A New Chapter for The Unstoppable Creator: Here’s How It’ll Help You
What's changing and why.
I took some time to reflect on this publication recently. I don’t do it enough.
The organic growth has been good, especially considering I reduced the time spent writing on Notes and commenting on other people’s content.
The Unstoppable Creator has almost 1,400 subscribers now. Thank you from the bottom of my heart for subscribing and reading!
But as you know, a growing audience isn't enough. This effort is sustainable only if it brings in enough money.
I’ve got a confession to make
Last year, I completely pivoted my Italian business. We retired all our products and started selling services… in a different niche! It was as if we started from zero. So the revenue plummeted.
I also started from scratch on Substack, with no existing English audience, except for a few hundred disengaged subscribers collected on Medium. This obviously meant almost no revenue from this publication.
As a result, my income last year was so low that I'm embarrassed to even tell my wife.
(Even writing this hurts)
I love sharing free knowledge and advice, but it has to work financially.
Also, juggling my Italian business, this publication, my tribute band, and my son (not in order of importance!) requires a delicate balance to stay sane.
This led to some decisions for the near future.
Publishing schedule
Since May, I published two free articles every week. From now on, I’ll publish only one. I’m sorry, but I’ll make sure this is not a loss for you.
Since my Italian business has become 100% service-based, it's taking more time and making my schedule less predictable. Some weeks, I found myself stuck on the hamster wheel of content creation, only having time to think about the next article.
With more time, I’ll be able to think longer term, develop better ideas and publish more refined content. And I’ll prevent burn out, which, I can attest, doesn’t improve the quality of our content and of our decisions…
But I don't exclude the possibility of adding more content occasionally.
Monetization
In December, I binged on paid content from Category Pirates. They publish two mini-books every month for their paid subscribers.
For me as a reader, mini-books (better yet mini-audiobooks) are the perfect format. I don’t have to block 4 hours to finish them, but I learn much more from them than from the usual article.
I’ve always loved the business model based on short, focused, actionable books, even before Substack. So I want to give it a try.
I'll release a mini-book every month for my paid subscribers. I’ll also make them available on Amazon and Gumroad (the books, not the subscribers! 😄). (You can already read two mini-books about finding your niche and creating your custom writing system)
I’ll also keep adding templates to automate and streamline your processes as a creator. Here are the available ones.
Meanwhile, I just disabled the automatic paywall in my archives. It didn’t convert paid subscribers and may have negatively affected my content’s reach.
By the way, if you haven't done it yet, here you can vote on the survey about the next topics for my mini-books.
Last-minute (exciting) decision
For a while, I've been considering starting a podcast with creators about their routines, habits, and self-improvement practices. I haven't started because of the time commitments, logistical complications, and (sigh) the fear that my English isn't good enough for audio interviews.
But now, with Substack offering live streaming to all creators, I decided to pull the trigger. I'll test this feature (and maybe leverage the additional exposure) to launch my podcast.
So, mark your calendar: the first interview will go live on Monday, January 22, 2025 at 10 AM ET.
(Here’s a link to convert it to your timezone)
That’s it. What about you?
I wanted to share this with you to be transparent, but also because,you might learn something from the reasoning behind my decisions.
How are you doing on Substack?
What's your plan to increase your free and paid subscriptions in the coming year?
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