Substack Mastery Training: 50 Full Video Index + Affordable Upgrade Options for Freelancers
Easy access to the From Zero to Substack Hero course based on Substack Mastery and Advanced Newsletter Writing books by Dr Mehmet Yildiz, designed by Aiden with the audio versions of the books
Here is a copy of this newsletter for my readers on Medium.com for engagement and inquiries.
Dear friends, it is my Friday evening here. I trust this post finds you well. I want to inspire and empower freelance writers with my work happening quietly in the background in my flow state.. I am pleased that hundreds of freelance writers have taken personal responsibility and ownership of their destination by joining Substack in the last few months.
I am delighted to inspire and support you on this exciting journey. Many writers sadly lost the advantages on Medium, now only paying pennies to authentic writers and upsetting them while allowing scammers to get most of the funds from the payment pool. That’s why I stopped writing there until they fixed this unfair payment situation for authentic writers.
Education is essential for freelance writers to sharpen their swords. Therefore, I wrote two books in 2024, as soon as I noticed the decline on Medium, to inspire and educate new writers to get them started with Substack as an alternative platform, find their voices through experimentation, and grow their audience with community support. I did everything I could from my end and will continue to do so. In the next 12 months, I will develop a global service that will enable all my dedicated subscribers to be master freelancers. This is my commitment to the ILLUMINATION community as a leader.
In the last 7 months, my contributions made a significant impact, as evident in my remarkable subscriber increase. In 2024, I had only around 4K subscribers, although I started Substack in 2019 due to my Medium addiction. However, after lowering my focus on Medium and paying attention to Substack strategically with a robust plan, now 66K+ subscribers benefit from my free and paid content on Substack.
Around 30K of my subscribers are Medium writers, and the rest, around 33K, are from other platforms like Substack, Patreon, Beehiive, and Convertkit, and around $3K are pure readers of my health and wellness content from science and tech communities.
Update on My Progress to Support Subscribers
Last weekend, I uploaded 20 chapters of my best-selling book Substack Mastery and 47 chapters of A Powerful Toolkit for Advanced Substack Newsletter Mastery to my Content Marketing Strategy Insights publication with digital and audio versions for easy access for members.
Today, Aiden has completed 33 modules of our Substack Mastery training course and will add several more this weekend. He named the course From Zero to Substack Hero. He designed the course using the audio versions of my two books, Substack Mastery and A Powerful Toolkit for Advanced Substack Newsletter Mastery. Both books were published as digital, paperback, and audio and were distributed widely, and they are now sold by many bookstores globally.
As a media expert and educator, Aiden optimized the videos with a compelling narrative, humor, engagement, and solid curriculum for Udemy, and they passed quality control, were published, and got over 4.6-star reviews. So far, he has published two levels, and he will continue to publish more. Each course is sold for $29.99. There will be around 10 levels, which will cost around $300 on Udemy. You can find them on Udemy via the following links:
From Zero to Substack Hero — Level 1
From Zero to Substack Hero — Level 2
From Zero to Substack Hero — Level 3 NEW
To make it affordable for our community, he agreed to offer all video modules through my Content Marketing Strategy Insights publication. This means that with a basic $5 monthly subscription, you can have unlimited access to his training course of around 60 modules, including digital and audio versions of my two Substack books, my premium content for content marketing strategy for freelance writers, and the benefits of Tier 2 for Substack Mastery book program.
I see this as a mega deal because the cheapest Substack course is around $300 on the market, and some 2-day weekend courses with less content are around $1000. I teach a 5 day face-to-face course for $3000 per student in private training organizations in Australia. I give these examples because by subscribing to the Content Marketing Strategy Insights publication for $5 monthly or $50 annually, you can save significant investment while staying updated with our teamwork and gaining the support of our vast network.
In addition, I built the ILLUMINATION Health & Wellness Network and explained its purpose in a recent newsletter published there and in a story on Medium. Those who join this new network will have a complementary paid membership to Content Marketing Strategy Insights for 12 months, which will double the value of your investment. So, instead of $50 annually, you will be a paid member of two large networks for $25.
I can’t imagine a more affordable educational and marketing support for freelance writers in any part of the world. Frankly, if you can find a better offering and share it with me, I will give you one year of paid membership to all my publications for FREE.
I am 100% confident about the value I offer. I am proud to provide our community with the most affordable and high-quality service by covering only the most basic costs, such as Aiden’s hundreds of hours of research and video recording efforts. Creating and editing these videos is not an easy job. I personally cannot do it myself. I delegate all my professional video editing to professionals and pay $50 per hour.
All my services and publications, including Slack workspaces, have been FREE to the community, like those of 179 volunteer editors for the last six years. And I will continue to make my publishing services on Medium publications free for all authentic writers. It is my commitment to support every writer to find their voice with community support. Their achievements and gratitude mean more than money to me.
I also started uploading all the interviews I conducted to my Substack publications. I will make participants guest authors and offer crossposting valuable contributions of my collaborators to help them grow their audience.
Today, I interviewed our bright star,
, one of my favourite writers and digital entrepreneurs, who is now shining and illuminating the Substack community after her seven years of dedicated service to Medium. Here is the link to the interview, which I will upload to Substack soon. Similar to Sinem, I also interviewed two best-selling Substack writers, Tim Denning and Veronica Llorca-Smith. You can find more interviews from this collection and connect with those writers.Many established writers like them stopped their focus on Medium and directed to Substack reaping benefits. I interviewed over 100 remarkable writers and will share them all FREE on my Content Marketing Strategy Insights or the ILLUMINATION Health & Wellness Network to inform and inspire you. Thank you for subscribing and being part of my vast network. I will do my best to support you in this exciting journey. You are welcome to be a free subscriber to get my complementary services and mentorship. One of our free services is Friends of ILLUMINATION, which is open to all authentic writers. You can contact me via this form on my website. And you are welcome to be a guest blogger on my website for free.
My New Book Project
In 2024, I wrote four books despite my busy schedule and life challenges. In 2025, I am writing four new books. Upon request by thousands of subscribers, one of them is titled Smart Email Marketing & Content Integration: A Strategic and Practical Guide for Freelancers and Startups, which is available for pre-order now and will be published in digital, paperback, and audio formats in April 2025. I will introduce it in another newsletter soon.
This book will also be part of my Content Marketing Strategy Insights publication for my subscribers on Substack. I will no longer share my full book chapters on Medium but will share summaries for my loyal readers. If you are interested in beta reading, please leave a comment on this story, and I will add you to my review list.
To give you an idea of the presentation and scope, here is a sample video Aiden published on the ILLUMINATION Substack Mastery YouTube channel.
Here is the index of the From Zero to Substack Hero training program for paid members of the Content Marketing Strategy Insights publication.
The list starts with the latest uploaded video.
Thank you for reading my newsletter. I wish you a healthy and happy life.
Dr Yildiz, this is one of the most inspiring posts I’ve read on Medium earlier and now in here. I was tired of seeing people complain while still giving away their premium content for peanuts. I'm truly glad you broke free from the Medium addiction and helped so many of us overcome digital learned helplessness. You are an exemplary leader—kind-hearted yet fearless (with a soft heart and big balls), with the courage and conviction to stand up for what matters. Your servant leadership has made an impact on my life like no one else in this space. For that, I am deeply grateful and will do everything I can to support your success and help you grow your health and wellness community.
Thank you so much for sharing my index, Dr Yildiz. Your books educated and inspired me. Now as I giveback I am inspiring others leveraging your insights. Your support and mentorship means a lot to me. Without your guidance I wouldn't be able to create this course and make it at Udemy quality standards.