1 Year Since Launching Paid: A Peek Behind the Paywall of TSS
Dishing how it's going (including my subscriber count and annual revenue)
Hi, Sunday Squad!
Last Sunday, I got to share some of my thoughts on turning 32 with you. Exactly one year prior, I sat perched on a pool lounger in Medellín, Colombia on my 31st birthday and pressed send on my first-ever paywalled Substack post. The shifts that have occurred in the twelve months since have been innumerable—what a treat it is to be able to create a safe space of readers who are my biggest supporters, and in turn, the ones I feel most comfortable getting vulnerable with!
In that vein, in today’s edition of The Sunday Series, I’m pulling back the curtain to share a State of The Union™️ on how it’s going since launching my paid subscriptions. If you’ve been around for a bit, you may remember that we did a similar check-in six months ago and I promised an update at the one-year mark. Alas, here we are!
And while I share these numbers with a heavy dose of self-doubt (Is it uncouth to divulge numbers like this? Will those who are much further along in their subscribership journey pity me for being excited about relatively ‘small’ numbers? Or worse, will those at the beginning of their publishing journey think I’m bragging?) I do so anyway because I personally relish reading this kind of peel-back-the-curtain content from others. And if I can inspire even just one reader to put more value behind their work, then I think I’ve done my job!
That said, it shouldn’t come as much of a surprise that today’s post is exclusively for my paid subscribers. I feel so much more comfortable talking about personal topics like money with those who I know are really here to champion my work, and we’ll be continuing that infusion of trust into our safe space in today’s post! I’m going to be sharing:
How many free and paid subscribers does The Sunday Series has today, including how I’ve more than doubled my paid subscriber count in six months.
Monthly/total revenue at one year in and projected annual Substack income.
What’s worked to generate subscriber growth: including investment in my rebrand and one viral Note about breaking the $10k mark.
Why this corner of the internet is like a poorly paid part-time job, but my favorite one to show up to. More about the time it takes me to curate this content (spoiler alert…despite hitting the Substack ‘bestseller’ charts multiple times, it’s barely paying minimum wage if you break it down hourly, but in the end, that’s not why I’m writing!)
Goals for how I want to see The Sunday Series grow. And what I’m doing to get there in the following year!
If you’d like to access the complete version of today’s and future posts, please consider upgrading your subscription! Paid subscribers of The Sunday Series unlock an exclusive section of paywalled content in each send, access to the full archives (including Your Local’s Guide to West Village, A No-Gatekeeping Guide to Mallorca, A Mini Formentera Guide, Your Ultimate Paris Guide, Your Guide to Bozeman, Your Guide to Nantucket, 100 Hotels I’m Dying to Check Into, My Holy Grail Rules for an Overnight Flight, 31 Ideas for Your Next Birthday Trip, A Playbook for How to Make Friends As An Adult, and 16 Prompts for a Personal Quarterly Review), the commenting feature on each post, exclusive giveaways, and more. Plus, your support directly helps ensure this newsletter can continue to grow! Subscriptions are $8/month or less than $7/month if paid annually—also known as less than one fancy Starb*cks order. But don’t let me be the one to tell you why you should upgrade! I’ll leave that to a fellow reader…
“I've been following your newsletter for the past few months and it's such a delight! It always makes me smile and I feel like your content is thoughtful and unique every week. I'm glad to finally be able to support you with a subscription.”
– Gina C., paid subscriber of The Sunday Series
Well, this is basically the Substack version of getting naked together for the first time.
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