As a content creator and online brand builder, one of the most challenging considerations is how to price your products. In the context of this conversation, I’m going to focus on a particularly interesting conversation specific to adding a paywall to your Substack newsletter. What I find a bit strange about Substack is the large number of people who are on the platform and are vehemently opposed to monetizing their work. The stated goal of Substack as I perceive it is to help creators earn income through their digital publications. The main way Substack helps to facilitate that is through providing a straightforward way for platform users to paywall a portion of their content. This hesitation, disdain and dislike of paywalling content is actually at the heart of this conversation. If you’re a creator who is considering putting a paywall on your content, how do you deal with the unexpected headwinds on the platform. Headwinds that are specific to other creators dealing with their own subconscious biases about making money online. For the past 3 years I’ve monetized my Substack and I’m breaking down how to decide if you should add a paywall to your Substack? I won’t judge you if you’re working through this decision. All of us have bills to pay.
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Creators Getting Paid
Helping Black, Brown and Allied Content Creators who’re creating spaces, services and communities that otherwise wouldn’t exist strategize how to earn money with their work. This is done through sharing case studies, conversations and tools developed by other creators who are earning money serving similar communities.
Start using the Creators Getting Paid resource today to build a better brand. Head to creatorsgettingpaid.com/newsletter to start learning from successful content creators how to better monetize your brand. I also go deeper in depth about paywalling your Substack in this week’s newsletter.
Show Notes
For some types of content, there’s a very real conversation that needs to be had about access. In this moment in time, in particular in the United States, I think that news focused Substacks have to deal with the most challenging internal conversations around access to information. Especially as we navigate through a heavily post truth world. Paywalling a newsletter means that you the editor, writer and curator of content for your Substack have to think hard about the following:
- What is your why? Wanting to make money is 100% ok. Working on a Substack is work. I haven’t purchased eggs for the past month. Things are expensive. If a creator tells me that they would like to make money or need to make money-I get it.
- Transitioning into Learning How to Make Predictable Income-Some creators need to start with a low-ticket offer that provides high quality content. This is a skillset that’s honed over time. Then once you get over your fear of asking for $5, $10 or whatever it is you’ve valued your newsletter at-that creates a mental muscle around understanding the value of the work that you’re doing. Shifting to a predictable income model as a digital content creator is a huge shift in your business. Mentally. By the way, if you’re solely focused on making money via subscriptions. It’s going to stress you out.
There are so many ways you can make money with your newsletter on both sides of the paywall. You can sell workshops, focus on affiliate marketing, optimize your newsletter for sponsorships, collaborate with brands for partnerships, sell books and more. If you leave with one thing from this podcast episode is that you must monetize both sides of your Substack platform.
What Purpose Does Adding a Paywalling Do?
I batch a lot of my newsletter content. What does that mean? I spend weeks building out a back catalog of content so that I’m always ahead of my publishing schedule. Why do I do that? So that I can make moves within my brand strategically. What is the purpose of adding a paywall actually do for you the creator and for your audience?
- A paywall acknowledges TO YOU (The Creator) the amount of time it takes to thoughtfully put something together a piece of content that is entertaining, helpful, interesting and helpful to the audience that you serve. It’s NOT easy to publish each week, to add bonus content, to connect with your audience and navigate through the emotion of working on a creative project.
- A paywall acknowledges TO YOUR AUDIENCE that your efforts have a monetary value. There’s a cost of time, energy and effort to design and publish a newsletter. Most people aren’t independently wealthy. Unless they are getting grants or are earning a significant amount of income from other activities-eventually your favorite content creator has to earn enough income to at least pay for the time that it takes to do the work.
- A paywall forces The Creator to figure out what content goes where? What should you build into a course? What content could go into a book? How creative can you be with your behind the paywall content?
- A paywall also sorts out your audience for you-Who are your super fans? Who are your ride or die folks? Who are the community members that you can connect with offline?
Why Are You Deciding to Paywall?
What is the purpose of your newsletter as it relates to your overall online brand?
- Is your newsletter THE business?
- Is your newsletter a list building exercise?
- Is your newsletter a top of funnel play? By this what I mean is are you trying to get your ideal person to familiarize themselves with your brand and into your brand eco-system by sharing helpful content.
- Is your newsletter a portfolio piece? There’s a creator on Substack who published a stunningly beautiful coffee table book and collaborated with other Substackers.
- Or, is your newsletter designed as a way to build influence in a space?
Your newsletter can also function as several of these areas of purpose and interest.
Monetization Strategy and Paywalls
I’m going to talk about this more in this week’s newsletter. However, I would like to address a couple of areas of friction.
- Asking for $5 a month for your newsletter as long as you’re creating a well-thought out and cohesive piece of work that does what it says it will do-is NOT a big ask. Why I do say this? I buy a bougie cup of coffee several times a week and it’s usually at least $5. I also get charged around that amount or a little more for Cloud Storage, Hulu, to read my favorite romances.
- For context-If you’re in a small to mid-sized city or larger-A one day side-hustle will more than pay for an annual newsletter subscription. How do I know? I’ve worked quick one day side-hustles to pay for this type of resource. I’ve done event work, brand ambassador gigs, surveys, research studies, mock juries-you get my point. There are two questions that you should be thinking about. The first is: Does my community member want the end result provided by my newsletter badly enough to pay for it? The second question you should be asking is-what are YOU paying for? What has motivated you to say “Yes” to a newsletter? If you’re not paying for a newsletter-why not? How can you ask people to pay for something you’re not paying for?
- As a content creator I do think that it’s important to build equity into your busines model. For every Founding and Annual Paid Membership, I gift a paid subscription. The key is that someone has to email the request. I share that in every edition of the newsletter. And I’ve also gifted subscriptions when community member’s personal situations have changed. It all balances out over time.
- My Substack is important for many reasons but I think that having one or more high ticket offers separate from your Substack is important because those high ticket offers take pressure off of you to convert your free subscribers to paid.
- There should be an offer of some sort in every single newsletter. It doesn’t have to be a hard sell.
Finally, you do not have to ask permission from other people to get paid for your work. Also, stop apologizing for monetizing your work. Every bricks and mortar business you go to is charging money for the products that they’re selling. Why can’t you?
Thank You
For listening to this episode. If you’re looking for a keynote speaker or workshop facilitator for your next event-please keep me in mind. I love working with groups and supporting the missions of aligned organizations. Or, are you looking for guidance on how to produce a podcast for your organization? Podcast production is one of my favorite ways to help an organization grow its brand. Email me at: th*****************@***il.com so that we can schedule a time to discuss your needs and see if I would be a good fit.
