Congrats, that's awesome! Simon Owens has many articles about this – paywalled, ironically, but worth it IMO, and you could just pay for a month and then cancel. His case studies based on interviews with media entrepreneurs are especially good.
Milestone: My archaeology newsletter just hit 1K subs - next stop, monetization
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Re: Milestone: My archaeology newsletter just hit 1K subs - next stop, monetization
#12Trends.vc does this, it works very well for them. I think they make mid 5 figures a month. If people want, they can unsubscribe but honestly I doubt most would.
Sponsorship could work, which is why you should add it in addition to, not instead of, a paid newsletter.
Re: Milestone: My archaeology newsletter just hit 1K subs - next stop, monetization
#13Earlier quoted context omitted.
Museums?
Museums are presumably gonna be interested in getting people to visit them, and 1000 people isn't really a high enough number to guarantee a significant amount of them will be local to the museum and able/interested in visiting. Maybe history/archaeology podcasts, or websites/blogs would be interested in some plugs or ad placements maybe? Those aren't restricted by locale.
Thanks! Yeah, I think that's my best bet sponsorship-wise. I don't think it's big enough yet, though. I've reached out to a few youtubers and podcasters, but haven't heard back from any of them. Oddly, I also reached out to some about advertising on their channels, and I didn't hear back about that either. I'll keep trying!
Re: Milestone: My archaeology newsletter just hit 1K subs - next stop, monetization
#14Earlier quoted context omitted.
Thanks for the feedback! I've thought a lot about sponsors and ads, but I don't know where I would find people who want want to sponsor a newsletter on archaeology/ancient news. If you have any ideas, I'm all ears!
Museums?
Really appreciate the idea, but I agree with Zircom - they're too geo-restricted. Maybe if a museum had a course or online experience that I could advertise... Something to think about. Thanks!
Re: Milestone: My archaeology newsletter just hit 1K subs - next stop, monetization
#15Congrats, that's awesome! Simon Owens has many articles about this – paywalled, ironically, but worth it IMO, and you could just pay for a month and then cancel. His case studies based on interviews with media entrepreneurs are especially good. Link: https://simonowens.substack.com/archive?sort=new
Nice - that's really helpful, thanks! I'll definitely check it out.
Re: Milestone: My archaeology newsletter just hit 1K subs - next stop, monetization
#16Trends.vc does this, it works very well for them. I think they make mid 5 figures a month. If people want, they can unsubscribe but honestly I doubt most would. Sponsorship could work, which is why you should add it in addition to, not instead of, a paid newsletter.
Yeah, I agree, that makes the most sense — paid tier has paid subscriptions, free tier has sponsorships. Thanks for the feedback!
Re: Milestone: My archaeology newsletter just hit 1K subs - next stop, monetization
#17What's your barrier to entry that supports charging money? An equivalent list of articles seems like it could be generated in a few hours a week from the content on r/Archaeology. Maybe that could even be automated.
Re: Milestone: My archaeology newsletter just hit 1K subs - next stop, monetization
#18What's your barrier to entry that supports charging money? An equivalent list of articles seems like it could be generated in a few hours a week from the content on r/Archaeology. Maybe that could even be automated.
Fair question. There are some other newsletters that have links... I don't know of any who summarize the content into bite-sized but reasonably comprehensive snippets. Those summaries, as well as the curation itself, are where the value is IMO. I'm a professional writer and it takes quite a while to put it together each week. Might also be worth nothing that much of what I find never makes it to r/Archaeology (until I post it there in my weekly roundup).
Re: Milestone: My archaeology newsletter just hit 1K subs - next stop, monetization
#19Earlier quoted context omitted.
Museums?
Really appreciate the idea, but I agree with Zircom - they're too geo-restricted. Maybe if a museum had a course or online experience that I could advertise... Something to think about. Thanks!
Yeah you're right, this was a brainfart but after reconsidering that for 5 seconds it's clear to me this is too generic.
But since I didn't want to leave you hanging I thought about it a bit more and I came up with a list of websites that could potentially sponsor your newsletter. Sorry if this comes off as intrusive, this is just my brain not being able to let this go :)
1. Online antique stores: loveantiques.com / 1stdibs.com / rauantiques.com
2. (Online) magazines dedicated to classic art: minervamagazine.com / juxtapoz.com / artnews.com / theartnewspaper.com / artltdmag.com / aestheticamagazine.com (offers a subscription service)
3. Education dedicated to art: courtauld.ac.uk/study/ / corcoran.gwu.edu
I hope this helps!
Re: Milestone: My archaeology newsletter just hit 1K subs - next stop, monetization
#20I love your newsletter! Particularly I love reading the most interesting headlines to the kids at the dinner table. Keep it up!
Btw, since you're subscribed already, do you mind me asking what you think about the $8/mo? I'd really value your opinion.
I would think about it for sure.
My comparison point would be a Patreon podcast membership that’s $5 a month for weekly bonus podcasts.
I would do this ASAP if you plan to. As in the “podcast” model you’re getting more than what youre used to receiving for free. Here you’d be restricting free content to something less than people have gotten used to.