Paid newsletters generate recurring revenue—meaning once a subscriber signs up, you get
paid every month until they cancel!
How do I start a paid newsletter subscription?
- Decide on your purpose.
- Define your target audience.
- Create a schedule.
- Decide on your pricing model.
- Set up MailerLite and Stripe.
Substack is bring-your-own-audience. There is one page that features a few top publications and writers, but for the most part, you're on your own pal. If you charge $5 per month and have 1000 paying subscribers, then you will make $60,000 per year from Substack. That's a pretty decent living with not a lot of people.
Substack is an email newsletter platform designed for small publishers hoping to turn their subscribers into paying customers. Writers get a content management system (CMS) built for publishing email newsletters, integrated payments through Stripe, and a website that can host free and subscriber-only content.
According to BuzzFeed News, the top 12 writers on Substack make an average of more than $160,000!
Writer Jen Billock has been able to use Substack to turn her food-and-witchcraft newsletter, Kitchen Witch, into a way to make some extra cash. In her first month, she gained over 250 subscribers, around 8% of which pay $5 per month for a premium subscription.
Newsletters are still one of the most powerful forms of digital marketing. Newsletters can earn money in various ways, including ad space, affiliate links and promotion of your brand's products and services.
Add your Substack URL to your email signature, personal website, and bio on Twitter, Instagram, etc. Post on Twitter (or Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, etc) about starting a newsletter and ask your followers to subscribe. Pin a tweet about it to the top of your Twitter feed.
More than 100,000 subscribers pay writers on Substack, according to the company. For top writers like Luke O'Neil, Substack has been a boon.
Five Best Desktop Publishing Programs for Newsletters
- Microsoft Publisher 2019. Considered as an entry-level desktop publishing program, Microsoft Publisher is also deemed by a lot of its users as the best software for newsletters for small businesses.
- Adobe InDesign CC (2020 15.0.
- QuarkXPress 2019.
- LucidPress.
- Scribus.
Here are some things you might want to include:
- Write your introduction to your ideal client.
- Acknowledge that this is your first issue and that you appreciate your readers' attention.
- Tell readers what they'll be getting and how often.
Following are email newsletter basics to always keep in mind.
- Know your audience. As with most things involving content, it's important that you know your audience.
- Write tantalizing subject lines.
- Make a great header.
- Focus on the format.
- Stack your content.
- Balance information with promotion.
- Stay on schedule.
- Stay on brand.
Newsletters with Business Information
- Share Your Company Story. To connect with your audience and let them get to know the person behind the brand—share your company story.
- Behind-The-Scenes Tour.
- Employee of the Month.
- Job Postings.
- Frequently Asked Questions.
- Industry News.
- Interview an Expert.
- Choose your focus. The focus of your newsletter will be crucial to how engaging it will be.
- Keep it simple, keep it catchy.
- Include third party content for more engaging newsletters.
- Include user-generated content.
- Connect to trending topics or events.
- Use social media as a teaser.
- Be consistent but provide something unique.
Substack, the hot subscription newsletter startup, is building a reader app to help people manage all of their newsletters in a single place.
Subway is offering a new SubStack and Super SubStack. Subways says: "Just choose your favourite Sub and SubStack it with three hash browns for just 50p extra." The Super SubStack includes "three hash browns and two pieces of streaky bacon for £1 extra."
Anyone can start a publication on Substack; sign up is free, and you don't have to meet any requirements. Early adopters and currently popular newsletters are largely about tech, politics and popular culture, written by journalists in those beats as a side hustle or a career change after leaving a media company.
Medium pays authors by dividing up every individual subscriber's fee between the different articles they've read that month. But rather than doing an even division between articles, Medium will weight payments toward whichever articles a subscriber gives the most claps to.
If you need to pick a new name, you can change your newsletter's title and subdomain from your Settings page.
A newsletter is a printed or electronic report containing news concerning the activities of a business or an organization that is sent to its members, customers, employees or other subscribers. Newsletters generally contain one main topic of interest to its recipients.
Substack is free, for as many subscribers and emails you want. And it's not just free, it's reliable. Emails might not always hit the primary folder for Gmail, but they'll hit “promotion” rather than spam. No, you can keep your emails open, so there's no problem there.
You can start making money with as little as 100 subscribers. It all depends on the quality of the email subscribers. If you have a highly engaged audience who knows you, likes you and trusts you then you can make a lot of money with as little as 500 subscribers.
