Newsletter Crew

Lindsay Gibbs is the author of Power Plays, a “No BS newsletter about sexism in sports.” Gibbs writes about the cultural and political context behind women’s sports. She was an early writer for Substack Pro, and has been building her newsletter for over a year.

Here, she shares her playbook for writing and growing a newsletter—while staying genuine, authentic, and marketing-free.

Walt Hickey is the author of Numlock News, a daily newsletter with tens of thousands of subscribers. Hickey started working in newsletters as a data journalist in 2014, before creating his own platform on Substack in 2018. Here, he shares his writing process, growth strategy, and more.

How do you make sure your emails aren't marked as spam? What causes your newsletter to go to the dreaded "promotions" tab? How can you fix it? Deliverability specialist Yanna-Torry Aspraki answers all of your email deliverability questions.

As you start to develop a monetization strategy for your newsletter, a question arises: What should you do with the money?

Once your newsletter generates revenue, you have a few options. You can file taxes on that income as a sole proprietor, or you can decide to file an LLC and create a business. This week, I asked Ryan Pitylak, the CMO of ZenBusiness, to answer questions about the paperwork behind the scenes of starting a newsletter business.

In last week’s panel on B2B media, I asked three experts for their advice on growing a newsletter. I spoke with Mark Stenberg, a media reporter for AdWeek and author of the newsletter Medialyte, Josh Kaplan, who previously helped scale Morning Brew and works with creators like Kinsey Grant and Colin & Samir to develop their brands, and Polina Marinova Pompliano, who writes the wildly popular newsletter The Profile. All three shared their top advice for newsletter writers.

Abena Anim-Somuah is the co-founder of Food Supply, a two-month old media upstart that includes a newsletter, Le Digestif, a digital cookbook of curated recipes, and coming soon, a community for culinary creators.

Here, Anim-Somuah shares her strategies for building a brand from scratch, developing digital communities in tandem with newsletters, and writing creatively.

When Tim Huelskamp and the 1440 team launched their newsletter in 2017, they started with just 78 subscribers. Today, 1440 Media has over 750,000 subscribers with an open rate above 50 percent. How did they do it? Here, Huelskamp shares his advice for entrepreneurs starting their own newsletter businesses, and the strategies the 1440 team used to build the company.

Terrel Johnson started The Half Marathoner as a static directory of half marathon races more than 16 years ago. Today, he's turned The Half Marathoner into a weekly newsletter with more than 50,000 subscribers. Here, Terrel shares his writing process, his monetization strategies, and the long-term vision behind his newsletter.

Dana James is the writer of Black Iowa News, a newsletter focused on providing factual information and unique reporting for the Black community in Iowa. Here, James shares her perspective on writing and reporting news at the local level.

Claire Zulkey is a writer, journalist, and creator of the Evil Witches newsletter, a weekly newsletter about the trials and joys of family life. Zulkey covers everything from parenting advice to recommendations for storebought cookies. She launched her newsletter through a private Facebook group of friends and moms who wanted to share candidly about their experiences, and has since launched paid memberships.

Here, she shares her strategies for writing and growing her newsletter.