We can use tech without letting tech use us

Brought to you by the fine folks at Outpost for Ghost publishers. Get more subscription revenue for your Ghost publication with Outpost 🪐

Everybody's really obsessed with platforms.

The first question when I tell people I hate the living shit out of Substack is:

"Well, what platform do you recommend?"

That's the wrong question.

Instead, they should be asking:

"What do I need to run a newsletter business?"

The answer is simple: You need to learn how to promote it. No platform is doing that for you, no matter how much they pretend to.

It's important that we learn what it takes to promote our work because otherwise, we are beholden to tech overlords. AND THAT'S BAD.

We can use tech without letting tech use us.

I moved my newsletter from beehiiv to Ghost back in May. I didn't leave beehiiv for any scandalous reason. I still like beehiiv. But I wanted to be "blog first" instead of "newsletter first" and Ghost felt like a better fit for that operating model.

There's just one problem with Ghost. It doesn't have any automations.

If you know you need to promote all the time, but you can't spend every day emailing every single person on your list, you're going to want to automate some stuff. That's where Outpost comes in.

Outpost is a monetization and marketing tool for Ghost publishers that enables you to automate your promotions. You can do things like invite free subscribers to upgrade, win back paid subscribers or show pop-ups on your website to grow your email list.

Why is that better than a platform that pretends to market for you? Two reasons.

1) Outpost doesn't hide behind fake promises of "magic growth dust." They expose all the tools you need to promote your newsletter and subscriptions. They guide you towards what they see working for other publishers but you decide what you want to use. That puts you in charge of your business, not at the mercy of an algorithm that may not choose you.

2) They're an independent tech company with no billionaire backers. They don't have roadmap pressure for a multi-billion dollar exit making them build weird things you didn't ask for and don't want. They work directly for publishers.

I've been partnering with Outpost all this year because I love what they've built so much and because they're so busy building it, they don't have much time to market. So, I thought we'd do something fun to close out this incredible year together helping indie businesses make money.

A game of bingo. Outpost bingo.

Each box on your Outpost bingo card comes from what the Outpost team (and me) recommend you have set up to get started promoting your work. I was actually missing one of these boxes myself (No retention offer! Lex! What are you doing!) Outpost co-founder Ryan Singel gently called me out and you can bet that thing is live now.

Anyone using Ghost or switching to Ghost is eligible to play. And you're gonna wanna play because the prizes are that good!

🏆 What you can win

All the top scores will be entered to win. Winners will be chosen randomly.

Prize 1: $100 credit to your Outpost account
Prize 2: 1 year of the Backstage Pass, which includes all access to paidnewsletterplaybook.com and revenuerulebreaker.com
Prize 3: A live session with me to review your Outpost Autoresponder Emails