Category: WritingCategory: Writing

Someone emailed me how they would paywall their work after 90 days, and was looking for some thoughts and ideas on growth and such.

First — are you “married” to the paywall? Is this paying your rent right now? I don’t want to say anything flippant if it’s keeping the lights on. But since you mention wanting to ditch it, I get the feeling you’re still figuring it out, just like we all are.

I experimented with a paywall for a while, and I hated sending my newsletter to five people at a time. I appreciated the money and support, but I didn’t appreciate that my best work was only being seen by a few people. What if the post that deeply resonated with one paid member could have attracted 100 new readers?

Every piece we put out into the world is a chance for the right person to find it. Especially when you’re just getting started. You’re coming up on a year on Substack. There are people who have just discovered you, maybe told their friends, and a large part of your work is inaccessible until they pay.

I fully believe we all need to get paid. But I think we need to build trust first. And we build trust when we’re our most comfortable selves, instead of worrying about paywalls, page counts, SEO, all of that. Get your work out there in ways you can sustain. A website and a newsletter, for example. When you start adding TikTok, long-form YouTube, and everything else, that’s where things get hectic.

The more of yourself you put out there, the more people can see and feel and read, the faster you’ll discover how they actually want to support you.

I started my Substack in 2021 and didn’t rebrand to until 2023. That’s when I started hosting Zoom calls, just kind of like, “I want to talk to more people about this stuff.” And that’s when I discovered people really wanted to talk about it, too. And that some of them would pay to be part of it. Not in some guru-funnel way, but genuinely: I had to try a bunch of different things before I found what worked for me.

Reduce friction. Get to the core of what you want to be doing, without giving yourself too many side gigs to make it work.

Saw this while walking around Portsmouth, NH, from the “Public Poetry Project.” This is run by the Portsmouth Poet Laureate Program, where they organize submissions from poets to be featured in businesses around town.

There are people who would love your work and they aren’t even on social media – they might just be out walking around town!

During a recent Substack Live someone ask about spending more time on Substack Notes to grow their subscribers, and I suggested they make better use of that time by sending an extra newsletter to their subscribers.

My job is to make great work, and maybe that’s your job, too. The byproduct is someone enjoying that work.

My work is better today because I’m introduced to great people on Substack Notes. That lead to new ideas which I can share with my subscribers.

People like Maria Popova and Jason Kottke made a career from this. They curate, inform, and share, and they’ve built an audience that supports this work. They’ve become trusted curators of inspiration by being curious, and then sharing the results of that curiosity with their readers.

You can be that trusted source, too.

I spend time on Substack Notes because of the amazing artists, writers, photographers, all doing their thing. Some of those things inform my writing. Recently Caroline’s newsletter was the basis of my last newsletter, which came from this post.

But I also find inspiration from the wide open web; I’ve got almost 100 blogs I follow in my RSS reader, and I subscribe to hundreds of newsletters.

Curate the best items you find (which most of your readers will never find on their own), and share it with your newsletter subscribers.

I opened Josh Spector’s email recently, and saw this:

“As the artist, as the creative person… I’m the lead magnet.”
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This line from Seth Werkheiser’s Social Media Escape Club newsletter resonated deeply with me.
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He went on to say:
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​“People signed up for me, so they’re getting me. And if people get huffy about it and unsubscribe?
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Bye.
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I don’t want to hold back. I’m not a magazine. I don’t have editors. I want to write what I want to write.”​
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Exactly.

That quote game from this newsletter, which actually came from one of the weekly Zoom calls I host every week.

This is why it’s so important to talk about your work. Like, out loud. With friends. Over dinner. In the mirror. On a podcast. Speak the things you do, refine it.

This isn’t about an elevator pitch (who buys things in elevators?), but about the depth and distance that the words you speak might travel.

If words can make us cry (from a break up), or jump for joy (“we’d like to offer you this position”), then surely our words can do the same.

Sitting down to write your next newsletter shouldn’t be painful. Not when you post a few times a week on Substack Notes, or have an archive of years of posts on various social media platforms. You might even have long abandoned blogs, or YouTube channels.

You’ve put out years of thoughts and ideas and observations into the world, never to be seen or heard from again, so don’t be afraid to revisit them!

You can copy and paste them, or just write a whole new take on an idea you had five years ago – whatever you do, it’ll work because it’s from you, and where you’re at right now.

As I said in “Writing a Newsletter Shouldn’t Beat You Up,” this doesn’t need to be hard.

“Your newsletter writing shouldn’t be a prison sentence. It shouldn’t feel like digging ditches. It shouldn’t be fraught with stress, or like dealing with a horrible boss. None of these things are desirable, and yet so many times we create these situations for ourselves.”

Maybe you struggle with sending out a regularly scheduled newsletter. You know you should send something to your subscribers, but some days it just feels harder than others.

Well, come to Thursday’s NOTES TO NEWS LETTERS Zoom call and join the conversation. One blog post, or one “webinar with a presentation deck” won’t have all the answers, but meeting with other creative people with the same struggles might help you figure this out!

NOTES TO NEWS LETTERS ZOOM CALL
Thurs, May 14 from 2:00PM – 3:00PM EDT (recording available)
Register here: https://luma.com/fku24gz8