[HN Gopher] My newsletter is making $2k per month with 7k subscr...
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My newsletter is making $2k per month with 7k subscribers - AMA
Hi HN! Roughly two years ago when the pandemic had people shifting
to a WFH environment, I started a twice-weekly newsletter called
Workspaces that gives readers a behind the scenes tour of their
favorite entrepreneurs, designers, developers, etc. new desk
setups. Growth has remained consistent week to week, relying on
the featured guests Twitter presence to help spread the word. I
have featured 175 workspaces to date (70+ more in the backlog) and
have grown the newsletter to 7,000 subscribers while maintaining a
>50% open rate. I published the fist 117 editions of the
newsletter without a sponsor. I had inbound requests but I was
focused on growing the subscriber base as much as possible. With
the new year, I shifted this focus slightly and began offering one
sponsor slot per newsletter edition. Since then, the newsletter
has been sold out weekly and the price has risen from the initial
$150 to $250, earning $2,000 per month from sponsorships. I think
it's important to note that this was not an immediate cash cow...
sending out 117 editions of a newsletter without receiving a dime
can be draining. You have to truly enjoy the content you are
putting out (I do!). However, I think this shows that consistency
rules and as long as you continue to show up, put out great content
and iterate based on feedback you will continue to see your
newsletter grow and ultimately the money will come. Happy to
answer any questions around newsletter growth, finding sponsors,
etc!
Author : ryangilbert
Score : 110 points
Date : 2022-07-28 14:57 UTC (2 hours ago)
| ativzzz wrote:
| How do you reach out to people to get them to be on your
| newsletter? I imagine now that you have a following it's easier,
| but what motivates people to actually say "yes", especially when
| you were starting out?
|
| And somewhat related because you don't do this, but for
| newsletters that are more "news aggregator" types that collect
| various blog posts/info, do they typically reach out to the
| authors before including the links in the newsletter asking for
| permission?
| ryangilbert wrote:
| Early on it was all Twitter DMs. I would DM handfuls of
| designers, developers, founders, etc each day. Once I had a few
| published spaces this became easier as I could quickly link to
| an example of what I was looking for.
|
| Nowadays, it's mostly inbound requests to be featured. Every
| time I send a new edition out I get 1-2 requests from readers
| to be featured as well. This has led to the current backlog of
| 70+ spaces that I am currently working through.
|
| Re the news aggregator type newsletters... I'm honestly not
| 100% positive. However, Workspaces as a whole and also specific
| editions have ended up in some of these and I was only notified
| after the fact (not a big deal IMO).
| cjrp wrote:
| Supply and demand, time to start charging people to be
| featured ;)
| ryangilbert wrote:
| Haha thought about doing that for offices/companies that
| are hiring!
|
| Haven't fully thought out how that would look but it's
| definitely interesting...
| jdmoreira wrote:
| How do you monetize? Sponsors? Affiliate links?
| ryangilbert wrote:
| A mix of both.
|
| I sell one sponsor slot per edition. The current rate is $250
| and I send 8 newsletters per month. This slot is sold out
| months in advance and the price should probably be bumped up.
|
| I have Amazon affiliate links where it makes sense on the blog
| posts themselves but this only generates a couple hundred on
| the best months. I should also invest more time into this going
| forward.
| silicon2401 wrote:
| So to be clear, your email newsletter costs nothing to
| subscribers, but your income is through selling that sponsor
| slot? That's interesting. I wouldn't have imagined there's so
| much money to make in email newsletters from advertisements
| michaelbuckbee wrote:
| Have you looked at any of the email newsletter sponsor
| marketplaces? I'm asking as your sponsor prices seem a bit low (I
| would guess you could probably get nearly double what you are).
| ryangilbert wrote:
| I did awhile ago and found that many of them charged on the
| publisher side (and a hefty % at that) so I was instantly
| turned off.
|
| I have enjoyed working with sponsors who read the newsletter
| themselves too. It hasn't been too much work (only publishing
| twice per week).
|
| My main concern when raising prices is always if that will
| create a gap in sponsors. I'd rather have every slot booked at
| a lower price than have gaps at a higher price. This is less
| about the actual money hitting my bank account and more about
| how potential sponsors would view this. If they see gaps they
| may conclude that the price isn't worth it...
| stevesearer wrote:
| I can vouch for not being reliant on ad marketplaces and
| instead having personal contact with your advertisers.
|
| One way to increase your fees is to keep pricing the same for
| existing advertisers for a while and charge a higher rate to
| new advertisers. As you fill in spots with higher priced ads
| you can then transition older customers to the new rates.
| ryangilbert wrote:
| I like this approach!
|
| Also - I've found that the personal contact with sponsors
| has made them likely to rebook or simply book additional
| slots up front.
| ilamont wrote:
| I have a targeted newsletter as well with about 8000 unique opens
| per week (out of a total active list of 30k) which I am using to
| boost sales on a Shopify store, and I also re-purpose the content
| as blog posts. I have also been thinking about sponsorships but
| do not know where to start. What are the requirements of the
| sponsors in terms of graphics, text, placement, links, tracking,
| and analytics? Do they demand email addresses of your readers?
| ryangilbert wrote:
| I start all of the sponsor slot with "A Message From sponsor
| name".
|
| After that they provide me with ~250 or so characters of text
| (not too strict on this) as well as text + link for a CTA
| button.
|
| Outside of that, there are no demands from their end. Some ask
| for the Click Rate after the fact and some don't. If they ask I
| give it to them.
|
| The main back and forth with sponsors is that when they book
| multiple slots they often want to test multiple versions of
| copy and/or CTA button.
| thenerdhead wrote:
| What do your readers hope to get out of the newsletter? Are they
| looking for inspiration in their own WFH setups or looking to
| mimic what successful people do? It seems like a "Tools of Titans
| but for WFH setups" Do you have any plans for your future growth,
| or just seeing where it takes you at this point?
| ryangilbert wrote:
| I think it's a mix of things.
|
| I definitely think some readers are hoping to get some sort of
| inspiration for their own setups as they either upgrade or
| begin to WFH more consistently.
|
| I think another group of readers simply like the voyeuristic
| nature of peaking into their peers workspaces to see how they
| might compare.
|
| Re future growth... adding a nice visual site to complement the
| newsletter soon. Very soon!
| omarhaneef wrote:
| This was much more interesting than I expected.
|
| I have always been interested in how other people work,
| prioritize, think, their workflow and tools, and this really
| spoke to that interest.
|
| Here were some surprises:
|
| -- I was much more interested in their software than hardware.
|
| -- I was most interested in their physical set up. This told me
| more about workflow than I imagined.
|
| -- Everyone has a camera and mic these days -- table stakes --
| but people had much fancier camera/mic setups than I do.
|
| -- I also have a pad and pen. I was interested to see some people
| had set up a mini-teleprompter by putting their pad next to their
| screen.
| ryangilbert wrote:
| Good to know about the software vs hardware angle... I wonder
| how many readers feel the same? I'll look to add a poll in the
| newsletter soon to find out! :)
| mouzogu wrote:
| people are paying $250 per month for a newsletter about wfh desk
| setups? not to be jest but i did understand correctly...?
| chrisfrantz wrote:
| Advertisers, newsletter is free
| ryangilbert wrote:
| Sponsors are paying $250 to get their message in front of
| 7,000+ subscribers who are interested in wfh desk content.
|
| The individual readers subscribe for free.
| [deleted]
| xrd wrote:
| Advertisers are paying to sponsor the newsletter, to reach the
| readers. The readers are not paying anything (it appears). The
| author went with a sponsorship model.
| darushimo wrote:
| Perhaps that's the price for placing an ad, and the news letter
| goes out w/ 2 ads, weekly?
| ryangilbert wrote:
| Exactly! Sorry if that wasn't clear in the original post.
| mouzogu wrote:
| thanks for clarifying
| dom9301k wrote:
| Hi, is it possible to see a sample of the mail?
| ryangilbert wrote:
| Of course!
|
| Past examples can be seen https://www.workspaces.xyz/ and
| https://twitter.com/workspacesxyz
| boplicity wrote:
| What's your process for securing sponsors for the newsletter? How
| is the sponsor slot integrated into the email?
| ryangilbert wrote:
| Every month or so I add a short blurb at the beginning of a
| newsletter asking for sponsors and laying out my current
| metrics. This always leads to multiple readers replying with
| interest.
|
| The typical sponsor has gone on to book 4 slots at a time (I do
| not offer a bulk discount - this is just what they tend to do).
|
| The slot is integrated right after the intro blurb and before
| the guest's content. I offer them a headline, some text (not
| too strict on character count as long as it isn't crazy) and a
| CTA button.
| solumunus wrote:
| > I think it's important to note that this was not an immediate
| cash cow...
|
| Is it a cash cow?
|
| Sorry I really should have something better to contribute!
| ryangilbert wrote:
| $2,000 with $0 in expenses... maybe "cash cow" isn't the
| correct term but it's definitely not too shabby for something
| that was set up in 5 minutes ;)
| sschueller wrote:
| "$0 in expenses", he has to put work in it. I would define
| any labor to be an expense. It is definitely not "free"
| money.
| [deleted]
| tomschwiha wrote:
| Investing 20 hours for $100 "self earned cash" on an own
| project feels somehow better than working 2 hours on a
| strangers project for $100.
| ISL wrote:
| The expense was the labor!
| atleta wrote:
| How much time do you put in into each edition (or during a
| month) on average?
| halotrope wrote:
| Damn right!
| ryanjamurphy wrote:
| I am suspicious of this project: the real goal is clearly to get
| people to clean their desks. And it is effective!
| ryangilbert wrote:
| Haha some people have actually said no because previous guests
| had too clean of desks!
|
| I promise that I welcome all workspaces - clean and dirty!
| stevesearer wrote:
| Fellow workspace design publisher here
| (https://officesnapshots.com) - Nice work!
|
| I started a home office site ~13 years ago and wasn't able to
| ever make it happen so I am glad to hear that someone has cracked
| the code.
| heffer wrote:
| If it's any consolation I used your site at the beginning of
| the pandemic to get a photo from our office to use as a virtual
| background. You know, back when virtual backgrounds were new
| and it was still funny to fool people into thinking you're in
| the office (which was closed).
| booboofixer wrote:
| I've been subscribed for a couple months and it's been great. A
| lot more signal-to-noise than most subreddits on the topic. Don't
| lose/change the format for most of your newsletters, it's great
| as is.
| ryangilbert wrote:
| I appreciate that!
| andrewmcwatters wrote:
| In building products, no matter what your size, I have noticed
| that you must consistently market. There's no letting up.
|
| Often times people talk about products that create promoters and
| are good enough that you have users that eventually promote the
| good for you, but in my experience this is exceptionally rare.
|
| Growth also comes in bursts based on advertising events. That may
| be, for example, by social media presence with responding to
| topics on threads that are relevant to your product.
|
| I am curious about your general experiences, and if they align
| with mine.
| ryangilbert wrote:
| Totally agree! Consistency is the most important lesson in all
| of this.
|
| I didn't make a single dollar until the 118th edition. 117
| editions of doing it simply because I (and the readers) enjoyed
| this little hobby.
|
| It also took over 400 days for the newsletter to get its first
| 1,000 subscribers. It would have been very easy to give up on
| the project in the early days when I wasn't seeing a ton of
| growth.
|
| Consistency >
| keiferski wrote:
| Kudos!
|
| Although it's an entirely different type of content/business,
| this reminds me of _Humans of New York_. [1] There seems to be a
| broad desire for simple, consistent content about the lives of
| everyday people. I think it may be a reaction to the increasing
| unreality of most larger media outlets, which have become very
| contrived and overly-optimized.
|
| If I were looking to start a newsletter, I would pick a similar
| everyday topic.
|
| 1. https://www.humansofnewyork.com
| pradn wrote:
| There has also been plenty of criticism of HONY:
| https://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/humans-of-new-yo...
| ryangilbert wrote:
| Agreed!
|
| I think the consistent and predictable content is also what
| leads to the high engagement around it.
|
| You don't have to worry about opening the newsletter not
| knowing if you will need to set aside 30 minutes to read an
| essay. Each newsletter is very visual and can be read in just a
| couple of minutes.
| ryanjamurphy wrote:
| Yeah, I think you've hit the bullseye on a sweet-spot for
| newsletter content. You can glean a lot, quickly, from a
| photo of someone's workspace.
|
| Congrats on the success!
| ryangilbert wrote:
| Thanks! I appreciate it!
| jhickok wrote:
| Oh nice, a Milwaukee guy! Cool newsletter, for one reason or
| another I have always been interested in desk setups.
| ryangilbert wrote:
| Milwaukee!
|
| Yeah... when people started tweeting pictures of their spaces I
| was instantly drawn to them for my own inspiration. I figured
| others might be too!
| novantadue wrote:
| neat. I'd like to see this for non-computer setups as well:
| artist studio, musician studio, workworkers garage, writers
| setup. Please drop a link if you know of one.
| ryangilbert wrote:
| Same! I have featured a couple musicians and they were well
| received! I hope to branch out more with this and other sorts
| of creators soon.
|
| https://www.workspaces.xyz/p/161-diana-chow
|
| https://www.workspaces.xyz/p/139-travis-andrews
| didgetmaster wrote:
| It looks like you are up to 175 posts of various workspaces. I
| didn't look at each one, but all the ones I saw were nicely
| staged, organized workspaces. Did you get any submissions for
| 'real workspaces' with stacks of books, papers all over the
| place, and sticky-notes all around the monitors? If you did, did
| you reject them?
|
| I too, have a newsletter that I started last year about data
| management. I only have about a hundred subscribers so far, but I
| am trying to grow it with interesting articles about how
| computers organize, process, and analyze all kinds of data.
| https://didgets.substack.com/
|
| If I get a few thousand subscribers like you, I might look for
| sponsors too.
| ryangilbert wrote:
| I don't reject them for being "messy"! I didn't anticipate so
| many people cleaning their desks off before their feature but
| that is what many have opted to do.
|
| Here's some "real" ones:
|
| https://www.workspaces.xyz/p/106-michele-hansen
|
| https://www.workspaces.xyz/p/070-alex-wilhelm
| ddon wrote:
| How one starts with a newsletter? how did you attract your first
| 200 subscribers?
| ryangilbert wrote:
| Great question!
|
| Early on I made it a conscious effort to feature guests with
| larger followings than me. My hunch (which turned out to be
| correct) was that after the guests took the time to provide the
| content they would be very willing to share it with their
| networks.
|
| Once the newsletter went out, I'd share the content on Twitter
| and tag the guest. 99% of guests go on to retweet or share in
| their own way after this.
| awillen wrote:
| How did you get those guests? I'm curious what your pitch is
| - it seems like a significant amount of work for them to
| provide pictures, identify their stuff and answer questions.
| Do they do it just because people love to share, or is there
| something else to it?
| ryangilbert wrote:
| This is the cold DM I tend to send:
|
| "Hi [name]! I publish a newsletter with x+ subscribers that
| highlights the workspaces of creative individuals and would
| love to include you. Let me know if you're at all
| interested! :)"
|
| I think the earliest guests simply liked the idea of the
| project and thought it would be fun to share the workspace
| that they spend hours of their day in.
|
| Now I think people agree because they are able to plug
| their projects in front of thousands of readers.
| yata69420 wrote:
| Does that work when "x" is 0? under 10? under 100?
|
| What was the first "x" you used in that message early on?
| How did you get _that_ many of initial subscribers?
|
| It seems to me that the only way to bootstrap something
| like this is with ad spend or viral social media content
| that inspires people to subscribe, but that's sort of a
| chicken and egg problem if you don't already have wide
| reach.
| ryangilbert wrote:
| I wouldn't give a # early on. Simply stated I was
| starting a newsletter that was highlighting creative
| workspaces.
|
| I think these early guests simply loved the idea of being
| able to share their space with their community so
| probably gathered all of the content for themselves and
| then had no issue sharing with me as well.
|
| I have never spent on ads or any sort of growth driver
| like that. All organic to this point.
| gavinray wrote:
| Wtf, people make money from Newsletters?!
|
| This is news to me.
| chasebank wrote:
| Morning brew has 4m subs and takes in ~$50m/yr revenue.
|
| https://www.cnbc.com/amp/2022/03/28/morning-brew-tops-4-mill...
| LegitShady wrote:
| anything that builds an audience large enough or targeted
| enough is a good vector for ads/sponsorship.
| ryangilbert wrote:
| Link for those curious: https://www.workspaces.xyz/
| O__________O wrote:
| Direct link to archive of past newsletters:
|
| https://www.workspaces.xyz/archive
| lawgimenez wrote:
| I am a subscriber since your early days and I enjoy every bit of
| your post.
| ryangilbert wrote:
| Thank you! Do you have a personal favorite?
| lawgimenez wrote:
| I remember I liked Gavin Nelson's workspace. It was so
| minimal for a designer his caliber. I enjoyed Alex Cornell's
| too.
|
| If I may suggest, it would be cool to include screenshots of
| their workspace on both desktop and phone. But may be that is
| too much to ask from them. Anyway thank you for creating a
| refreshing newsletter!
| ryangilbert wrote:
| Both great spaces!
|
| That's a good suggestion... I'll see if I can include that
| a bit going forward.
| KingOfCoders wrote:
| Some years ago in a startup we had a 10k subscriber newsletter
| for event locatios and made much much more per month than $2000.
| You might be too cheap.
| ryangilbert wrote:
| Been thinking it might be time to up prices! The slots have
| been sold out months in advance so it's hard to factor in
| growth when booking.
|
| I do pause new sponsors from time to time when I book out too
| far to give myself a chance to reevaluate.
| lprubin wrote:
| Did these sponsors just start contacting you inbound or did
| you do cold outreach?
| antidaily wrote:
| Anyone remember usesthis.com?
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