Paid Author Newsletters: Smart New Income Stream or Expensive Distraction?

Could your author newsletter become a new income stream—or will charging readers create more work than revenue?

Paid newsletters are everywhere right now, especially with platforms like Substack making it look easy to turn emails into monthly income. But for authors, the question is not whether someone is making money with a paid newsletter. It is whether your readers have a compelling reason to pay for yours.

In this episode, we break down what actually works: the types of exclusive content readers may value, why a strong mission or niche can matter more than a large subscriber count, and how expert curation, analysis, behind-the-scenes access, or special offers can help a paid tier feel worthwhile.

We also get honest about the parts no one likes to talk about: the ongoing content demands, the pressure to keep subscribers engaged every single month, and the conversion math that can quickly change the revenue picture. With free-to-paid conversion rates often landing around 3%, authors need to understand what it really takes to make this model profitable before building an entirely new content machine.

You’ll also hear why your free newsletter should remain the foundation of your reader relationship, even if you decide to test a paid option—and what to consider before moving your audience to Substack or another platform that could pull attention away from your website, SEO, and broader author brand.

Plus, we answer a listener question about book relaunches: when a relaunch makes sense, what separates it from simply “always promoting,” and how to use new momentum—like an award win, fresh positioning, or an updated edition—to give a book another real shot at visibility.

Before you put your newsletter behind a paywall, listen to this episode. It could save you time, help you protect your reader relationship, and give you a clearer path to building income that actually supports your author career.

Preorder Think Local Sell Global and claim your free Local Buzz Blueprint, a customized local visibility plan with personalized outreach ideas, pitch angles, and ready-to-use marketing tools built around your book and community! 

Offer ends July 31.

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Transcript

Welcome And New Book Announcement

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hello, and welcome back to the Book Marketing Tips and Office Success Podcast. This is Penny Sandsberry and Amy Cornell. And first off, welcome back. We're so excited that you are here. And listen, we've had so many new listeners, books and messages, and ideas for the show, and questions and all that, and we will try to address one of your questions at the end of the show. So that's a people longer. It's a little bit, it's a little bit tougher to kind of leave them in because we know that you have a lot of other stuff to do, so we don't want to be talking for an hour. Because easily, yeah. Our earlier shows that six years ago when we first started doing these, our earlier shows were really long. Bless you all if you hung in there with us because that that's amazing. That's quite the quite the dedication. Very excited to announce. Super stoked. Think local sell global is now up on Amazon for sale. It's part of the the new, my new author visibility series. This book was such a labor of love, but I'm so excited that it is finally out and on Amazon. I get really, you know what? At some point, I'm just like, when you when you write a book, you're like, you know, you go through the editing and it's just so much work, and you're like, oh, I just need this done. And you still love your book, but you just need it done. And then it the excitement, because the excitement kind of goes away, and then the excitement sort of peaks again, like, oh, I'm gonna upload my book to Amazon. I'm so excited. Oh, it's live, and then it all comes back again. And I think that's why we do it. Like, I just it's this weird publishing drug that we're all addicted to. I love that. I don't know how else to phrase it. But anyway, it's it's up on Amazon. Very excited. So this is a really I was actually kind of surprised and not surprised.

Why Paid Newsletters Are Trending

SPEAKER_00 1:48

Charging for a newsletter is a really hot topic. I've seen it on Reddit, I've seen it in all kinds of discussion groups. People have done blog posts on it, so I thought we should do a show on this. Authors charging for newsletters. Amy, have you have you seen a lot out there? Were you surprised when we started to talk about doing this show?

SPEAKER_01 2:08

A little bit. Only because I will say that so clearly there is a spectrum of authors out there and where they're at in their careers and where they're you know what I mean, and what the kind of work they're willing to put in. Like, I get that. I was mostly surprised because more often than not, we hear from authors that are like, I haven't started a newsletter yet because it sounds like a lot of work. So when I think about doing a newsletter that you could possibly charge money for, that just sounds like such a big project. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. I think that's what surprised me the most. It's like, wow, to put something out there that you're going to charge for. My mind immediately went into like, that must be so freaking cool. Where do they find the time?

SPEAKER_00 2:51

Yeah, I know it. And to me, and and so we don't want to lead this off by sounding like we are dismissing this idea, kind of like what we did with the AI translation Amazon episode that we did. We came away, we were, we came away from that episode thinking, oh my gosh, I hope we didn't sound like we were just total buzzkills about that because we weren't. In certain situations, the Amazon AI book translation absolutely works. And I would say, just as a blanket statement to paid newsletters, that is the case here. To some degree, and I'm not disparaging this, but to some degree, this feels a little bit like the crowdfunding, all the crowdfunding that happened with authors a couple of years ago. I mean, some authors are still doing it and some are doing it very well and being very successful with it. But much like I'm trying to make money to market my book, so I'm just gonna crowdfund, I'm gonna put up a crowdfunding and I'm gonna make lots of money, and I'm gonna have $30,000 to market my book, and that never happens. Never. This sorry. The newsletter stuff feels a little bit kind of like that. And and the origin story for paid newsletters is actually Substack. So Substack has created kind of the FOMO with authors, right? So writer revenue, and just to throw out some statistics here, writer revenue for Substack paid newsletters was $450 million in 2025, up from $370 million in 2024 and $300 million in 2023. So there is some serious growth there. And I think that is where authors are looking at this thinking, I need to charge for my newsletter. Amy, uh uh, do you pay? Do you have any newsletters that you currently pay for? Or I mean, I guess I should ask you first. Do you get newsletters? Because I know notifications are not really your thing.

SPEAKER_01 4:53

Yeah. Uh I do not actually, okay, yes, I I do. And now this is getting like people are like, oh my gosh, we don't need to know everything about her life. I do pay for one newsletter because it supports a dog organization.

SPEAKER_00 5:08

Okay, that's fair. That's awesome. I pay what?

SPEAKER_01 5:12

Yeah, I pay because of part of the bigger mission. And I will fully admit I don't get to read every newsletter, but I like the

The Real Reason People Pay

SPEAKER_01 5:20

idea that could be my part of my ongoing support was subscribing to their paid newsletter. So that that's my only one. Otherwise, the other ones I get are free. And again, I I go through phases where I binge, you know, my emails and then I have to pretend they don't exist for a while. But I think that's part of it too, is that there has to be, I mean, the value add for the recipient or the idea that they're contributing to something that they are aligned with. I mean, that's a big ask. This, this whole conversation intrigued me from that perspective. You know what I mean? Like, what are these authors putting together that and how are they presenting it? It kind of reminds me a little bit too, Penny, of podcasts that use paid tiers, you know?

SPEAKER_00 6:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 6:07

So it's like you're already getting the content, but if you want extra content or special content or to be a part of something that feels a little more exclusive, you can pay a little bit and then you get access to other things or you get to feel more special than everybody else, which, you know, let's let's be real. Sometimes that's great. But well, but it is it's a very complex like system, it feels like. I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 6:29

Yeah. And you know, I I'm just gonna say outright, I don't pay for podcasts, I don't pay for newsletters. I'm just I'm that person. Right. I, you know, because a lot of times podcasts will they'll say that if you want to get early content, early access to content, then you can subscribe and get whatever. I don't, I don't, I'll just wait. I don't care. You know what I mean? I so I guess uh I and I have no problem paying for subscriptions of any kind, but I think that that is where the disconnect is with authors a lot of times and the people that they are trying to appeal to is are they, you know, your content has to be. I mean, in Amy's case, right? There's some altruism there, obviously, because it's uh, you know, about animal rescues, and that's awesome. But I think the reason has to be, if you're going to do this, the reason has to be really strong. They have to get content that they absolutely aren't gonna get anywhere else, right? Or they have to get something that they well, I guess maybe it's kind of sort of the same thing that they really, really, really, really want. It's a lot of pressure. Well, but but but it's also, but I think the thing about it is is that if you have a newsletter, so the my other issue, so we actually did a whole show on SubStack,

Substack Versus Your Own Website

SPEAKER_00 7:55

right? My my other issue with Substack, I think Substack works for a lot of people. But I prefer just from a search engine optimization piece, so SEO piece of getting visibility on Google and all the things, I prefer having that conversation on your website, right? Right. Substack to some degree, I think feels a little bit like a shiny object. And again, I think it works for a lot of people. So Jane Friedman, who we follow and we get her newsletter, the bottom line. Actually, no, that's not true. I do pay for I'm so silly. I do pay for a newsletter. I pay for the bottom line from Jane Friedman because it's excellent. Because it's excellent every single week. Yeah. So look at the Ireland pants on fire. I do pay for a newsletter because it has really, really great content. And I'd be willing to pay for that. And it's not content that I can get anywhere else. And the other reason that I love it is because I can open a newsletter and read it and get all the highlights of the industry without having to spend hours and hours and hours trolling through blogs and getting content and trying to educate myself. So those are all so those are, I think, are are kind of the things that you have to sort of think about is do you want to pull people from your website and push them over to Substack? The second is is they're competing with you're competing with everybody else that's on Substack. So you have to really bring your AAA plus game to that. You know what I mean?

SPEAKER_01 9:27

Yes. Yes. And I think Substack also from what I saw, it worked great for people that really hadn't developed a platform yet. Yeah. You know what I mean? Because it was kind of plug and play. So, you know, here's your setup, here's your page, here are your features. And I think that was appealing to a lot of people that really wanted to jump in headfirst and start getting their content out there because all of the logistical admin stuff was taken care of for them, which I can understand can be kind of appealing. Because I mean, truly, to have a to run a successful newsletter from your website also requires a an appealing website, right? Yeah. That's functional, that's working for who your audience is, that's doing all the right things, that's keeping people on the page. And you know, and and that's not to deter anybody, but but truly, to have a newsletter from your website, especially one that people are going to pay for, I mean, there's a there's a foundation that needs to come behind that too.

Delivering Value People Cannot Google

SPEAKER_00 10:29

Well, yeah, and I think that a lot of times we underestimate, and I am very guilty of this. We underestimate the ongoing demands and specifically content demands that a paid newsletter brings with it. Not that we've ever thought about launching a paid newsletter in all the years that we've had one, but and I'm gonna totally trigger Amy right now. I've I come up with all these ideas where I'm like, oh, we should do like a video series that we can sell and it's Amazon, it's gonna be great. And Amy just passed out, so I'm gonna be doing the rest of the show probably by myself. But the demands of that level of content are, you know, a lot. And I'm astronomical. They're astronomical. And I forget. We finally, by the way, we did that. We did launch that. This was a bunch of years ago, and we no longer have it. And sometimes, like, we'll run across reminders of it on the website because it was actually embedded in the website, and it totally triggers Amy and basically we're in through day because it was such a nightmare.

SPEAKER_01 11:32

Remember when we were drowning in video updates?

SPEAKER_00 11:35

Oh my gosh, and we're video updates, and then oh, so but it's a lot of work, yeah. A lot of work, and I think that when you, you know, if you're thinking, and again, here we are, we're just like buzzkilling everybody's mojo about paid newsletters. But I have known several, I've actually talked to a bunch of authors who are pretty successful on Substaff with you know, writing posts that literally do not translate into book sales. Not even being on, not even doing a painting, just a free Substaff newsletter. And they're shocked that they don't translate into book sales or having a stronger author business because there's not all there's not always that carryover. And that carryover is part of one of the one of the pieces of this big puzzle that have to be considered. Sure.

SPEAKER_01 12:34

And I'm sure we have listeners that have a decent size mailing list that are probably doing pretty well with it, that are listening and going, like, okay, all right, like this is a thing that it probably sounds promising to some degree. And I think there are plenty of topics that lend to somebody paying for insider access to your expertise, to insider content, things like that, absolutely, like there are successful ways to do this even on a small scale, if that's something you're interested in. But I think, you know, obviously what we keep coming back to is that really making figuring out a plan for how you're going to maintain that and continue to meet those demands, you know. Yeah. Because even if you have a newsletter list of 500 people, you know, maybe you have a lifestyle book that has a lot of great tips and you've got expertise in areas that are really useful to people. Like I love that. And I think there is potential for people to pay for a version of that that feels very exclusive, that feels very, you know, direct to consumer DIY. Like, I'm going to help you through this. But again, that comes with a high demand for consistency, for what you're delivering above and beyond what they can just find. And I think this is a huge one. And Penny and I have talked about this a lot when it comes to writing nonfiction in general. You have to bring what they can't just Google and get for free themselves, right, Penny? So there's that added level, you know, there's that added tier of your branding and your uniqueness. And you have to bring that every single time because otherwise, yes, they could just go to Google or they could go to chat and get a basic question answered. So not only are you giving them something that's useful, you have to give them something useful that's very unique and on-brand to you that they can't get anywhere else. And that's, you know, again, an added layer of how are you going to deliver on that consistently and long term.

SPEAKER_00 14:31

Yeah, exactly. And I think that, you know, the other piece of it is that it has to have, you have to be able to bring, and this, so Jane Friedman again is an example of this, right? Nonfiction authors in particular have many opportunities to monet, you know, monetize ongoing expertise, industry, and then analysis, education, commentary, whatever, right? But you really have to bring something that they aren't going to be able to get, as Amy said on ChatGPT or in Google, that they aren't going to be able to get elsewhere. Or, like in Jane Friedman's case, for example, distilling all that information down into one newsletter that comes out like, you know, once a week and has everything that I need to know. And thinking about who your audience is, for those of you who write nonfiction or are listening to this, that that may be a sweet spot for you. If you can distill all of that information down into one place in something that, you know, lends itself to cutting down on their time or informing them about something, some new trend or whatever it is, whatever your area of your expertise is. Even, but at the same time, I even if I had a paid, even if, and Amy, I'm just gonna tell you right now, we're not gonna do a paid version of our newsletter. Just I'm not gonna come off of recording this call. Like, we should do a paid version of the newsletter. I would never recommend do not get rid of your free newsletter. Even if you do a paid version. Right. Yeah, very good point. Do not, you know, do not get get, you know, get rid of it. But the other thing though, too, is that fiction authors, there have been some fiction authors that do, and I know I sort of isolated nonfiction, but fiction authors can't succeed with paid newsletters in certain situations, right?

SPEAKER_01 16:15

Oh, absolutely. I mean, I think this kind of leans to, and I think what this kind of leans into what we saw. And you know, what's interesting, sorry, now I'm I'm bearing the lead, serialized fiction content.

SPEAKER_00 16:27

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 16:28

We saw a surge in that for a while, I feel like, and it really kind of died off, or maybe it's just not on my radar anymore. I mean, what I was noticing is that a lot of people that were doing it were starting off that way as a way to build their career versus moving into it once there was already a demand. And I think those are two very different circumstances, you know. Yeah. If you're already somewhat established and you already have return buyers and return readers and you have a following, if you have a decent sized newsletter list, you know, I think that is something that just as one example of a way to potentially do a paid system that is like a newsletter to be given, and especially if you're a prolific author and and you and you churn out a lot of books, you know, there's a way to capitalize on some additional earnings in between releases by doing, you know, drips of here's, you know, insight into this chapter. I mean, there's some really fun, cool ways to make that work for you. But again, I think it's a lot more challenging to do that if you're starting off versus if you're already established somewhat and can go to the next level with people that are already on board with your work, you know?

SPEAKER_00 17:38

Right, exactly.

Newsletter Math And Conversion Rates

SPEAKER_00 17:39

But then I think you also have to think about like, let's just break down the math. And I don't like math, but let's just break down the math on this. So the average conversion rate from free to paid newsletter is about 3%, right? So if you have a thousand subscribers on your newsletter, that means that you'll get 30 paying members out of that. The average cost per month for a newsletter, and again, with substantial value, is between five and ten dollars a month. So let's call it five dollars. That's about $150 a month before. So for your 30 paid members before platform payment processing fees, all the things. So you kind of have to figure out and you know, we all have to start somewhere. So if that has still not, you know, if you have great content and you've been looking for a place and maybe Substack is is the home for that, then but just know that it's it's gonna be very much on the low end, you know, to start with. So you also have to kind of figure out what the math with whether or not the math works. And that's where a lot of I think we saw this with podcasts that were doing Patreon pages, right? We saw a lot of things that would podcast, and we actually wanted to do a Patreon page, and we sort of teased it a couple of years ago. And then Amy and I both, and I am very much a cart before the horse person. I am so like, oh, Amy, let's do this great thing. And Amy is like, I'm gonna just break this down for you. And here is she's buzzkill in a very good way, but we never did it because we realized that there's just you, that is an entire entity of things that you have to now manage and create content for. And we're already doing a podcast a week, and it just didn't make a lot of sense. And so thank you for bringing that sense of realism. Otherwise, we'd have like a sub stack that was only basically half full because I wouldn't have the time to complete it.

SPEAKER_01 19:35

Right.

Time Limits And Shiny Objects

SPEAKER_01 19:36

I mean, that was part of it too, is that we had to be realistic about like, okay, and we've been pretty good about that through the years because we always, I mean, consistently, we've always been really good about prioritizing our current clients, right? Over anything else that we potentially are bringing in. Like our current clients that are already with us are a huge priority, even when it comes to how much time Penny can be on the phone for other things. You know what I mean? Like, we're really serious about that. And we had to do the same thing when it came to the podcast. And that's something that anybody has to consider. Like, where do you owe your time first? You really have to be real with yourself about how much of your time is dominated by certain things that are the priority. And then where would a paid system fall in that priority list? And is that reasonable, right? Yeah. And we we just couldn't, there's not enough hours in the day, and there's only two of us. It just at that point we're like, well, as as fun as that sounds, we couldn't keep up with current client campaigns. So that is a deal breaker, and we would have a very hard time keeping up with our current recording schedule, you know, as is.

SPEAKER_00 20:42

Yeah, exactly. And that's where, and I actually think I think we have somewhere there's some sort of lost Substack page that I started and got really excited about and sent it over to her before before we, you know, before thankfully her dose of realism. And I was just like, oh yeah, you're right. We're just never gonna be able to keep this up. So I think, you know, not all of you are as lucky as I am to have this amazing sounding board where I can, you know, run up all of my crazy ideas and just be like, well, I don't really know that that's gonna work. And, you know, we can try. And she's always game to try it. She's like, we can try it, but I just uh I don't really know. And I think you have to really have a conversation about where is the best investment of your time. Yes.

SPEAKER_01 21:22

And if you do, because you know, even again, not to do Penny's sad math, because that was really a bummer.

SPEAKER_00 21:29

No, I'm so sorry. Marsha's, we're gonna get a review pretty soon. They're like, these two are a real couple of buzzkills, Matt. Especially if you just listen to our Amazon AI translation in this one. Penny and Amy hate everything, like what? Right. Really, clearly. But I think truly, and I, you know, when you look at people, so we we get Neil Patel's Uber Suggest, he's like this SEO guru guy, search engine optimization, if you're not familiar with the term. And we get his newsletter all the time, and he has a couple. Of actually different newsletters that he does, and he's a guy that I would probably pay for. Don't tell him that, because we're afraid to have a subscription. But you know, you really have to be in a particular situation and have content that, as Amy said, that you can't get on ChatGPT and you can't get on Google, and you can't get from 15 other places. And that's kind of the problem now.

unknown 22:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 22:26

And I I remember when I was first in business 25 years, 25 plus years ago, and newsletters were start first starting to become a thing, right? And so at that time, we were all still getting newspapers, like paid newspapers coming to our homes and magazines. I sound like I'm from like the 1930s or something. But at that time, we were also getting so a lot of time, a lot of authors were talking about, well, if I'm gonna do this newsletter, what should I charge for it? And that's it's interesting that this conversation is coming back now with Substack.

SPEAKER_01 22:58

I know. Isn't that wild? But I'm glad we did this show because I think it is easy to and reasonable. I love that everybody's paying enough attention to get distracted by potential shiny objects. And it's not unreasonable to see the idea of a paid newsletter and think, what a great way to sustain myself between releases or when book sales are slumping or anything like that. But I'm glad we discussed it because there really is so much more involved than the shiny object entails. Or like we talk about a lot, Penny. You you talk about writers' groups and Facebook groups and things like that that, you know, very much like only the best of the best. And I think that's a lot of what this paid newsletter, like you hear that a couple authors are doing really well with their paid newsletter, and it sounds like something that you want to get on board with, but what you're not getting is the real world, you know, version of what goes into making that successful and justifying whether or not it's really serving you, you know.

SPEAKER_00 23:56

Well, and I think that, you know, I mean, there are a few thriller authors that I listen to because I listen to a lot of audiobooks, that if they were gonna create mini stories in between their releases, I would pay for that newsletter. Absolutely, because I'm because I am a huge super fan times 10 of these authors, and I would absolutely pay for that. So I think that you also have to kind of look at who your tribe is. And a lot of times as authors, we want to incorporate these, you know, advanced elements sometimes too early on in the campaign where we're not focused on the core things that we need to do. And we actually just did a show on 15-minute book marketing. Uh, we don't actually have a title for the show, but it was last week. So listen to that show because that in that show we actually focused on how you can focus on the core things that are really gonna matter and make a difference and our reader facing. And I don't to to my mind, unless you have a really, really, really strong base and a lot of content to share and a system that you can deliver it. I don't know that a fake newsletter is the shiny object you need to pay attention to.

SPEAKER_01 25:13

Exactly. There are better uses of your time in most cases.

SPEAKER_00 25:16

Yeah, absolutely. And if you have any questions about anything that you want to start, email Amy because she'll tell you straight out if it's gonna work or not. Sorry to open up that sorry to open up. I've got a little therapy corner. Yeah. Sorry to open up that floodgate.

Listener Question On Book Relaunches

SPEAKER_00 25:32

But speaking of communicating with us, uh, if you're not on our part of our texting tribe slash group, text the word podcast to 888-402-8940. We'd love to hear from you. Show ideas, show feedback, questions, all the things we would love to, we'd we'd love to hear from you. And Amy, do we have time for one question? Uh let's do it. We've had a couple of them. So we had one question, and I I'm gonna we talked about this in the green room, so I'm gonna immediately, Amy, turn this over to you if that's okay. Uh, so this author said, I was really intrigued by your multiple launches for a book episode, but I'm still not clear on how a relaunch differs from sustained promotional efforts. I'm about to release my sixth title, that's amazing, but I still regularly post and promote all of my earlier ones. This author obviously has a system, and I think that's awesome. But where do you think the disconnect was for this person? For the show.

SPEAKER_01 26:28

I think just yeah. Yeah, I mean, yes, I I echo Penny. Congratulations, because that's very cool. Like this person is putting out books and has a plan. I mean, they're doing the work, which I love. But I think the difference, and again, we don't know this person's exact situation either. So just pure speculation on what they might be doing since they still, you know, regularly post about and promote. A lot of times you get into a rhythm of what you do each month or, you know, every six weeks or whatever for your book. And you get into a rhythm and you do the same things over and over again. And there is value in that. But at the same time, it's not quite as strategic as taking advantage of the special moments, right? So basically, I mean, books gain traction through repeated opportunities. This is a key one, smart timing and consistent refinement. So I think those are huge, the timing and the refinement. So building, not just always doing the same thing, but making sure that you're refining what you're doing long term. You know, we talked about this in the 15-minute episode. It definitely you should always be evolving as an author, and so should your platform. So those are key. I think the smart timing is another big one. You know, Penny, when we were talking about this, you mentioned if you win an award, using that win as a reason to do another fresh launch for your book and anchor it to that award because that's a big freaking deal. You know what I mean? Winning an award is huge. Getting an industry review nowadays has gotten a little bit easier because there are different paid options. Not that it's not still great overall for your platform and long term, like there's there's you know value in it, but awards are no joke and they don't just hand those out.

SPEAKER_00 28:16

Yeah, yeah. I think that's I think that's really smart. I think that if you sometimes we have a plan and we have a list of 10 things that we do and we repeat those all the time. And really the the multiple launches episode was about shaking it up and looking at different opportunities, different, you know, different things to kind of hang your star on, so to speak. So I hope that that made sense. We

How To Connect And Leave Reviews

SPEAKER_00 28:46

love your questions anytime you and we also love reviews. So wherever you listen to podcasts, leave us a review. We check them all the time. We love them, and we love to hear from you. Thank you so much for listening. We'll see you next week. Bye bye.