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Links referenced in this episode
Reid’s Substack: Growth Croissant
has a backlog of posts that contain great insights into the thinking that goes into developing a newsletter and monetization strategy. My favorite thing about Reid’s work is his new podcast Rough Draft where he interviews some of the biggest names and most successful newsletter creators. These interviews are full of anecdotes about what they did and the tactics they employed that helped them succeed. It’s really worth your time to make your way through each episode. You can find them linked on the posts made from Growth Croissant. During this episode of Spoken Ward we make reference to two episodes of Rough Draft. Here are the links:
Interview with Reid DeRamusThe portions of this interview where Packy talks about the principles he learned from David Perrell’s Write of Passage course. This was an absolute revelation to me. I really encourage all of you to go listen to that episode. The entire interview is fantastic, but the ideas that Packy relates about this writing course and how he applied them will completely change how you approach your writing.
Interview with Reid DeRamusThis was another banger episode. I really appreciated the methodical way in which Judd describes his process of creating pitches, testing, and replacing them as needed. It shows a deliberate and thoughtful approach to a part of the newsletter creation process that many of us take for granted. This episode is a great resource if you’re looking for small things you can do that can lead to a big impact on how your work is received.
Cory Doctorow is an example of someone who presents their fiction in a way that elevates it beyond mere entertainment. All of Cory’s stories touch on digital rights and he is a tireless champion for the idea that we should be able to use the hardware and software that we have purchased free from surveillance and pointless laws that only benefit large corporations. If you haven’t read his work before, it’s worth checking out. I would recommend his Little Brother series of stories as a good starting point.
is a homegrown, Substack native, example of an author who is using fiction as a way to communicate a greater message. Her focus is on climate change and she uses her stories to highlight this need and sometimes to propose possible solutions. You can find her work on Star Voyager. writes The Algorithmic Bridge which is one of my favorite Substacks about AI and the ways in which its changing the world. During this episode of Spoken Ward, I talk about how I was a long free time subscriber to his newsletter before I converted to paid. The reason I continued to follow his work—even at the free level—was because of the valuable information he freely shared before I would hit the paywall. He positioned the paywall at around the 60% mark. Being able to read his work consistently introduced me to his way of thinking and exposed me to the concepts that he returned to over and over. His generosity made me want to invest his work. I mention this in the episode as a great example of someone who has leveraged the paywall feature in a thoughtful way.If you have thoughts or suggestions about the show, I hope you’ll take a moment to share them. I would love to hear from you. You can just click the link below to leave a comment.
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