How I Earn Over $500 a Month Writing on Substack

A beginner’s guide

Alison Acheson
The Writing Cooperative
5 min readNov 30, 2021

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Photo by louis magnotti on Unsplash

I began a newsletter on Substack in April 2021, and then went “paid” with it June 1. My publication, the Unschool for Writers, has now averaged about $500/month income for me, and this is just the first — and growing — five months.

Let’s start Q&A, and please ask any other questions in the comments — I’ll be happy to answer any that I can!

How do you make money on Substack?

You make money by coming up with a GREAT idea for a newsletter. The range of topics on the platform is inspiring and quirky. Think vintage cooking! Think back-yard birding! Think current-politics-sonnets! Yes, yes, and yes!

Think about what sustains you… and what you are so wildly enthused about that you can write in a genuine way on this topic often and for a foreseeable future.

Know that you can have different sections within one account — so you can have more than one newsletter if you don’t want to be limited to a single topic. Subscribers can follow one or more.

Solid content is number one. After that, you make money from readers subscribing directly to you. Their monthly or annual amount (or whatever you choose) goes to your publication.

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My latest book is a memoir, Dance Me to the End: Ten Months and Ten Days With ALS. My newsletter is on Substack: THE UNSCHOOL FOR WRITERS.