Methods for Monetizing Your Writing

When you think about how non-fiction writers make money, books seem the obvious answer. In the early 2000s authors started making money blogging. More recently, newsletters, Patreon, and other membership programs have become popular options. Most people who pursue creative work make little money. Brendon Burchard in his book The Millionaire Messenger commenting on his pursuit of creative work said:

I followed in the footsteps of those who had come before me, those who had left a real job to go out and follow their dreams and share their important message with the world. And I got the same results as most of them: I promptly went broke.

What can you do to avoid that? What follows are observations of people making a living from writing non-fiction and a few who don’t. It’s my attempt to understand how people are monetizing non-fiction writing.

This may be a bit disjointed. It is a work in progress. Most of it is timelines and links to people making a living writing. Other things are questions I don’t have answers to yet. For example, how many people have a community aspect? What software do they use? Simon Owens suggests Facebook Groups is the best option owing to how people are already in the app.

Ad Supported vs Member Supported

In 2019 Tim Ferriss tried an experiment to change his podcast monetization from ad supported to listener supported. While it’s not clear the dollar amount he received from members, it is clear that it was a fraction of the money he was able to earn from advertising. As of February 2023 he was charging $47,500 per sponsor, per episode and has three sponsors per episode. That’s $142,500 per show, and at a release rate of one per week, that’s $7,410,000 per year.

You may be thinking “that is great for Ferriss, but I’m not a best selling author; I don’t have the audience he has.” And that’s what the rest of this article is about. How do you build an audience? How do you make money from your creative work? But before we continue, I want to be clear: I’m not saying ad supported doesn’t work. It very clearly works for Ferriss and others. What I see from less famous, independent creators around the web is, member supported is working and looks like a possible path for new creators.

Member Supported

Craig Mod

Of all the non-fiction authors I see making a living, Mod is the most interesting. He was the first example I’d ever seen who is beholden to no one. He doesn’t do advertisements. He funds his life from members’ fees. But he didn’t start his membership program until 10 years after his initial attempts to make money from his writing.

In 2009 he wrote a review of the Lumix GF1 camera. Later he commented on that article:

That GF1 Field Test was the first time I had wholly committed myself to an essay. I spent more than a month working on it. The piece did incredibly well: I sold thousands of GF1s. Those referral fees from Amazon? They paid my rent for years.

— Tools and Creative Permission

He published the book Koya Bound in 2016.

He wrote a review of the Leica Q in 2016.

In 2019 after eight years of trying to build an email list, he started a membership program. At the time his list was about 10,000 people. He has written a how’s it going update every year since starting:

Gergely Orosz

The Pragmatic Engineer Newsletter is one of the most read newsletters for software development managers and senior software developers. In a 2021 review of his newsletter, he said he had 2,700 paying subscribers. At $15/month, Gergely was making $486,000/year. Since that article was published Substack says his newsletter has “tens of thousands of paid subscribers.” At 10,000 paying subscribers, he’d be up to $1,800,000/year.

Simon Owens

Started Substack in May 2019.

In his April 21, 2023 issue, Simon says he had 14,039 subscribers. Substack says he has “hundreds of paid subscribers.” 200 paying subscribers at $6/month is $14,400/year. He does have sponsors but I haven’t be able to guess what they pay or how many he has.

Ann Friedman

Friedman has 55,000 subscribers as of December 2024. While she does have paid memberships at $15/year, there is no indication of how many people are paying. She also has advertisments at “$155 for a short ad (150 characters) and $185 for a long ad (300 characters).”

Dan Lewis

Lewis has written Now I Know since 2010. Makes $19,080/year on Patreon. I don’t know how long it took him to get to $19,000/year.

Mario Gabriele

Gabriele writes The Generalist. He made $206,000 in his first year (2020).

Dan Luu

Luu has been writing on his blog since 2013. He started trying to monetize his writing with Patreon. In November 2022 he had 196 patrons. The lowest tier at that time was $16/month, meaning he could have been making as little as $37,632/year. As of December 2024 he has 759 patrons and his lowest tier is $24/month, meaning he could be making as little as $218,592. I say “as little as” because his other tiers are significantly higher and therefore he could be making much more.

Curation

All the writers above are creating original content. A few people are making a living by curating links to other people’s content.

Cooper Press

Started Ruby Weekly August 2010.

Media Kit with advertising rates: https://cooperpress.com/advertise/

Polina Pompliano

She started Substack April 2018 and went full-time spring 2020. She’s talked about the transition many times:

One thing I find interesting is, she never mentioned having a husband who carried the weight of a struggling media business and provided her health insurance through his full-time job. Simon Owens, metioned above, does talk about how his wife footed the bill while he tried building his business. Seems a bit disingenuous.

Podnews

https://podnews.net/

A daily news digest of the podcast industry; pitched as a B2B publication. They monetize by selling “classified ads” and Patreon memberships. As of February 2023 they show 41 Gold members and 83 Silver members listed (leaving 10 $4/month supporters) on their advertising page. That comes to $24,790/month. On their classifieds page they say “Classified ads in podnews.net start at US$29 a day.” They seem to run between two and six ads per day.

Miscellaneous

The emergence of the Substack advertisement: https://medialyter.substack.com/p/the-curious-emergence-of-the-substack

Li Jin on How 100 True Fans Can Change Everything.

Freelance writing: https://www.dearclarissa.com/p/on-freelance-writing

Fees and Payments

Substack takes 10%.
Patreon takes 5% or more.
Every platform takes credit card processing fees of about 3%.

Questions

Paying members will expect regular content. What if you didn’t want to publish on a schedule? I haven’t seen any examples of writers making money with irregular publishing schedules outside of book authors or freelancers who sell their articles to magazines. Who is doing this? What does it look like?

Is writing dead? When I look for “how to monetize content” around the web, it is almost always video.

Are there any photographers making a living with independent publishing? What could that look like?