How To Write A Newsletter About Your Obsession

One of my favorite parts about teaching creators how to run a newsletter business (or rather a creator business that is powered primarily by a newsletter) is the fact that newsletters allow us to build a business around our obsession.

There has never been a better time to be a writer.

With newsletters we're able to build our business in multiple different ways, with a variety of monetization structures available to us.

This allows us to choose our niche based around our obsession.

For example, I have started a handful of successful newsletters, including a 7-figure newsletter, and I write in niches like:

• Superhero/Anime Fitness
• The Restaurant Industry
• Creator Newsletters

Just to name a few...

And while I will be touching on monetization structure and business model a bit in this deep dive, it won't necessarily be the main point.

So if you're new here (or just not yet fully confident in our business models), these are some other great resources to pair with this deep dive:

• How Your Niche Affects Your Newsletter Business Model
• How And When You Should Start A Paid Newsletter
• The Ultimate Guide To Newsletter Business Models

That said, I do want to start us off with a bit of a mini-recap to catch everyone up to speed.

Here are a few of the newsletter business models that allow us to write around our obsessions (by giving us an array of monetization options):

1. The Creator Newsletter
2. The Hybrid Newsletter
3. The Media-Brand Newsletter
4. The Paid Newsletter

And if it's not obvious, my favorite model (and what I generally teach) is The Creator Newsletter.

That said, Hybrid is a form of the Creator Newsletter model, and the Paid Newsletter Model also finds itself intersecting quite often as well.

Here's an income breakdown of a typical Creator Newsletter:

• Owned Products = 75+% of Income
• Sponsorships = 0-25% of Income
• Affiliates = 0-10% of Income

In this case "Owned Products" include courses, eBooks, and even coaching and services.

This is why paid newsletters often find themselves overlapping with the Creator Newsletters model, considering paid newsletters give us a way to have an "owned" product with a recurring subscription (we charge for access to our newsletter; or at least a piece of it).

And to give you an idea of how our other models differ from this, let's recap Media Brand..

Here's an income breakdown of a typical Media-Brand Newsletter:

• Sponsorships = 90+% of Income
• Affiliates = 0-10% of Income
• Owned Products = 0% of Income

Think of this as being similar to a YouTube channel or even blog that is trying to make money off of a ton of volume (lots of views) seeing their ads.

In this case, ads on YouTube/blog = Newsletter sponsorships.

Our Creator Newsletters have the power to diversify with sponsorships inside the newsletter, but we don't have to, and it's usually just a small chunk of our income.

Another big note and similarity between Creator, Hybrid and Paid Newsletters: All of these newsletters typically send 1X weekly newsletter (sometimes paid newsletters send an extra "paid" version), where-as the Media-Brand Newsletter model sends 5X+ per week to have more ad/sponsor slots.

📬 The Big Three Niches

Since our Creator Newsletter is primarily going to be focused on earning through owned products, the easiest way to make that happen is by being in one of The Big Three Niches.

The Big Three Niches are:

1. Wealth
2. Health
3. Relationships

AND any sub-niches that get branched off underneath these niches.

Which means the possibilities are endless, but still restricted from where they start.

In the image above you can see how I began stemming the first layer of sub-niches off the main three, like this:

• Wealth
  • Business
  • Investing
  • Careers
• Health
  • Fitness
  • Weight Loss
  • Diets
• Relationships
  • Counseling
  • Spirituality
  • Dating

And that's just ONE layer deeper.

You can go another 2-3 layers deeper than that.

And I HAVE successfully done this multiple times.

Here are a few examples of businesses I built in sub-niches:

1. Superhero Jacked: Fitness meets nerd and pop culture.  
   • Big Three Niche: Health
   • One Layer Deeper: Fitness
   • Second Layer Deeper: Workouts and Diets
   • Third Layer Deeper (Sub-Niches): Nerd/Pop Culture [Anime, Superhero and Celebrity] Workouts
2. Creator Newsletters: Helping creators start, grow and monetize their newsletter. 
   • Big Three Niche: Wealth
   • One Layer Deeper: Business
   • Second Layer Deeper: Online/Creator Business
   • Third Layer Deeper: Newsletters for Creators
3. The Restaurant Launch: Helping servers, bartenders and restaurants make more money.
   1. Big Three Niche: Wealth
   2. One Layer Deeper: Business
   3. Second Layer Deeper: Sales and Psychology
   4. Third Layer Deeper (Sub-Niche): Restaurant Industry

Are you seeing what's happening here?

All of my businesses stem back to The Big Three Niches in some way, although some branch out into sub-niches completely separate from the main niche (and are based entirely around my obsession).

This allows me to earn 75%+ with owned products (eBooks, courses, coaching, etc.) as opposed to having a hard time selling anything to my audience and needing to rely on sponsorships, ads and a ton of volume (views/followers/etc.).

If you want some more resources on this (other than what I've already linked to), I would check out these deep dives:

1. How To Niche Down But Brand Wide For Growth
2. How To Own A Category But Scale With Sub Niches
3. How To Become An Authority In Any Niche With Your Newsletter

NOTE: You do not always need to be in a Big Three Niche in order to start and run a successful paid newsletter. That said, for many of the same reasons I'm going to list below about why I don't love the Media-Brand Newsletter Model, a paid newsletter can be extremely hard to grow when just starting out.

📬 Why Don't I Love Media-Brand Style?

Full disclosure: One of my newsletters, Superhero Jacked, is a fitness meets nerd and pop culture newsletter/website that makes me multiple 6 figures a year in under 2 hours of work each week.

This didn't happen overnight. This was years of hard work.

And I'm DEFINITELY not complaining....

I am simply sharing a lesson I learned over the years so that you can take what you want from it and use it empower your own journey.

Superhero Jacked is fairly close to media-brand, but because it's in the fitness niche I'm able to have built it as more of a Hybrid Newsletter, sending 1X weekly email and selling digital products.

That said, the sub-niche I chose was geared towards aiming for more volume (more views, larger audience), but with less of an ability to make sales (much lower price points).

Timeout: The reason my sub-niche is more geared towards aiming for volume is because it's extremely unique and I built my own category, but it's also a much younger audience. So I'm able to get millions of views (I have literally collected over a million email subscribers and get hundreds a day, organically), but "High Ticket" to them is $97-$297, instead of $3000-5000 like my current audience.

I was able to scale my personal brand (Creator Newsletters), and the business I built with my brother (The Restaurant Launch) to 100K/yr in under than a year because of the way I chose my niche, and how it fit perfectly into a Creator Model.

This is just one example of why I'm not a huge fan of the media-brand style.

Here are a few more reasons why I don't love this model:

1. Every day it becomes harder to grow an audience online.
2. Creators are chasing virality, but then unable to earn anything because they can't sell to their audience because there's no niche alignment.
3. Media-Brand Newsletters essentially become sales gigs when it comes time to fill up your sponsorship slots in 5+ newsletters a week.
4. Media-Brand Newsletters are getting investment money (or have the money to invest) towards growing primarily with paid ads. This is your competition.

Among other reasons.

Here are some examples of what I'm referring to (Ref: Matt McGarry):

• "Milk Road - Grew to 250k subscribers and was acquired for 7 figures in 10 months. 85%+ of all subs from paid marketing. Over 150k subscribers from FB ads alone.
• The Hustle - Grew to 2M+ subscribers and was acquired for ~$27M in 4 years. Most growth from paid marketing. Over 1M subscribers from FB ads alone.
• 1440 Media - 2.3M subscribers. Majority of growth from social ads.
• TLDR Tech - 1M+ subscribers. Most growth from social ads.
• MorningBrew, IndustryDive, WorkWeek, and many more top newsletters also get the majority of their subscribers from paid acquisition."

I prefer to have launches that make me tens of thousands of dollars with a few thousand newsletter subscribers rather than compete with Media-Brand companies like this for tons of views, and still need to sell sponsorship slots because my niche is too broad to sell products to my audience.

That said, the fact that this is possible is just another reason why newsletter businesses are so amazing for creators.

Reminder Reference Deep Dive: How Your Niche Affects Your Newsletter Monetization

The good news is you can tie your niche to The Big Three Niches in SO many different ways.

📬 So what are you supposed to do...?

For the rest of this deep dive I want to highlight some creators who are doing it right. 

They're building their Creator Newsletter Business:

1. Around their obsession(s).
2. Stemming from The Big Three Niches.

Hopefully my examples above, mixed with the tons of examples we have seen in past deep dives and these awesome creators below, will give you plenty of inspiration to go out and build YOUR newsletter around your obsession.

📬 Sketchbook Skool by Danny Gregory

First up on our list of creators who are building their Creator Newsletters around their obsession is Danny Gregory with his Sketchbook Skool.

Every Friday Danny sends out a newsletter about "how to live happily as a creative person."

You can see in the image above that he lists some topics such as:

1. Developing creative habits
2. Dealing with your inner critic
3. Facing life's challenges creatively
4. Getting more, better ideas

Then Danny sells courses to help people become a better artist.

He has courses like:

• Your Illustrated Life
• How To Draw Without Talent
• Seeing Like An Artist
• Art Bootcamp
• People Drawing People

And a handful of others as well.

📬 Why did I start with Danny's newsletter?

I wanted to start with Sketchbook Skool because from the outside looking in there may seem like no direct connection to The Big Three Niches.

I wanted to make it clear that you can still build a Creator Newsletter Business [around your obsession] and sell owned products with a niche that doesn't connect back to The Big Three Niches so easily. 

So how can Danny tie back his art niche to The Big Three Niches...?

Danny's tangible benefit is clear in each of his courses, but we can go a layer deeper...

What can these courses do for people? 

• Bring them happiness/inner peace: Health
• Free up time for them: Relationships/Health
• Make them money as artists: Wealth

For example, notice how a lot of Danny's topics he discusses in his newsletter actually go a level deeper and get closer to these sub-benefits?

Depending on how Danny chooses to frame his courses and the secondary benefits of them, he can tie them back to a slew of different things within our Big Three Niches.

This may not be AS easy as the next few examples, but that's why we're starting here.

📬 Teacher Career Coach by Daphne Gomez

Next up on our list of creators who are building their Creator Newsletters around their obsession is Daphne Gomez and her Teacher Career Coach.

Daphne helps teachers navigate their career change.

And I'm highlighting Daphne next for a couple reasons:

• Daphne is a few layers deep in her sub-niche.
• But still very clearly in The Big Three Niches.

Which makes her a perfect example coming off of Danny above.

Instead of simply helping PEOPLE land better jobs, or even leave their career for another, Daphne niched down several layers to specifically help TEACHERS leave their career.

This makes her stand out AND specialize at the same time.

And I'll do you one better...

It allows her to hyper-focus on HER obsession.

She doesn't have to write weekly newsletters and produce content about a wide range of careers and put out broad content that she feels would resonate with everyone...

She gets to talk directly to her ONE perfect avatar and wake up excited to help them every single day.

THIS is what you should be aiming for.

📬 Why We Buy by Katelyn Bourgoin

Katelyn Bourgoin's Why We Buy is one of my favorite newsletters to hit my inbox every single week, and one we have seen many times in our past deep dives.

So much so that some of you may be saying "Again!?!" (pssh, you love it too!); but I'd be doing a disservice to any new readers if I didn't highlight Why We Buy and use it to make a larger example.

It should be fairly obvious how Katelyn's newsletter falls into The Big Three Niches (especially once I tell you the premise of the newsletter is Marketing Psychology), but we're going to break it down a bit here anyways:

1. Big Three Niche: Wealth
2. One Layer Deeper: Business
3. Second Layer Deeper: Marketing
4. Third Layer Deeper: Marketing Psychology

NOTE: While teaching her audience Katelyn also creates content for a sub-niche of creators which allows her to cater her offers to them as well. 

📬 What can we learn from this?

There are SO many sub-niches and layers under each of The Big Three Niches.

You've seen how we've jumped off into the restaurant industry, layered down into marketing psychology (with a sub-niche for creators), and even sub-niched fitness for nerds!

So I just want to highlight a few examples of how we can go deeper...

1. Newsletter #1: Growth Daily 
   • Niche: Marketing
2. Newsletter #2: Why We Buy 
   • Niche: Marketing Psychology
3. Newsletter #3: World Builders 
   • Niche: Storytelling for Creators
4. Newsletter #4: Creator Science 
   • Niche: Creator Business
5. Newsletter #5: Creator Wizard 
   • Sponsorships for Creators

All of these newsletters are in The Big Three Niches..

But...

• One of them is not niched down far enough to be considered a Creator Newsletter.
• Two of them are a bit more broad and won't have AS easy of a time selling without volume

Can you tell which?...

1. The Media-Brand Newsletter is Growth Daily by Marketing Max.
2. Creator Science and Why We Buy are much more broad than Creator Wizard and World Builders

And while we're on the topic...

📬 Timeout: Flashback Reminder...

In a past deep dive discussing the business model of newsletters I told the story of how Marketing Max built Growth Daily but grew to hate selling sponsorships.

If you've read this story already, feel free to move to the next section.

But if not, you'll likely enjoy this quick read:

Marketing Max was asked: "If you were to start another newsletter, would you kind of think backwards from the sponsors to the content?":

"It's funny because I did so much homework Q4 of last year, listening to every podcast, and the one thing I keep thinking about a lot these days is how Sam Parr said 'If I started another newsletter there would be no ads, it would be other ways of monetizing'...you know, just because ad sales suck".

Sam Parr is the co-founder of The Hustle newsletter that sold for more than $20 million dollars.

Marketing Max then goes on to talk about how if he was to go back he would probably find a newsletter niche that was more niched down so he would have an easier time selling premium content to his subscribers, with ads still in the newsletter just to supplement extra money on the side.

📬 The Bulletproof Magician

Oh you thought we could only sub-niche for marketing?!

Well I thought you'd see that wasn't the case with Superhero Jacked and The Restaurant Launch as examples, but I'm going to give you one last example to wrap this up!

The Bulletproof Magician is a newsletter and creator business run by Noa Kageyama.

Noa writes a weekly newsletter to over 45,000 musicians, helping them to perform better under pressure.

He then sells courses like:

1. Beyond Practicing: This teaches the "psychological skills of top performers."
2. Performance Psych Essentials: This is a four session live cohort-based course that takes performers and musicians to the next level.

The amount of levels and sub-niches deeper than the "main" Big Three Niches you can explore are endless!

📬 What's next?

Get out there and find your obsession.

There are other great examples out there like The Van Trump Report making $20M a year with an agriculture newsletter, and Trapital writing about the business of music.

Find your obsession and then niche down to stand out, specialize and earn more.

I know it sounds backwards, but you’ll just have to trust me on this one.