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6K subscribers & published 100 articles!

I reached two big milestones this week. Over 6K subscribers, and I just published the 100th article on my website since I started my little writing experiment back in the summer.

Here are some of the things I learned:

  • Consistency beats strategy. Picasso created more than 50,000 works of art, but only about a hundred are considered masterpieces. Following the Pareto rule, most of my traffic comes from a small subset of articles. To this day, I still have no idea if an article will perform well. It's a bit like fishing. By writing every day, I maximise the chances something will hit a chord.
  • You don't know what you don't know. Instead of spending lots of time researching the best ways to grow a newsletter, I just decided to get writing. I only did research when I was confused about something or felt like something could be optimised, on a "need to learn" basis.
  • Communities are powerful. I can attribute most of my success to sharing my articles on Hacker News, Twitter, and Indie Hackers. By contributing to these communities, I create a virtuous circle where I get feedback, improve my content, and attract more people with relevant interests.
  • Newsletters are making a comeback. Since I started my newsletter, I've discovered a whole world of indie writers, publishers, and content creators. I think there's a whole audience to serve there, driven by the passion economy, and indie hackers would do well to explore it.
  • It's okay to not have a plan. I didn't have one when I started this experiment. I just knew what I cared about and who I wanted to help. Now, I have a much clearer idea of where I want to go. But it only happened because I put the work in first to connect with the right audience.

I wrote a bit more about my experience here if you're interested, and I'm gifting a one-year Audible subscription to one random subscriber today at 4pm GMT / 8am PST through my newsletter to celebrate these milestones! ๐Ÿฅณ

  1. 6

    Great work! Just get started, do the work every day and things usually come up together :)

  2. 5

    Amazing work. Consistency + Hard Work beats talent.

    How's MailMunch by the way? Never heard of that one before. I don't understand their pricing very well as it's not subscriber-based like every other newsletter service. How much does it cost if you don't mind sharing?

    1. 3

      Thank you! I'm still using MailChimp at the moment. I want to switch over to Mailjet soon but I've been focusing on my writing. Currently costs $80/month which is way too expensive.

      1. 2

        Holy shit that's a lot. Thought u were using MailMunch which is what it shows on the subscriber popup form. FWIW Mailchimp is the most expensive one lol :)

        1. 1

          Ha I use MailMunch for the popup - it's a Wordpress plugin. Need to update the number of subscribers there!

  3. 4

    Congratulations! And, consistency beats strategy. I love that. Reminds me a bit of Seth Godin. Something like an article a day for 17 years

  4. 2

    Great work Anne-Laure and thanks for sharing your milestones!

    Your first point of consistency beats strategy resonates with me and reminds me of this note from the book Art & Fear by David Bayles and Ted Orland.

    Story from Art & Fear:

    The ceramics teacher announced on opening day that he was dividing the class into two groups. All those on the left side of the studio, he said, would be graded solely on the quantity of work they produced, all those on the right solely on its quality.

    His procedure was simple: on the final day of class he would bring in his bathroom scales and weigh the work of the โ€œquantityโ€ group: fifty pound of pots rated an โ€œAโ€, forty pounds a โ€œBโ€, and so on. Those being graded on โ€œqualityโ€, however, needed to produce only one pot โ€“ albeit a perfect one โ€“ to get an โ€œAโ€.

    Well, came grading time and a curious fact emerged: the works of highest quality were all produced by the group being graded for quantity. It seems that while the โ€œquantityโ€ group was busily churning out piles of work โ€“ and learning from their mistakes โ€“ the โ€œqualityโ€ group had sat theorizing about perfection, and in the end had little more to show for their efforts than grandiose theories and a pile of dead clay.

    1. 1

      Thanks so much, Chris! It's funny because I actually wrote about this story โ€” I love it and use it often as an example of increasing creativity by doing vs learning. Many thanks for your support!

  5. 2

    Amazing work, really admire your consistency - 100% the hardest part of content-based work

    1. 1

      Thank you! And totally agreed :)

  6. 2

    Is this the one you publish every day?

  7. 2

    Well done!!

  8. 2

    Congrats on hitting 6K subscribers and awesome work writing 100 articles (that's like a novel ๐Ÿ˜œ)

    I like your insights and anyone starting out should be inspired - you don't need the perfect blueprint or perfect skills. You just start doing things, correct course as needed and learn as you go. I'm finding that out after spending too long sitting on the sidelines waiting for everything to be exactly right.

    1. 1

      Thank you! This would be a novel indeed haha.

      I made the same mistake in the past, it's hard to get out of your comfort zone and just start doing things, but you learn so much faster this way.

  9. 1

    Great work!

  10. 1

    Awesome! Great to know it's okay to not have a plan. Knowing the "WHO" is key! You're inspiring me to be more public with my work too :)

  11. 1

    Fantastic work. Just what I needed to read. I'm pretty close to completion and release of software to help people accelerate and reinforce their learning. While excited about the product as I've come to rely on it myself to do my day job and personal projects, I've been getting nervous about the writing and marketing.

    I've been getting bogged down in research and your paragraph on "It's okay to not have a plan" really resonated with me. Time for me to get writing and connecting.
    Your 100 article milestone is truly inspirational.
    Best of luck in the future.
    From a new subscriber.

  12. 1

    Fantastic work!
    Could you share your favorite "indie writers, publishers, and content creators" that you found along the way?

  13. 1

    YES! I have absolutely loved watching your journey!

    I remember thinking how difficult it would be to write every day when you first committed to this experiment, but if you make something a habit, and work at it, then it becomes a little bit easier every day.

    I am sure it still takes a lot of effort for you to put together such interesting and well researched articles, but I'm guessing it takes a little less time than it did 100 articles ago!

    Keep going! Do you think you'll keep writing every day?

  14. 1

    ๐Ÿ‘๐Ÿ‘๐Ÿ‘๐Ÿ‘

  15. 1

    Good work! :) How much time did you spend every day writing?

    1. 2

      Thank you! I block 2 hours every morning, from 8 to 10 โœ๏ธ

  16. 1

    good one!

  17. 1

    Been following your work for a few months now. Quite Inspiring to see your relentless consistency.

  18. 1

    Consistency beats strategy, love it! Maybe Picassos strategy was to be consistent ๐Ÿ˜œ

    1. 1

      At least he was prolific! ๐Ÿ˜…

      1. 1

        ๐Ÿ‘Œ๐Ÿป๐Ÿ’ฏ

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