Just found your website for the first time, and am super inspired by you building in public on multiple mediums. Was thinking of doing something similar myself, but wasn't sure there was demand for it on TikTok. Now I know that there is!
Keep up the great work!
Cross-promote / recommend with other newsletters.
Set up a referral program.
Repurpose and share your content everywhere.
Send it to all your family and friends and ask them to share.
Guest write for bigger publications.
Do a giveaway on social media.
Answer questions online (quora, reddit, twitter, etc) and link to your newsletter.
You can even still do paid ads if you set up Sparkloop's Upscribe or Beehiiv's Boosts.
I would actually disagree that podcasts are more successful than newsletters.
Sure, there are some big winners in the podcast world, but I think it's a lot easier to get a newsletter off the ground than a podcast because:
- Most people aren't going to be interesting enough to make people want to listen to it.
- It's easier to sell ads in newsletters.
- It's easier to promote (Meta/Twitter ads -> Sparkloop Upscribe -> repeat).
The result is a lot more successful mid-sized newsletters than podcasts.
I've been full-time freelance writing for 18 months now, and have worked up to a pretty good MRR (~$11k). Still, I don't love the work:
- Client work is often boring and repetitive, leading to a feeling of stagnation.
- Writing all day leaves you drained, making it difficult to do any personal writing.
- I got into freelancing because I wanted to be self-employed, but are you really self-employed if somebody is giving you task after task?
Overall, it's been a good experience and it's kept the lights on for the last year and a half, but now I'm trying to pivot into SaaS for a new challenge.