How do you monetize your newsletter?

Hey Sarah,

There aren't any hard-and-fast rules for monetising a newsletter.
In fact, from my research i've found newsletters much smaller than yours who are making money from sponsored content and ad placements within their newsletters.

For example, take https://thecuriousbunch.xyz -
They have similar open rates to your newsletter, around half the audience size (650 readers or so), and seem to make about $30-$50 per issue selling some advertising space within their newsletter. I got this info by looking at their advertising page -

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/e/2PACX-1vTqMEqspqz4oNk5Pqz6SFmf5TcfjK5RF7D44dcjv__sE5IQnQVddXgHeSwmS4pOkOWGHGsrRN_vpHr0/pubhtml

As for how to monetise, there are a few methods -

• By far the most popular is selling some sort of advertising space within your newsletter itself, such as the example above. This can be in the form of larger advertisements (think a small image + title + information), or even just smaller classified listings (a short sentence or two).
• Another method is to have a secondary, paid newsletter for fans of your work who want more content / want to support you.
• Another method is to include affiliate links within your newsletter. For example, if you link to a product (for example, say it's on Amazon), rather than just linking to it directly, you might use an affiliate link and collect a small commission if anyone purchases from your link.
• A final method would be to simply accept donations (via Patreon, Ko-Fi etc.) so that people who really want to show you some support can do so.

**As you can see, you have a lot of options! **

Selling advertising is a popular method, for both big and small newsletters.
I think part of the reason is that it can be really simple to get started -

At the bottom of your next issue, you can just mention that you are looking for sponsors and provide an email, and you might find that people reach out to you.
There are also directories you can submit your newsletter to, such as https://letterwell.co/, which aim to link advertisers to appropriate newsletters.

Another thing you could try is adding an advertising / sponsorship page to your website (for example, www.theslice.co does this well, in my opinion).
I'm actually working on a tool to make this a bit easier, it's still very much a work-in-progress, but if you'd like some more info you can check it out - www.sponsaurus.com.

I noticed you didn't actually link your newsletter. Please do! I'd love to check it out, plus it would let me give you some more targeted advice.

Hope this helped, and please reach out / reply with any other questions you have.
Cheers!