Hey honeys and hustlers,

Good writers think like a host. Hosting is inviting people to something and making them feel welcome. It’s about care, not just content. In a word, it’s about hospitality. "Literary hospitality is the practice of helping readers feel understood, helped, and cared for." I remember reading this line on Substack and immediately adding it to my dictionary. My Southern hospitality just got a new name, an upgrade, and a powerful description. I've been posting about my newsletter growth on LinkedIn, and I always get a DM or comment asking about "the reason for the growth" or something along those lines. They're looking for a hack. A trigger they can pull that makes growth easier and faster. There isn’t one – or maybe, there’s not only one.

In the first 6 months of writing this newsletter, I did my fair share of research. I looked at newsletter writers of all sizes as I chased my first 1,000 subscribers and found that everyone who had more than that number had a few things in common. Here are my findings, recommendations, and things to consider if you’re trying to grow your newsletter audience right now – and no, you won’t be rich in 30 days.

The 3 most important things in a newsletter are the title, subtitle, and first sentence. They’re the YouTube equivalent of title, thumbnail, and first 30 seconds. Put the most effort into these. Then move on to outline, story structure, personality, and design.

For this newsletter, my themes are creativity, community, and entrepreneurship. Feed Me? New York, American subcultures, and business. Internetly? Writing and solopreneurship. Offball? Sports and culture. Find your key themes and go hard on leveraging your personality and perspective.

People want to post more often than they have the capacity, and often end up not posting at all or posting very inconsistently. People don't want to be bad/imperfect in public (aka your writing will suck at first). Long-form writing takes a long time to grow, so it might be a while before you receive positive or any feedback on your writing. They run out of things to talk about and create because they don't have a clear premise.

In those first 6 months, I ran out of steam on my podcast and YouTube channel, but I still had to find things to talk about in my newsletter. And I fumbled my way through it, but I showed up every week. I went on long walks and touched grass until ideas came to me. Some posts didn’t perform well. Some posts were so “me” I didn’t think many folks would resonate with them, but they did. Some posts were shared on social media by readers before I even got the chance. And those very people are likely still reading this and have long forgotten those articles. It doesn’t have to be perfect, or even great, at first. Just have a plan and stick to it.

Notion is where I keep my newsletter workspace. Many of my articles begin in disorganized notebooks and Obsidian. This is just what works for me. Find what works for you and do it consistently.

Corey (Blk Pod News), Michelle (Creators Getting Paid), Matt (The Life Shift Reflections), Ana Xavier (The Podcast Space), Daniel (Indie Thinkers), Lex (Revenue Rulebreaker), and so many other folks that I’ve met through Substack and beehiiv make up my newsletter community. They don’t read everything I send out or give me writing ideas. They give me so much more than that. They give me perspective. They encourage me. They speak life into me when I’m unsure if I’ll reach my arbitrary goals that literally nobody cares about but me.

Find your community.

CTAs aren’t just for ads, your own products, and affiliate links. Try these:

Open rates and CTR are good to know, don’t get me wrong. But they’re far from the only measure of audience affinity and article resonance. See what posts and CTA’s get the most comments, responses, and shares. They know like I now know, that if something genuinely speaks to your audience, your audience will go out of their way to let you and the whole world know.

I remember hearing Chanelle of Growth in Reverse say her first-ever newsletter article took a month to write and research. I’m not saying you need to take a month to write an article, but that effort and attention to detail paid off. People appreciate her in-depth reviews of newsletters with 50K+ subscribers. People appreciate effort and quality, and that will never go out of style, no matter how many people churp about attention spans. I firmly believe that you have to treat a newsletter like a creative product, a destination, and an ongoing project that will be improved with every iteration. My favorite recent long reads are from:

All of these are long, consistent, valuable, and entertaining. I frequently bookmark/save them to reference them. These are undoubtedly harder to produce, but explicitly meant for a certain target audience: people who care.

Not the kind you'll find in a "10X your newsletter in 10 days" thread. Building a newsletter audience is less about hacks and more about habits. It's about showing up consistently, being genuinely curious about your topic, building real relationships with other writers, and always—always—serving your readers first.

Start with one. Maybe it's nailing your topic ideation, or maybe it's reaching out to connect with 3-5 other writers this month. Whatever resonates most with where you are right now.

Because the best newsletter you can write is the one you actually publish.

P.S. On Saturday, I’m testing out a new writing topic and format. I’ll be doing a twist on a creator profile, so stay tuned to check it out!