Inspiration: Content Marketing Insights Pub Hits Top #24 in Education, Serving 25K+ Free Subscribers
How freelance writers and content entrepreneurs benefit from this unique publication in 3-tiers + 10 tips to scale and sustain your Substack newsletters
I also published this story on Medium and my website to inspire more freelancers.
Education for Freelance Writers
When I established ILLUMINATION in March 2020, many freelance writers and bloggers approached me, asking if I could guide them outside Medium. At that time, I explored the market, and Substack stood out as the only free option. In August 2020, I launched Content Strategy, Development, & Marketing Insights.
For four years, I chose not to monetize this educational newsletter, and growth was slow. Substack had no incentive to promote my publication since the company did not earn from the nearly 4,000 free subscribers to my newsletter.
As a seasoned author and educator, I want to pass along my tacit knowledge, including my research and experimental learning. Earlier this year, following advice from my wise mentors, I decided to dedicate 80% of my content development and marketing time to Substack to achieve my knowledge transfer goals.
My goal was to reach a broader audience, build a new community on this promising and creator-friendly platform, and continue supporting my existing community on Medium. Initially, my publication did not even rank in the top 1,000 within the education category.
However, by November 2024, Content Strategy, Development, & Marketing Insights publication reached #24 in Education among thousands of Substack publications. You might wonder how such significant progress happened in less than a year.
This story is not about boasting. My achievements are like a drop in the ocean on this vastSubstack planet. Just in the education category, there are still 23 more amazing publications ahead of mine, and even the top-ranked one has 18 times more free subscribers than I do. The directory screenshot below highlights this difference.
I still have a long journey ahead. My five-year plan is to support over one million subscribers by following a well-thought-out strategy. I shared a summary of this plan in a book chapter.
One thing I want to clarify is that I am not focused on chasing empty numbers. I aim to build an engaged audience — readers who connect with my content. For example, this year, I removed over 3,000 inactive subscribers who had not opened a single newsletter or read any stories from the archives. I have detailed the reasoning behind this approach in a book chapter that I will publish soon.
Purpose of this Story
Apart from inspiration, in this short story, I will highlight three key success factors and ten practical tips to provide insights for both aspiring and advanced writers, drawing from my documented experience and observations of other successful freelance writers.
I explained these strategies in detail in my recent book, Substack Mastery for All Levels of Writers. I am now documenting additional insights for advanced writers in a new book titled Preface: A Powerful Toolkit for Advanced Substack Newsletter Mastery.
Three Key Factors Behind the Growth of This Educational Newsletter
There are many factors that contribute to the rapid growth of my free subscribers, but the following are the most substantial ones that made a real difference.
1 — The More We Give, the More We Receive
Adopting an abundance mentality had the greatest impact on my growth. For example, I shared chapters of my books for free, giving thousands of freelance writers access without requiring payment for my publication.
2 — Smart Monetization for Growth Strategy
For four years, I chose not to monetize my publication. However, when I enabled the monetization option, the number of subscribers increased significantly because Substack began promoting it. Despite this, I still offer most of my content for free.
3 — Creating a Strategic Plan
Although I always had a strategy, it was not as effective as it could have been. By revising my approach and developing a more efficient, manageable plan, I contributed to the growth of my publication.
I will discuss my other Substack publications in another story, as they cover different domains, such as health and technology, and have different audiences.
These strategies also helped me to market my book and make it a best-seller with ZERO advertisement costs.
Inspiration: 61 New Paid Subscribers on Substack in 10 Days & Sold A$8K Value of Books with ZERO…
I explain why freelance writers should become book authors on Substack and how authors can successfully sell their…medium.com
With this background on the growth of my publication, I will now share practical tips for beginners drawn from my book, Substack Mastery.
10 Tips to Scale and Sustain Your Newsletters
Although in this story, I highlight free subscribers, to scale and sustain your business, you also need to learn to generate income unless you are rich and don’t need any money.
1 — ☑ Build a Brand Owning Your Site: Treat your author platform as a personal brand. Maintain consistency in your tone, visuals, and messaging. I explained the importance of the author platform in the attached chapter.
Chapter 2 Summary: A Powerful Toolkit for Advanced Substack Newsletter Mastery
Establish an Author Platform and Build a Base for Lasting Successmedium.com
2 — ☑ Plan for Longevity: Think long-term. How will your platform evolve over the next ten years?
3 — ☑ Offer Personalized Content: Segment your audience and provide tailored content for more personalized interactions.
4 — ☑ Optimize for Growth: Implement referral programs, partnerships, and other scaling strategies.
5 — ☑ Explore Advanced Monetization: Look into premium content, online courses, affiliate marketing, or sponsored posts as ways to increase revenue.
6 — ☑ Invest in Professional Tools: Upgrade to advanced tools for analytics, email marketing, and content creation to enhance efficiency.
7 — ☑ Automate Where Possible: Use automation tools to manage routine tasks like scheduling, email replies, social media posts, and other tedious tasks that prevent you from creating content or meaningful engagement.Â
8 — ☑ Host Local Events or Global Webinars: Engage your audience with live events to deepen relationships and offer value.
9 — ☑ Strengthen Community Ties: Promote a strong sense of community by offering regular engagement, exclusive content, and additional perks.
10 — ☑ Diversify Revenue Streams Beyond Substack: Don’t depend on one source of content income; explore ads, merchandise, and multiple subscription models suiting your needs.
Conclusions and Key Takeaways
I will offer two key takeaways:
Growing a newsletter is a long-term effort that requires generosity, strategy, planning, and constant improvement. By sharing freely, I built trust so you can.
By using monetization wisely, like 90% free and 10% paid, I gained visibility. By revising my plans, I made steady progress. However, I made lots of mistakes, like not turning on monetization earlier, and learned from them.
These lessons are simple but effective for writers at any stage: give without hesitation, align your goals with smart actions, and always refine your approach. With patience and commitment, you can create something meaningful and lasting.
Quick Update for Freelance Writers on Medium and Substack
Now, I have created a new community initiative called Friends of ILLUMINATION, which I introduced in a story yesterday. All ethical and authentic writers are welcome to join this exciting journey.
Be a Friend of ILLUMINATION
Find Your Voice, Curate Inspiring Stories, and Build Your Audience with Support from a Thriving Community Leveraging…medium.com
To this end, I created a support account to be managed by volunteer editors, administrators, and Slack moderators. I also made the account a Friend of Medium to contribute to writers' earnings. This account will be used for curation and featuring stories by Friends of ILLUMINATION. You can follow it to receive updates on Medium and Slack workspace.
https://medium.com/@friendsofILLUMINATION
If you are a new writer, please check out our guidelines so our editors can publish your stories timely.
ILLUMINATION, Curated Newsletters, SYNERGY (Newsletter Booster), Technology Hits, ILLUMINATION Book Chapters, and Readers Hope.
Thank you for reading my perspectives. I wish you a healthy and happy life.
I am here to help my readers, so reach out when you need support. You may take a quick taste of some of my inspiring stories in this collection. If you wish, you may subscribe to my Health and Wellness newsletter to benefit from my decades of health, science, and technology experience.
If you are a new writer on this platform, you can join my publications by sending a request via this link. I support 33K writers who contribute to my publications on this platform. You can contact me via my website. I also have another profile to write and curate tech stories.
I also authored a recent book titled Substack Mastery to guide freelance writers to write insightful content and build their audiences.
You are welcome to join the ILLUMINATION Community on Medium and Substack and our education tool, Substack Mastery, curated by ILLUMINATION-Curators.
You can join my newsletters, where I offer experience-based content on health, content strategy, and technology topics to inform and inspire my readers.
Health and Wellness by Dr Mehmet Yildiz
Wow, I didn't know publications in the education space. Does someone have a pub with 450K subscribers? Thanks for educating and inspiring us Dr Yildiz. This story gives me hope.
Congratulations on the growth of your newsletters. This post is very inspiring for beginners like me.