
Ask HN: I have a 3,500 subscriber email newsletter. How do I make $50/mo off it? - DanLivesHere
The details:<p>I have a daily emails newsletter which, basically, acts like a blog.  I write a story sharing some true, typically unknown item (Abe Lincoln created the Secret Service the day he was shot, for example) with the readers.  I'm not putting the URL here because I want to be clear that this question isn't intended as a promotional vehicle.<p>The email costs me $50/mo to send.  (I'm using Mailchimp and that's their monthly fee.)  It'll cost me $75 when/if I break the 5,000 subscriber plateau.  It's not expensive, but I'd like to break even, and I'm looking for easy ways to get there.  (The list is waaaaaaaay too small to consider direct sales brand advertising.)<p>I can't run AdWords or, for that matter, any standard ad network's banners, because the content is delivered via email.  I occasionally drop in an Amazon affiliate link but I don't want to overdo it.  (Perhaps a "Book of the Day" line would be good, or "Related Reading.")<p>I'm looking for ideas which are out of the box.  Anyone?
======
webwright
Affiliates. If you write about Abe Lincoln, link to the best biography about
him.

If you always write about surprising stuff, find books that map to that:
[http://www.amazon.com/Never-Shower-Thunderstorm-
Surprising-M...](http://www.amazon.com/Never-Shower-Thunderstorm-Surprising-
Misleading/dp/080508312X)

Sponsors are good too but require a bit more hustle.

~~~
DanLivesHere
That speaks to my "Related Reading" idea in the OP. It's actually pretty easy
to do, too. Definitely going to consider it highly, even though it won't work
every day.

~~~
mobl
contact me, I might be interested in advertising jimmy@inodesoft.com

Have an awesome and very brigth day!

:-)

Jaime E

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acangiano
It's a great newsletter, and here is the URL: <http://dlewis.net/nik/> (I
subscribe and actually read it often.)

Regarding your question, check this out: <http://www.kehalim.com/> It's
contextual advertising for pretty much anything, including email.

~~~
DanLivesHere
Thanks (x2)! Hadn't heard of Kehalim -- will look closely at it.

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eggbrain
If it is a daily email, I'd put a little note that says something like
"Advertise here for $5 a day and be seen by over 3000 viewers!" If I was an
active reader of the newsletter, and owned a small website somewhat related to
what you email about, I'd spend 1/10th of a penny per eyeball.

~~~
DanLivesHere
I've considered it a few times, but I don't really like asking my readers to
become my advertisers. (Among other things.)

But I grant that I may be overly stupid here.

~~~
noahc
I will confirm you are being overly stupid here.

Your readers are of a certain type. The probably have projects and businesses
that align with that type. They want their projects and businesses to have
more attention from people like them.

You could even not allow ads that don't represent high quality awesomeness if
you're so inclined. Make it an exclusive type of advertising and say, "$5 to
offer my readers something awesome" so then you're aligning your readers
wishes of finding out about cool stuff and getting a discount on cool stuff
with your own financial interests.

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ssharp
Do you know anything else about your audience other than that they enjoy
"daily facts"?

The more relevant your affiliate ads, the higher conversion rate you should
have, so target with that in mind. Obviously, the more you know about your
audience, the closer you can target.

It seems like something like this could initially go after books with trivia
info, mental floss, etc. But I wouldn't get too caught up with this step. It's
a daily email, so you could try out 365 different things each year and see
what works.

Your best bet is to just play around with products, measure everything you can
(obviously MailChimp clicks, but you must also measure conversions after they
click, revenue, etc).

~~~
DanLivesHere
About 20% of my readership comes from an informal deal with Mental Floss, so I
assume that their demographics match mine well.

I try and measure as much as I can, but I'm a part-time one-man band.

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raganwald
Just ask for it. I remember putting a "Buy Raganwald a Coffee" Paypal link on
my blog and presto, people started clicking the link and sending me $1.27
each. I tried raising prices: I changed the link to "Buy Raganwald a Double
Espresso" and people started sending me $3.15 each, and numbers did not fall
by 2/3.

Start by asking for donations. You may be pleasantly surprised by what your
readers will do for you.

~~~
duck
That is true. For my newsletter I get subscribers every couple weeks asking me
if they can donate some money. I still haven't added a link though, as I
thought it might come off the wrong way.

------
shazow
Have you looked at how your competitors make money?

This reminds me of omg-facts.com which I follow on Twitter and greatly enjoy
(@OMGFacts). Seems they're reasonably successful with 1.6mil followers and
various subcategory accounts (OMGFactsCelebs, OMGFactsSex, etc.) Their
strategy seems to be occasional cross promotion and funnel readers to their
site which is laden with advertisements. That's one option. (1)

(2) Charge subscription fees (perhaps $5/yr) for a premium version of the
mailing list and treat the free one as a light upsell. Assuming you get 5%
conversion, that's $750/yr or $62.50/mo. You'll need to figure out what kinds
of extras you need to provide for your audience to consider it worth pulling
out their credit card.

Alternatively could beg for donations, but I would rather donate by buying
something from you.

(3) Find a cheaper way to send newsletters. Given Mailchimp's price points,
seems the only way to go cheaper is to do it yourself. This is probably not
worth it for you.

(4) webwright's point of doing Affiliates. No reason not to do this, very
little effort and adds value to the newsletter.

(5) Merchandise. Perhaps compile a book of a year's worth of factoids and
self-publish? Could do a paid ebook or printed on-demand via Amazon or
Lulu.com. Could also do calendars (the one post-it per day kind, or the
monthly flip ones). Once you have some solid merch, you could try and peddle
to other resellers.

I like all of these, but not at the same time. I'd start with affiliates, then
make a destination blog that mirrors the content but has a bit more engagement
and some ads (also mirror on Twitter/Facebook, start building a brand), then
do a premium newsletter/merchandise, then someday when you're a kingpin with
millions of subscribers you can look into rolling your own mailing server.

P.S. I subscribed to your newsletter via acangiano's link. Looking forward to
it. :)

~~~
DanLivesHere
Thanks. All great points.

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codingstaff
Hi Dan, You can partner up with startups that are really hungry for reviews
and exposure... just like us www.quoteroller.com :) A little blog post and
paragraph about our app won't hurt while would be happy to pay a little fee
for it.

~~~
DanLivesHere
Honestly, "a little blog post and paragraph" is a lot more than I'd offer. But
you should look into <http://hackernewsletter.com>

~~~
duck
Thanks for the mention Dan. Yeah, one day that is something I want to do more
of... but still growing my subscriber list now. Getting subscribers, even with
great content, has been the biggest surprise to me running a newsletter. You
have done a great job getting to 3,500... that is no easy feat!

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sagacity
I'll be happy to sponsor 1 month of your cost (i.e. $50) against suitable
mention (once or twice a week, in any form and style) of either one or both of
our recent by-products:

<http://www.RapiDefs.com> and

<http://getLocalNe.ws>

Check out these two URLs (I believe both would have a good general match with
your readers) and let me know (email in profile).

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drallison
Drop MailChimp and save the $50. Get a server running Linux. Use Mailman to
manage your mailing list or do something custom. Write a custom maier program
in Python to distribute the emails. Write the list content in HTML If you
don't have a spare server, you should be able to find one suitable for this
task for $20 or less per month. Use other suggestions here to generate
additional income.

~~~
drallison
I am curious why this post was down-voted. It provides a simple engineering
solution to the problem as stated.

~~~
nolite
Didn't downvote, but hes not goign to get Mailchimp'ss deliverability doing it
himself. And its going to cost him at least $30-$40 for an appropriate
server.. so spending an extra few hundred hours to set all that up properly,
in exchange for saving $10...blah.

~~~
drallison
He has a group of subscribers who have opted-into receiving his emails. He is
not sending email to people who do not want to be quasi-spammed. He has only
3500 emails to send. Setting up such a simple system might take an hour or
two, not a "few hundred hours".

------
ActVen
I think this can be addressed by really thinking about your users and their
profile. If these people tend to like to be informed about unique or little-
known facts, they are probably fairly inquisitive. They might even like brain
teasers, quiz games, etc. I think you should test this out by including one or
two featured links to products that your market might appreciate.

For example, when talking about the Abe Lincoln/Secret Service example you
might include further reading about Abe Lincoln with a link to the book Team
of Rivals. This is a good example of an obvious subject-link related to the
little-known fact. However, you could also include links to trivia games on
Amazon, or general knowledge books like the World Almanac of Presidential
Facts. I would include some humor in your links as well.

Take your best ideas and include a short survey in your email to get your
users' opinion on the options.

------
dave1619
1\. Gather some stats on who your readers are (ie., country, language,
profession, interest, gender, etc). 2\. Look for a sponsor who will give you
$100/month to sponsor your newsletter. In return they get some kind of ad
space in your newsletter. It could be tasteful, like some kind of sponsorship
banner or something.

------
amitklein
What about creating a paid premium newsletter using Letter.ly Perhaps send the
premium daily and the free one weekly. Depending on your conversion rates it
should be enough to cover expenses and gives you an opportunity to grow paid
subscriptions into potentially meaningful income.

------
revorad
You could do a number of things depending on your subscriber demographics.

If you want to go the advertising route, it's best to go directly to relevant
businesses. See this - [http://garyvaynerchuk.com/post/78967452/want-to-get-
advertis...](http://garyvaynerchuk.com/post/78967452/want-to-get-advertisers-
on-your-blogvlog-go-and-get-it)

The other way is to just sell something directly to your readers. First test a
few different products (some rare history book, photobook etc) by adding a
link to the bottom of your email and seeing which one gets the most clicks.
Once you know what's popular, buy it in bulk and sell.

------
symptic
Sell t-shirts and mugs with some of the more popular facts. Github was able to
sell out of tees and mugs with just their logo on it, so I imagine people
would want them with interesting content rather than just a logo.

Additionally (or alternatively) you could create a fmylife.com equivalent for
your facts. Even if you don't let users submit content, it's a place where the
community can vote on their favorite bits of info. Doesn't even need tons of
ads, and you can take private advertising and make sure they are all in good
taste for your audience.

------
russorat
I would ask the guys at Cool Tools (first result on google) for their ideas.
They post cool or unique tools and reviews from users, often with an affiliate
link at the bottom (to Amazon for example). Don't force it, but if you find
yourself mentioning a product, affiliate link to it. For example, your post
about purple carrots had a link to seeds. Use a referral to get a percentage
of the sales from people visiting that link.

------
riskish
How about something like those motivational posters or t-shirts? It seems like
the same crowd would enjoy those that enjoy 'now you know' one liner facts.

You could also turn your one liners into partnerships. I saw you had a post
about purple carrots and linked to seeds, why not have a partnership once in a
while for things like that with sites that sell seeds and see how things
convert. Hope that is helpful.

~~~
DanLivesHere
I have some intro text in each email, a personal message from me type of
thing. I could definitely use that space (and have) to promote things. The
question, I guess, is sourcing those deals.

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iworkforthem
Here's an idea.

There is Follow Friday on Twitter. You can do a Sponsors Friday, where you can
send over offers related to your blog, topic, and its readers.

You need to track the CTR, etc. Put a decent infographics. If your CTR is
good, and your topic is niche, approach folks into affiliate marketing or
affiliate managers, they will be able to tell you what offers to run.

~~~
DanLivesHere
I'm not sure that I follow.

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meric
Set up a page where you display a graph of hosting costs. Next to it, a graph
of revenue from your existing affiliates plus donations from readers. Accept
donations. Every time someone donates the graph changes.

Put the link in the footer of your emails.

I don't know if it will work, though.

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jkeera
how about just making people pay for the newsletter?

<http://tinyletter.com/?pay>

Might lose some people, but if all 3500 stay, you only need each person to pay
.015 per month. Of course this is just hypothetical. Maybe its $1/month.

~~~
DanLivesHere
That's the opposite direction of where I'd like to go :)

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statictype
Accept sponsorships from people who target that audience. Once a week, send a
mail about the sponsors (or put it into one of the daily mails) and explain
what they do and why they might interest the audience.

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noodle
provide good content and (most likely) no one will mind affiliate links, even
if there are a few per email. people will only start to care once you start
generating content specifically for the ability to link.

just keep doing what you're doing and don't shoehorn them in. only insert them
where relevant.

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notahacker
Are there any remnant advertising networks like AdSense that serve opt-in
mailing lists? If not why not?

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goombastic
If you ever write anything around a women centered topic, hit me up, I'd like
to advertise.

~~~
DanLivesHere
Thanks. I have one planned for the day before Mother's Day, how should I best
reach you?

~~~
goombastic
Can you send me your mail ID and the link to your newsletter? mail me at:

sv at tamarint dot com

------
JoshKalkbrenner
What could you sell/exchange/provide for 1.5 cents per subscriber?

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mikerhoads
When you do include an affiliate link, how does it do?

~~~
DanLivesHere
Depends. I don't typically target the links toward anything, because my
readership is so varied in interest that I'd only get a few (less than 5)
sales on a book, and that's maybe $2-3 total.

I can link to virtually anything on Amazon and tee it up in a way which I'll
get, say, 100-200 clicks. If I talk it up, I can get 400, maybe more. (I have
one today which is at ~350 and there's a lot of time left on it.) Because of
how Amazon's affiliate tools work, I can get 2-3c/click on those (at scale),
even if the clicker doesn't buy the item. But I can't do that more than once a
week, if that.

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codingstaff
btw, I just added you in LinkedIn

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base
1st take your costs down. If you start at $-50 per month it's going to be more
difficult.

