It really depends on what you count. Are we counting finance industry newsletters that charge hundreds of thousands of dollars a year to subscribe? What about large venture backed newsletters like Thrillist? Or newsletters by a single author, but where that author is someone super famous like Lena Dunham or Kylie Jenner?
There are lots of examples of newsletters that make money, but if you're only counting single authors who aren't venture backed and who don't have a following from some other medium and aren't already famous within their industry, and who are making money off of paying subscribers or ads rather than from consulting, the number is fairly low.
I'm sure it also helps if your target audience is in the wealthy subset of population.
For example, a newsletter providing curated governmental data related to animal welfare can't charge much because most animal welfare groups are struggling to operate on the small donations they get. However, a newsletter tailored for the opposite group (commercial farming) will make a lot more money because its audience is willing and able to spend 10x compared to the former.
Same goes for finance vs human rights (not that they are necessarily opposed), and so on.
Of course a lot of newsletters aren’t trying to make money directly. I receive a bunch of newsletters that are basically content marketing for consultants etc.
Forbes: "Morning Brew’s native advertising revenue averages $200,000 a week thanks to more than 40 active clients, including Microsoft, JPMorgan and Allbirds."
Jeff Walker has been making money off email since 1996 and showing others how. His stuff is basically the foundation of all the spammy content we see today.
Search for “The Launch Book” and you’ll find how to use email to sell.
There were a lot of people who could claim hipster cred on the TinyLetter boom, because they’re talking mostly about when a community / use case decided to use email as a platform. Email was so obviously the most effective way to sell professionally-oriented content that when I started my newsletter in 2012 I was kicking myself that I had waited so long. The seedy side of Internet Marketing, and many less-seedy users, had been doing it since before the dot com bubble. And that was decades after people sold newsletter subscriptions on paper.
> Email was so obviously the most effective way to sell professionally-oriented content that when I started my newsletter in 2012 I was kicking myself that I had waited so long.
When's the last time you published to that newsletter?
I read an a16z blog post on the thesis behind their investment in substack, which is the belief that there will be this big “passion” economy where millions of people will be able to make careers out of making podcasts, writing, etc. I don’t really buy it.
These things are tools that lower the barrier of entry to creating but that alone doesn’t generate mass demand for creators. You will see power laws apply just like it does in many situations, and there will be a handful of people who can pull six or seven figures in something like writing a paid email newsletter.
> You will see power laws apply just like it does in many situations, and there will be a handful of people who can pull six or seven figures in something like writing a paid email newsletter.
Sure, but to create a venture scale business you only need a few hundred highly successful ones; you need around 250 power users to create a $100M business.
That's 200K / power user if you estimate that they represent half your revenue.
That sort of amount is not a "power user" but multinational companies that have to be convinced over long periods of time and huge overhead.
So that figure is way, way underestimated.
>Sure, but to create a venture scale business you only need a few hundred highly successful ones; you need around 250 power users to create a $100M business.
And creating "250 power users" at that scale is crazy hard.
What if 1,000 true fans is already a power law? Doesn’t seem a lot on a global scale, but yet, who can claim to have 1,000 true fans with a paid newsletter? For 1,000 true fans, you probably need 10,000 customers and be exposed to 100,000 people. Because 1% conversion rate to true fans seems about right.
Note: this isn’t about strict numbers. 1,000 true fans paying 10 bucks a month might be enough. The same paying $2 a month? Doesn’t pay the bills of a family.
I like the concept as well, because it seems a lot more approachable than trying to build a unicorn, but what if only the top 0,1% really get 1,000+ true fans? Still a power law.
> For 1,000 true fans, you probably need 10,000 customers and be exposed to 100,000 people. Because 1% conversion rate to true fans seems about right.
The rule of thumb for email subscriber to paying customer is actually closer to 1% (compared to your 10%) which just means it's that much harder. I don't think there is a rule of thumb for "true fan" conversion, where it might be as high as 50% for something like Tesla and 1% for something like Comcast.
the 1000 true fans concept is people who will buy anything you put out though, so they should not just be buying your $2 a month newsletter, but also your $15 t-shirts, $2000 speaking engagements and so forth.
> Note: this isn’t about strict numbers. 1,000 true fans paying 10 bucks a month might be enough. The same paying $2 a month? Doesn’t pay the bills of a family.
Really? Maybe not every family (and definitely not in the Bay Area), but those numbers work out to $120-240K/year, with no requirement on where you live.
EDIT: I can't be trusted with mental math. Leaving the above unchanged, but it's answering a comment that used different numbers that never actually existed. The correct numbers are $24-120K/year, which is obviously a very different discussion about feasibility.
The idea hinges on two important premises: (1) Almost everyone is aware of you and (2) Language is not a barrier.
This may hold true for music, given a long enough time. Not so much with a newsletter which is limited by the language (at best two), and has a quite limited shelf life.
There are tens of thousands of music acts in Spotify, Bandcamp, etc with less than 1000 fans.
So "1000 true fans" is already a big filter.
In fact, e.g. for 2017, 99% of the 377 billion streams were from the top 10% of 2017’s most-streamed tracks alone. Less than 1% of streams accounted for all other music.
But the people who sold pickaxes to those who struck out made money on those people. Substack makes precisely $0 on a paid newsletter with no subscribers.
I believe both things are true: there is a power law distribution, and there will be millions of people making careers like that. Patreon alone has >100k creators, right? And it's not a super popular platform yet. I think the request for content is already there, and is just being dis-intermediated.
Also, I think you are discounting what a lot of "creation" is, as it is a much larger area than is generally considered, IMO.
For example, there seem to be a lot of erotica going on in patreon and elsewhere, where models sell prints and special content (e.g... nipples?).
Or, there is a ton of videogame streaming going on, which
should be considered content creation, and some of the millions of twitch streamers actually make good money.
Many people also sell special content connected to their podcast/streaming whatever, I just ended up yesterday on a financial youtube channel where the author has a paid-only weekly chat with the subscribers.
The only thing which I think won't increase much is writers self-publishing. That seems to already have been a thing for years now.
And how many are making a living out of their Patreon? Most Patreons I’ve seen are hobbyists making a few bucks on the side. Those aren’t careers, so the 100k number is meaningless. (In fact, I looked it up, and 100k is the number of “creators” making at least $1, or have at least one patron.[1])
I am only subscribed to 2 newsletters one of which is by Trevor McKendrick - VP at Lambda school(YC). It's probably one of the few newsletters I'd actually pay for. It's sent out every Monday morning so that's something I look forward to when starting my week. It contains nice information about entrepreneurship, myths of founder stories and other related things.
I don't know. There are many topics for which I would pay $10/month for a weekly newsletter. Perhaps not an email weekly newsletter, but I always say I would easily pay $10/month for a weekly TWIST Video if they had something behind a paid wall.
Most people need to still make the things we need for ordinary life, otherwise we all become starving artists in the 'creative economy'. Can't eat a podcast.
As others have mentioned, not many are going to get "rich".
However, everyone will get rich.
Rich with information that may not be available online (like what certain people did on their YC application to get in...). Overtime I think this/Twitter will be a great platform for people who want to enrich themselves knowledge-wise rather than getting "clickbait" from random posts online.
AT first I thought this was serendipity, but now I'm starting to think it's a little more than a coincidence that this is the second time in as many days that the topic of paid newsletters has surfaces to the front page of HN (See my post history for some details)
Is there some sort of a push for this particular niche or something?
Some HN readers will see a new link posted that reminds them of a relevant link they are familiar with, so they add their own submission. Or they may get interested because of the first post and then seek out more info, ultimately sharing what they found.
To go a little bit off topic. Is there any other newsletter that even comes close to Money Stuff for the tech industry and news in general? Yes the Techmeme one is informative for the tech industry and NextDraft is good for getting the news cycles. But both lack humid, irony and witty.
Presumably they meant that email relies on a user’s email client for delivery, and so individual newsletter has none of the UX advantages of a standalone product. It doesn’t have to do with the content itself.
Every website I visit these days seems to have this newsletter modal timebomb that unexpectedly blows once I've read a few sentences or so. Like the quarter-screen cookie dialog, I've just become blind to them searching just long enough to find an "X" or "close" button. I wonder how many others are being conditioned in the same way?
At any rate, i think it's worth pointing out that you can always blog (and please support rss!). If the goal is to make money, maybe newsletters are one way to avoid grimy ads, but that said, how many newsletters are filled with ads and affiliate crap anyways?
I like the idea of getting emails for stuff I am consistently interested in. I just don't get the hype.
Honestly, if the page started with the newsletter signup box visible, I'd be more likely to consider signing up. But let me get 1-2 seconds into finding the start of the content that I'm looking for, and then pop up a newsletter (or any other) box over that, and I get annoyed. I'm VERY unlikely to sign up. Not never, but practically never will I sign up.
Pop up a chat window next, 1-2 second after I closed the newsletter box, and I'm even angrier.
Pop up a third thing and I'm out. Disruption is already bad enough in our modern world... but building systems specifically to disrupt is just garbage.
It's not perfect, but I've been using this Kill Sticky [1] bookmarklet to ditch those modals without having to look around for their [close] or 'x' link.
I have a paid newsletter, and I’ve started a community / education site dedicated to the model, as I couldn’t find one when creating my own.
Let me just say this... people are going to get rich off of paid newsletters, full stop.
But like anything else, it’s a many will play, few will win game.
There are examples of newsletters that have done well, and many examples of newsletters that have not.
In my opinion, given the choice between creating a blog and starting a paid newsletter, the choice is a pretty simple one.
Blogging is heavily saturated.
Google is downright hostile towards new, small publishers.
CPM rates are looking downright anemic.
The legal requirements behind affiliate offers are becoming complex, and sometimes confusing to understand.
On the newsletter side you have enhanced discovery, instant monetization with rates chosen by you, an implied audience that is “in theory” additive by nature, not just hit and bounce. Yes, you’ll have churn, etc. but that is how I am viewing the value prop.
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[ 2.3 ms ] story [ 150 ms ] threadSo, yo dawg.
There are lots of examples of newsletters that make money, but if you're only counting single authors who aren't venture backed and who don't have a following from some other medium and aren't already famous within their industry, and who are making money off of paying subscribers or ads rather than from consulting, the number is fairly low.
For example, a newsletter providing curated governmental data related to animal welfare can't charge much because most animal welfare groups are struggling to operate on the small donations they get. However, a newsletter tailored for the opposite group (commercial farming) will make a lot more money because its audience is willing and able to spend 10x compared to the former.
Same goes for finance vs human rights (not that they are necessarily opposed), and so on.
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Forbes: "Morning Brew’s native advertising revenue averages $200,000 a week thanks to more than 40 active clients, including Microsoft, JPMorgan and Allbirds."
Search for “The Launch Book” and you’ll find how to use email to sell.
Everything old is new again, sometimes.
When's the last time you published to that newsletter?
These things are tools that lower the barrier of entry to creating but that alone doesn’t generate mass demand for creators. You will see power laws apply just like it does in many situations, and there will be a handful of people who can pull six or seven figures in something like writing a paid email newsletter.
Sure, but to create a venture scale business you only need a few hundred highly successful ones; you need around 250 power users to create a $100M business.
And creating "250 power users" at that scale is crazy hard.
https://kk.org/thetechnium/1000-true-fans/
https://seths.blog/2008/03/1000-true-fans/
Note: this isn’t about strict numbers. 1,000 true fans paying 10 bucks a month might be enough. The same paying $2 a month? Doesn’t pay the bills of a family.
I like the concept as well, because it seems a lot more approachable than trying to build a unicorn, but what if only the top 0,1% really get 1,000+ true fans? Still a power law.
The rule of thumb for email subscriber to paying customer is actually closer to 1% (compared to your 10%) which just means it's that much harder. I don't think there is a rule of thumb for "true fan" conversion, where it might be as high as 50% for something like Tesla and 1% for something like Comcast.
Really? Maybe not every family (and definitely not in the Bay Area), but those numbers work out to $120-240K/year, with no requirement on where you live.
EDIT: I can't be trusted with mental math. Leaving the above unchanged, but it's answering a comment that used different numbers that never actually existed. The correct numbers are $24-120K/year, which is obviously a very different discussion about feasibility.
This may hold true for music, given a long enough time. Not so much with a newsletter which is limited by the language (at best two), and has a quite limited shelf life.
So "1000 true fans" is already a big filter.
In fact, e.g. for 2017, 99% of the 377 billion streams were from the top 10% of 2017’s most-streamed tracks alone. Less than 1% of streams accounted for all other music.
Substack is like the person who sold tools to the gold prospectors during the gold rush. They will probably do okay.
Also, I think you are discounting what a lot of "creation" is, as it is a much larger area than is generally considered, IMO.
For example, there seem to be a lot of erotica going on in patreon and elsewhere, where models sell prints and special content (e.g... nipples?).
Or, there is a ton of videogame streaming going on, which should be considered content creation, and some of the millions of twitch streamers actually make good money.
Many people also sell special content connected to their podcast/streaming whatever, I just ended up yesterday on a financial youtube channel where the author has a paid-only weekly chat with the subscribers.
The only thing which I think won't increase much is writers self-publishing. That seems to already have been a thing for years now.
And how many are making a living out of their Patreon? Most Patreons I’ve seen are hobbyists making a few bucks on the side. Those aren’t careers, so the 100k number is meaningless. (In fact, I looked it up, and 100k is the number of “creators” making at least $1, or have at least one patron.[1])
[1] https://techcrunch.com/2019/02/12/patreon-business/
Edit: The TechCrunch article further down claims that Patreon had about 4300 creators earning $1k/mo at that time.
Most of which make close to nothing (server costs, and way less than 10K/year).
>And it's not a super popular platform yet.
No, but it's the #1 platform for direct fan support.
For those interested: howitactuallyworks.com
However, everyone will get rich.
Rich with information that may not be available online (like what certain people did on their YC application to get in...). Overtime I think this/Twitter will be a great platform for people who want to enrich themselves knowledge-wise rather than getting "clickbait" from random posts online.
Is there some sort of a push for this particular niche or something?
At any rate, i think it's worth pointing out that you can always blog (and please support rss!). If the goal is to make money, maybe newsletters are one way to avoid grimy ads, but that said, how many newsletters are filled with ads and affiliate crap anyways?
I like the idea of getting emails for stuff I am consistently interested in. I just don't get the hype.
An ISP I worked at in early 00s sent a lot of spam (I’m sorry) and it was insanely profitable.
I am. I am surprised they don't make the X "click here to download a virus".
Pop up a chat window next, 1-2 second after I closed the newsletter box, and I'm even angrier.
Pop up a third thing and I'm out. Disruption is already bad enough in our modern world... but building systems specifically to disrupt is just garbage.
[1] https://github.com/t-mart/kill-sticky
I have a paid newsletter, and I’ve started a community / education site dedicated to the model, as I couldn’t find one when creating my own.
Let me just say this... people are going to get rich off of paid newsletters, full stop.
But like anything else, it’s a many will play, few will win game.
There are examples of newsletters that have done well, and many examples of newsletters that have not.
In my opinion, given the choice between creating a blog and starting a paid newsletter, the choice is a pretty simple one.
Blogging is heavily saturated.
Google is downright hostile towards new, small publishers.
CPM rates are looking downright anemic.
The legal requirements behind affiliate offers are becoming complex, and sometimes confusing to understand.
On the newsletter side you have enhanced discovery, instant monetization with rates chosen by you, an implied audience that is “in theory” additive by nature, not just hit and bounce. Yes, you’ll have churn, etc. but that is how I am viewing the value prop.
https://stratechery.com/