good exercise to just think about, “Who is my intended audience? What do I think that they're listening to or reading now? And how can I find these middlemen or platforms that can serve as a megaphone for reaching this audience?”Growing your subscriber base is like making friendsIt's like when you move to a new city and you don't know anyone. You can go and try and meet people one-on-one, but it would take a long time. The better route is to call up your super-popular, super well-connected friend in the city and be like, “Hey, can you introduce me to all of your friends?” And they do, and that's just so much faster. You get exposed to these various communities a lot quicker, and you come with this vote of confidence from your popular friend.It's cheesy to think about growing your subscriber base in terms of making friends, but I do think that it speaks to this very personal nature of newsletters. You're sliding to their inbox every morning, or every week, and your subscribers can just hit respond and tell you what they think. That's something really precious and beautiful. It does take longer to build up in ways that, say, maybe blogs were different. But I do think it's worth investing in those relationships, because once you become friends with these people, they’re there for you forever. They'll introduce you to their friends, and then your community just keeps on growing.For more advice on growing your newsletter, check out how Sarah Noeckel's Femstreet went from zero to 5,000 subscribers.Photo by Bess Adler Get on the email list at on.substack.com

We invited Emily Atkin, author of Heated, to talk to an audience of Substack writers in New York about how she successfully launched paid subscriptions. Emily left her job at The New Republic to start Heated, which offers original reporting and analysis on the climate crisis. Her newsletter is now her full-time job, bringing in six figures of revenue.This transcript has been lightly edited for readability. TakeawaysFocus on building your free signup list first.Announce a paid launch date.Offer a discount for early birds.Every day during your launch week, give people a different reason to subscribe.A day before your first paid post, make a final pitch.I write a newsletter called Heated. It’s been in existence for five months now, and it’s going well. It’s my full-time endeavor.Being able to make a living off my writing has always been my dream since I was in college and I took my first journalism class. Eight years and a lot of failures later, Substack provided me with a platform to be able to succeed. It’s honestly allowed me to achieve my dream. I make more money now than I had at any salaried journalism job.I make more money now than I had at any salaried journalism job.I’m going to talk about how to grow your free newsletter into a paid newsletter. At this point, you’ll already have had a newsletter for a while. You’ll have enough subscribers that you think you can convert some to paying. You’re ready to go.I’m going to share the tactics I used. You can adapt these however you like. I only launched my paid newsletter a little over two months ago, and I’m already in the six-figures range. I’m not a genius; I just followed a formula.Make your newsletter free for as long as you canStep one is to make a free newsletter, and make it original. Make it consistent. I think consistency is really important; that’s something I’ve heard from a lot of my subscribers. I have a little over 20,000 signups on my free list and a little over 2,000 on my paid list, including subscriptions I’ve given away.Give your newsletter away for free for as long as you possibly can. Especially if it’s getting a lot of traction off the bat, and people are like, “I would like to pay you for this. Can I pay you for it?” Don’t let them. Hold on for as long as you possibly can, because almost all the paid subscriptions you’ll get will be conversions from your free list.People don’t just sign up and pay. They want free content first, so they can decide if they want to pay. From my analysis, the average amount of time that people take to convert from free to the paid list is about a month, although I don't have much data yet.Give your newsletter away for free for as long as you possibly can. People don’t just sign up and pay. They want free content first.Foster your community. Make people want to pay for your stuff. Market your newsletter in a way that will almost make you uncomfortable, because it sounds like you're just talking and promoting yourself all the time.Announce you’re going paidSo you've done all that, and you're ready to launch your paid subscription. Don't just put a paywall up. Give your readers at least a week's notice.I write my newsletter four days a week, Monday through Thursday. So, two weeks before I put up a paywall, I said, “Okay, guys. Now's the time. It's been three months. Next week, I'm going to give you the ability to pay.”I wrote that on the bottom of a Thursday newsletter, the last one of the week. I told my readers that I've written this newsletter for free because I wanted to demonstrate its value first. I said that next week, I’ll start accepting payments, and I'll announce the rates then, but it’ll still be free all of next week.Once you turn on payments on Substack, the format changes. You unlock the ability to write preambles to your newsletter. That's where I did my marketing. I went personal on it. I was like, “Guys, I'm scared. I quit my job to do this. Please don't let me fail.”That's another thing about newsletters. You can get personal. I did some positive marketing for this, too. I was like, “If this works, imagine how many more people we can reach; if I can hire a research assistant; if I had a copy editor...”Kick off a paid launch weekThe next week is your paid launch week, where you remind people every day that you’re going paid, but you still keep all your content free.Make sure your content is really good all week. Put in extra work. Every day, in your preamble, try to give a different reason why people should subscribe.Set your price high – higher than you’d think. During your paid launch week, offer a discount. I did 25% off the first two days and then 20% off the second two days so I could say, “All right, you missed 25% off, but you still have 20% off”. Then the price goes up from there.For day one, I focused on a personal appeal and giving a discount. I made it feel like: “Today’s a special day, cue the air horn sounds!” Especially after you've been giving stuff away for three months, you've built up a community, so it should feel like, “Yay, now it's your turn.”I made a personal appeal there that was, “I gave this to you for free, but it's not sustainable for me. I want to be able to do this every day. I want this to grow. I have so many aspirations for this. We, together, can make this a thing. Let's make it a thing.” People are like, “Yeah, let's make it a thing!”I also do this thing where for every 100 people who sign up, I'll give 10 subscriptions away to people who need it. It helps. It's good because it helps grow your paid list, but it also gives your stuff to people who can't afford it. People are like, “Oh, okay, if I can afford it, I’d also like your writing to go to somebody else.”For day two, I used the excitement from day one for momentum. You can send different emails to your free and paid list. So I sent an email to those who’d paid on day one that was like, “Guys, you signed up. Yes. Thank you so much. You're amazing.”Then I sent an email to my free list that said, “If you're getting this message, that means you didn't sign up. How dare you? After all I've done for you.” But then I said, “This is the last day you can get 25% off, so you're going to want to do it today.”Build upon your momentum from day one. Include quotes from people on Twitter who are signing up for your newsletter, even if it's just one of your friends.For the next two days, experiment with different tactics. You know your community, so you’ll know best what would appeal to them.For day three, I tried this messaging about how the fossil fuel industry poured billions of dollars into disinformation. My newsletter is about climate change, but it's specifically about powerful people and climate change. So for day three, I used that angle. I was like, “Let's combat this with information. Let's produce journalism that makes the truth louder than their lies. That can only happen with your support.”On day four, I didn't do any marketing. I just did an ‘Ask Me Anything’ [AMA]. I used the discussion threads feature on Substack, which is a way to interact with your subscribers. On that day, people had a lot of questions about the paid launch, so I was able to go in there and answer their questions.I did five newsletters this week instead of my usual four, because I just wanted more opportunities to promote my launch. I decided to make my last day something big, to demonstrate the value of this work that your money would buy.On the last day, I launched a project I had been working on for a long time. I published a large anthology of fossil fuel advertisements. There was an embargoed study in there, some interviews, all this stuff. Instead of having my marketing preamble at the beginning, this time I did it at the end. I said, “This is an ongoing project. There's so much we're going to do, but it can only happen with your support.”Make your final pitchBy the end of this week, you've asked people to pay you every single day. It’s now the weekend. Take a break.The last thing that happens is to make your final big pitch. For me, this was the Monday after my paid launch week.This will be the last time your newsletter is free. After my final pitch, I put up a paywall, and now 75% of my content is paywalled. I told my readers that after three months, this will be the last time you're going to get it.Write a post explaining everything that you've accomplished while your newsletter was free. If you’re thinking about going paid, you should always keep a list of every good thing that has happened, like getting a nice email, a good tweet, seeing your work cited in another publication – just any way you can say you've been influencing the conversation or making people feel good. You want to be able to say, “This newsletter is original in this way. Nothing else like this exists.” Write a post explaining everything that you've accomplished while your newsletter was free. You want to be able to say, “This newsletter is original in this way. Nothing else like this exists.”That's what I put into my final pitch. I showed what I’d accomplished in the past three months. I had sections about how this reporting is making a difference, how it’s shifting the national conversation, where it's been cited. Every amount of praise that has ever happened, I put into one place. “Vox called it great. Earther called it wonderful. Environmental Health News called it a unique blend of insight and smartass.”Back when my newsletter was still free, I’d done a survey where I asked people to tell me why they liked the newsletter. I compiled that into a spreadsheet and used it for marketing. I was able to say things like, “Six people said that they felt less alone when they read this newsletter. It's helping you guys feel better, and that's what makes me feel better. So let's keep this going.”Your first and your last pitch are the days where you’ll get the most subscribers. The first day you launch, you get a lot. The second day, especially if you do a two-day discount, you get a lot. Third and fourth day, you're like, “Uh-oh, it's over.” And then on the final day, you’ll get a lot.The final step is to put up your paywall. After you do that, your daily audience will become much smaller. At that point, I probably had 18,000 free signups. All of a sudden, with my paid subscribers, it's 1,000. For the majority of the week, I'm now writing for a much smaller audience, which is actually way easier, because they like me enough to have paid me.After launch week is over, you might panic because you think it's all over and no one will ever pay you again. But just keep that process going. Every time you have a free newsletter, try to say something to encourage people to go paid.How do you know if you’re ready?You might be asking yourself, “Am I ready to launch?” So I came up with a list of considerations that might help you decide:How many free subscribers do you have? Conversion rates tend to be around 4 to 10 percent, according to other Substackers I’ve talked to. If your free list isn’t very big, consider waiting.How much money do you want to charge? Have you asked your subscribers what they’re willing to pay, or looked at similar newsletters to yours? What impact have you made that you can point to? People like knowing they’re supporting something meaningful. Have you asked your readers for feedback?What makes you original and worth paying for? Before you launch paid, you should feel really comfortable saying why your thing is different than anybody else's thing and why it should exist. You’re going to have to make your case and do a lot of shameless self-promotion around it. It’s going to be awkward. Get over it.If you have a highly specialized niche audience, you might be ready. That means people who like you, really like you. Some of the best advice I got was that you don't have to please everybody, but you have to please some people a lot. Not everybody has to like you, but a small amount of people have to really like you.Your impact doesn't have to be big. Use language to make a small impact seem bigger. We were cited in this local paper with a circulation of 20,000. That might not feel big to you, but people like to feel like they're part of something. That's why the newsletter model works. Your readers want to feel like they're part of this community that's growing and making a difference.The most important question, though, is: Do you feel ready?The most important question, though, is: Do you feel ready? This process is really different for everybody. Since starting my newsletter, I've talked to many other Substack writers who are going through this, and their newsletters and communities are so different from mine. Their subject matter is different. Not everyone is a reporter. Some of us do creative writing. Some of us compile links. We all have different communities.In the end, I feel like you'll just know. Even if you're scared, you'll have a gut feeling that you think it might be time, and you might be willing to make it work. Just trust that feeling, because that's what I did, and I'm still winging it.For more advice on launching a paid publication, check out our guide to going paid.Photo by Bess Adler Get on the email list at on.substack.com

We invited Walt Hickey, author of Numlock News, to share with an audience of Substack writers in New York how he thinks about spinning off multiple newsletters for fun and profit. Walt started off with Numlock News – where he writes about the numbers behind the news – then added paid subscriptions, an Oscar Awards supplement, and a book club.This transcript has been lightly edited for readability.TakeawaysMultiple newsletters are a lightweight way to experiment with new ideas.Use your main newsletter to create spin-offs, so you never have to deal with the “zero subscriber” problem again.Get creative with your paid subscriptions. You don’t just have to send one free and one paid post. Depending on your topic, you might consider publishing paid content during a peak season, quarterly in-depth reports, or more.I run a newsletter called Numlock. It’s a daily morning newsletter about the numbers inside the news.I started it after working at FiveThirtyEight for about five years, where I’d started a newsletter called Significant Digits. As a guy with a math-y background, I realized that my biggest liability as a person in journalism was that I needed to get better at writing, and doing something every day was a really effective way of practicing.I really enjoyed writing that newsletter, and then it hit a point where the scuttlebutt was that FiveThirtyEight was going to be sold. I looked at where Sig Dig was and realized there was more value in there than we were currently unlocking. The open rate was great. People enjoyed receiving it. In building the case for why FiveThirtyEight should keep me, I actually built the case for why I should leave and start my own newsletter. I did that, and it's been great.How he started multiple newslettersMy main newsletter is Numlock, it’s my bread and butter. It’s what I've been doing for more than two years now. I have a product that I think is good, and that my audience thinks is good. As a result, I have a good “in” with people who enjoy reading my work. If I were to describe Numlock in Uber-for-pizza terms, what I think of is, “It's Good Morning America for nerdier folks.”This being Substack, at a certain point, it came time to monetize, so I launched a Sunday edition. For $5 a month, I talk to either a writer who wrote a really cool story that I put in the main newsletter, or I talk to an author who's got a good book out. This is a really fun way to add value.If you think about traditional media ecosystems like late night shows, there’s a reason they have written jokes in the beginning and then an interview at the end. It’s because interviews are easy to book, and people tend to like them a lot. It’s a nice way to have something that’s less work than the newsletter itself, but gives people more insight into the stories that we find.But I’ve also started a couple of other spin-off newsletters, one of which is the Numlock Awards Supplement.I’m a culture writer, and I love predicting the Oscars using math. It's a good time. I started about two years ago and wanted to keep doing it. I think we learn a lot about ourselves, and how we can predict things, through this institution that is very obscure. It's a fun little puzzle.So I started a pop-up award season newsletter. It runs from November-ish, or whenever I feel like starting it, until Oscar night and the week after. It's a nice opportunity to talk about a thing I'm really passionate about, but not have to throw it at my traditional people who just want to watch Good Morning America and never talk to me again.That spawned another idea. I love engaging with audiences, and discussion threads are such a cool feature that Substack has built. I wanted a way to tap into that without compelling people who just enjoyed the passive nature of newsletters to participate.So I thought, again, having interviewed a lot of authors and seeing the response that that gets, my audience is one that enjoys reading things, learning new things, cool ideas, cool books and stuff like that. I figured one way to expand that was through a book club.The Numlock Book Club is kind of a democracy, and it's also kind of an experiment. The idea was we're going to vote on books to read, and then we're going to vote on these books. Whatever book you pick, we're going to read, then it's basically just going to be a managed reading thing.We've gone through three so far. We're in the middle of our fourth, and it's really fun. You get a chance to cover things that you wouldn't normally cover. You get to engage with readers that you might not normally be able or willing to, based on how you normally interact with your newsletter.Spin-offs make it easy to try new thingsHere’s the real reason that you should make spin-off newsletters. Who’s having fun in media anymore? I think about this question constantly, because I'm having fun in media, but many other people are not. So I made this list of all the people I could think of that are currently having fun in media:Top TV talentPrivate equity capitalists extracting enormous quantities of wealth for a style of business operation not entirely unlike the episode where Tony Soprano busted up that camping storeWalt DisneyPeople who make a living directly from their audiencePeople that get residuals from NBC television shows that aired in the '90s and early 2000sJake PaulI can't be any of these except for one, but it’s really fun. To give you an example of other people who’ve tried this, I’d like to highlight the example of the McElroy brothers, which is a family of brothers who have podcasts.They started with a podcast called My Brother, My Brother, and Me. Then they tried to do one episode about Dungeons and Dragons, and it went well. So they spun that off and made a podcast called The Adventure Zone, which ended up becoming a lot more popular than the original podcast. Eventually, they started adding some other weird spin-off podcasts. Some of these then turned into other opportunities to cross-promote.The idea is, if you like The Bachelor, you can listen to Rose Buddies. If you like medical history, you can check out Sawbones, which promotes everything else they have. Everything they do internally plugs into one another.So if I’m a person who likes the first thing, I can eventually wind my way to other things that I like. Maybe you don't want to listen to Sawbones, but you might be really down for The Adventure Zone. And this also turns into other opportunities like a book, or a graphic novel, or the fact that they had a podcast called The McElroy Brothers Will Be in Trolls 2 and eventually it happened – they're in Trolls 2.Spin-offs are great. They address a lot of things that are annoying about starting a newsletter from scratch, namely that you know the people who like you the most already. They're the ones who currently subscribe to your newsletter. So you can reach the people who are most likely to subscribe to your other newsletter.Spin-offs are great. They address a lot of things that are annoying about starting a newsletter from scratch, namely that you know the people who like you the most already.The Golden Rule I've found is that every new subscriber is slightly easier to get than the previous subscriber, because networks scale. It's very difficult to go from zero to one. Going 10 to 11 is easier. Going 99 to 100 is easier than that, and so on. So you never really need to relive the “zero-subscriber newsletter” that really takes guts to send.As long as you come into it like that, you can say, “I don't know if this is going to last forever. This is just a fun little thing I'm going to do on the side.” But your spin-offs have an opportunity to bolster the way that you interact with your audience. You might get that hit. You might make a sidebar newsletter that ends up being bigger than your initial one. Nobody really knows what's good anymore, but experimenting a lot is a good way to try that.Also, collaborations are great. I do my Oscar Awards one with the person I’m dating, who knows much more about the Oscars than I do.Get creative with paid subscriptionsThe internet spent a lot of time figuring out how to really optimize ads. We know a lot of ways to make money off advertising to people. We also now know that, yes, subscriptions are great. Last night I wondered: what is the average frequency with which a paid newsletter sends out paid posts?I pulled the top 25 Substack newsletters and found that 14 of the 25 were sending about even amounts: one paid post for one free post. Some were more like me, where you do five free, one paid. And then some were the opposite direction, where you get five paid and then one free per week.So we know what tends to do well when it comes to subscriptions, but I want to point out a few other business models that I think people should try. There are different ways to use subscriptions that are not simply, “Half my posts are behind a paywall and the other half is free.”For instance, you can use what’s almost like demand-based pricing. If there's an election going on, in October lots of people are going to be interested in that stuff. And so maybe you have something that’s like, “We're an elections newsletter. In October, only paid subscribers get the really timely material.” On the other hand, you could have a paid-only edition that arrives quarterly or yearly. You just have to figure out what you need to promise and then deliver on that. It doesn't need to be once a week. It doesn't need to be twice a week. It doesn't need to be once a month. As long as you figure out your social contract with your readers, you can do whatever you want. It can come in the form of, “I cover an industry and once a year, you're going to get a big report from me and that's what the money's for.”You can promise to do 20 paid-only editions per year and only send them when there's actually news on your beat. I'm not going to monetize my Oscars newsletter, but maybe I have one that’s awards all year-round, and then I only send the paid editions when the news is hot, which is going to be in January and February. There are all sorts of ways that you can use ancillary newsletters to both experiment with content and experiment with delivery formats.For more advice on growing your newsletter, check out “How to build community around your publication.”Photo by Bess Adler Get on the email list at on.substack.com

Of all the writers who use Substack, no one is as good at promoting their newsletter as Judd Legum, publisher of Popular Information. Judd was previously the editor-in-chief of ThinkProgress and has also been a political campaign researcher and lawyer. I convinced him to join me on a special pop-up episode of the Substack Podcast to share his advice on how to run a one-man newsletter business, build an audience, and turn Twitter to your advantage. Below, I’ve summarized some of the key takeaways. Enjoy!—Hamish Play to your strengths“When I’ve been able to leverage my skill as a researcher and then turn it around and put it out in the newsletter and help inform people in a deeper way about something they care about – whether that’s been the corporate donations to Cindy Hyde-Smith or Steve King, or whether that’s been really diving in deep to the election fraud issues in North Carolina, or some of the more recent stuff I’ve done about Facebook ads or the corporate contributions to some of these politicians pushing abortion bans in the United States – that’s what the audience really responds to. And so knowing that, I try to look at what’s going on the news and see where is there a topic that I can research further and pull out stuff that’s really new. That’s information that people didn’t have and I think that’s what people value and are willing to pay for.”People pay to feel empowered“From what I’ve heard from my paid subscribers, it’s just that they really want to support this kind of journalism, and they feel good about it when I do that kind of work. They feel empowered and they feel more informed and so that’s what’s motivated them. And that’s something I didn’t anticipate either. I thought it was really just the paywall that motivates people and the fact that you were withholding content, but I think for most people that’s not it.”Sell value instead of volume“Most people do not want more email. So if the only thing you have to offer them is, ‘Hey, subscribe to this newsletter and you’ll get some more email,’ that’s not that compelling. But if you can create a different value proposition where you can say, ‘Look, I’m creating the kind of writing that you can’t find anywhere else and I need you to be a part of this and to support this work if you value it,’ then I think that people get into that. And they want to get it four times a week, but it’s not necessarily the idea of getting it four times a week that is going to be the motivating factor.”Why he spent the first three months publishing everything for free“I thought that if I could get people in the door and show them what I could do with their support, that maybe people would go for it. And I think that’s largely what happened, because that’s still been my best little, you know, two-week period, was right when I turned on the paid subscriptions and the people who had been receiving it during that free period were given an opportunity to switch over.”The importance of free content“If you think of it from a business perspective, because this is a little business that you start – it’s a newsletter but it’s also a business – the free content is by far the most important content for your business. Because one, it’s something that anyone can read and it can help grow your free list. And two, it’s what gets sent to your total mailing list and gives you an opportunity to convert people.”If you don’t self-promote, you won’t get a promotion“I think probably the easiest mistake is just to think that, ‘Oh, I’m just going to write and put it out there and we’ll just see what happens.’ I can tell you, nothing will happen. You’ve got to really work on it... If you’re trying to earn a living doing it, you’ve got to work on it. And in addition to your job of writing the newsletter, you have another job, which is you’re the marketing officer for your company.”How to use Twitter to drive growth“I don’t know the exact percentage of subscribers who first came on Twitter but I think it probably approaches 50% of my paid subscribers. And the way I use it is to give people essentially a thesis statement of what the newsletter is about that day. And I’ll do that in a thread of tweets. It might be 5 to 15 tweets where I lay out my main points or the things that I’ve learned. And then I try to use that to build up to a period where one of those tweets – not the first tweet and not the last tweet but somewhere in there – there is an organic place where I can ask people to sign up for the newsletter and that that’s the best way to get the information”.Use Twitter to grow even if you don’t have a huge following“If you don’t have a huge following to begin with, you can still be successful. And one of the ways to do that is to reach out directly to people and tell them about what you’ve written if you do it in a thoughtful way. So you’ve got to think about what your topic is, what you’ve discovered, what you’ve written about and think about who does have a large audience on Twitter and might be interested in that, and send them a nice polite note about that thing. And that’s still something I do on a targeted basis, even though I do have a pretty good following, because there’s people with even bigger followings and there’s also people with smaller followings but they have really engaged followings that you want to get your information in front of.” Threads are better than single tweets“One, it’s just more space in people’s feeds. Social media is a brawl for people’s attention. And it’s basically like sending eight or nine people into the ring versus one person into the ring to see what they can do, so that’s an advantage. I think you have a better chance of capturing what’s interesting about your newsletter in a thread than you do in a single tweet. And I think that, just as a matter of Twitter strategy, I know that creating a popular thread is something that is likely to get you new Twitter followers, whereas just an individual popular tweet is not. And I think that’s because a thread indicates that you are a thoughtful person.” (See example below.)Tweet something valuable“Anyone can tweet a link to their website, but you have to come up with a value proposition for why people should do it. I think the shortest way to explain the value proposition that works best for me is that you should do it to receive and support accountability journalism. But no matter who you are, you have to be able to succinctly describe the value proposition. If you don’t have that, it really is not going to matter how much you promote your website, because you haven’t given people a reason to do it.” Get on the email list at on.substack.com

Canadian journalist and media critic Jesse Brown is well known in his home country for big media scoops and uncompromising commentary. These days, he’s creating a name for himself as a media entrepreneur, too. With his latest venture, Canadaland, the former columnist has created a podcast network funded by its audience through Patreon. In this interview, we discuss Brown’s colorful career, his surprise side success from cofounding a startup that many years later was acquired by Snapchat, and why he thinks every journalism student should start a newsletter and charge for their work. Brown is a sharp media thinker and digital media expert. I thoroughly enjoyed this conversation and think you will too. —HamishClick here to listen in your favorite podcast app Get on the email list at on.substack.com

Today, we’re moving into paid podcasts with the launch of a tool for audio publishing. The first Substack publisher to use the tool is Anthony Pompliano, who is launching a daily podcast for Off the Chain that will be available to his paying subscribers. We’ve always believed that one of the great benefits of Substack is that you can subscribe to a person. That power is intensified when you can actually hear that person’s voice. Subscription podcasting through Substack works in the same way as publishing newsletters. Once the feature is enabled, you can create an audio post that is just like a normal post and can go out to everyone or only to subscribers. After receiving the post by email or accessing it on the web, subscribers can listen to the audio through the Substack web player. (Try it by listening to our special announcement episode right here in this post.)It used to be that the web-player experience for audio wasn’t great. In iOS, for instance, audio that was playing from a browser wouldn’t keep playing once you switched apps or turned off the screen. These days, however, the web-player experience for audio is good, with persistent playback and controls that are accessible from the lock screen. With the Substack player, you can speed up the audio, too, so if you like to listen at 2x you’ll be well looked after. We may soon add the ability to add a private feed of episodes to podcast players, but we like the web solution for now. (Give us your feedback, etc.)We also like email being the distribution channel. When you are constantly bombarded by tweets, push notifications, and updates, receiving an email that gives you a direct link to a podcast episode just feels... sane. Plus, email is a decentralized system that avoids depending on platforms that may or may not be interested in helping you build a subscription business through a direct relationship with your audience. Anthony has been doing amazing work with Off the Chain, so we’re thrilled that he’s pioneering this feature for us. The new podcast, Off the Chain Daily, will feature episodes of 10 minutes or less that discuss the hot issues of the day in crypto. Listening to an episode feels like receiving a personal audio-letter from a highly knowledgeable friend. It’s a great format and one that we hope many other Substack publishers will use in the future. Substack’s audio feature is in private beta, but we’ll be rolling it out to more people over the coming weeks and months. If you’d like to get your name on the invitation list, please fill out this application form. Get on the email list at on.substack.com

Bill Bishop is the author of the Sinocism China newsletter, and our very first publisher on Substack. In this interview, we discuss his secrets to building a great newsletter business and his fascinating career, from running video tape for news stations at Tiananmen Square during the 1989 massacre, to co-founding the financial news site MarketWatch, attempting to build a gaming business in boom-times China, and ultimately starting Sinocism. Get on the email list at on.substack.com

Luke Timmerman is a veteran biotechnology journalist that decided to launch his own subscription-based publication (The Timmerman Report) because he wanted to create a better incentive structure for himself than advertising allows. Get on the email list at on.substack.com

First as an investigative journalist, and now as an analyst, Emma Beals has been covering the rise of ISIS and the wars in Syria and Iraq since 2012. During that time, reporting on the conflicts has become so dangerous that the nature of war reporting itself has had to change. Journalists, now targets in these wars, have increasingly turned to digital tools to augment their reporting. Get on the email list at on.substack.com

Judd Legum founded Think Progress nearly 15 years ago and grew it into a publication read by tens of millions of people. But earlier this summer, he decided to step down from his role as Editor-in-Chief, where he oversaw 40 staffers, so he could start something new.The goal was to create a newsletter that would explain politics not as a spectator sport, but as an important institution in which we all have a responsibility to participate. He calls it “news for people that give a damn.” The name is Popular Information. Get on the email list at on.substack.com

Jessica Lessin was a star reporter at the Wall Street Journal who had built her reputation covering companies like Google, Apple, and Facebook. It was her dream job. Until one day… she quit. Get on the email list at on.substack.com

Mara Wilson knows good storytelling. As a child, she starred in Matilda, Mrs. Doubtfire, and Miracle on 34th St. Today she writes about what it was like to grow up as a child star, decide to leave acting, and figure out what she wanted to do with life. Get on the email list at on.substack.com

It’s hard to get 20,000 people to sign up for your email list, but Walt Hickey has done it with his daily newsletter Numlock, which tells the news by numbers. When I asked him how, he kept coming back to three big ideas: write every day, deliver via email, charge readers directly. Get on the email list at on.substack.com

This week, I spoke to Matt Taibbi, contributing editor to Rolling Stone, journalistic heir to Hunter S. Thompson, and author of serial novel The Business Secrets of Drug Dealing: Adventures of the Unidentified Black Male (published on Substack).I started the discussion by asking Taibbi about his views of the current state of the dopamine-driven attention economy, where loudmouths and outrage merchants are outcompeting journalists to drive popular narratives. “You’re just constantly checking and checking and checking, and it’s this anxiety generating behavior pattern that pushes people to places that they’ve never been before in the media.”Indeed, in late 2017 Taibbi was caught up in a social media-driven storm that tainted his reputation. After some satirical and highly objectionable passages from a 2000 book Taibbi co-authored with Mark Ames in Russia were circulated on Twitter, Taibbi was branded a misogynist and lumped in with Harvey Weinstein as a #MeToo offender. While Taibbi’s former female colleagues have defended him and some publications have issued corrections, the damage was done. Taibbi discusses the fall-out and his regrets at length in this interview.“Once the genie’s out of the bottle, it just never goes back in. And once something’s on the internet, it’s like a social disease—it just never goes away. It was a devastating experience and it was also a very chastening experience.”Taibbi has continued to write for the Rolling Stone, building on his reputation as a reporter who excoriates political grift, shines a light on America’s darkest policies, and holds Big Finance to account (he famously described Goldman Sachs as “a great vampire squid wrapped around the face of humanity”). Here, he talks about his career, how he sees the mission of the journalist, and his fears about the slippery slope of state-sponsored censorship. He also tells the behind-the-scenes story of what really happened to Racket, the Pierre Omidyar-funded publication that never was.Taibbi is one of the most fascinating figures in contemporary American media and this interview is packed with personal reflection, insight, and little flecks of optimism. I hope you’ll find it worthwhile.—Hamish Get on the email list at on.substack.com

Will there ever be a "Netflix for Podcasts?" How is the podcast advertising business evolving? And how do you build a focused newsletter into a full-time job, while staying sane? This week's episode of The Substack Podcast answers these questions and more. Get on the email list at on.substack.com

Ann Friedman has crafted a journalism career on her own terms, combining freelance writing for major national outlets with a weekly newsletter and Call Your Girlfriend, a podcast she co-hosts with Aminatou Sow. Get on the email list at on.substack.com

Tim Urban explains how he grew Wait But Why into one of the most popular blogs on the internet. Get on the email list at on.substack.com

A preview of what's to come. Get on the email list at on.substack.com