Unconventional Career Idea 💡 Start a Paid Newsletter (That Actually Pays)
8/12/2024
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hi, i'm ash!
Creator of the New Travel & Design Series, 'OTHER PEOPLE'S HOUSES.'
Travel writer & host, cultural explorer, and architecture & interiors freak.
Meet ash >
The Newsletter
Every week, we're exploring global culture through the lens of the home. From floorplans to fixtures, we examine how houses are built, designed, and decorated around the world (with a side of sass, of course!)
The Podcast
The only podcast where we pass on the pyramids and poke around in the plumbing. I’m Ash, and I'm, exploring the strange, smart, and wonderful ways houses are built, designed, and decorated around the world.
The Books
A new series of OTHER PEOPLE'S HOUSES books designed to help you try on a new life in different places around the world—by getting to "go behind closed doors" inside local homes to discover what it's really like to live there.
Oh Ash, I have stalked and followed you for so so so long. I love your content, and it sounds soooo much, like, YESSS! In fact, it’s probably the only content that ‘gets me.’ But, I have a severe case of analysis paralysis.
I finish grad school in one month with a masters in instructional design & technology and a bachelor’s in (you’ll never guess), creative-freakin’-writing.
I could advise someone else all day long, but I can’t seem to see my own situation worth a damn. I’m really struggling to nail down the topic of my newsletter. Sooo, frustrating. I know it’s in there somewhere.
Jacklyn, so what is your true love and passion? you say you can advise someone all day long, so you could classify yourself a good teacher? What would you love to teach that you are good at or love to do?
Somewhere in the middle of responding to your post and working on my last grad school assignment, I think I figured it out. The lightbulb, as they say, came on. I’m going to start a newsletter for self-directed learners who are looking for ways to reach their educational goals without racking up 100k in student loan debt. The concept of higher education is changing, the skills necessary to succeed are shifting, and I can show people how to navigate the online landscape to achieve those goals. Not only that, but for creators who are already creating their own courses, I can help them legitimize them from an instructional designer’s perspective.
Thank you for responding! I’m less than a month away from graduation and plan to hit the ground running in the next month. Cheers!
Thats great news Jacklyn 🤩 Good luck both for your graduation and launching
That is SUCH a good idea!! Good luck!
Thank you! I’m in my last two weeks of this graduate degree. I’ll be ramping up on this project between now and then.
Just a note here: you could 10,000% have an entire business helping people create / design online courses with your instructional designer background. THIS IS SO NECESSARY. There are big bucks to be made there – and honestly, a side hustle newsletter JUST talking about how to design killer courses would probably make you millions, LOL.
What works for me here is reframing the thing into “a fun project” or “an experiment” rather than MY NEW BUSINESS AND ALL THE PRESSURE THAT COMES WITH THAT. 🤣 Substack is actually the perfect playing grounds for something like that; it’s casual and it’s easy as hell to set up, and you can start experimenting with the kinds of things you love talking about here, without it being SUPER DUPER SERIOUS AND EVERYTHING MUST GO PERFECTLY, hahahaha. I’m launching a new Substack purely for joy shortly – watch how I do it, I think you’ll see it doesn’t have to be this huge thing, but rather, just follow your joy. Always. 🌈
I’ve been struggling to come up with a thoughtful way to monetize while still providing as much value as possible, and this gave me a ton of clarity. Thank you for this one! New paid sub here 🙂
Paul, I’m really loving your newsletter and the angle you’re taking with it! You definitely should subscribe to Rachel Karten’s Link In Bio – even though it’s a different industry, she writes it for industry professionals (similar to what you are doing), and you might get even more inspo from it!
Go, go, go, Paul!!!!!!!!! Keep me posted.
Thanks Ash, I appreciate that feedback. I’ll check her out, thanks for the recommendation 🙂
Happened upon this post as I was working on turning on payments for my newsletter and I love how the post itself does the work you’re talking about—I upgraded by the time I got to the pay button 🤗
I’m still finding my way as I go, but I’m excited about the space I’m creating and plan to keep showing up and seeing it through even as it evolves as I learn more.
I sooooo look forward to seeing 🌈 💀 in my 🌊 of emails. Makes me 😊. Grazie, Ash! 💕
I struggle with the “being specific” when it talks to diving deep into one topic – when I want to talk about ALL. THE. THINGS. It makes me itch. but I’m willing to try again……..