I’ve been working with a few newsletter writers who are in a period of transition. For nearly two years, they’d been writing multiple newsletters per week. Now, they’re all trying to figure out what to do next. Should they write more, or less? Should they change the way they monetize?
And my advice, over and over, has been simple: Whatever you do choose to do next, make it work for you.
There isn’t a single way forward here. There is no one-size-fits-all answer.
Which means that the right answer, for now, is the one that works for each of these writers. It’s up to them to figure out what they want to build and how they want to build it. There’s no need to build around someone else’s constraints or rules — they’re free to do what’s best for them.
Maybe that means, as I told one writer, telling their readers that they’d be taking a month off in December so they can get ahead for 2023 and pre-write the first few months of newsletters. “I’m allowed to do that?” they asked me.
You are, I told them, because this is all about making it work for you.
Maybe it means changing up the way they monetize. One writer’s been trying to push forward with a paid subscription, but it isn’t working as well as they hoped. But they do have a fairly large, engaged audience. Advertising might be a better way forward for them.
“Can I just cancel the paid offering and switch businesses models?” they asked me.
You can, I said, because if you’re going to make this work, it first needs to work for you.
What’s the best route forward? Figure out what’s best for you , and work from there.
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That’s a photo of a Brother typewriter, in teal and black. It comes via photographer Laura Rivera and Unsplash.