Elephants, female bank accounts and the woman behind the sparkle (this might surprise you) ✨
Doors open for my signature programme - 'Your Beautiful Digital Magazine on Substack' - the live build!!
Hi Sparklers,
This is awkward but yes it’s one of those - ‘I built a 6 figure Substack posts’ but before you tune out and unsubscribe, can I tell you my story and why I want to celebrate this milestone with you specifically? Yes you!
Substack (and you - my reader) has enabled me to build a 6 figure business. That happened in 2023/24 and then…
Last week I was merrying around my stripe account and there it was inside of Sparkle on Substack - £100,000 in revenue. ($140k USD) That means I run a 6 figure Substack which has been one of my goals since I started taking this online work thing seriously in 2021. 1
As you guys know, I don’t have a “big” social media presence. In fact I often feel like I missed the boat 🛶 over there. That or my neurodivergent brain wasn’t built for short form time sucks and formulas. Growing up with 90s magazine culture also told me I’m not attractive enough to be liked but let’s not get that deep today.
I’m not a celeb, I’m not a Sunday Times or New York Times best selling author - I didn’t strive for those things in this last period of my life. I didn’t know the Forbes under 30 list existed until I’d passed 30 - I was very happy in my little lane not striving for accolades. Winning awards was a total shock to be honest.
I am me
and just like you completely unique with perspectives, experiences and feelings.
I wanted to build an online business on my terms with multiple income streams and be a professional space holder for creatives who also write. I wanted this while making sure I was there for my neurodivergent kids so back in 2020, that’s what I set out to do.
For too long the hierarchical systems confused me - how was I supposed to pick my kids up from school AND further my career. How was I supposed to switch off and drive an hour across the county to support artists then drive back in the dark.2
How could I make enough money to live a beautiful life and stay sane and balanced in the process? ✨ ⚖️
What I had was kind of intangible - a twenty years in festivals and events, short term freelance projects, chasing invoices 3 months overdue, consulting, raising millions, producing, programming, developing audiences for some of the most exciting cultural work in the country and abroad rinse and repeat.
Here’s what I knew…
I knew how to build a room from the ground up, fill it with feelings, colours, people who would spark curiosity, joy and entertain and then fill it with an audience who left feeling better than they did when they came in.
I knew how to spark curiosity, earn attention from a paper flyer out in the wild, find the sweet spot in pricing.
I deeply understood how creative work finds its people. And more importantly that to survive it (especially in the North East of England) it needed to blast out of the echo-chamber of privilege and continually find, reach and convert new people.
Every time I was asked to run a venue (a £60k annual salary in the North East) something inside me told me no, Claire that’s not for you. I remember going for a coffee with the board of a local venue and it felt like I was in a fairytale - this is it I thought…this is what I am supposed to want and they are offering it to me without an interview.
The director had resigned (a protest resignation3 she said) and they asked if I’d run it…. my heart listened but my body ran a mile. The web was the wrong one to hold.
Anyone else’s intuition louder than a herd of elephants 🐘 (it’s my Human Design and actually elephants have a tonne to teach us about fierce loyalty in their matriarchal social circles)4
And then when I was pregnant with my daughter, all the festivals stopped. The theatres went dark, libraries locked their doors, the funders scrambled to know what to do with us all. Months of hard work disappeared from underneath us.5
But unlike my colleagues - I wasn’t sad - I was relieved. It felt like such a huge weight lifted - 2020 my life came into full technicolour and I was shown an incredible vision that felt scary but I knew it belonged to me.6
Then Substack entered the chat and I thought why are the grammar police telling everyone what they can and can’t be here?
I came to Substack in April 2022 with a small online following, 350 people on a mailing list, no “social proof” and no guarantee any of this would work. I had an embodied message - stay creative on Substack coupled with - let’s treat the work like the joyful party it is.
I showed up for it consistently.
In fact, I’ve published over 1000 posts now. But it’s not about volume, (I promise) - this is in my HD. I was writing THROUGH my experiences - a blend of teaching, sharing, space holding, tutorials…
The rest happened organically - I’ve had no viral moments.
19,000+ subscribers across two bestselling publications.
Over 500 paid members.
95,000 podcast downloads.
A business supporting folks all over the world turning over £100k a year.
Substack placing my publication in the top 6 on the entire platform.
Commissions from Celebrities, Journalists, Political lynch pins and creative organisations - Andersen Press, The Bright Agency, Creative UK, London Writer’s Salon, New Writing North, Tate Modern and Substack themselves.
Now… let’s get something crystal clear - I’m not telling you this to impress you - I find it REALLY hard to celebrate myself this way but it means something because I am proud of all of it…. 7.
I actually wonder how women feel congruent about self promo all the time because we see the 🦚 peacocking a lot here? Yes it feels masculine - is that wrong?
Maybe I’ll get there…maybe that’s an uplevel.
Anyway…
Here’s what I know…
…Making your Substack a ✨ BEACON✨ for your beautiful work in the form of a digital magazine you are proud of is BEAUTIFUL work…
I’m talking about all of this because I know something about you.
You are talented. Your voice is distinctive. You’ve had a career your proud of, done things people in other careers could never imagine. You’ve had WONDERFUL human experiences and others that shaped you. You have something underneath all of it genuinely worth sharing and a Substack that doesn’t quite reflect that yet.
Maybe the design feels a bit rough.
Maybe the organisation is scattered.
Maybe you keep meaning to sort the sections and tags, your hero post, your invites to your audience and you just haven’t got there.
Maybe you’ve promised yourself you’ll do it with a bigger audience - here’s the rub - the audience come in full force when you’re proud. I’ve seen it so many times - the energetics are 80% of the work here…
On that, maybe you open Substack and feel a little deflated, lost or confused instead of proud.
That gap between the quality of your thinking and the presentation of your publication is exactly what we do inside the live programme…
https://www.creativelyconscious.co.uk/yourbeautifulsubstackmagazine25
Build a Magazine on Substack - Your Beautiful Digital Magazine Live on Substack - here’s how it works…
Five weeks. 3-4 updated bite-size 10 min tutorials a week.
A live Q&A with me every Wednesday. The whole thing rebuilt from the ground up because Substack just changed their interface and most of what you’ve been told is now out of date.
I didn’t need a big audience to make this work. I didn’t need social proof or a marketing budget or a head start.
Neither do you.
Come build something ridiculously beautiful and learn the skills to reflect the confidence you are building in yourself for holding more. You deserve all of the beautiful audience alchemy and a Substack you are PROUD to share the link for with everyone in your life and all the people that haven’t found you yet but are going to LOVE you and deeply appreciate your work.
Claire
✨
P.S. I went live with Kristi Keller 🇨🇦 at Unstuck Substack to talk about some of the design changes Substack rolled out watch it here -
Sparkle on Substack Members here get more - 💎 Diamond members get the course INCLUDED in their membership with all updates for a year. (You can also pay £99 if you’d like to come to the live calls.) Members your 30% off coupon is in our chat. Can’t wait to get started with you!!!
The dashboard got close last year but then started going backwards and I refused to play the burn out game. My sustainable business and being well is more important than pushing. I will have hit combined Substack income of over $100k at some point last year but I don’t do maths across stripe accounts - I’ve got enough to do lol.
I really enjoy Anna Whitehouse and her Flex Appeal campain to feel witnessed in this space.
Yes these things go on in the arts world - it’s like one big dysfunctional family - it’s all about who you’re in favour with and can be incredibly frustrating and unprofessional at times.
Human Design classes for your Substack are included in the course and if you missed them live - you can catch up here.
We get to CELEBRATE the archive - we are not content monkeys!!
They say you are the sum of the five people you spend the most time with - when you connect to that who is telling you your dreams are impossible or don’t matter. Don’t play small - we have the internet and brilliant publishing tools - life is not a prison my love - BREAK OUT!
In therapy, I’ve learnt that it’s to do with being from a single parent family - fathers are supposed to see their daughters not leave them and never look back.
i was needing to read this more than I was able to realize it! ❣️
I think I need this 😊