Ancient Beat
The latest ancient news to your inbox. Weekly. For free.
My newsletter has nearly 1,200 subs with a ~50% open rate, and I just monetized it last weekend. I got a couple of upgrades to the paid tier right away (including some yearly plans), so I had high hopes. Now, nearly a week later, I have a total of 12 paid subs. That's a pretty terrible conversion rate.
Current setup is: Free tier gets top 5 archaeological headlines every week curated and summarized. Paid tier ($8/mo) gets all (20-30) archaeological headlines every week curated and summarized, plus recommended content.
I plan to add sponsors to the free tier eventually so that'll help. But now I've gotta figure out whether to change how the tiers are structured, or just keep going and let it grow over time. 🤔
I'll see if tomorrow's issue brings in more upgrades, and go from there. But I'd love feedback/advice if you've got some.
Over the weekend, I hit 1,000 subs! I started this newsletter about 7 months ago and I did not expect to hit this milestone so quickly (and organically). Super excited about it! Most of my subs have come from reddit posts, but I did have one big influx from a Hacker News post, and some from Youtube. The Youtube source is pretty cool — a sub asked me if I wanted to collab on his channel (which has 200K+ subs) so I've been doing that weekly.
Right now I'm trying to figure out how to monetize. I think I'll add a paid tier, and try to get sponsors for the free tier. The thing that's holding me back right now is that I don't have time to add additional value to the paid tier, so only real option I see is to restrict the free plan. I don't want this to upset my subs though. I think I just need to do it and be really transparent about it.
Interested in thoughts/feedback on this!
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Congrats!
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Thanks!
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Congrats @IndieJames
I think doing a paid newsletter is very hard. Approximately 5% of your free audience will convert
This varies depending on what price point you go with. I think Lenny Ratchitsky has a 5-6% conversion rate, Dru Riley has a 2% conversion rate if I remember correctly.
Either ways, you will always be on the hook to deliver premium content to your paid subs.
Which can get overwhelming beyond a point.
Sponsorship is a good way to monetize the newsletter I believe...
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Thanks for the advice! I don't think I'll get overwhelmed, as I'll be keeping the premium content as is, and limiting what free users can see. But I do plan to have sponsorships on the free tier (though I'm having a hard time figuring out who would sponsor something like this) — might as well monetize both tiers!
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Yes for sure, monetizing both tiers is a smart strategy..
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Can you explain the reddit part, I am also planning to build a newsletter community
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Yeah, reddit definitely won't work for every newsletter. It works for me, because I'm providing something that is really wanted on some subreddits (archaeological news), and I'm doing it in a way that abides by their rules.
Every Saturday, I post the news portion of my newsletter to certain subreddits, changing it slightly to make each one fit. It ends up looking like bulleted news with links, which is packed with info that each subreddit wants. I then link my newsletter at the end of each post. And I also comment with a link to subscribe. This brings me between 20 and 100 subs every week (average of ~40).
You can't be salesy. When I started, I didn't even link unless someone asked. Get a feel for the subreddit and contribute value before you promote yourself.
Hope that helps - good luck!
EDIT: I was only getting ~10 subs per week from reddit when I started. I think people have started trusting me since they see my post every week.
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Congratulations @IndieJames, well done.
I started my newsletter a couple of months ago. A month ago I was at 23 subs., now I am at 200. Mine a B2B Marketing Strategies and Tactics Newsletter - https://freshsalmon.substack.com/ -
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NICE! Keep it up :)
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I recommend you take a look at this newsletter: https://filipedeschamps.com.br/newsletter. It's a big newsletter about tech news in Brazil with 110k subscribers and has the same format that yours. He monetizes with affiliate links from direct partnerships at the end of the newsletter. Good luck!
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I'll check it out, thank you!
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Good for you!
I'm creating a blog recently, and your little success story really made my Fellings better.
Although, if i was in your place, i will wait until my amount of subs will grow more, for best profit, because if you will cancel the free option, your grow can stop.
but, i am just a beginner, so I'm not sure that is the right thing to do.-
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Thanks, and good luck with your blog! I don't plan to cancel the free option, I'm just going to be limiting what free users can see. You make good points, but since i'll be limiting existing users, I think it's important to make this switch sooner than later. We'll see, I'm new to this too! 🤷♂️
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Awesome work. Awesome achievements. Awesome success.
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Fantastic work James!
I'm not sure you should restrict your free plan. Since that's what has helped you achieve the awesome growth so far.
It could be worth waiting til you're 10k free subs, and then spending the extra time, money and resources to add additional value for a paid tier makes more sense (as you get more total conversions onto it to justify the investment.)
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Awesome, congrats! :D
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Congrats!
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1k subs is amazing! Congrats
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Kudos to the consistency, James. Awesome work! I am sure a lot of other indie hackers would be interested to learn about how you reached 1000 subs.
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Thanks! Above all, I'd say it's the consistency!.Most of my subs came from reddit (this comment has a brief description). Some came from a HN post, but I haven't had much success with HN since that first one. Some came from Youtube after I started collaborating with a channel (they reached out to me after subscribing). And the rest have come from word of mouth and who knows where else :)
The main thing is to be consistent with the things that work. I think people now expect to hear from me on my channels, which couldn't have happened if I hadn't put in the time each week.
I'd also say that I'm pretty transparent about being new to this, and I'm trying to involve my subs in the process — more of a community feel. I think that gets people more invested.
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I have not explored Reddit yet for https://geeksandexperts.com/ but I think it would be a useful place to post and interact on. I started on PH and IH a while ago and see some slow traction coming from these platforms.
Thanks for sharing your experience! Appreciate it.
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My pleasure! Good luck with with your product, sound cool.
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Sure thing
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Not a subscriber, but I dig ancient history and fringe science as a hobby as well (primarily through YouTube, e.g Bright Insight), so kudos for having such a success with what most people see as a really odd hobby to have ;)
Checked a few of your previous posts. What I noticed:
- very news heavy, no story telling or fixed theme per mail
- way too long, too many words
I don't know your audience, so no good idea how to monetize. However, I could imagine that some sort of collabo with YouTubers, or even your own YouTube channel might do pretty good. Maybe even some far out affiliate marketing (booking.com?) so that people can book travels to the places they read about?
Also, I am not a newsletter expert, but isn't 1k subscribers a bit early to monetize and restrict content?
Very alternative idea: why not make this a blog, with a newsletter?
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Thanks for the feedback @jansroka! Curious to hear your reasoning for making it a blog. Can you elaborate on that a bit?
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The content lends itself to a blog or magazine format.
From my experience, newsletters do very well if you can connect with the audience on a certain level (good story telling, likeable character, etc.) and if they are not too long.
What I read so far from you is more an actual news-letter, lots of actual news from the world of ancient history, but not so much personality.
My idea would be to turn the newsletter and all the content you have into a blog (using e.g. Ghost) and thus being able to be found much more often due to SEO. You still will need a newsletter to inform people about your new posts, but now you can also be found in other ways.
Additionally, in a blog your content is a lot easier to be found (onsite search, or through google), and easier to link to it (e.g. from YouTube).
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That's super interesting, thanks. I'll definitely noodle on it. From an SEO perspective, is it hard to find substack newsletter? I figured it'd be the same as a blog (though obviously, it wouldn't be benefiting my domain).
Come to think of it, I know of quite a few substack newsletters that are hosted on their own domains, so maybe that's an option. 🤔
Thanks again
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I broke 100 subs last week... and now I hit a new milestone: My first unsubscribe.
I reached out for feedback. Not entirely sure if that's ok after an unsubscribe so hopefully they don't mind.
I guess it was bound to happen at some point. One unsubscribe in 11 weeks isn't bad.
I posted the 10th issue of my archaeological newsletter to reddit and went from 72 to 105 subs — I've been eying this milestone for a while and it feels good!
Almost all of my subs have come from reddit, which is very hit and miss. I've had a few duds and a few that brought in 30ish subs each.
I'll keep at it with this particular subreddit, but I'm also trying other communities now — new subreddits, facebook groups, etc. — none of which have worked very well.
I've got a few other things I want to test, but I have to move quickly and be very intentional with my time, as I'm currently only allocating 3-4 hours per week to the newsletter.
Here we go — I've got my eye on 250 next 😀
Yesterday I said that I hit 10 subs - my April goal. Well, then I crossed my May goal of 20, and now I'm at 30.
This is exceeding my expectations already and making me think that I might actually be able to grow this thing! I'm going to try to cross my June goal of 50 before mid-April 🚀
Today, I hit 14 subs with my archaeology newsletter! I just started it and aimed to hit 10 by the end of April, so this feels great. I haven't even told friends and family about it — this is all from reddit (and a few from fellow indie hackers). Feeling excited!
I'm new to reddit and and I've heard many indie hackers say that it's a hard place to promote. But I've also learned a lot from other indie hackers about the etiquette there. So I gave it a shot and posted some content from my newsletter. I mentioned that it was from a project that I'm working on, but didn't link to it or anything. It paid off — I've got about 12k views with 200 upvotes and counting.
So I'll keep contributing to the subreddit without promoting and see where it takes me. Obviously, I'd like to get some signups from it eventually, and I have no idea how to do that (would love any advice you might have!), but for now I'm just excited to contribute and get positive feedback. I only have 4 subscribers so far, so it feels good to have people appreciating the content. It's not validation, but it's something. 🚀
Well, I did it! I launched a newsletter. And my first sub was someone I don't even know.
The newsletter examines prehistoric cultures through a shamanic lens.
It's a passion project — I've been researching this stuff for years and I just love it.
Here we go!
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Just subscribed, James. Excited to learn from you!
How did you get into this?
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Whoa, I saw a new sub today and I was wondering where it came from. Thanks @secollins! Really appreciate it.
TL;DR, this stuff fascinates me and I'm always jealous when I see people talking/writing about it, so I decided to start talking/writing about it myself.
Longer story: I've been a drummer for about 31 years now (since I was about 5). Found my way to shamanic drumming and drum entrainment (altering the speed of brainwaves through repetitive rhythms, similar to "binaural beats"), which led me to shamanism in general. Meanwhile, I had already been fascinated by archaeology and anthropology. I researched it for fun in my free time and started seeing issues with some of the conventional beliefs put forth by academics. Eventually, I realized that shamanism is the perfect lens through which to explore ancient cultures, since they would have used a very similar lens. And some pieces starting coming together for me.
I've only put out one issue so far, but man am I enjoying it.
Hope you find it interesting!
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If you are looking for sponsorships you could check out these datasets I made for @sponsorgap: https://sponsorgap.com/find-sponsors - hope it helps!
Nice, I'll check it out!
Did the free tier change from all the headlines to just 5 headlines when you added the free tier?
Yeah, make the best content free, giving the opportunity for many people to convert to paying customers going forwards.
hello
try to make it 99 percent free and lock some features for interested people to buy the freemium method helps you raise awerness of your product and also get you organic leads that is what i did with my dev agency https://criov.com/.
Good luck
Thanks for the advice!