Scattering Seeds turned one at the beginning of September! A whole year of writing and sharing has come and gone and I feel more excited about the newsletter now than I did six months ago when I wrote my first State of the Newsletter. I am looking forward to sharing an update on how things are going with you today.
Just like the first time, all subscribers, free and paid, will be getting this newsletter in their inbox. That is rare! Most of my content (over 85%) is behind the paywall each month. I choose to share this letter with everyone because transparency in my work has always been important to me and I think the health of the creative small business industry relies on true stories about how things are going. I am so grateful to those of you have become paying subscribers over the past year. It’s humbling and motivating to do this work after two decades of creating content for free.
Let’s begin with the top line: how is it going?! What IS the state of this newsletter?
The newsletter remains healthy one year in. There has been no real growth in the second six months compared to the first six months but I am happy to have held steady. When we last chatted about this in March, I had 1,019 paid out of 18,680 total active subscribers (or 5.45%). Today I have 1,073 paid out of 18,351 total active subscribers (or 5.85%).
I also remain healthy one year in. This — I am relieved to say — is sustainable, joyful, creative work.
What about the state of paid newsletters in general?
Who knows?!
I have this unsubstantiated theory that some start-up is going to begin bundling newsletters so subscribers can pay one flat rate a month to get content from their favorite creators. (Something like Google Reader circa 2011 but it costs money.) I could see it being a huge hit and then flaming out as subscribers start to feel overwhelmed with content and the inevitable endless scroll that would result from such a project. (There is no way the start-up would settle for just the subscription cash and would use an algorithm to sell ads and charge creators for a premium spot in the feed.)
What I do know for sure is that I am going to keep writing and I am going to keep subscribing to newsletters that are making interesting, entertaining content. I personally would pay for more newsletters! I would love to get more great content in my inbox.
Let’s talk a bit more about the numbers:
My open rate for paid subscribers has dropped slightly to about 84%. My open rate for free subscribers has also dropped to about 55-60%. Over the past six months, my most opened newsletters were the “Long Story Long” posts which is so fun. I love a long story and these text-heavy, chatty posts are my favorite to contemplate and then pull together.
Over the past six months, my subscriber make-up has changed a little bit. The majority of subscribers used to pay on a monthly basis but now that number has dropped to 44%. (Meaning 56% pay annually.) I recently shared with paid subscribers that the bouquet member gift for the second year would be a ceramic ruffle bowl (shown above) and that seemed to help the bouquet member numbers hold steady so far (plus it means I get to keep throwing ruffle bowls).
Almost all of my free-to-paid conversion happens mid-month when I send a “trailer email” to free subscribers that highlights everything I have shared with the paid audience over the past four weeks. I can usually count on this to drive 20 new sign-ups.
When the one year mark rolled around early this month I was curious and anxious to see what would happen to annual subscriptions. Would they fall off a cliff? Would I get a bunch of emails from people who wanted to cancel? It was a relief that neither came to pass. The subscriber numbers held and I only got one (very kind) “please cancel” email.
As of this writing, I have grossed $71.6k from paid subscriptions. (Hosting fees and credit card processing fees come out of that figure.) The big month for me is always going to be September because that is when I launched so that is when most annual subscriptions renew. You can see on the right a MRR chart which stands for Monthly Recurring Revenue. That number changes as people upgrade and downgrade their membership but it helps me to predict expected annual income.
To be honest, I spend less time today than I did six months ago thinking about how I can grow subscribers and revenue. Would it be great to have 10k paying subscribers? Yes, obviously; I like money. But seeing how many people stuck around to the start of year two was a calming creative boost. I want to grow, sure. But if this is it? If this is where the scattered seeds are going to land? That’s okay. This feels good. I am excited and inspired to create content for this existing audience.
What has stayed the same and changed over the past six months?
I have continued to share paid newsletters every Tuesday and most Fridays. I really love having umbrella categories to write under because they help give my posts more direction. Over the past six months I have introduced three new types of posts to Scattering Seeds.
Field trip is a photo-heavy series where I, you guessed it, go on a field trip. The first one, from May, was to the Sacramento Antique Fair. The second one, from August, shared my trip to the Flock Fiber Festival in Seattle. I loved writing both posts and am brainstorming where else I could take this category. (If you have recommendations, let me know!)
Casual Friday is a series I started in April to share on a variety of topics that are too complicated for a photo in the Postcard series but too brief for their own full newsletter. So far I have chatted about house projects, our pink wine, how I use google images when shopping second hand, my Invisalign journey and so much more. These posts always get a lot of feedback which is fun.
And then just last month I introduced “Around Here” which is a longer, text-heavy personal post. Writing it felt like going back in time to the early 2010s when I wrote more personally for my blog. I can see myself writing these types of posts about once a quarter and they feel like a good addition to the newsletter.
Let’s talk a bit more about the craft:
When I shared my first SotN six months ago, I heard from a lot of people who wanted to start their own paid newsletter. I admit it made me feel like I might have oversold the job. Don’t get me wrong — I love doing this, but I came into it with 20 years of experience. I wrote blog posts six days a week for nearly a decade and posted a lot of content to Instagram for the ten years after that. I was familiar with output cadence, subscriber churn and had developed my “voice” as a content creator. I know who I am online. I know what I like to share and how I like to share it. I am comfortable at the keyboard and with a camera. (And more valuable than any of that; I had an existing email list!)
If you are brand new and want to start a paid newsletter, my advice is to begin writing for free right now. Write, write and write. What stories can you tell? What lights you up? What are you bursting at the seams to learn about and talk about? That’s your topic. It’s a losing game (not to mention unsustainable) to try to create content that will go viral. Do not chase your audience. Instead, follow what interests you and that will be interesting.
As I head into year two of this venture, that’s my main goal: I want to keep chasing and sharing what interests me.
