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My newsletter is making $2k per month with 7k subscribers – AMA

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Re: My newsletter is making $2k per month with 7k subscribers – AMA

#141

Post by ryangilbert »

assttoasstmgr wrote: post #130
ryangilbert wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've highlighted many "minimal" spaces that are mostly just a Macbook. https://www.workspaces.xyz/p/032-teresa-man https://www.workspaces.xyz/p/172-pat-walls https://www.workspaces.xyz/p/168-samiur-rahman https://www.workspaces.xyz/p/048-leah-fessler https://www.workspaces.xyz/p/036-mike-slaats https://www.workspaces.xyz/p/workspaces-020-devin-bramhall

Some of those look absolutely dreadful. I need a place to work, not a staged photograph from an IKEA catalog.

Everyone works and is productive in different ways.

Would love to include your ideal setup if you’re up for it.

Re: My newsletter is making $2k per month with 7k subscribers – AMA

#142

Post by laserlight »

cercatrova wrote: post #139
assttoasstmgr wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some of those look absolutely dreadful. I need a place to work, not a staged photograph from an IKEA catalog.

What works for them may not work for you, that's why it's their workspaces, who are you to judge them for how they like to work? If you want to compare, submit your own workspace then.

I didn’t read any judgement in the parent comment. It just states that those setups wouldn’t work for them.

Re: My newsletter is making $2k per month with 7k subscribers – AMA

#143

Post by ryangilbert »

cercatrova wrote: post #140
ryangilbert wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I posted the original top post about the newsletter making 2k (because it's my newsletter) as well as this comment with the link. lol wtf

They are saying you should have just posted the link in the top/original post itself rather than as a comment. That's usually how it goes on HN so that people don't have to search for your specific comment with the link, they can just go to the post and see it there.

Wanted this to be more of an AMA on the what and how vs “hey subscribe”!

Re: My newsletter is making $2k per month with 7k subscribers – AMA

#144

Post by dlhavema »

bartread wrote: post #95
no_time wrote: post #86

Just curious, would you feature an absolute trainwreck of a setup like [0] if the owner submitted it or do you intend on keeping it strictly upper middle class? [0]: https://bnn-news.com/wp-content/gallery/offices/computer-roo...

I didn't know I wanted to know the answer to this question but having now looked at that picture I reeeeaaaally do. You touch on a more serious point though: one of the issues that's apparent, at least here in the UK, is how suboptimal a lot of peoples' home setups are. Even mine, which I consider to be otherwise decent, is in a tiny little room that imposes considerable constraints. Moreover, loads of people don't h…

Talk about constraints, i work in the back of my ( albeit long ) pantry, with very little ventilation, and an adhoc light setup for now. The desk and chair are nice, and the desk can raise for the very few times i want to stand for a while.

Re: My newsletter is making $2k per month with 7k subscribers – AMA

#145

Post by nscalf »

Congrats! Awesome to see some others from the newsletter world here. I'm a bit earlier than you are along the process, I have a crypto based newsletter which has about 1200 subscribers, ~50 editions sent, and just started conversations with interested sponsors (we also had inbounds which we have not really engaged with). Our SEO is doing pretty well, we get roughly 3500 people coming to the site per month, and when something in crypto world blows up we double that.

I have 2 tactical questions for you: 1. That seems like a relatively high CPM for your niche, how did you structure your sponsorships to get there? To be more specific, what are the normal sponsorship lengths, do you do a short term and then renegotiate after they've seen click throughs, does click through come into play in your negotiations, etc. 2. Your open rate is amazing. We used to maintain an open rate in the 40%'s, but we saw a dropoff and have been struggling to get from mid 20s back to mid 40s for a while now. I know this is because we end up in promotions, but can't quite arcane how to get out of those folders. Did you do anything in particular to maintain your open rate?

Re: My newsletter is making $2k per month with 7k subscribers – AMA

#146

Post by 99cent »

I'm curious about this too. And as a non-developer myself I don't see this asked/answered:

What platform do yo use for your website and for the newsletter? Do you self-host or have a hosting service you recommend for doing this?

I have always wanted to do a similar thing, targeting a niche segment, but don't know how to start on the technical side of things. Thanks!

Re: My newsletter is making $2k per month with 7k subscribers – AMA

#149

Post by afkqs »

99cent wrote: post #146

I'm curious about this too. And as a non-developer myself I don't see this asked/answered: What platform do yo use for your website and for the newsletter? Do you self-host or have a hosting service you recommend for doing this? I have always wanted to do a similar thing, targeting a niche segment, but don't know how to start on the technical side of things. Thanks!

It seems to be made with Substack [1]

[1] https://substack.com/

Re: My newsletter is making $2k per month with 7k subscribers – AMA

#150

Post by ryangilbert »

nscalf wrote: post #145

Congrats! Awesome to see some others from the newsletter world here. I'm a bit earlier than you are along the process, I have a crypto based newsletter which has about 1200 subscribers, ~50 editions sent, and just started conversations with interested sponsors (we also had inbounds which we have not really engaged with). Our SEO is doing pretty well, we get roughly 3500 people coming to the site per month, and when s…

Thanks for the questions!

1. The $250 is a flat rate for one newsletter edition but also ends up on the blog portion which is then shared on Twitter. Some of these tweets do 50,000+ impressions on Twitter. This isn’t guaranteed but is something the sponsors are considering when placing an ad. We typically don’t even get into CTR before or after the slot but can if a specific sponsor or potential sponsor wants to. The main metrics they’ve asked about is newsletter size and open rate.

This might have to change if I look to increase prices.

2. My “welcome to the list” email reminds people to add the newsletter to their primary inbox. Once a month or so I also add a short note to kick off a newsletter reminding people to ensure we are in their primary box. I don’t know if this has helped with anything at all but it’s worth doing IMO.

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