The collision of AI and property rights is driving a reassessment of whether existing copyright laws are sufficient or if new legal frameworks are needed.

In June 2025, Walt Disney Co. and NBCUniversal (Universal Studios) filed a landmark copyright lawsuit against Midjourney, a popular generative AI image platform (and a personal favorite).

Stolen Inspiration?

Disney and NBCUniversal claim Midjourney "pirated" the studios' visual libraries to produce "endless unauthorized copies" of iconic characters, including Darth Vader, Iron Man, and the Minions, in violation of copyright protections.

Midjourney's founder, David Holz, and others in the AI industry have pushed back against these allegations of piracy. Holz compared his image generator's process to a kind of visual search engine or a human artist's learning process.

When George Lucas created the character Darth Vader, he drew inspiration from several sources, but Lucas' primary inspiration came from Japanese samurai culture. In particular, Vader's appearance —helmet and black armor— comes from paintings and descriptions of legendary warlord Date Masamune, known as the "One-Eyed Dragon of Ōshū."

So, essentially, the AI industry is arguing that rather than duplicating existing works, patterns discovered and analyzed in training data "inspires" generative tools to create new images —and text, for that matter.

Fair Use

In 2020, political cartoonist Bill Day drew an image of President Trump wearing Vader's helmet and armor. Day was attacking Trump and his supporters and using cultural context, i.e., Vader's villainous reputation, to help make his point.

It could be argued Day "pirated" Disney's copyright-protected character. He used the character's likeness — albeit badly drawn — and capitalized on Vader's story arc. Without Disney's "property," Day's cartoon makes no sense.

No one, however, thinks there is anything wrong with Day's Vader appropriation. It is considered fair use. In fact, Day's caricature is itself copyright protected. Day needed no license or permission to use it.

Thus, the question at hand is this. If a content creator goes to Midjourney and prompts the AI to create an image of California Governor Gavin Newsom dressed like Darth Vader, is that also considered fair use?

This question of fair use is at the heart of what must be decided, and how it is decided will have a stunning impact on the future for content creators.

Search queries for the phrase "start a blog" and "make a blog" have declined significantly since 2011, but is this apparent decline in interest a shrink or a shift?

According to Google Trends data, US search interest for "start a blog" hit an index peak of 100 in January 2011, but by May 2025, it had fallen to roughly 12 —or slightly more than ten percent of its peak value.

Why the Drop?

The Google data shows fewer folks are searching for these blog-related terms, but why?

Perhaps the most obvious answer is social media. In 2011, a blog was still often a "personal web log." But beginning in the late 2000s, many folks moved from traditional blogs to social media and other platforms.

A 2010 Pew study observed that young adults' and teens' blogging rates halved from 2006 to 2009 as they turned to Facebook and Twitter to share personal posts. In other words, the rise of social networks (and later, video platforms) diverted attention from classic blogging, reducing the number of newcomers seeking to "start a blog."

What's a Blogger?

Another consideration is terminology and methods. Around 2010, starting a blog typically meant launching a personal site (often on WordPress, Blogger, etc.).

In the 2020s, people with creative ambitions might pursue YouTube channels, podcasts, TikTok/Instagram accounts, or newsletters instead.

The decline in "start a blog" search query volume is not an indictment of writing so much as a shift in interest to other content mediums. The concept of online content creation expanded beyond blogging.

The mechanics also became easier. In 2009, you needed to set up a blog to share written content, but now, a creator can share stories instantly on social platforms without researching how to build a site.

In short, fewer people are explicitly searching "how to make a blog" because many are either using other platforms or already familiar with website basics. This shift indicates a change in behavior and platforms, not waning interest in sharing content online.

Be a Creator

The takeaway might be don't get hung up on the terminology.

The spirit of blogging —sharing your perspective, expertise, and stories with the world— is not dying. It just changed. It evolved beyond the confines of a self-hosted ".com" into a dynamic ecosystem of platforms.

Asking AI to check its work produces significantly better results for writers and content creators.

Artificial intelligence tools are ubiquitous. AI has infiltrated search results, been added to just about every software tool we use, and has become the first stop for many, if not most, writers and content creators working on articles, blog posts, or email newsletters.

Even as the letters in this sentence are being typed, Grammarly's aggressive AI is underlining phrases, complaining about passive voice, and hating the Oxford comma. So, it is not whether we use AI, but how.

Article SOPs

Since May 2024, I have had an assistant (human) follow a prompting standard operating procedure (SOP) to produce articles for some of my blogs and content sites. For example, she has prompted her way to articles for Science Fiction Classics and Ecommerce Shelf Life.

There is an SOP for each kind of article she prompts. Each SOP has her follow a series of prompting steps that, in one sense, are unique to the particular type of article being composed, but, more generally, follow a prompting framework.

One of the best improvements we made in this prompting framework was having the AI check its work, specifically, asking it to fact-check itself and critique its writing.

The result has been a marked improvement in writing quality.

Prompting Framework

Here is how this "check yourself" step works in a typical article prompt SOP. This framework assumes you have a topic —often in the form of a working title for the article.

1. Develop the Research. Since my assistant is neither a subject matter expert nor a journalist, we have the AI do the initial research. Often, this prompt asks the AI to "teach me" about the topic. Recently, we have been using "Deep Research" modes in ChatGPT or Gemini for this step.
2. Assign the task. Once the AI has researched the topic and provided background information, assign the task. This prompt is usually something like, "Imagine you are an entertainment journalist with 25 years of experience. You're composing...."
3. Include references. When we assign the task, we also upload three documents. One is the publication's style guide. The second document defines the audience, and the third outlines the article structure, specifies the word count, and includes examples.
4. Fact check. When the AI generates its article draft, we ask it and another large language model to look for factual errors. So, if you're working with ChatGPT, ask GPT to fact-check the work, and also paste it into Gemini and ask for it to check too. Have GPT update the article draft with any changes.
5. Critique. Finally, ask the AI to review and critique the article. The AI will evaluate its work and offer recommended changes. Have it update the work.
6. Human review. Lastly, my assistant and I will each read the article and make minor changes.

We've found this produces better results than what is possible when you just ask for an article or blog post.

Why This Works

This approach works because of how large-language models (LLMs) function.

An LLM has been trained with massive amounts of text —books, articles, websites, and more— to learn how words and ideas usually follow one another. In a sense, it predicts what comes next when you write a blog post or article, but it does not understand the language like a person does.

Imagine writing a sentence and constantly guessing the next word. The model starts with a prompt or a few words, then picks the word it thinks fits best, adds it to the sentence, and repeats this process. Each new word is chosen solely based on the words that came before it.

In its simplest form, the LLM never goes back to change what it already generated. It does not edit previous words and, therefore, makes mistakes in fact and composition.

When you ask AI to check its work, you allow it to make those corrections.

Trust and targeting are paramount for email newsletter publishers or creators that monetize with affiliate marketing.

On the surface, affiliate marketing is easy. Sign up as an affiliate. Create a little content like an email newsletter, and wait for the commission check. If you want more revenue, send more emails. But the truth is that newsletters with 1,000 targeted subscribers often outearn newsletters with 10,000 random subscribers.

This is the case for affiliate marketing because there is no revenue without conversion.

Audience-Product Fit - Targeting

In turn, conversion with affiliate marketing often depends on relevance.

Subscribers must genuinely desire the products recommended, or they won't take action—no matter how large the subscriber list is.

For example, imagine a tech reviewer who publishes a newsletter monetized through Amazon affiliate links. This publisher grows his list primarily with a lead magnet called the "Ultimate Gadget Buying Guide," this newsletter naturally attracts subscribers already inclined to purchase electronics. Because these readers trust and value targeted recommendations, they're more likely to buy through affiliate links, boosting conversion rates.

In the affiliate marketing context, one could think of this as contextual audience targeting. The publisher creates a "Gadget Buying" context and then provides the opportunity to buy gadgets.

Over time, this tight audience-product alignment significantly increases subscriber lifetime value (LTV), generating consistent, reliable affiliate income rather than sporadic commissions from a disengaged audience.

Trust

Like targeting (audience-product fit), trust is foundational in affiliate marketing —subscribers must trust the newsletter and the creator's judgment if they will act on any recommendations.

To build lasting trust, the newsletter should consistently deliver unbiased, genuinely valuable content in addition to promoting affiliate products.

It should clearly disclose when links are affiliated, reinforcing transparency and integrity.

Position the newsletter as an expert curator providing carefully selected recommendations rather than an aggressive salesperson pushing products. Subscribers who trust the publication's authenticity will repeatedly click and convert, transforming the newsletter into a dependable source of affiliate revenue.

Programmatic email advertising is one of the most promising revenue streams available to newsletter publishers—especially those who don't have the time or resources to sell ads directly. Its only real caveat is scale.

Whether running a massive editorial operation like "The New York Times" or writing a niche newsletter like "Science Fiction Classics," there are only a few reliable ways to generate income from your newsletter: sell a product, land sponsorships, or accept advertising.

Of these, programmatic advertising offers the best effort-to-return ratio. It's low maintenance, requires no sales outreach, and can generate at least some revenue regardless of your list size.

What Is Programmatic Email Advertising?

Programmatic advertising uses software to buy and place ads automatically. In the context of email newsletters, ad units are filled and served dynamically—often at send time or even open time—based on available inventory and audience data.

As a newsletter publisher or creator, you integrate a small code snippet or "ad tag" into your newsletter template. The ad provider —think Paved— handles the rest, pulling in relevant offers and rendering them when the email is opened. You get paid based on impressions or clicks.

Why Targeting Matters

Programmatic ads in email work similarly to display ads on the web. The ads don't necessarily match the newsletter's content—they match the person receiving it.

If you send a newsletter to 500 people, there's a good chance that each subscriber will see a different ad tailored to his or her interests, demographics, or location. This targeting makes programmatic appealing to advertisers and allows publishers to earn revenue without chasing sponsors.

The Economics

The most common ways publishers are paid for these ads are:

• CPM (cost per thousand impressions)
• CPC (cost per click)

From your side, this is usually measured as RPM (revenue per thousand impressions) or RPC (revenue per click).

Here is a rough guide to typical payouts:

That means if your newsletter has 10,000 subscribers and earns a $2 eRPM per send, you'd generate about $20 per send—or around $80 per month if you publish weekly.

Is that a lot? Not really. But it's automatic, and it scales.

Scale Is King

Programmatic email advertising is technically available to even the smallest newsletters. But revenue is tightly tied to scale and frequency. One subscriber might be worth half a penny per open. To generate meaningful income, you need either:

• A large subscriber list
• A high send frequency
• Or both

The math is simple:

• 10,000 subscribers × $2 eRPM × 4 sends/month = $80/month
• 100,000 subscribers × $2 eRPM × 4 sends/month = $800/month

For many small publishers, programmatic ads won't replace a day job. But they can cover expenses—or become a base layer of revenue while you grow or pursue other monetization paths.

Tracking Subscriber Value Over Time

While one email open might only earn you a fraction of a cent, subscribers stick around. Over time, a single subscriber might see dozens or hundreds of your newsletters.

This is where subscriber lifetime value (LTV) comes in. If a subscriber stays on your list for 12 months and opens one email per week, they might generate $1–$2 in revenue through programmatic ads alone. Multiply that by thousands, and the numbers become more interesting.

Knowing your average subscriber value can also guide your paid acquisition strategy—how much you're willing to spend to gain a new subscriber through ads or partnerships.

Email newsletter sponsors pay for reach and attention, usually to sell something. So, publishers must have an influx of new subscribers or new sponsors to keep sponsorship revenue flowing.

This fact surprises some publishers or content creators. They argue that sponsors are more concerned with an engaged audience or that they only work with sponsors doing "branding," which these creators take to mean buying sponsorship ads without asking for results. This notion is flat wrong.

The Sponsor-Subscriber Conundrum

An illustration might help explain the problem. Imagine it is your job to do the marketing for a small software-as-a-service (SaaS) company. Your primary measure of success is when a new user pays for a subscription.

You find an amazing weekly newsletter with 100 extremely engaged subscribers and buy a sponsorship. About 20 of the subscribers are already your customers. Another 20 are not a good fit or cannot afford your service. Leaving 60 real prospects. The campaign is a fantastic success. And over the next 12 weeks, your sponsorship ads convert every one of those 60 prospects into a paying customer.

You see it, right? In week 13, the campaign falls flat. There are no viable prospects left in the subscriber list.

Sponsorship-driven newsletters must have a nearly endless supply of new or more subscribers, new sponsorship relationships, or some mix of both.

Acquiring Subscribers

The good news is that acquiring new subscribers is relatively easy when you have money —like sponsorship revenue.

It is easy because the math is predictable. Let's keep the numbers small and the math simple as we make this point.

Consider a weekly newsletter with 100 subscribers. If the sponsorship sells for $10, each subscriber generates 10 cents per week in revenue. On average, a typical subscriber stays on this particular list for 75 weeks. Thus, the average subscriber's lifetime value is $7.50 (75 weeks at 10 cents per week).

This newsletter should be able to invest a dollar or two per subscriber, buying ads on social media platforms or in other newsletters. With new and more subscribers, the publisher can keep sponsorships going and growing.

The X platform reserves 25% of subscription revenue (from those blue or gold checks) and pays it back to the most engaging content creators, giving many monetized accounts $1,500 to $2,000 U.S. per month in income based on the interaction generated.

Creators get paid whenever a premium account interacts with a post or reply. Likes, bookmarks, reposts, and comments are all worth money.

A creator's account must meet four criteria to qualify for X monetization.

• Reside in a qualified nation.
• Pay for a premium account.
• Have 500 premium followers.
• Accumulate 5 million impressions in the past three months.

Followers and Impressions

The last two of these qualifications —followers and impressions— feel pretty daunting. The math feels pretty impossible.

There are approximately 91 days in three months. So, 5 million impressions divided by 91 days works out to be 54,945 impressions per day.

If an X account typically gets 25 impressions per post, the creator would need 2,198 daily posts or a post every 39 seconds to hit the required 5 million impressions. You might as well be tunneling under the ocean with a spoon.

If a creator's account had 500 verified followers, the rapid and relentless stream of posts would probably push them to unfollow.

The "Reply Guy"

To avoid posting 200,000 times every 91 days, some creators have adopted the "Reply Guy" strategy.

This approach has an X creator engage consistently with posts from relatively high-profile accounts to make the impression math more manageable.

Here is how the "Reply Guy" works. Imagine there are 20 high-profile accounts in a given niché. These accounts each get about 10,000 impressions per post. And the top replies to those posts garner something like 2,000 impressions. Now, our creator still needs 54,945 impressions a day to hit the 5 million quota, but it takes just 28 replies.

Implementing the "Reply Guy"

Using this approach consists of three steps.

• Know who to follow. Create a list of popular accounts within your target niche, topics, or industry.
• Turn on notifications. Activate instant notifications for these selected accounts. Aim to be one of the first five replies to any relevant post.
• Add value. The "Reply Guy" should add value. The reply should not be a single word or just an emoji. The reply should move the conversation forward or add depth.

Aim to try to get about 50 replies a day at first, and monitor daily impressions closely.

The best relies will be ones that are spontaneous and based on the creator's own experience. But, it is possible to use artificial intelligence too. The most important part is learning which sort of replies provide the impact you want.

Followers

With impressions soaring, the followers will come. While 500 verified accounts seem like a lot, many creators have found it easy to hit using the reply guy approach.

When you visit the "Blogging" subreddit, you read about keywords, SEO, and organic traffic. Switch to a newsletter subreddit or follow the newsletter folks on X, and growth conversations will be about ads.

Although writing a blog post and penning a newsletter are fundamentally the same type of composition work, the mediums have very different economics and, therefore, very different approaches to growth.

Traffic and Subscribers

The differences between a blogging-first and a newsletter-first business begin with the primary growth indicator. Blogging businesses measure traffic or visitors. Newsletter operations count subscribers.

The relative value of a visitor and a subscriber can be significantly different. And this is the key. For a blog, a site visit could be worth a few cents. However, a subscriber who stays on an email list for 18 months might have a lifetime value of a few dollars.

The difference should be clear. A blogger focuses on organic traffic because buying visits would not make much financial sense. But, ads work for a newsletter business as long as the subscriber acquisition cost is lower than the average subscriber lifetime value.

It is for this reason that some of the most well-known newsletters use advertising to get subscribers. The 1440 newsletter, for example, is "buying" about 300,000 new subscribers per month as of February 2025. Sahil Bloom, James Clear, Mark Manson, The Daily Upside, The Hustle, Milkroad, Chartr, The Rundown, Ben's Bites, and nearly every other successful newsletter employs ads. The unit economics make it possible.

Organic Newsletter Growth

The internet is built on links and connections. It is a common practice to discover an excellent article and share it. Search engines (and, more recently, AI) do this in spades. Rank well in the search engine and "organic" traffic booms.

Blogging has a built-in way to grow site traffic via search discovery. Email has no such mechanism. Certainly, some subscribers will occasionally share or forward a message, but this in no way guarantees a new subscriber.

Unpaid subscriber growth comes from social media, recommendations from other newsletters, and —here it is— blogs.

Symbiosis

The idea is simple enough: a blog gives a publisher (content creator) a home on the internet —a place to load subscription forms, host lead magnets, serve landing pages, and garner organic search traffic. It is for this reason that beehiiv, one of the leading newsletter platforms, recently launched a new website builder. The folks at beehiiv know that newsletters need websites to grow organically and support advertising campaigns.

On the other hand, a newsletter is a relationship builder. A subscriber is significantly more valuable than an anonymous site visitor. Blogs and newsletters are symbiotic. A blog attracts visitors, and a newsletter retains them.

How Blogs Support Newsletters

A newsletter that exists in isolation, without a content-rich blog to support it, may struggle with engagement and long-term growth. Here is how a blog strengthens a newsletter.

A Content Library for New Subscribers

A blog acts as a searchable archive for new readers. When someone subscribes to a newsletter, that new subscriber often wants more content immediately. Instead of relying solely on past emails, newsletters can point subscribers to existing blog posts.

For example, James Clear's "3-2-1 Newsletter" frequently links to his deep-dive articles on habits and productivity. This tactic reinforces his expertise and keeps readers engaged between emails.

Increased Discoverability via Search

Newsletters don't rank on Google, but blogs do. A well-optimized blog post can generate organic traffic for years, exposing new audiences to the newsletter.

Long-form guides act as evergreen entry points for new subscribers.

SEO-driven blog posts bring in search traffic that can be converted into newsletter signups.

Repurposed newsletter content can live on the blog, extending its reach beyond the inbox.

The Hustle repurposes its best newsletter content into blog posts, driving more organic traffic and signups.

Driving Social Shares & Referral Growth

People share blog posts more often than emails. Social media, AI-driven recommendations, and search engines all prioritize linkable content. When a newsletter includes a blog link, it increases the chance of organic discovery and subscriber referrals.

• Readers can share blog posts publicly, increasing visibility.
• Newsletters can link back to blog content, giving subscribers more shareable material.
• Other blogs and newsletters can link to blog posts, driving referral traffic.

Sahil Bloom, for example, shares excerpts of his newsletter on X and links back to complete articles on his blog, where readers can subscribe.

How Newsletters Support Blogs

A blog without a newsletter is like a storefront without a mailing list —visitors come and go, but there's no way to bring them back. While blogs drive organic discovery, newsletters build relationships and keep readers engaged. Here's how newsletters strengthen and sustain a blog.

Bringing Readers Back to the Blog

Most blog visitors don't return unless prompted. A newsletter is a direct channel to reconnect with readers, encouraging repeat visits.

• Regular touch points. Weekly or biweekly emails keep the blog top-of-mind.
• Content highlights. A newsletter can feature the latest or best-performing posts.
• Personalized recommendations. Segmented email lists allow tailored blog suggestions.

The Farnam Street newsletter routinely links back to deep-dive articles, keeping readers engaged with long-form content.

Bypassing Algorithm Changes

Relying solely on search engines or social media is risky. Google's algorithm updates can tank organic traffic, and social media reach is unpredictable. A newsletter provides a stable, owned channel unaffected by external platforms.

• No dependence on search rankings.
• No risk of social media throttling content.
• Direct access to an audience without gatekeepers.

Hybrid Approach

For content creators and publishers, the choice between a blog and a newsletter isn't either-or —it's both. A well-balanced strategy leverages the strengths of each, creating a feedback loop where the blog drives organic discovery, the newsletter builds loyalty, and both contribute to sustainable growth. Here's how to execute the ideal hybrid approach.

Use the Blog for Discovery, the Newsletter for Retention

A blog attracts new visitors, but most won't return unless you give them a reason. The newsletter is that reason.

• SEO-optimized blog posts bring in first-time readers.
• Clear calls to action (CTAs) encourage them to subscribe.
• The newsletter nurtures subscribers, keeping them engaged over time.

Design an Intentional Content Flow

Content should move seamlessly between the blog and newsletter, creating a cycle of engagement.

• Blog post → Email newsletter. Share new or evergreen blog posts with subscribers.
• Newsletter → Blog post. Expand popular email content into full-length articles.
• Email-exclusive insights. Keep subscribers engaged while teasing deeper dives on the blog.

Example: Sahil Bloom tests concepts in his newsletter, then refines and expands them into blog content based on reader responses.

Optimize for Conversion at Every Touchpoint

Ensure that every blog post encourages email signups and every email directs traffic back to the blog.

• Embedded opt-in forms in blog posts.
• Exit-intent popups offering a lead magnet.
• Newsletter welcome emails linking to the best blog content.

Monetize Across Both Platforms

A hybrid approach diversifies revenue streams.

• Ads and affiliate links work well on the blog.
• Newsletter sponsorships generate income from engaged subscribers.
• Exclusive premium content (e.g., paid newsletters) can monetize loyal readers.

Leverage Data for Growth

Use analytics to refine your strategy:

• Google Analytics for blog traffic trends.
• Email engagement metrics (open, click, reply rates).
• A/B testing to optimize signups and conversions.

The marketing team at Patreon was not the first to use the phrase "A Dark and Golden Age," but they did employ it well, describing the current state of affairs for content creators.

The creator monetization platform surveyed a little more than 1,000 content creators and some 2,000 "fans" and found a content creation conundrum.

"The major platforms are built around an old internet philosophy that 'Content is King,' wrote the report's authors, "But there's a problem with that philosophy: by centering everything around 'content' these platforms have commoditized the people who actually make the work."

TikTokification & The Algorithm

While I would argue that the "old internet philosophy" is not necessarily wrong, the Patreon folk and the creators surveyed make a good point.

In the past, a social media content creator could establish a community. Followers and fans would see every post in a feed built on voluntary relationships. Fans kept up with the creators they cared about, and creators had a reliable audience.

Enter TikTok. The Chinese social media platform took a more egalitarian approach, nearly discarding relationships and instead focusing on attention. Its algorithm tries to predict which posts a given user will engage with whether or not that user follows the post's creator.

This TikTokification means that "57% of fans' time on TikTok is spent watching work from creators they don't follow," according to the Patreon survey.

Instagram, Facebook, and pretty much every other social media platform followed suit, spreading attention-seeking algorithms and serving what sells. Some 60% of content creators believe that Instagram, for example, no longer shows fans their best work. And about half (51%) of creators think it is more difficult to reach fans now than it was a few years ago.

Social media's algorithm is not the only one impacting content creators. The "State of Creator" report focused heavily on video content, with just 22% using writing or blogging as a creative "mode." But there is evidence that blogging has been hit hard, too.

In this case, the algorithms in question are search algorithms and AI-powered search results.

"Creators have begun to realize that they don't actually own the relationships with their own fans on many of the major platforms. They don't have emails or contact info. They don't have any way to continue reaching those fans if they ever go somewhere else. The platforms keep all of that for themselves.

This disconnect is the "dark" in the "dark and golden age."

The Direct-to-Fan Market

The "golden" part of the phrase, according to Patreon, refers to the rise of direct-to-fan communities. The conclusion makes sense for a Patreon report because it is a strong case for the platform's services.

In spite of the potential for bias, the findings seem right. Content creators of every type must find ways to "own" or "control" their fan relationships if they are to enjoy the golden parts of the creator economy.

Newsletter ad prices are not random. Supply, demand, and performance rule them, and while it may be impossible to control every aspect of the advertising revenue, creators (publishers) can control at least four levers.

Imagine an advertising generation machine built to produce money from newsletter advertising. To control the machine, the operator —creator or publisher— has a set of four levers.

Newsletter Ad Type

In the broadest sense, newsletter advertising may be divided into sponsorships or programmatic ads.

Celebrity creators generally sell advertising sponsorships that are personalized and paid via a flat rate. As an example, consider a recent sponsorship that ran in Tyler Denk's email newsletter, "Big Desk Energy." Denk is the CEO of beehiiv, a popular newsletter platform, and he has a large social media following.

In the February 11, 2025, edition of "Big Desk Energy," there is an ad from Snagged. The opening line of the advertisement is very personal to Denk. It reads, "The first step I take when starting a new project is securing the domain. If I had known about Snagged back in 2020, I probably wouldn't have settled for the dyslexic version of beehive."

This level of personalization and the massive amount of space the ad takes up in the newsletter is a strong indication of its value. Denk is getting top dollar.

For the next example, consider a 1440 ad that ran in Sahil Bloom's email newsletter on February 14, 2025. It is an affiliate sponsorship, but still a premium placement.

Sponsorships command higher rates but require significant effort. Denk and Bloom, for example, have large audiences and dedicated teams to manage their ad placements. For most publishers, this is not scalable.

Programmatic

For the majority of newsletter publishers, programmatic ads are a better choice. In this case, the ad is aimed directly at the individual subscriber. The effort is low, and the revenue is steady.

This lever is easy to pull because programmatic advertising simplifies newsletter sponsorships. As mentioned above, traditional sponsorships require managing different processes, payment terms, and requirements across multiple creators.

For CPC and CPA campaigns, programmatic is more effective. In 2025, many creator newsletters will run contextual ads—showing the same offer to all subscribers. But this approach wastes impressions on people who already use the product. Programmatic targeting fixes this by using suppression lists, ensuring ads reach only relevant subscribers.

Programmatic ads also scale. Sponsorships work for a handful of newsletters, but ad networks need automation to handle thousands. The best newsletter ad networks will be those that make targeted, performance-based ad buying seamless for advertisers.

For this type of advertising in 2025, try the Paved Ad Network.

Newsletter Ad Placement

The next lever a newsletter publisher can pull to impact ad revenue is placement. As I have previously written, newsletter advertisements that appear when a subscriber first opens the message are more than twice as valuable as other placements.

Data from more than a billion email newsletter impressions confirms what you likely already know. Ads near the top of an email perform better than those buried lower.

Think about how you read newsletters. You open an email, scan the first section, and decide whether to keep reading. Naturally, ads placed higher get more attention. The data backs this up.

Audience

Content creators and publishers also have some control over the audience they serve. This lever is about whether or not a newsletter audience is attractive to advertisers and which advertisers those are.

Another way of thinking about the audience would be to imagine a dating game. The publisher needs to find the best audience-to-brand match possible. The better the match, the more the newsletter earns per subscriber.

Programmatic advertising plays this audience-matching game at scale. Instead of manually pairing brands with newsletters, programmatic platforms use data to match advertisers with the most relevant subscribers in real-time.

A well-matched audience increases ad performance, boosting revenue for both the publisher and the advertiser. Instead of relying on broad demographic guesses, programmatic pulls insights from subscriber behavior—what they read, which links they click, and even what devices they use. This precision means a travel newsletter can automatically serve different ads to frequent flyers and road-trippers, maximizing relevance and revenue.

For publishers, this means their audience becomes more valuable. The better the match, the higher the effective CPM or CPC, allowing newsletters to earn more per subscriber without needing direct sponsorship deals. Programmatic ensures that each ad impression is optimized, making every subscriber count.

Subscriber Count

The final lever impacting newsletter advertising revenue is subscriber count. While it is true that a newsletter creator who is also selling an online course for $999 can make a very nice living with a small email list, advertising is a numbers game.

Growing a newsletter is not just about adding subscribers; it is about understanding the typical subscriber's lifetime value. If each subscriber is worth $75 in ad revenue over 18 months, a publisher can strategically invest in growth.

Newsletter Ads

Maximizing newsletter ad revenue is about pulling the right levers—choosing the best ad type, optimizing placement, aligning audience and advertisers, and growing a valuable subscriber base. The more precisely you adjust these factors, the more you can earn from every email sent.

Type the query "how much does a blogger earn?" into Google or your favorite AI, and you will almost certainly get the wrong answer.

Search for "how much does a podcaster earn?" or "how much can I earn on YouTube?" and the misinformation continues. The problem is that relatively few public data sources track entrepreneurial content creators like bloggers, newsletter authors, podcasters, or influencers.

ZipRecruiter Example

What's more, even when some good data is available, it might be misapplied.

For example, if you had searched Google, Perplexity, or Bing for "how much does a blogger earn?" you would have probably found fascinating data from ZipRecruiter showing that, on average, American bloggers earn $62,275 per year as of February 3, 2025.

ZipRecruiter's data is almost certainly accurate, but it might not be what you wanted. ZipRecruiter is tracking "blogging jobs," not a content creator's entrepreneurial endeavors.

In fact, the ZipRecruiter data goes on to identify the "Top 5 Best Paying Related Blogger Jobs in the U.S." These "blogging jobs" are:

• Director Of Content,
• Director Of Marketing Communication,
• Professional Food Blogger,
• Independent Journalist,
• Offshore Cooks.

While one might argue that a "professional food blogger" or even an "independent journalist" is a content creator, the role of "director of content" is also impacting the results. As such, if you want to know how much a self-employed or side-hustling content creator is earning, you will need to do a little more work.

Estimating Income for Content Creators

To figure out how much you can earn as a content creator —blogger, podcaster, etc.— or even to estimate how much another creator earns, you can work through a few steps.

Define Channels & Metric

If you want to know how much a blogger earns or can earn, you need to focus on traffic —which is the key performance mechanism. Similarly, if you are going to estimate revenue from a newsletter, you would need to track the open rate and total subscriber count.

Identify Income & Formulas

Next, consider how income is earned and identify the revenue formula for each one.

Advertising Revenue

Advertising is often sold on a cost-per-thousand (CPM) basis —revenue-per-thousand (RPM) from the creator's perspective. Thus, if a blog has 100,000 monthly page views at a $10 CPM/RPM, the blog will earn $1,000 in advertising revenue.

The formula looks like this:

Again, CPM and RPM are a matter of perspective. The advertiser views this as CPM (cost), and the blogger or publisher, if you will, sees it as RPM (revenue).

Sponsored Content or Brand Partnership Revenue

Some revenue will be flat rate like when a blogger sells a sponsored post at a set price.

Affiliate Revenue

For affiliate income, the formula is a conversion calculation that takes a creator's average commission.

Income from Products and Courses

This formula will calculate revenue for digital products, merchandise, subscriptions, and course sales.

Coaching or Consulting Revenue

Creators often earn a significant portion of total revenue from coach, consulting, freelancing, or offering services. Here is an example formula for these.

Do the Math

Apply the formulas to the various channels to calculate the total monthly income for a given set of channels. You will be making lots of assumptions about impressions or conversion rates at first, but as you have more information, you will be able to make much better estimates.

In January 2025, Google made a significant change to its search engine, requiring browsers and search bots to have Javascript enabled. The move is meant to combat generative AI models like ChatGPT and SEO tracking tools like Ahref or SEMRush, but it will impact content creators, too.

Now, when you visit Google, the page will not load properly unless your browser has Javascript running. This is no big deal for humans since, in the United States, for example, fewer than 2% of internet users have turned off Javascript.

Crawling Google Just Got Expensive

It is a big deal for bots.

In most respects, Google is the best search engine on the market. In fact, it is so good that web crawlers —often called bots— frequently use it to either track keyword phrases or search for information.

SEO Trackers

First, let's consider tracking. Search engine optimization (SEO) tools frequently review Google's search engine results pages (SERPs) to learn which websites are "ranking" for a given web query. So if someone visits Google and types in "best blogs about blogging," SEO tracking tools would want to know that AI provided an overall answer, three X posts took up the second position, and Reddit was the first "organic" result.

In the past, a relatively simple web crawler could extract the information directly from the SERP's HTML.

• The crawler visits the URL,
• copies the page content,
• parses the page,
• adds the result to a database,
• and, voilá, it is done.

Since Google began requiring Javascript, the process has become more complex.

• Visit the SERP URL,
• Copy the HTML and associated Javascript,
• Add the HTML and JS to a rendering queue,
• Render the page at the server,
• Capture the actual content,
• Parse the page content,
• Add the results to a database,
• Done.

The necessary computing power is a lot more, making it very expensive to monitor SERPs in real dollars and cents. It is very likely that SEO tools will no longer try to collect data on millions of individual keyword phrases. The cost would be too high.

Large Language Models

Artificial intelligence tools have the same problem as SEO tools. Large language models like ChatGPT, Claude, and even Perplexity have been known to "search" Google in order to train models and, frankly, learn from Google's massive web index.

As SEO guru Kevin Indig recently noted, AI is now Google Search's most significant search competitor.

"ChatGPT and Perplexity are gaining significant ground. ChatGPT has already surpassed the traffic of Bing and Google's Gemini. Perplexity is on the way there. However, LLM crawlers can't execute JS, which means they can now no longer crawl Google's search results to ground their answers," Indig wrote in a recent issue of his Growth Memo newsletter.

Three Creator Impacts

Thus, one could see Google's Javascript requirement as the beginning of a data-access battle between the search engine giant and its AI-first competitors.

If this trend continues, we can expect it to impact content creators —especially bloggers and newsletter authors— in at least three ways.

• Content SEO. Bloggers and newsletter authors often depend on search traffic. Where search traffic is important, SEO matters. And when SEO is involved, tools are essential. At the time of writing this paragraph, I personally pay $249 per month to use SEMRush. But I can already see a difference in tracking. Bloggers will have relatively less SEO information or will have to pay a lot more to compensate for more expensive tracking.
• AI Content. Many writers use AI for research, to generate article outlines, or even to draft content. It is possible that Google's Javascript requirement will make some of these tasks (perhaps AI research) more difficult.
• Multiple Platforms. Finally, it is worth noting that Google's search results frequently draw from X and Reddit. This may be an indication that bloggers need to add multiple publication platforms, posting on X (including X Articles and videos), publishing an email newsletter, and participating on Reddit.

A clear purpose makes for good writing in much the same way that good fences make for good neighbors.

Amidst rows of suburban residences, clear boundaries and respect for those clear boundaries help maintain good relations and provide a marker for mutual understanding.

While you and your neighbor might have nearly identical lawns, it is understood that those yards belong to different owners and, in a sense, serve different purposes. If you doubt this point, imagine your next-door neighbor's 90-pound rottweiler doing his business in your yard. Now, the boundaries have meaning.

Engagement Economy

There are subtle but significant differences in writing, too. These writing boundaries, if you will, separate what it is to be a content creator, a journalist, and a copywriter. Certainly, there can be overlap, but the ideas and writing roles should not be confounded.

Recently, I read a newsletter from a well-known creator coach who earns a six-figure income encouraging content creators, but this self-proclaimed guru was utterly wrong about what it is to be a content creator. Instead, he was describing a copywriter.

In the newsletter, he argued that writers should "know their audience" and address the audience's "pain points." It would have been hard to be more cliché. And his advice would have, frankly, worked better for a copywriter composing a brochure than a creator writing a newsletter.

This "creator coach" was focused on the consumer economy when, in fact, content creators are part of the engagement economy.

Technology forecaster and futurist Paul Saffo describes "economies" as ways or approaches to addressing scarcity. Thus, the industrial economy sought to address a scarcity of manufactured goods. The consumer or credit economy sought to address a scarcity in consumer demand, and the engagement economy seeks to address the lack of attention.

When a "creator coach" tells you to solve problems or address pain points, he employs a consumer economy mindset wherein the consumer demand is the problem being solved. He is making the creator a copywriter, thereby putting the creator in competition with every brand in the market. He is contributing to the information overload rather than cutting through it.

Folks bombarded with news, entertainment, and noise from everywhere have generally stopped paying attention. Or as Herbert Simon put it in 1971, "What information consumes is rather obvious. It consumes the attention of its recipients. Hence, a wealth of information creates a poverty of attention and a need to allocate that attention efficiently."

In an attempt to hammer this point home, think of Mr. Beast or author James Clear. These creators don't focus on solving audience pain points, rather than produce entertainment or insights that garner attention.

Subtle Differences

Copywriting is an important and valuable skill. Economies —like the consumer economy and the engagement economy— overlap and co-exist. So don't hear what is not being said.

This article does not argue that content creation is good and copywriting is bad. Nor is the point that one discipline should be abandoned over the other. Rather, copywriting and written content creation are not identical or perfectly synonymous. There are different tools in the writer's kit.

One primary example of the difference is in the audience. In the purest sense, a content creator writes for himself, not his audience. He also writes about a personal topic of interest or passion. He does not necessarily write for the audience.

Below is a table that contrasts the three associated but different writing disciplines. Journalism, copywriting, and content creation serve different purposes and audiences, with the core distinction lying in the role of the audience:

• Copywriting positions the audience as buyers, focusing on immediate action.
• Content Creation treats the audience as a community, aiming to build long-term trust and engagement. Often, the creator writes what he cares about.
• Traditional journalism views the audience as informed citizens, seeking to empower them with facts and insights to participate meaningfully in society.

Substack is almost synonymous with email newsletters, particularly in the creator economy.

Since its launch in 2017, Substack has helped authors, journalists, and content creators publish and monetize email newsletters. Its platform is especially good at helping newsletters grow, adding subscribers as well or better than nearly every alternative.

In fact, there is a sense in which Substack is more like a social network than it is an email service provider. Nonetheless, in January 2025, SEMRush reported that nearly 2,500 folks per month search for "newsletter alternatives to Substack."

So, having spent several years specifically focused on email and email newsletters, I wanted to share what I believe are some of the best Substack alternatives.

I have listed these in alphabetical order, and not some sort of ranking, so please don't misinterpret the order.

beehiiv

Beehiiv is a modern email newsletter platform dripping with rich features. The company is relatively new —Tyler Denk, Benjamin Hargett, and Jacob Hurd founded it in 2021— but has made a big splash in the creator newsletter space.

I personally use beehiiv for the Ecommerce Shelf Life newsletter, which I started in December 2024 as part of an artificial intelligence newsletter experiment. It is a well-done, well-executed email platform worthy of consideration for any email newsletter.

Ghost

Ghost is a content management system first and an email newsletter platform second. It feels like a relatively less complicated and more intuitive version of WordPress.

It has my favorite user experience of any of the email service providers on this list of Substack alternatives, but it does not have all of the email features one would find on some of the others.

I use a Ghost for this website —You, Money, Happiness— and the Science Fiction Classics website. In the latter case, I also use Ghost to send Science Fiction Classics' weekly email newsletter which I  launched in 2025.

Ghost should be a top consideration if you need a strong website to accompany your email newsletter.

Hoppy Copy

In 2025, generative artificial intelligence is not only popular, but in many ways, it has become an essential tool.

Hoppy Copy is an AI-first email marketing and newsletter solution. A creator could generate much of the newsletter and send it with this tool.

Kit

Kit has been around for more than ten years and has always focused on the creator community, so in many ways, it is the incumbent, predating Substack by several years.

The Kit platform is very attractive and has many features that are easy to use. In full disclosure, I used to work for Kit, running the company's nascent advertising business.

I use Kit to send the two editions of the You, Money, Happiness newsletter. Tueday's newsletter is an essay or article. Friday's broadcast is a roundup of creator economy news and stories.

Kit has always performed well, and has great deliverability.

Letterhead

Letterhead is the only email newsletter platform on this list of Substack alternatives that I have not personally used in any way, so I am including it based on its reputation.

In the creator and publisher community, Letterhead is often described as an excellent AI-driven newsletter generation tool built on top of a great sponsorship sales problem that drives real revenue for newsletter authors.

MailChimp

MailChimp is the 800-pound gorilla of email marketing —pun intended— and a good choice for email newsletters.

I have worked on dozens of newsletters using MailChimp. It is stable and functional, to say the least.

The platform does not have the newsletter discovery tools you find on Substack, beehiiv, Ghost, and Kit, but it does have just about everything else.

Publishing or creating content for a living can feel like a grind. As a writer or content creator, there is a never-ending need to produce.

I have been feeling the writing grid a bit in 2025. I am writing for two publications —You, Money, Happiness and Practical Ecommerce— and editing two more — Science Fiction Classics and Ecommerce Shelf Life.

In total, I am producing between 11 and 15 written articles and email newsletters each week. Admittedly, the last two projects — Science Fiction Classics and Ecommerce Shelf Life again— are much easier since, in both cases, I am using AI to generate an initial article that I edit.

For the first two publications —Practical Ecommerce and the one you're reading right now— I am the author, pounding out each and every letter on my 13.5-inch MacBook Pro.

In addition to the articles, I also edit 26 social media posts per day. Deadlines always loom moments away.

A Hamster Wheel

A fellow I used to work for a while back called the cycles of creating content a hamster wheel. He imagined content creators like bloggers, podcasters, and YouTubers endlessly running on a wheel like a trapped animal —a rodent.

The force of his analogy was clear enough. Content creators should find ways to get off of writing or recording hamster wheel whilst still earning a living online. And this is by no means wrong.

I spent the past six months automating and innovating myself. Ecommerce Shelf Life —the project I mentioned above— is specifically an experiment to learn if I can use AI and automation to generate a growing weekly email newsletter.

Nonetheless, I don't think of the ever-present need to produce so much as a burden. It is a grind, but in a good way. It is a grind that I love.

Embracing the Grind

I will draw on personal experience here, so I hope you will indulge me. I wrestled in high school. Later, I coached wrestling —folkstyle and freestyle mostly— for 21 years. And now, in between old-man-style injuries, I practice Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu (BJJ).

Grappling sports like wrestling and BJJ can also feel like a grind. In the case of the latter, I have no intention of competing, rather, I go a few times a week to a punishing practice.

Sometimes, after a workout, it feels like every part of my body aches. And not long ago, I experienced a severe injury that took me out for months. Nonetheless, I like to embrace the grind. I like the feeling of accomplishment. I like the fact that working out matches my self-image. It is an action that the kind of person I want to be, takes.

Embracing the grind as a writer is similar. The deadlines are challenges, sources of stress, and certainly not easy to achieve. But the steady flow of writing is compatible with who I want to be.

Do you feel the same?