Today we’re going a bit meta with a reader question. Steve has some content he’s been thinking of writing and wants to centre it around his own platform but wonders if people really read email newsletters.

My Newsletters by the numbers

I have 2 email newsletters. First is this one titled 3 Threads and it’s free. I usually have a blurb about becoming a member which almost never converts any of the 550 subscribers into paying members. I have around 10 members total which has been pretty steady for years. Some drop off and some come in, but around 10 is the number of perfection at the moment for my newsletter it would seem.

You can always read this content for free on my site as well.

Last week I wrote about seeking less connection which had a 48% open rate, 78 clicks on links and 2 unsubscribes. Those numbers are fairly consistent for me, though I most often have 0 unsubscribes from my weekly writing which I supposed means no one wants to read about getting away from online connectivity?

My second newsletter is about books and has about 600 subscribers. This content comes out weekly and the only post I make available to everyone is the end of the month wrap up one that digs into the themes of the book overall. That is unless you’re an RSS subscriber because Kit’s WordPress plugin doesn’t block content in the RSS feed. I guess that’s another vote for RSS being an awesome format. When I wrote about less notes more time with notes I had a 13.9% open rate, 3.3% click rate and 6 unsubscribers.

The numbers for the book email newsletter have varied widely. Just a few weeks ago I was sending the email to 38 people and then something I wrote got traction somewhere and I had over 600 subscribers added in a few days. I expect less engagement and more unsubscribes when growth is fast like this. Slow growth from people getting to know you is…slow, but often ends up with more engaged readers.

Oh, I also have no idea what got traction so I can’t repeat it. I worked with the team at Kit to try and figure it out. I tracked through my analytics and…I have no idea at all how I got hundreds of subscribers a day for a few days.

Are they worth it financially?

Monetarily, no way. I often spend most of Friday working on the two emails. I bill $120 USD an hour for my programming time so I would make about $600/day X 4 = 2400 if I just worked on more programming work in a month instead of writing these posts/emails. Instead I make about $50 – 80 in membership fees depending on what membership level people have signed up for.

I haven’t even accounted for the time I spend reading the book for the month in that number because I’m going to read anyway, but it only gets worse if I include more aspects of what it takes to run the newsletters.

I’m only getting one video a month out on YouTube at the moment and that’s paying as much as my newsletters so if I was only looking at this as something that needed to reward me financially I’d do more videos, specifically people love to watch software reviews so I’d review task managers, note tools, and a bunch of other stuff I’m not interested in, but would make money. Instead I follow my whims on YouTube and my channel does what it does and I don’t worry about it.

Are they worth it creatively?

Hell yes. Writing well is not a genetic gift, it’s a skill that you have to hone¹. Having a weekly schedule to hit for writing means that I dedicate time to writing and thinking every week to make sure that I have something worthwhile to write about. It means that I read books with a mind to find insights I can share and connect to other things I’ve read.

Needing to produce something regularly helps my learning practice.

I’ve been thinking about the money

I admit, I don’t need a single penny I earn from my memberships, YouTube, book sales or any side income I have. I’m a well paid programmer, but the programming sphere has been very volatile lately. Lots of layoffs going around and jobs are thin on the ground. Plus, it’s been years since I’ve truly loved my programming job.

At times it’s interesting, and it pays well. It’s flexible enough that I can be there for my kids, train to race bicycles, and earn enough money to save for retirement and have nice things at home. It’s just a job though, which isn’t a bad thing.

Given the uncertainty in my field I’ve wondered about how to earn more from my newsletter/writing. First, I could push my books more and sell them through Kit. I’ve got my Analogue Productivity book for sale inside Kit but I haven’t pointed anyone at it ever. I need to get my other books into Kit so I can sell them. I could also push my courses more but I don’t.

In short, I’m a bad sales person which is why Steve asked me the question. He specifically said I don’t sell hard all the time which annoys him. While it may annoy people, it’s how a writer makes money.

As I stated in my 2024 stats post the most successful thing for me if I look at money has been my courses on Skillshare. It’s the same courses you get on my site, just hosted on Skillshare. The most popular course is Getting Started with Obsidian. All my courses earned just shy of $2500 USD last year.

Should you start a newsletter?

As with everything, it depends. People are still more likely to read a newsletter because it’s in a high priority spot…their inbox. If you grow slowly then people stay engaged long-term, but that also means you grow the money side slowly.

If you want to earn money in any of the creative fields then YouTube or newsletters are likely the spot to be. Blogs on their own rarely earn lots of money, but then again only a very few people earn lots of money from a newsletter or YouTube. As I stated earlier, if it was simply about money I’d spend no time on the newsletters and focus all my time on software reviews.

People love software reviews because they think that some tool will magically fix their broken system. A new task manager feels awesome because you finally say no to all the shit you were never going to do anyway. A new note tool feels great because you only have a few notes and no clutter.

If you import the same system into a new tool, you’ll still have a broken system in a few months and the tool will suck just like your last one did.

I only do software reviews when I’m looking for something new. I’ll likely look at Linux audio players in a bit since I’m digging through what I’ll use. I’ll review the read later service from Readwise because I’m trying to figure out what I like.

Are you just going to keep going?

So Steve, if you want to start sharing content the best thing to think about is, what if you spend 16 years writing 3600 posts and only have a few thousand dollars a year to show for it²? Because that’s possibly what’s in your future unless you take the hard sell tactics of others that you don’t like. It’s where I’m at.

I’d love to see a day when I can read books and write about the topics that interest me, but I’m doubtful that day will ever come. I could make it happen if I did all the sales tactics I see pushed online, but I don’t subscribe to any of those newsletters because they feel like shit to read.

I write because I have thoughts and need to get them out. I don’t do it for the money, I do it for me. I do it for the 3 – 4 emails I get a month from someone who says I helped them have some breakthrough in their notes/reading/writing and sometimes in their life. None of these people have paid me and almost none of them ever will give me a penny, but that email does make me feel like me working out my meandering thoughts for others to read brings some value into the world.

If you want to start a content business to make money then you have to treat it like a business. You have to sell and run A/B tests to see what sells best. You have to push your products and memberships regularly.

All the people you hear about that “just wrote” and then got book deals are the outliers. For every 1 you read about there are 10,000+ that did the same thing on similar topics but didn’t have the luck to reach that one key reader that helped put them on the map and turned them into the superstar that does get a book deal.

1. How to Write a Lot Loc 38 ↩︎
2. Yes these oddly specific numbers match my life. ↩︎