Create Your Own Publication with Leah Sottile
SEASON 7, EPISODE 6
Most of the time, freelancers who work with clients do not own the rights to the creative work that's produced. Even retaining a modicum of your rights is frequently a prolonged legal battle that results in very little. But some freelancers who want ownership over their work are turning to another source of income: newsletters.
Creating a newsletter is like running your own mini publication. There are questions about when to publish, how frequently to publish, how much to charge your subscribers, and more.
In this episode Wudan talks to Leah Sottile.
Leah is an independent journalist based in Portland, Oregon. Leah covers extremism in the US and has built an audience and a monetizable newsletter without the benefit of a staff job. You can follow her on Twitter.
Leah and Wudan talk more about ownership over your work, building an audience and creating your own publication.
Full Transcript Below:
Wudan Yan- Hi, everyone, and welcome back to the Writers' Co-op. I'm Wudan Yan, your host and executive producer. If you're a journalist and have mostly worked with newspapers and magazines to publish your stories, you might be feeling a little down on the industry right now. And rightfully so, especially with layoffs, whole publishers just shutting down and the fact that like, freelance rates in journalism have been stagnant for a long, long time, and have definitely no way kept pace with inflation. More and more, I'm seeing that lots of freelancers who have decided to niche down are starting newsletters. And this feels exceptionally entrepreneurial to me, because asking readers to follow you on your Substack or Ghost or whatever newsletter platform is like building your own publication. There are questions about when to publish, how frequently to publish, how much to charge your subscribers, and so much more. So when media looks gloomy, this move to newsletters makes sense. It feels freeing in so many ways. I'm amazed by how many followers some folks who seem to start a newsletter on a whim can immediately garner, especially if they were leaving a staff position. But if you're just a freelancer, who on occasion attaches your name to another publisher, you don't always know how large your audience is or who it is. I wanted my guests for this episode to be someone who built an audience and monetizible newsletter as a freelancer, and specifically a freelancer who covers a subject matter that feels very, very niche. My guest today is Leah Sottile. She's an independent journalist based in Portland, Oregon, who covers extremism in the United States. It might sound really weird to say this, but I really adore Leah's work. Topically, what she writes about is so, so dark in a way, but her writing is soft and lyrical, and makes the hard facts easier, much more empathetic to stomach. Her newsletter, The Truth Does Not Change According to Our Ability to Stomach It, is the first newsletter I ever paid to subscribe to. And it's always an instant click when it lands in my inbox. Leah's writing otherwise appears in The New York Times Magazine, High Country News, and she's the author of When the Moon Turns to Blood. If you are a voracious podcast listener like me, I also recommend literally everything she has hosted and reported including Bundyville, Two Minutes Past Nine, and her latest, Burn Wild. This episode, we talk about having ownership over your work, building audience when the thing you cover feels very not mainstream, and how listeners can think about creating their own publication. Before we dive into my conversation with Leah, I wanted to talk about how important it is at this time to be in community with others. And not just any community, but one that is psychologically safe, which allows you to ask questions free of judgment. If you love the ethos of this podcast and you're self employed, you'd probably want to be a part of our community. We are organized on Slack. And when you join as an All-Access Patreon for just $9 a month, you'll be able to get in on that. All right, back to the main program. Here's Leah. Hi, Leah, thanks so much for coming on the Writers Co-op. It's a pleasure to have you here.
Leah Sottile- Yeah, thanks for having me.
Wudan- I'm excited to chat all things newsletters. But before we dive into that, tell us how you ended up in freelancing.
Leah- Yeah, it came after 10 years of working at a newspaper in Spokane, Washington. I worked at a alt-weekly there called the Inlander for a really long time. And I was a music writer. I was an arts writer. I did pretty much the opposite of all the kinds of work that I do now. And I really had a cool job there. in that I got to do really ambitious, kind of evergreen features projects. And at a certain point, I asked my editor, you know, can I only do these things, like this is really all I want to do. I don't want to edit sections anymore. I don't want to write food reviews. And it was kind of like, yeah, we can't really afford to pay one person to just do this one part of the paper. So it was kind of what I needed to hear to start freelancing. I also started freelancing 10 years ago, when there was really like a much more vibrant magazine ecosystem out there. And I thought, you know, well, maybe I can start writing for like the New York Times Magazine and Esquire and GQ and these kind of big magazines that were writing the sorts of, you know, investigative stories, but also like profiles and just sort of fun—they were having fun with journalism. So I thought, well, maybe I can do that. And in a way I kind of did, but I also—a lot of those magazines shut down pretty quickly. So I kind of had to figure out like, okay, well, what is my place in freelancing? And so I've just kind of carved out what I felt was needed for media but also what I was interested in. So that's kind of how I ended up covering the things that I do.
Wudan- For sure. And what other service or types of freelance work do you take on right now?
Leah- Yeah, so I pretty much realized that to make all of my income from the type of writing that I do is really mentally exhausting. And so I try to supplement my income by teaching. It's not something that's super lucrative, but it is something that I enjoy. Like, right now, I'm finishing up a writing workshop that's gone for eight weeks. It's just a nonfiction essay writing workshop. So I always am like pulling my income from podcasting, book writing, long-form writing, teaching writing, that kind of thing. So it all revolves around writing. And it all revolves around journalism, but it's just the size and scope of the projects that I take on.
Wudan- That makes a lot of sense. So tell us a little bit where your newsletter fits in. And it might help to just hear about where that nugget, that idea of wanting to start a newsletter came from, too.
Leah- It's funny, because I read a lot of newsletters before I even thought of making one. And I was doing an interview with an old friend of mine, Luke Baumgarten, he runs RANGE, which is a kind of alternative media outlet in Spokane, where I used to live. And he said to me, 'well, why don't you start a newsletter?' And I was like, I don't know. I just never even thought of that before. And it kind of just took one person asking me like, 'why don't you start a newsletter' for me to even think about doing it. It's funny, like a lot of my freelancing career is just trying things and seeing what works and experimenting. And so it was 2020, it was the pandemic, September. We were having that horrible rash of wildfires here in the Northwest. And we're all just like stuck inside. And I literally was just stuck inside. I couldn't go outside. And I just thought like, I think I'm going to start a newsletter today. It was that impulsive. And I just thought, it seems like when I write essays, or more personal writing about peeling back the curtain of what it looks like to do the type of journalism that I do, which is you know, mostly about political extremism, and the effect that that has on me, that people seem to really enjoy that. So I thought, well, maybe I can make that a part of a newsletter. And I just figured, you know, I'll start it. I'm not going to charge money. If people want to pay for it, great. But I figured I'll just make it free. And if people see the value in it, then they'll pay for it. I think I've definitely shifted on that quite a bit in the few years that I've been running it now. It's been sort of an exercise in me realizing that my work has value. And maybe I should have put a price tag on it from the beginning. But you know, this is me.
Wudan- Totally. So for folks who are not familiar, how would you describe what your newsletter is now?
Leah- I want it to be surprising. I mean, that was what I always loved about working at alt-weeklies was that the whole nature of it was to pick up the paper every week, and you wouldn't know what would be inside. Maybe there would be some big investigation. Maybe it would be like, you know, an issue devoted to one topic. It was always supposed to be surprising. So I think I kind of have that mentality that you're gonna get it at least once a month. And it might be an essay, it might be an interview, it might be a straight piece of journalism about a topic that I feel like hasn't been covered, or that I have a particular expertise on. Primarily, I think, because the bulk of it has been written during the pandemic, a lot of that was essays. So me kind of processing things, thinking through things and stuff. Which was exciting for me, because that's the kind of writing I — is something I'd like to get stronger at doing. And I don't always have an outlet for it. You know, a lot of literary magazines that commission essays are paying really, really low amounts of money. So I feel like, you know, I can experiment with that form and kind of write about the behind-the-scenes stuff of stories that I work on, or things I'm thinking about, and that kind of thing.
Wudan- How large is your audience size now? And would you be able to ballpark how much you're roughly making from it too, from paying subscribers?
Leah- Yeah, I probably should have looked before we got on, but I think I've got, I think I've got about 2,300 subscribers. About probably 200, 220 of those are paid. And per month, it's kind of gone up. Because I recently did an exclusively paid series. This is the third year that I'm running it. And this is the first time I've done exclusively paid posts. And that really was surprising and edifying for me that so many people wanted to subscribe and pay to read those. So I would say I probably make between like 800 to $1,000 a month on the newsletter, which is a huge, huge deal for me.
Wudan- Yeah, especially if you're able to control what it is you want to publish and have so much creative direction. Right?
Leah- Exactly. I mean, when I think about my business as a whole, like, you know, I do these big, sweeping long form stories, and they're really, really exhausting. And I can't really do more of those a year. Like my brain, there's just not enough capacity in my brain. You know, I write books, and that's like a huge amount of brain space too. So if I think about where I can expand my business, I think it's on Substack. It's my newsletter. Like, there's so much more that I can be doing there to create spaces that I don't feel like are maybe being explored in media, you know, especially around extremism. But to me, it's like the one part of my business that I continually go back to. And I'm like, there's a lot more that I could be doing here, which is really cool.
Wudan- Yeah, I love the idea of promise and experimentation. And too, maybe this is a naive question, but when you create content that publishes on Substack, who owns that content? Like Substack own it? I don't actually know how that works.
Leah- You know, I don't actually know how that works either. I assume that I own it. But yeah, I'm not sure. See, it's really funny, because like I said, it's just such an impulse thing that I decided to do. Like, you know, how hard could it be for me to crank out one newsletter a month? So I just thought, like, that was the baseline, was just creating one thing a month. And now that I've actually tried to be like, oh, there's infrastructure that can be built around this thing? I'm sort of having to go back and be like, okay, what did I sign on to here? I mean, I would assume that I own it. I think that that's a good question. I can look into it. But I think that, you know, it is important to me to own the work that I do as much as I can. So yeah, it would be disappointing if I don't.
Wudan- Yeah, so listeners of the Writers' Co-op might span many industries. And I'm just curious, can you say what ownership of work looks like in your industry, which is journalism, podcasts books?
Leah- I try not to get involved in many things anymore, that I don't own at least a large percentage of. So when I sign a book contract, if it gets sold for film and TV rights, I own a part of that, you know, so. So things like that, that's where the ownership of it comes in. When it comes to podcasts, you know, that is just not a very lucrative form. And it's so much work. So for me, it would be crazy to get involved in a podcast that I don't own a significant amount of the film and TV rights afterwards. Essentially, I mean, I feel like I'm like been in journalism for 20 years. I feel like I'm getting old, and I'm, like, don't want to work as hard. So it's like, you know, if I'm pouring the unbelievable amount of investigative energy into a podcast, it does make sense for me to try and sell it for film and TV. I haven't been super successful in that department. But just the fact that I can, is really important to me. Like Bundyville is the podcast I feel like most people know the most, and I own the entire thing. And for me, that is really exciting, because I get to dictate what happens to it. So. It also allows me to be associated with a project that I 100% feel okay, about. If I didn't own that project, you know, they could make another season with a different host. And like, it could be a thing that I didn't feel good about. So. In pretty much everything I do, I own at least a percentage of it.
Wudan- Yeah. And I can speak to as somebody who occupies similar industries, I think rights grabs in magazine contracts have been explosive, in my own experience. And depending on who you're working on a podcast for, like which production network, that can also be a rights grab in some ways, or you own a percentage of the derivative rights, but you might not own the product that you're producing for so-and-so network. So yeah, I think it's really variable. And sometimes it's like a huge, legal, painful headachy battle to retain even a portion of what, you know, ideally, should be yours.
Leah- But I think one of the best arguments that I feel like, you know, has worked to some effect for me, is that magazine rates have completely stagnated, and the cost of living, and just to be a person, is skyrocketed. So if you're not going to raise the amount of take home pay that I get, then at least you could allow me to own a percentage of the film and TV rights, because that's the only other opportunity to make money off the project. You know, that works I feel like for some editors. Some editors are just like, yeah, no, we're not interested in working with you then.
Wudan- To bring it back to your newsletter, you did not monetize it when you began, at what point did you decide to go the subscription route?
Leah- So like I said, I always said, you know, if you want to pay for this, you can, if you see value in it. I think that that's a little bit optimistic. It was sort of born of the same mentality that I think I thought if I was a really good freelancer, surely I would just get offered a job at a great magazine. And it's like, that became less interesting to me over the course of freelancing for a variety of reasons. I like working for myself, but that also just didn't happen. So I think that you know, to say, well, if you see value in this, then you'll pay for it, is really asking a lot of someone. So I would say probably about a year and half into the project, I started being a lot more intentional in my posts about saying "you paid for public records," like the people who subscribe to this newsletter, you know, helped pay for the massive amount of public records that went into this story that I am now discussing in this newsletter. So I think that that was really effective as a kind of call to action to say, like, hey, like, here's what you're paying for. But it was only in April of 2023, that I made an exclusively paid post series on the trial that was kind of a—sort of an afterthought of the book that I wrote. And that also was because I tried to sell a magazine story on the trial, and I couldn't really sell one for the rate that I felt like I needed. So I was like, okay, well, I'm gonna go to the trial anyway. Maybe this is a good time for me to just try doing a paid only post thing on my Substack. And it really worked. I got a lot of subscribers from just that. So to me, it was a great lesson in that there are is a waiting audience that is willing to pay for things if, if they are required to
Wudan- Yes, that makes a lot of sense. And also being able to repurpose work that you're having trouble finding a market elsewhere, where your market is something that you've created feels, also, like, incredibly powerful. I hear this from a few other Substack writers who are like: "The New York Times just killed an op-ed of mine. Guess I'll put it in my newsletter and make more money from it."
Leah- Totally. I mean, I think that that's like, it's really liberating. And also like, kind of an indictment of the media industry, right? That there's like, you know, we see, you know, 5,000 stories a day on Donald Trump, but like, you know, one thing on the—it's like you, I don't know. Sometimes I feel like I'm just like, why is it so hard? Like, you would think that selling stories on unique perspectives from unique parts of the country that isn't, you know, the sort of media center, would be exciting, but I guess maybe this is why I'm a freelancer, like running a newsletter. I think differently about what media is. So yeah, I mean, I think that it has become like an actual viable alternative to me. Well I could brush up a pitch to sell to an editor for maybe not a lot of money, or I could like, do it my own way, and, and then all of a sudden, people support that. So you see that direct kind of reader support in a way that I think freelancers feel detached from when they go through like a more traditional outlet.
Wudan- Yes, for sure. And I actually do want to ask you about that before I dive into more nitty gritty newsletter questions, which is: You obviously, as somebody who owns a newsletter, have great insight into who is subscribing, who your audience is, but were you ever able to get that while you're on staff at Spokane or when you freelance and the story goes out? And like do you ask an editor how story does? Like, how do you know the size of your audience?
Leah- Yeah, that's a really good question. I mean, when I worked at the paper in Spokane, we were a print first product. Like, the internet was still a thing that we were kind of figuring out how to monetize. Like, we started a blog that was like, almost like what the Stranger in Seattle has like a, like a Slog type thing, where it was the whole staff was kind of contributing to this continuous feed. You know, we did things like that, but it was always, you know, we were just so print forward that I never quite knew beyond our print numbers. I mean, the thing with that paper that was really interesting, I think that a lot of people wouldn't know, is that it is like one of the last standing alt-weeklies in the country. It is extremely well-read by people in in that region, the North Idaho, Eastern Washington region. So, you know, if you wrote something, we would hear a lot about it. But now, I mean, I think that the newsletter really, like offers me the most direct feedback. Like, you know, you get comments when you—on Twitter or whatever—when you write an article, and like, people say they hate it, or they like it or whatever. But like, with the Substack audience, like I hear, like really good feedback. I hear tips on stories like, "hey, this made me think of blah, blah, blah, that you should know about." So to me, it's like, you know, if I write something for the New York Times Magazine, I'm very likely not going to hear the feedback that comes in about that story, if it comes in at all. So for me, this is like, in a way, the reason I got into journalism, was to like serve an audience of readers. So I feel like it's like, really helping me kind of fulfill that goal.
Wudan- So how did you grow your newsletter audience?
Leah- That's a really good question. Not intentionally. Like, I think you're probably figuring out by now that I have sort of like an artiste mentality about journalism, which is, you know, I think I get in my own way a lot. But I promote it on Twitter. I communicate with the subscribers that I have, when they do comment. You know, I email with them and that kind of thing. I have sold pottery. I make pottery and I have sold pottery to some of my newsletter subscribers. So I have kind of a direct relationship with some of these people. But what I realize is that there is a huge opportunity within Substack, the substack network, for me to kind of like, work with other newsletter writers and partner with them and share audiences and things like that. And to me, I feel like that's probably the next thing I'm going to try and do with the newsletter.
Wudan- I see that all the time. I mean, people plug the Writers' Co-op Substack, which nobody pays for, it's completely free. And I'm like, why are you doing this? But also, thank you.
Leah- That's amazing.
Wudan- Were there any unexpected places where you did find interested subscribers?
Leah- Yeah, I think one thing that—if you have a Subtack, you see who recommends your newsletter to their own audience. And I've been really surprised by who those people are. It's almost no extremism researchers. But there's like, people who are like pastors who are writing an audience to their like religious group who are like, you should read this, this person, Leah, like she—I really liked her perspective. So to me, that's great. Because my whole intent with covering extremism is to not be in the bubble of extremism, researchers and analysts, but to like, go to people and help them have conversations about these very real things that we're seeing in our society and how to make changes on a very, like hyper local level. So that's been really surprising and great to see that I have people coming from those other newsletter audiences that I would probably never reach otherwise.
Wudan- That makes a lot of sense. I think when I was listening to Burn Wild, I loved your anecdote about one of the characters who was extremely hard to find. And then one day, her mom, right—
Leah- —subscribed to my newsletter! And I was like—
Wudan- Wild!
Leah- Really, really. I mean, and it's so funny. I mean, you know how it is with podcasting. People think like, oh, you just came up with—like, that's fake, right? And no, it really was like, I was searching for this woman. I was searching for her family. I couldn't—I was just hitting dead ends and had basically given up and then all of a sudden—I don't always read the, you know, when I get an email that says, you have a new subscriber, I don't really always read that. But for whatever reason, that day, I just recognized the name. And I was like, oh, my God, no way. This is—this can't be real. And it really was her, so
Wudan- Yeah, that's almost as dreamy as somebody being like, here are all the 500 pages of documents I've collected on the very story you're looking at.
Leah- Exactly.
Wudan- Wow, what is this black magic?
Leah- What is this gift?
Wudan- In what ways do you treat your newsletter as a business?
Leah- I think I'm starting to treat it more as a business now. I think for a while, for for the majority of the life of the newsletter so far, I've kind of treat it as like a blog. Like, maybe I'll talk a little bit about the stories I've worked on. Or if you liked this thing I wrote, you might be interested to hear more about XYZ. Now, I'm realizing that if I put any amount of effort into it, that it comes back to me in actual dollars. So I think now it's making me re-envision like, okay, what is this thing for? Maybe it started as like a pandemic blog project to keep myself from going insane when I couldn't go outside in the summer. But what it's become is like an extension of the personality that I put out there as a writer, you know. I tried to kind of foster the kind of writing culture and accessibility to writers that that I would want. So yeah, I think any, you know, kind of infrastructure that I can build around that is, is there and it's possible, it just takes the time to do it.
Wudan- Yeah. And it sounds like that mindset shift of—I know you talked about, like, oh, you feel like you have the artist's kind of mindset around writing and all that. But what was it like to make that mindset shift of like, newsletter as another arm of your business?
Leah- Well, I have to be honest with you, I think following your work has made me take my own work more seriously. Like, there have been times where I'm like, oh, yeah, why do I think that way about my work? Like, why don't I value it? Why don't I think of it as work? You know, so so I think that that's been a gradual thing for me in the last couple of years. I think probably being forced to, you know, stay inside so much and like think so hard about about work, but also realizing like, I can work and work and work until I have nothing left and and no one will care but me. So if I want to keep doing this, like I have to make it sustainable for myself, which means I have to just think of it like it's a real business. You know, and I often like make the analogy that like, for a long time, I felt like freelancing for me was like I had this beautiful little store with like well-curated stock and that people would come in, and then say I like this, and then just take it, and be like, yeah, yeah, I'll come back and pay for it. And that I, as a shop owner was just like, okay, well, I hope you come back, you know. And so to me, I had to shift my mentality of being like, no, you pay for the items before you walk out the door. We're gonna have an understanding of what that is. And that doesn't make me like a mean lady. Like, it just makes me a good business person.
Wudan- Yeah, that's usually when I come in. I'm like, That's capitalism, baby.
Leah- Yeah, exactly. Exactly.
Wudan- To that point, how did you decide what to charge for subscribers?
Leah- I didn't put a lot of effort into it. You know, Substack has a couple of tiers that that are just sort of like pre plugged in. So you can pay $7 a month, you can pay $70 a year, or you could do like a founder's membership, which is like, you pay a larger amount of money. That's—very few people have paid like $200 when they can pay 70. But there have been some people who have said, you know, we would really like to support your work, what's the best way to do that? I don't accept donations through like Cash App or anything like that. So I often say to people, like, look, there's options here. I only feel comfortable accepting money if you're getting writing in return for it. So if you'd like to subscribe to that $200 tier, then you can go for it. I will use that to go into freelancing. So I think that as I look forward into these more like paid post series, and what other kinds of recurring things I can offer subscribers, I think that there's an opportunity there to do like more tiers, but I'm not at that point.
Wudan- Yeah, I think it's worth noting, too, that like we're talking specifically about Substack, because that is where you've built your newsletter. There are other platforms, I know, Ghost is also getting popular in some ways, or people are switching from Substack to Ghost. But if these different platforms matter to you, look into them is kind of my overarching advice to learn the pros and cons of each.
Leah- Totally. And it's funny, you know, I discovered Substack, kind of late, which, you know, I'm sure if people are deducing this about my personality, like, I'm kind of slow on the uptake with some things when it comes to technology and infrastructure. I think Substack is fine. But there's a lot of variety out there. And I think a lot of pros and cons. I've seen some people leave Substack for other platforms. And I can't say that I won't do that. But for right now, this is working for me.
Wudan- And of course, when you have your own newsletter, it's also a publication. And I know you said for a while you were doing one post a month, but how do you decide on that publishing schedule? And you've also mentioned, you know, if people are subscribing for a paid series, you will publish a little more. So how do you make those decisions—at the level of viewing your newsletter as a publication?
Leah- Yeah, I think that based on the workload that I have, right now, I feel like one post a month is a really good amount for me. Like, it allows me to put out a piece of writing that isn't like just shot from the hip, like a tweet, like it's, it gets some editing, you know, there's some thought behind it. Sometimes I write a whole thing, and then I scrap it. So I think that that is good for now. When I decided to do this paid post series, I just had a lot of ideas. And having covered, you know, federal, state trials in the past, it's a really exciting kind of reporting for me. And there's so much that comes up in the process, like so many like things that are said in court that I feel like need further investigation. So this is my long explanation of saying that series of paid posts, I realized there was just a lot there. There was a lot for me to say, so I could kind of cover it like I would had I been sitting in court the entire time. So for me, I think, you know, knowing that there is a lot to say about a thing, I made a big list before I decided to kind of pull the trigger on that paid series of like, here are 20 possible things I could write about, just to make sure that I felt that there was—you know, I just didn't want to be taking people's money and then like, you know, not having enough to say. So. That was sort of that decision. I think that'll probably be how I decide going forward to do more paid posts.
Wudan- Yeah, I like that mindset. I mean, there's so many creators out there who think like, oh, if I build it, then people will come. Or like, I will only build it if people come. I think there's two different mentalities with regards to how to scale necessarily.
Leah- Yeah, yeah, I noticed with each of the posts that I put out through April, I think I did five, they were really well read and each subsequent one would get more and more subscribers. So it was like such a, I think I was just surprised by that. Like, that's great. Okay, this is great. Like, it seems like there's a real opportunity here. You know, I think that that's also recognizing your strengths as a writer is looking at what else is out there and seeing where you can kind of fill in the gaps. That's been a lot of my mentality as a freelancer. I just have more questions that I feel like the, you know, staff reporters at newspapers and radio stations, they're just not going to be able to get to, so maybe I have more time and ability to add that context in. So that was kind of my thought process with that paid series on the trial was, there's a lot here that's just gonna get overlooked if I don't write about it.
Wudan- Definitely, I mean, that's just the freelancers' mentality, I think of like, looking for gaps, looking for opportunities, wherever they may be.
Leah- Totally, totally, you know, and the other thing on the frequency of how often it comes out, I have done a survey with readers last year. I wanted to hear, you know, what people liked, what they didn't like, if they wanted to see more of something, just to kind of make sure that they were not to necessarily kowtow to people, but to make sure I understood why they were there. And overwhelmingly, people were like, I love that it comes out once a month. And I don't know when it's going to come out. Like it feels like a nice surprise every time. So I was like, that's great, because it's exactly what I was trying to do is sort of surprise you each month with like a little thing in your inbox that's, you know, you don't know what it's going to be totally.
Wudan- Leah, what mistakes do you feel like you've made in the process of building your audience and monetizing your newsletter and creating a publication effectively?
Leah- Yeah, I mean, it's a really good question. I think, you know, number one, I think I probably could've come out of the gates with saying you got to pay for this. I mean, there was 1,000% justification for that. And I think that that's like a lesson for me that I tend to undervalue my own work. And I need to think about why that is. And I think a lot of writers are like that. So there's that. I think that, you know, I've had some feedback that sometimes people feel like the newsletter is a little too "me" focused. And you know, that was the kind of thing I didn't want to hear. But then I think was actually really valuable. I think it meant that a lot of people were coming to my newsletter to read journalism, and that they enjoy the essays, but maybe wanted a little bit more balance. So I don't know that I would call that a mistake. But it was good feedback to hear like, okay, that says a lot about our media ecosystem that people are looking to newsletters for information as well. So I can be doing a lot more of that here. So yeah, I think those are been the big points of learning for me. And really, in this last year, I've just started to think like, oh, my God, who knew that newsletter platforms would be like this really exciting, brave new world for freelancers, as you know, every media outlet starts systematically shutting down? You know, it's a point of hope, I think,
Wudan- Yeah. And you raised such an interesting point about, like, what readers want and what degree of connection they want with journalists, or creators, and so on and so forth. But I think—this is worth another podcast episode, not on my show—but just about, like the fragmentation and trust and what's happening with that ecosystem and media, in connecting specifically with everyone like
Leah- yeah,
Wudan- our intended audience.
Leah- Yeah, yeah. I think that, you know,, when you get on, I mean, I feel like Twitter is just changing so much. But traditionally, I think you would get on like media, Twitter, and you would see all kinds of chatter and inside baseball talk. But I think what journalists often forget is that there are huge readerships of people that are watching that, and are also freaked out about the media ecosystem. So I think it's been really great to see that, as journalists, like, you know, you and me are shifting and thinking about owning our own work and creating newsletters that's actually really important for readers too. They see that there's, there's a ton of value in that. So I think that that's great.
Wudan- Definitely. To close, Leah, what advice do you have for others who might want to follow in your footsteps and start their own newsletter?
Leah- Know who you are as a writer, which is, you know, that's a lifelong thing that we're all trying to figure out. But I think like I did with this paid series, you know, I made this big list and really vetted the idea first, before I went forward with it. To me, that's just like outlining a story before you write it. Like, you kind of have a sense of where you're going, you have a little bit of a roadmap. So I would say, Look at what else is out there. See how you can fill in the gaps in the conversation or what your unique voice might add to it. And then just make a plan for yourself. Figure out if you're going to do, you know, one a month like I do, then make 24 ideas so you've got plenty to work from. I think just having that plan will help create a consistency of voice in the project but will also just kind of make it less work for yourself, right? Like, that's what we're all trying to do is like work but not kill ourselves working.
Wudan- Yeah, like most publishers, digital magazines or whatever, probably have their own schedule or like planned issues
Leah- Yes.
Wudan- for a given year. And I hear that's a variation on what you're saying on this point, too.
Leah- Exactly. I had never thought of it like that. But that's exactly what we used to do with the paper like, okay, we've got, you know, these special issues coming up in the next few months and stuff. So yeah, trying to book yourself out and, you know, tackle a bunch. I think what's also really exciting within newsletter platforms is that there's opportunity for expansion to things like podcasts to, you know, these kind of—like Substack has notes, which is kind of like Twitter and stuff. So, you know, there's a lot there that you can use to kind of build the brand that you're hoping to go forward with. And it's just exciting, because now you might not need an editor to give you the permission that you think you need to be the writer you want to be, you can just do that on your own.
Wudan- Yeah, that is incredibly true. And also I've seen people take their Subtacks and create like a community out of it. Not just the community who engages on Substack in the posts, but separate from that too, on Discord or Slack or things like that.
Leah- That's amazing. That's incredible. Like, I didn't even know you could do that. Maybe I needed to.
Wudan- Gotta charge more for that, I guess.
Leah- Yeah, right. Yes. Thank you for that reminder
Wudan- Well, thank you, Leah, so much. This has been really fun to hear. I know a newsletter's, like behind the scenes of your reporting. But as somebody who has subscribed to yours for a long time, it's also fun to hear about how you make it all work on the back end.
Leah- Awesome. Well, thanks for having me, Wudan. And this is really fun. I appreciate your interest. And I thank you for subscribing. It's amazing.
Wudan- Talk to you soon.
Leah- Alright, See ya!
Wudan- Thanks so much, Leah, for coming on the show. You can follow her work on Twitter at Leah_Sottile. Her newsletter, The Truth Does Not Change According to Our Ability to Stomach It, is on Substack. We will drop everything in the show notes, and I will talk to you all soon. Thanks so much for listening to the Writers' Co-op. If you've enjoyed our episodes, please rate, review, and subscribe on listening platform of your choice. These reviews help more listeners discover us. You can join us on Patreon and an All-Access member level at patreon.com/TWCpod. This gets you access to discount codes for events, for other objects online ,and our safe and inclusive online Slack community. The show is hosted by me, Wudan Yan. Our producer is Margaret Osborne and our editor is Susan Valot.
