How To Make Money From Your Substack Posts

Or 'free money' as I like to call it

Back in January, you may remember, I published a post giving you a few film recommendations (which reminds me, I must do another soon…). Anyway, in it, I mentioned an abundance meditation I had been doing every day for the last couple of months. But I wanted to tell you a little story about one particular day when I did it.

I usually do my abundance meditations first thing in the morning, while I’m still in that liminal space between sleep and wake. I turn over, still groggy, reach for my phone and press play. But it does mean that I often fall back to sleep while I do it, and on those occasions I have to do it again when I wake up.

One such morning, back in January, exactly that happened to me. I woke up, started my abundance meditation, fell asleep again, woke up and put it on again. Afterwards I yawned and stretched and checked my email and there was an email from Marie Claire Australia asking if they could republish it and pay me £1,000.

Blimey, I thought, that abundance meditation worked quickly!

The piece they wanted to republish was this one:

This piece that I wrote late at night in no more than 40 minutes because I had all these thoughts about this case and others racing around my head, has since gone viral and has had more than 160,000 views. It has brought me over 3,000 new subscribers (hello, if that is how you found me), and dozens of paids ones (thank you if that is you also - you are so much appreciated here). It has also earnt me that £1,000 from Marie Claire Australia.

If you have been following me a while, you will remember that at the end of last year I had a couple of other Substack posts that were picked up by the newspapers which together also earnt me £1,000.

I call this free money, because those pieces were written primarily for you, they were already done, and so the fact that they found another life out in the world and I got paid for them is just a lovely bonus. But at a time when we’re all struggling to pay our bills (how did I manage to get an extra tax bill yesterday?!) we all need to find a way of bringing more money in, and I believe that anybody writing on Substack can do this — you don’t need to be someone like me, a journalist with 30 years experience.

Back in the autumn, I started running workshops on zoom entitled ‘Pitch Your Substack Posts to Newspapers and Magazines’. These were two-hour workshops (half price for annual paid subscribers) where I would teach all I knew about:

• how commissioning editors work

• my formula for what you can sell to them

• what they’re looking for from you

• what you have to sell them that you might not even realise

• when its the best time to pitch to them

• and how to shape your pitch to them to secure a commission.

Those who attended the workshop had a chance to take part in the exercises live with me and we talked through their pitches because, of course, in my former life working on newspapers and magazines I was commissioning every day and so I know my onions.

Here’s what someone who attended recently said:

“Anna delivered a brilliant Writing for Newspapers workshop. It was an intimate group, which made it easy to share and be brave to share when it came to having a go with the individual activities. There was lots of learning, and everyone supported each other. Anna’s style is relaxed and lets you immediately feel at ease to focus on the content. Thank you for a wonderful workshop, and I look forward to practising what I learnt!”

And here’s what someone who attended previously said:

“Anna, I just want to say a massive thank you for your course. I’ve now won pitches for The Telegraph, Woman and Home, The Sunday Post and Take a Break. So many others wanted the pitches too. I did them all bearing in mind your guidance.”

So many of you contacted me and asked if there was a recording because the time they were being held (whatever time zone you are in) didn’t work for you, and maybe some of you were just shy and wanted to be able to follow the workshop from the privacy of your own home on your own. And now finally, I have done just that, I have made a recording that you can watch, follow and learn from home at your leisure.

The recording is 45-minutes long — longer if you stop and do all the exercises which I really recommend you do as this will be the secret that unlocks your ability to make money from your Substack posts. Plus, you can take as long as you like to work through it, although those who attended in person had me on the call to practise their pitches with, they were often only given five minutes or so to complete an exercise — so you have the advantage there.

The workshop is available for £99/US$125 to free subscribers. Or if you upgrade your membership to a paid annual subscriber, you can get it for a discount.

I’m asking people to pay what they can afford because I want this to be available for everyone as I know times are tough. And there are three options for paid annual subscribers: £40/US$50, £60/US$75 or £80/US$100.

Remember that upgrading to become a paid annual subscriber also gives you access to all of my archived content, dozens of guest essays from brilliant authors, and you get to join my monthly creative writing meet up where you will learn much more to shape your writing every month.

If you would like to purchase the recording, please either send me a direct message on Substack, or email me with the amount you would like to pay: annawharton@substack.com

(Please make sure that if you’re paying the discounted rate you have already upgraded to annual paid subscriber – it’s actually 50% cheaper than paying monthly so it’s a good choice).

I will then send you a PayPal invoice and once you’ve paid you will receive the link to the recording. You will also be able to go back to that recording at any time, which I recommend as there are exercises in there that even I go back to from time to time. It is always a good idea to remind ourselves of our skills and our worth. Plus, if you have any burning questions afterwards you can always drop me a line.

Oh, and if you would like to do my abundance meditation and see if the money comes rolling in for you too, you’ll find it in this post below.

Thanks, as ever, for reading!