Earning Money (on Substack) Without Burning Out... Revisited

First written December 2023. Reading it back now, a few years on.

I found this one in my archive the other day and sat with it for a while before I could bring myself to touch it.

Because whoever wrote this... she had no idea what was coming. She was three people paying her a month and a mixture of pressure and elation. She hadn't written a book yet. She didn't know the words "top 10 on the Substack leaderboard" would ever apply to her. She was just trying to hold her nervous system together while she figured out if this Substack thing could actually take care of her family.

I've left almost all of her words exactly as she wrote them. I've only stepped in here and there, in the little reflection notes, to tell her (and you) what happened next.

Here's the original post, from December 2023...

Vulnerability is the birthplace of innovation, creativity and change.

Brene Brown

Hi!

If you're new here I'm Claire. I'm an Engagement Consultant and Mentor for the Arts and Heritage sector and I write Creatively Conscious here on Substack.

I also teach creatives who also like to write how to use the platform over at Sparkle on Substack. I live under dark skies on the Northumberland Coast with my family and 5 pet chickens.

We live life in the slow lane and writing here on Substack has helped make my dream of being able to take care of my family a reality. Thank-you for supporting me and my work. ✨

Substack subscriptions currently bring in $12,500 dollars into my business. My work teaching Substack beyond that brings in another £8000+.

I don't run a 6 figure business but I'd like to…

A note from a few years on: She got there. Not in the way she was picturing when she wrote that line, either... it wasn't a single big leap, it was this same slow, sustainable growth she describes below, just kept going for longer than she could imagine sitting here in December 2023.

Today's post is for my members. You are welcome to pay to read it. It's part of the 'behind the scenes of my creative business' section. It's called 'Your Self Seeded Business' because if I can; you can!

Paid members here at Creatively Conscious get access to 4 online seasonal workshops a year, at least one exclusive post a month, special previews and discounts on my courses, masterclasses and workshops. They also get free access to all my vision board resources and videos.

It's currently £10 a month or £70 for the year here. Here's the overview of 2024.

(Those were the 2023 prices, kept as they were for the record. The membership itself, though... that's still very much alive, and it's grown into far more than it was then.)

Substack and the Long Game

Over in my members community at Sparkle on Substack where we talk about Substack and our journey with it, the most popular question is;

how to grow sustainably (and joyfully).

and the next most popular question is.

how to set up a paid community where you feel paid properly for your creative work and without burning out delivering 12 months a year!

Shall I tell you my story?

I started writing on Substack in April 2022.

I had zero subscribers.

I turned on 'paid subscriptions' from the start and figured I'd grow into what that could be later. This was a mindset decision rather than a practical decision.

Three people paid straight away. I felt a mixture of pressure and elation.

Spoiler alert - that combination still exists EVERY TIME someone pays to join my community. Depending on where I am feeling with my self worth, creativity and hormones I might feel elated or I might feel a tiny bit sick!

In October 2023 I got my Substack bestseller badge; I wear it with pride. 😉. Imposter Syndrome tells me I only got it because my work is zeitgeist - i.e people want to learn about Substack on Substack and I teach that. 🙉.

A note from a few years on: Not long after this, I co-wrote How to Build a World Class Substack, which went on to become an Amazon bestseller. The woman worrying she'd only got a badge because of zeitgeist ended up writing one of the actual books on the subject. I wish I could go back and tell her.

I can sit with it, I can lean into the discomfort and noise of people who did once subscribe here now ignore me but I can only do that because my work is an act or service AND so many of you support it.

I taught a masterclass to my paid subscribers over on Sparkle on Substack about how to feel confident in charging money for your Substack, for your writing, your creative offering. We dig into how to make it feel sustainable and how it might fit into the rest of your online eco-system.

A practical workshop with oodles of support, some 'honest' maths and some practical decision making. Do join us over there and watch the replay?

The 2023 price for Sparkle is £8 to jump in for the month and you get access to the whole back catalogue of Sparkle calls and workshops too! (£70 for the year is your better value option) We are a growing community supportive and magical creatives who want to grow sustainably and joyfully on Substack - come say hi!?

Success on Substack - A Timeline

From self expression to space holder.

Here's the rest of my Substack creation timeline including the REAL numbers…

April - September 2022

A real reset of my nervous system and out-pouring of taking up space in written form through storytelling, in memoir, in the thick of it.

Reading and connecting with a handful of other folks here.

October 2022

Imported by (mailchimp) mailing list (x300 people) I'd been gathering since 2017. 5 years of telling people I send a monthly email. One (funded) partnership with an ad agency with a £500 spend made for a list of 300 mostly engaged subs on a list. People I could tell about my projects, people who occasionally replied.

December 2022

Complete digital detox from everything except Substack. So many light bulb moments about all of the distractions we're pulled into from comparison to compulsion to buy, to copy, to create away from our true north, to be someone other than we actually are, to mask, to move away from our soul work!

January 2023

Hosted a Ways into Creative Journalling masterclass to share in setting goals for the year.

Heard myself say out loud that I wanted Substack to be a big part of my year. 🤓. Leant into the curiosity of what that could mean for my creative expression and my business.

February

Published a post 'Is Substack a Side Hustle' that so far has driven 43 subs…I'll say since writing this folks have become a lot more transparent about their earnings here and I'll share mine at the bottom.

March

Hosted a masterclass for folks to learn Substack; it's key to tell your people about what Substack is and isn't in whichever way that works for you!

April

Our first holiday abroad as a family of four. No access to laptop but could tell my Substack kept growing, more folks were finding my words… there was an energy - a buzz about the scheduled posts I'd shared. Felt magic. Felt a brilliant place to put energy.

Came home and Substack Notes launched, felt unsure here for the first time. Change was in the air.

Started thinking about YouTube and what I might share there…

May

Made some goals around collaborations… I think I'm at around 15 collaborations now. Here on Creatively Conscious and as part of other people's publications too.

Starting using Substack Notes daily.

Started a temporary post series called 'Stay Creative on Substack' - it was very well read and engaged in.

June

Launched a new publication Company of Two with my pal and business bestie Laura Oldfield. We currently have 160 subscribers - a community of mothers who want to explore being, balance and business in motherhood with us through podcasts and community. This publication grows around 30 subscribers a month IF we post.

Made my first YouTube video and started a playlist called 'Joyful Growth on Substack.' It now has 257 subscribers. I pop my podcasts on there as unlisted and then make them public when they are ready for everyone else.

July

Hit 1000 subs on here on Creatively Conscious on Substack.

Started Sparkle on Substack to make more space, to be more expansive with my teaching on Substack! I was keen to make MORE space for creatives who also like to write, for artists and those unravelling diverse income streams in their business (Substack being one of them). I didn't want to loose my voice and make this space all about teaching, sharing, Substack stuff….I wanted to keep the identity of whole hearted living and share behind the scenes of my business.

A note from a few years on: Sparkle became the flagship. It's the reason I'm now writing across four publications with 20,000+ subscribers between them, ranked in the top 20 on the Substack leaderboard for Art. The girl who "wasn't sure" about making more space for teaching built her whole business around it.

August

Started teaching masterclasses, holding space for co-working sessions and workshops over at Sparkle on Substack.

Started wondering more about Creatively Conscious and making sure I'm not "in competition with myself" and it all fits together as part of a wider business eco-system.

Hit 500 subs on Sparkle on Substack

Hit 2000 subs (under my writer name here). The 2000 subs was a combo of all 3 spaces I write under.

Did a celebratory dance, wondered about success in all of it's forms and if this is it - if I've finally made it to a place where I can relax into consistent success and some gentle turn-over that isn't reliant on the high risk/ high reward funding landscape of the cultural sector…. 👀

September

Dealt with some tricky online things; realised it was a whole different ball game to working with people IRL and I've worked with A LOT of egos of the years.

Lots of practises to help myself feel safe and connected with people I can trust.

There was a leak in one of my circles and someone got upset but I'll never know which and it doesn't matter now. I've basically got 3 people I can talk to about anything and the rest of my conversations I imagine as a billboard and a screen shot before I have them… ✨

Met some new Substack enthusiast colleagues and beautiful souls - this space became something more precious than I could ever imagine.

October

Got Substack bestseller - I wasn't expecting this but it was a quiet goal.

Invited to speak at Alnwick Story Fest about Substack. A paid gig and one I'm so excited about.

Paused my 1-2-1s as felt stuck in the mud delivering them…

November

Poured more energy into both of my podcasts; learnt how to edit.

Felt the sting of some burn out… pulled back from everything…

Worked with mentors and coaches, started therapy to pull on themes of rejection and self worth.

Black Friday weekend - Launched my group programme for Substack; Your beautifully curated Magazine. 6 spots. Sold out! x 2.

A note from a few years on: That little 6-spot launch was the seed. It became a proper course with a proper name (you know it now as Your Beautiful Digital Magazine) and it's run again and again since. Six spots felt huge at the time. It really was the start of something.

December

Hit 4000 subs total including; 1700 subs here and 1900 over on Sparkle.

257 on YouTube

5.5k podcast downloads (there are 7 episodes).

Linked IN group for Substack writers has 200+ lovely souls.

Celebrated new friendship, kinship, colleagueship

Organised a Substack meet up IRL. Coming Feb 2024!

Invited to run a year long Substack programme for the cultural sector in the North East; a new commission and one I'm so excited about.

Wrapped up the year feeling very proud of myself and of us all. This is such a WORLD, A universe to navigate; we are all amazing!

My website/ crm emailed me and told me I had 400 customers! I needed to upgrade to the next plan…

This is growth in real time, it's also success of course and I feel that. I also feel tired and ready to rest…

In all honesty, I'd say the more people who have joined me the more pressure I've felt and the more I've had to sit with the maths - I'm not good at maths! Maths is key to running a business that doesn't burn you out…

Onto the energy, numbers and income

I've spent pretty much every day on Substack since April 2023 - I want to be really transparent about that.

I ditched instagram in June and I've gone in on learning the platform here and connecting to folks in strategy sessions one to one and testing out writing and notes. I'm since back on the gram but I'm not attached to it if that makes sense?

I've not had a 'sales strategy' for my paid subs I've simply been happy to grow organically and see them trickling in learning what tips folks into paid for content as I go.

I do have one now (a strategy) and I'll share this in the up-coming workshop for those interested in started paid communities over on Sparkle on Substack next month.

Both my subscription models here are membership models. More on the difference here by Substack growth wizard Russell Nohelty.

There are basically two ways to do a subscription. One is a publication model, like any newspaper in the country. Publication models work best for Grasslands. The other is a membership model, like any association, where you mainly pay to be part of a group of like-minded humans. Membership models are perfect for Forests.

Money in! "Gross Annual Revenue" - say whaaaat?!

Now this confused me in the dashboard - it doesn't mean the money you actually earn… I've found it SO hard to work that out but here's a simple sum I use.

A subscriber pays you £8 for the month and you receive anywhere between £6.80 - £7.14 depending on the exchange rate at the time into your bank.

A subscriber pays me £80 for the year and in the last two emails from Stripe I've received £67.23 and £74.47 depending on the currency they have paid in.

So if I take Sparkle on Substack and work out the paid subs average and earning opportunity….

x 10 subscribers at £7 average a month is £70

x 10 annual subscriptions at £70 average is £700

My goal would be to have mostly annual subscribers so if I focus there x 50 subscribers at £70 would be £3500 per year.

If I have say 5 a month coming in new that's £35 x 12 months of the year = £42

That's why I focus on giving a lot of value to encourage folks to sign up for the whole year. I also find it energetically difficult if people come and go; maybe I'll get better at dealing with that…

A note from a few years on: She did get better at dealing with it. And that "not good at maths" line still makes me soft towards her. She never became someone who loves maths, but the maths itself grew up. This same instinct, give value first, worry about the churn less, is still the backbone of how the business works now.

Substack is not my job but it's part of my work.

So how's it going now, what's the breakdown?

Creatively Conscious - is real mix of monthly and annual subs… some free trials from Keris Stainton special offer to her subs to join my space here.

And on Sparkle on Substack which I set up with a VERY clear focus and niche back in July…there were 73 paid subs (some comps), now there are 148.

This means this Substack is helping me bolster my business income and I am so grateful for that after x5 funding rejections this summer.

So rather than thinking I need to just 'keep going' with both I've come to a place where I've set a strategy for encouraging MORE annual subs to both.

If you're keen to learn more; sign up to Sparkle on Substack I'd love that!

You are welcome to re-stack it and continue the conversation on this topic there if you'd like!

Thanks for being here and sharing in my journey. I'm so open to any questions you might have?

Claire x

✨

Where I am now

I keep coming back to that line: "I don't run a 6 figure business but I'd like to…"

She did. Not with a single lucky break, but with the same slow accumulation she was already describing... one masterclass, one honest post about the maths, one small launch of six spots, repeated, season after season, until it stopped being a hope and became just... true.

Since she wrote this, the four publications grew into 20,000+ subscribers, with around 600 of them paying. Creatively Conscious sits in the top 20 on the Substack leaderboard for Art. The book she couldn't quite believe she deserved a bestseller badge for became an actual book, How to Build a World Class Substack, co-written and out in the world since 2024. There's a second one in progress now, and a book deal on the horizon for 2027. She's spoken at events beyond Alnwick since, including as far as New Orleans. Newspapers she used to just read (The Sunday Times, The Telegraph, iPaper) have written about her instead.

None of that happened because the December 2023 version of her figured out some clever trick the rest of us hadn't. It happened because she kept doing the unglamorous thing... showing the real numbers, admitting she wasn't good at maths, launching small and sold out rather than big and empty, resting when she needed to instead of pushing through.

If you're earlier in your own timeline than this and it feels slow, or like the numbers are embarrassingly small to admit out loud... I promise you, they were for me too. That's not a stage you pass through on your way to the "real" version of success. It IS the real version. It was the whole thing.

Check out Sparkle on Substack here