I’m currently subscribed to 27 Substack newsletters. Not all of those mail me anything regularly. But the ones that do have largely become my source of news, randomly interesting articles, and pop culture contact.
Since I write an email newsletter myself, every day, which you are reading right now, I’m very curious about the Substack phenomenon.
Could this be an opportunity for me? Should I start a persuasion-themed Substack newsletter?
Should I reposition myself as a Substack marketing expert?
Should I simply start publishing serialized fantasy literotica, inspired by Greek and Roman history, under some flowery pseudonym, and host it on Substack?
More on all those questions in a future email.
For today, I just want to share a bit of what’s working on Substack right now.
I recently signed up to Simon Owens’s Media Newsletter. That’s where Simon publishes his analysis of the media and publishing industry, including digital formats like Substack.
Owens’s most recent article says that across the media landscape, companies are struggling to corral new paid subscribers.
It’s not just Netflix, which I wrote about a few days ago. Other traditional and online publishers, from The Atlantic to Quartz, have either reached the limits to the growth of paid subscribers, or are actually seeing their paid subscriber numbers shrinking.
But as Owens says, “the longer you spend in publishing, the more you realize everything is cyclical.”
And so it seems the trend today in various publishing businesses is to loosen up the content behind paywalls… rely less on paid subscribers… and rely more on…
Ads.
Guess who’s back? Ads are back.
You’ve probably seen ads if you are signed up to any big-name email newsletter like The Morning Brew. The Morning Brew was bought a couple of years ago, for $75 million, on the strength of its advertising reach alone.
The Morning Brew has millions of subscribers. But even smaller newsletters, like Josh Spector’s For The Interested, which I wrote about recently, is making a healthy $48k per year, just by showing ads to a fairly small audience of 18k subscribers.
And what about Substack?
Well, Owens’s newsletter is hosted on Substack. And since the guy analyzes what’s working in media right now, you might conclude his own Substack might be a clue to what to do.
Owens does have a subscription option, but it’s only to be able to ask him questions. There is no content that is hidden behind the subscription.
On the other hand, you can buy a 200-word ad in his weekly newsletter for $400.
Owens’s newsletter has fewer than 5k subscribers. Is $400 a lot of money just to reach some fraction of 5k people?
Apparently not, because the ad slot was filled in each of Owens’s recent issues. And perhaps it genuinely pays for the advertisers — Owens says that of his 5k subscribers, many are executives at big name media outlets or tech companies.
So what’s the point of all this?
No point. I’m just trying to give you a different perspective on how you can make money, even if you’re a hardcore direct response business, with a classic-themed daily email like this one.
The world is always changing. Exciting opportunities are popping up all the time. And the only thing that’s constant is the demand for ancient-Greece-themed fantasy literotica.
In other news:
I am not opening up my own daily emails to advertising, at least not yet. But if you’d like to read more articles like this one, and maybe see how I make money from my daily email newsletter, without ads and without a subscription, then you can sign up here.