It's been a slow season for me. Subscriptions are a bit behind my targets. Maybe my projections were too optimistic. Maybe I'm being delusional about charging so little for what I'm offering. Maybe it's just summer.
To me, it feels like it's all going as fine and as fast as can be expected. It's going to take some time to build up to the 500 subscribers I need to make my projects sustainable for me. I just crossed 200 subscribers this month. I'm still getting lots of interest in my free newsletters, free events, free downloads, low cost classes, and free advice from media entrepreneurs. I haven't slowed down with what I'm producing.
I am super grateful for my Lifetime Legends and Annual Legends who are a massive help here in contributing up front so I can afford to keep going as I build these projects and sustainable revenue streams.
But I still have a gap I need to solve, so rather than try to make money another way that takes me away from these projects, I'm running a Summer Reader Raise for $5k so I can keep going at the same pace.
Why a reader raise
I've had several people offer to pitch in more to support my projects.
Some people appreciate my work and don't want to become a paid subscriber for whatever reason. Others are already paid subscribers who just want to contribute more. Either way, it means a ton to me and I will gladly take your money to keep this good thing going. I never forget the people who bet on me and I keep rewarding them for years to come, with introductions, with special invites, with the occasional 1:1 call or whatever they'd find valuable.
My goal
My goal is $5,000 by August 31 which will augment my income for July, August and September.
I'm bringing in about $4,000-5,000 on a good month right now and there's pretty much no buffer room to run lower than that for too long so this reader raise helps fill the gap of much lower summer revenue (which is more like $3000 right now).
In the fall, I'll either see growth pick back up or I'll spin up another revenue stream like my digital products or paid workshops.
Perks of contributing
Contribute more than $79 ➡️ Get everything in my shop (that's $20 off what it usually costs).
Contribute more than $99 ➡️ Get 1 year of a Legends membership for you or a friend.
Contribute more than $299 ➡️ Get a lifetime Legends membership for you or a friend.
Who's contributed so far
- Raven from Unraveled
- Perez Jones
- Colin Alsheimer
- Rob McClinton
- Raven O'Neal
- Saul from Remote Queer
- Greg Nix
- Jeremy Hulette
- My mom and dad!
My promotion plan
The trickiest part of this is fitting it into my promotion plan, when I have so much else to promote.
Here's my current promotion plan for the reader raise:
- At least 2 dedicated emails this summer
- Include it in every email (unless there's already 2 calls to action in there)
- Automated posts to Bluesky anytime someone contributes
- 1-2 posts on LinkedIn
- A little 1:1 outreach to people who've said they wanted to contribute
How it's going
So far, it's on track! We've raised 26% of the total and we're about a quarter of the way through the campaign. I have 45 days left as I write this to raise the rest.
It's hard to make room to promote this and I'm realizing that I'm promoting too many things so, for August, I'm going to simplify and promote just the subscription and this raise and see if that makes it go a bit faster.
I also sort of regret hosting it on Ko-fi. It works ok, but it won't let me easily embed the campaign. I can't link directly to the campaign and people can't see their donation easily. Next time, I'll try Crowdfundr.
This is a live blog. More updates as I have them...
