Money Mindset on Substack
Identity, money, Bestselling Substacks - some thoughts, tips and advice...
“Running a Substack is a lot of work. Do not put pressure on Substack to pay all your bills. Treat it like a part-time job, because that's what it is and it can be gruelling at times”.
Emma Gannon on her newsletter ‘The Hyphen’ which brings in a 6 figure income.
Good morning all, how are you today?
I’m SO super excited to explore money mindset for Substack in our members call next week. Before I start I want to congratulate
who is one of the first few of my members to hit Substack Bestseller1. Congrats Lindsay - you deserve it all and more. 🤩I wanted to open this topic up for discussion with you ahead of my members call on the same topic next week. I’m feeling quite firey about this - ask me why in the comments… 🔥
One thing I’ve learnt about our mindset on money is that it’s unique and learnt behaviour we embody and share. It’s also something we can change.
Those things said, I’ve tried to impart wisdom and knowledge from a measured and possible place in this article…
Online income - where it all started…
aka - when we were sailing in very different sized boats in the same Ocean.
I want you to know that I sold my VERY first online product (an ebook) in the pandemic in 2020. Just four years ago.
It was called ‘The Artist Boat’ and was an exploration of how creativity impacts our wellbeing. It was inspired by Julia Cameron (of course) and about my work as a multi art form Creative Producer.
It introduced the concept of visual journalling to explore our conscious and subconscious and was rooted in the mentoring work I’d been doing for over 15 years. It introduced creative people to process, planning and strategy and gave them a welcome structure in a sea of uncertainty.
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When I put the ebook out on instagram (2k at the time) and on my humble mailing list of 200 people, I had no idea what would happen. I didn’t know how to write marketing copy, I didn’t know who it was for really, honestly I was just excited to try it as an experiment.
With all my events cancelled it was the perfect time even if I was in the throws of pregnancy and morning sickness - I wanted to know if it really was as easy as people were making out…
So I did it, launched a thing and the e-book sold around 30 copies. It felt a HUGE success. I made a few hundred pounds and I knew; ok this is how you make and sell things online; you just make it happen. I’m still so proud of making it happen. The money from the book didn’t pay a monthly mortgage payment but it taught me so much about the process of making something, marketing it and selling it. About customer service and delivery and about waking up and watching emails ping in to tell me I’d made money while I slept.
In business, you learn through the process of doing things and then you make it happen again if you enjoy it! It’s that simple…
Paid Subs on Substack
Taking the decision making out of it…
Here on Substack, we are given six decisions to make when it comes to whether to run a paid newsletter/ membership;
Whether to go paid
When to go paid
How much to charge monthly
How much to charge annually
How much to charge for a founding membership (you can change the name of this now).
How we are going to grow and manage our paid subscriptions.
Here’s a rattle through my process… I turned on paid straight away which was for me the best thing I could have done as 3 people paid straight away.
This showed me two things;
That people wanted to pay for my writing.
That it was easy for them to do that through Substack.
Then I decided;
“…ok I’ll write two paid posts a month and one free. Easy!”
Then I repeated that and added in some extra resources and workshops because it made sense to blend an arm of my business with my first Substack over at
Then (and this is the important bit), I focussed on two things; continuing to deliver what I’d said I would and increasing the number of members to make sure I felt properly paid for my time. I didn’t and don’t have goals further than that there.
My decision to put the monthly prices up was to encourage people to pay annually - I’m in a year long experiment of doing that; I’ll let you know what I think at the end of the year. People continue to sign up monthly and annually and usually for something specific I offer them.
I take care of them when they do and offer them bonuses and two free months to
. Yes I could combine all of my offers but is my business, Substack isn’t - it’s just a project that takes up 75% of my time! 😅
Who charges what and for what Substack posts + goodies?
I’ve been here since April 2022 and I need you to know that there was a time that VERY few people were offering any workshops/ extras and videos here. It was all writers writing behind a pay wall. Lots of incredibly talented writers. For me, video was the pivot that made for a level playing field because I love space holding and so do lots of my colleagues.
The culture was; charge $7 or £5 a month for your writing and that’s it. When I started to research what was possible and who was charging what I realised there’s a real game of ‘volume’ going on.
If you charge £3.50 a month and have 100 people a month pay that for a year you make £4200 per year. 2
If you charge £7 a month and have 100 people a month pay that for a year you make £8400 per year.
If you have 1000 people paying those amounts that’s £42,000 and £84,000 and that’s where you have a very healthy salary (replacement)? from a newsletter and not a side hustle. To make £100k on here you need at least £8333 coming in every month.
There is lots of nuance in this, because there are annual subs which tend to be cheaper, founding members (who pay more) and coupons and discounts at play.
However, you can clearly see the pull to keep growing your newsletter/ Substack publication.
People who arrived and made it a ‘no brainer’ in terms of value to pay for their newsletter got more subscribers more quickly. Writers will tell you they make way more here than they do writing books but writing books doesn’t pay “well”. 3
Anyone who has made it complex, hard to understand or difficult to make decisions on their offer got less paid subscriber support. Some left, gave up or went back to doing something creative ‘for free’ because it fed them more than the ££.
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£100k a year - will we all ‘get there?’
I always ask my members about their goals for Substack. It’s so important to be clear here. I love and encourage those who want £100k or $100 Substacks - I also tell them the strategy to work out if it’s possible.
I help folks with growth strategies 1-2-1 and talk about it the difference between paywalled content and free subscriber growth in the Sparkle audits too.
Realistically? No, I don’t believe all of us will grow a 6 figure Substack and I don’t think we should all be aiming for that in a million years, here’s why;
Talent - we share this platform with some of the best writers of our time; they write for a living and have pivoted to offer something very special to their ‘fans’ - the important thing is here they have ‘fans’. Check out the explore page and the literature category to see what I mean. You can create a fan network of course but none of that happens over night… usually…
Diversity - there are new writers and creators coming in every day which means more people ‘figuring it out at in the early stages’. People enjoy earning money here - it’s easy and a bonus and they aren’t looking to grow to the dizzy heights necessarily. It’s a place to play and also a horrible place of comparison if you go there.
Churn rate/ growth - Readers swap and change their subscriptions often (sometimes every few months sometimes every year). Churn rate is ‘normal’ but for this to work out for your publication, you have to focus on volume. Substack say anywhere between 1-10% of readers will convert to being paid subs/ members. When you know this you know exactly where you are.
Work - There is more ‘customer service’ than you might think once you hit around 100 paid subs if you offer a ‘membership’ like I do. There are quite honestly, much easier ways to make money online. If you know anything about business you know way more about this point already…
Subscriptions are infinite - there is no start and end point - read that again! 4
Now, you know I am almost never negative here but I do want to be realistic.
I have seen people put energy here because they think they should or it might be fun or they are exploring what’s possible. I have seen people be massively distracted by Substack. There are a lot of tools here, there are dashboards that lasso our eyeballs and pull on our innate need to be seen in the world.
We need to check our ego here - having an online presence of any sort can inflate your ego; you feel good, you try new and more things - that’s all fine if it’s a hobby, now there’s a dopamine cycle - how fun.
But where is the money coming from and how much are you making? How does it fit in with you wider goals?
How are you holding yourself steady?
Where has this reflection become a hyper reality of your identity - what’s real and true for you and you alone?
It’s really no good at all to get addicted to the way people interact with your online hologram if you’re looking to grow your business and/ or a best selling Substack, you have to be smart with your time.
Now that all that’s out of the way, let me ask you what do you really want and know is possible for you with paid subs and money deep down?
Do you want to make money, be paid for your art, grow an audience for your words, explore what’s possible in community behind a paywall, write a best selling Substack?
There are no ceilings in creativity.
Let’s discuss in the comments with kindness and love,
Claire
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PS - My pal
has published the results of her incredibly helpful survey in service to our journey here around paid subs. You can read it here.PPS - details of next week’s members call on money mindset are here. If you want to buy my NEW Substack 0-£10k programme it’s on special for the rest of this month and you get instant access to all the resources to help you plan and grow a £10k Substack. It’s £120.
Substack bestseller gives you a badge to display at 101 paid subs, 1001 paid subs etc.
Less fees (Substack take 10% and stripe take processing fees too).
(Usually) as is the arts and cultural sector (unless your famous) which I still work in as well as running my Substacks. I love my commissioned work, I’m passionate about it - it’s also made me feel fed up and burnt out many times.
Thank you so much for writing about this, Claire. I try not to focus on how much time I devote to my substack compared to how much I get paid - my hourly wage is probably mere cents! But, of course, it’s about way more than dollar signs anyway. I’ve also been paying close, uncomfortable attention to how much of my identity feels wrapped up in my work here.
Similar to you, I keep monthly subs relatively high (and annual subs low). This is in part because I share vulnerable content and feel gross when people subscribe to read one article then duck out (not that this happens tons, but still). I want to "reward" people who commit for a year.
In WTAF news: I recently had someone (a free subscriber, no less) pop into my substack and shame me for charging anyone anything because I write about addiction recovery and "should" be giving that away as an act of service. I wrote a rather spicy essay in response that’s coming next week.
The harsh truth, and I apply this to myself, is that not everything written is of top quality. I aspire to that—and whenever I publish I think I’ve written something worth sharing—but when I look at some of my writing in hindsight, its shortcomings are evident.
I try to focus on publishing pieces that are truly valuable. Then I hope that I’ll get subscribers. I recognize it’s a bit naive, but I’d rather put 95% of my energy into improving the quality of what I’m writing and 5% into trying to grow my subscribers than 50/50 or some other combination that might produce faster growth.