Someone from The Online Writing Club informed me about this today, and I was so excited.

Then I checked the stats in my Substack app and saw that I apparently added $3,000 to my recurring revenue in the last 30 days.

I’m now rising in my specific category on Substack’s bestseller list which is, of course, amazing.

$3,000. $3,000!

The Online Writing Club is read in 169 countries and all 50 US states by dreamers, builders, writing fans and doers - we’re the #14 International Bestseller.

Members have created a genuinely global community here,

all brought together by a love for writing, habit building, expressing yourself, finding your own voice, sharing your stories, quitting your job one day and starting your own business (part-time) and I’m totally here for that.

I share new posts each week on all things writing, (indie) book publishing, bring you inspiring voices in my Show and everything newsletter and Substack-related - basically all the ways of online writing.

Now I also have the Substack for Beginners class (value $499) with weekly lives and coaching included!

Do please come and join us!

Yes, please. I'd love to join!

And I know there are so many moms out there thinking,

“Oh, Kristina, I would so much love to earn my first 100 bucks on the internet.”

So this post is definitely for you.

Because I still can’t believe it. I sat there asking myself:

Okay, Kristina, what did you do differently in the last 30 days?

Usually I add $1,000, maybe $500 in a month but not $3,000.

How could I add $3,000 to my Substack income when I’m already earning about $4,000 per month in recurring income, as a mom of two, working part-time?

My kids are 2 and 6. Both under 7. Both very much in the “Mommy, watch this!” phase. And in a few seconds, I have to pick them up, too.

“Be realistic” What other moms told me for years

So many people told me I couldn’t do this. Over the years, I’ve heard it all:

“You can’t do this. Be realistic. You have a well-paid corporate job, why would you do that? And what about the baby? Is this even good for your health? Come join us for a drink…the mommy wine club! Come watch a movie with us. Hang out for three hours and do nothing while the kids run around.”

Sure, I’m doing all of this with my kids, well, not the wine and not the movie-watching. The mommy wine club was never my thing.

And here’s the funny part: the same people would say, in the same breath,

“One day... one day I’ll start my own business. Write my book. Write online. Do my own thing. One day.”

This is why you see all those ads about writing your own book — “Pay me $5,000 (or $1,000) and I’ll help you write it.”

I personally know exactly one person who actually started and kept going. She built a life coaching business. The others? Still waiting for “one day” to come.

I didn’t wait. I did it anyway, for six years now. I started writing on the internet, and you can do it too.

First: What even is Substack?

If you’re new here, let me explain, because this matters.

Substack is a free platform where you can write posts. It’s like a blog, and people subscribe to get your posts in their inbox like a newsletter. The cool part: you can turn on paid subscriptions with one click, and readers who love your work pay you monthly or yearly to support it and unlock extras.

What makes it special:

• You can start for free. Go to substack.com, create an account, and you have access to everything. No paywall to get started.

• You own it. You always own your intellectual property, your mailing list, and your subscriber payments. If you ever leave, your email list goes with you.

• Substack only takes 10%. Some people call it the “Substack tax” in a very negative way, but it simply means: the moment you earn money, Substack takes a 10% cut (plus standard Stripe payment fees). Tell me another platform that takes just 10%.

• No headaches. You don’t need to know how a website works. No WordPress, no hosting, no ads to run. You write, you publish, you grow.

“But what can a mom even blog about?”

Whatever you’re already living! Some ideas:

• Motherhood itself — the honest, funny, messy version nobody posts on Instagram

• Your before-kids career — teaching, nursing, marketing, finance, organizing

• A hobby or obsession — meal planning, budgeting, decluttering, fitness after baby

• Your journey — postpartum, homeschooling, earning money online, paying off debt, building something while raising littles

• Gardening, fishing, you name it — put it out there!

You only need to be one chapter ahead of your readers.

My story: from nada, zilch ZERO to 18,000 subs

Read more

Last week I attended THE biggest event for events and I’m still buzzing.

And today? I’m spilling the tea.

Because I learned ONE thing that I cannot stop thinking about. I’m literally jumping out of my skin excited to share it with you.

It came from the one and only storyteller Ann Handley, who was presenting on stage as keynote speaker. And friends... she’s INCREDIBLE. On buzzword was “the humanization of marketing” which is sooo important in this AI era and trust recession. “AI just increaed the stakes of how critical human connection is.”

Wait, who is Ann Handley? (You NEED to know her)

If you write anything online and you do, that’s why you’re here, Ann is your new best friend:

• She’s the author of Everybody Writes , THE go-to guide to creating ridiculously good content. A Wall Street Journal bestseller, translated into 19 languages. Seth Godin literally said: “who better to teach you the craft of writing than Ann.”

• One of the most sought-after keynote speakers in the world.

• Named a “Top Thought Leader” by Forbes and “One of the 7 People Shaping Modern Marketing” by IBM.

• Founder of MarketingProfs with 600K+ subscribers.

• A Bostonian, a Swiftie, a tiny-house studio owner, and obsessed with her Cavalier King Charles Spaniel, Augie. (Same energy, Ann. Same energy.)

So to get to know your audience there’s one specific metric I didn’t really know existed. And it’s so elementary in 2026… especially in a zero click and AI world.

Read more

Let’s get right into it, because tomorrow morning is a big one.

🎙️ Tomorrow: straight from the floor of the US Book Show

Tomorrow, June 9th, 10 a.m. ET / 7 a.m. PT, I’m going live with Copy Queen and she’s bringing back everything she learned at the U.S. Book Show in New York.

It’s live, so come with questions! You can also hit reply and let us know.

Leave a comment

Let me register!

And I’m not stopping there

Two more guests I can barely sit still about:

• Jay Schwedelson, the email marketing genius behind some of the smartest send strategies out there and #1 marketing podcast!

• Laura Belgray, the copywriter from Marie Forleo who turned “write like you talk” into a movement.

I’m bringing both into the Club soon for you to meet and ask questions LIVE.

If your emails get opened but not read, or you freeze every time you face a blank subject line, want to make your writing and copy immediately better, mark these on your calendar.

👉🏻See everything that’s coming up HERE.

Friday: the $15 question

This Friday I’m going live to break down two things: the new paid perks and Reply Rules (see videos below).

You’ve got two ways in:

• Become an annual or founding member 👉🏻 you get the full Substack for Beginners course, free.

• Just want Friday’s LIVE session? 👉🏻 grab it for $15 only, I’m not kidding!

Let me join!

One more reason to jump in now

Here’s the best part about joining Substack for Beginners right now: for the next 6 to 8 weeks, we’re doing this LIVE, together.

That means accountability buddies, real-time feedback, and a room full of writers building alongside you. No more publishing into the void and hoping.

This is the difference between “I’ll start my Substack someday” and “I published three posts this month and people are actually replying and paying me, Kristina.”

I want to grow + earn!

The pool is open: Substack Guest Post Summer

Okay, my favorite part.

I’m opening the doors again. Or should I say… the pool. 😎

This summer I’m running the Substack Guest Post Summer, and every paid subscriber, monthly, annual, or founding, is invited to grab a lounger.

You write a guest post, and I put you in front of my 18,000 Substack subscribers and 34,000 readers, completely free.

You get it as a thank-you for being a paid member.

So grab your snacks, meet me at the pool bar, and let’s get you seen.

👉🏻Paid subscribers: check out the sign-up below or just hit reply and I’ll send it your way.

Let me be SEEN!

And one more thing…

Quick tease: I just got back from the biggest event for events (yes, that’s a real thing, and yes, it was wild). I’m saving the full report for an upcoming post, because a few things genuinely changed how I think about showing up live. More soon.

So here’s your week: register for tomorrow with Jen, watch the Substack TV videos before Friday, and if you’re a paid subscriber, meet me at the pool.

See you in the live on Friday or inside our Chat,

P.S. I didn’t want to blow up your inbox explaining all of it here, so I dropped the details into my Substack TV videos instead. Watch when you’ve got a coffee in hand.

Quick question before you go…

OMG. Stop everything.

Substack just shipped something that, in my opinion, is a massive shift for paid newsletters. 🤯

Now, let me be precise, because you know I test and get back to Substack before I drop a story: perks themselves aren’t new. You’ve always been able to list subscriber benefits in your settings, extras like Q&As, courses, or community access. The problem? They were buried. A few lines of text on your checkout page that most readers scrolled right past.

Like this boooooring page here at onlinewritingclub.com/subscribe

Let me subscribe!!

What just changed

Read more

The journalists are hungry right now.

I've been monitoring my inbox all week, and there's a wave of legitimate media outlets such as Bored Panda and The Cut actively seeking experts writing on Substack like you. Real publications where your name, your Substack link, and your credibility actually matter.

These deadlines are tight. Most close between June 3-8. So if you've been sitting on that expert status thinking "someday I'll pitch," someday is literally this week.

🟠LIVE session: You’re invited when we kick-off the “Substack’s NEW Post Editor - Every (NEW) Feature EXPLAINED!” on Friday, June 5, as part of the Substack for Beginners Course (on-demand + LIVE sessions, 6 weeks of coaching and connecting).🟠

👉🏻Grab your seat for only $10! (NEW)

👉🏻Join the whole series as part of Substack for Beginners.

Read more

You've met Zach before. I've featured him here more than once, and honestly, it's about time again.

That sign is the whole point. Substack as a platform is listening and this week we got proof.

UPDATE: Here’s the video

Ask, and ye shall receive

Here’s what happened. A smallstacker called with around 500 subscribers made a simple request:

Please give us the ability to highlight a segment of text. We have Bold, underline and strikethrough. Why not highlight?

Reasonable, right? Some have wanted it at some point. And then Zach replied:

Good feedback. We went ahead and built highlighting for you. It is now available in the editor.

That’s the part I want you to sit with. Not “we’ll pass it along to the product team.” Not “great idea, we’ll consider it.” A writer asked on a Thursday and the feature showed up in the editor on Friday. When someone literally walks around with a sign saying ask me anything, this is what they mean.

So let’s talk about what you can actually do with it.

First, where’s the Substack Post Editor?

Quick orientation in case you’re newer here. From your publication Dashboard click Create and select Article.

That drops you straight into the writing editor, and the formatting toolbar sits across the top.

You already have a solid kit up there: a Style dropdown for headings, Bold, Italic, Strikethrough, code, links, images, audio, video, block quotes, and bulleted and numbered lists.

Now there’s one more tool in that row since yesterday…

How highlighting in the Substack Post Editor works

1. Select the text you want to highlight, a word, a phrase, a whole sentence.

2. Click the highlighter icon in the formatting toolbar (the little pen/marker).

3. A color palette opens up.

4. Pick your color.

Today’s post was brought to you by the Substack for Beginners Course!

On Friday, July 5, you can meet us LIVE and talk about the new feature/s and how to master the Substack post editor.

WOW! Let me register

I teach in English but also can do a session in German for everyone interested!

So from how many colors can you choose from?

The palette is a full grid organized by hue, grays, reds, oranges, yellows, greens, teals, blues, and purples/magentas, each available in several shades from deep and saturated to soft and pale. That’s 60 swatches to choose from.

On top of that you get two extras:

• A Theme row at the bottom that pulls in your publication’s own brand colors, so your highlights can match your look automatically.

• A None option at the top to remove a highlight whenever you want.

In the screenshot above I gave “colored background” a lour magenta.

Bonus: the new gray callout box

While we’re here, there’s a second, new way to make text stand out that pairs beautifully with highlighting: the callout block.

This is the gray box you may have seen popping up in my posts lately. It’s a visually distinct, formatted container that lifts a chunk of text out of the flow of your writing so it can’t be skimmed past.

To add one:

• select a paragraph,

• then open the quote icon in the formatting toolbar (more advanced blocks live under the More menu),

• and choose Callout block.

One small thing to know: once a callout block is placed, you can’t drag it to a new spot. If you want it elsewhere, delete it and add a fresh one where you want it.

What’s the difference between inline highlighting and a callout box?

Inline highlighting is for a word or phrase.

The callout box is for a whole idea you want boxed off.

Use them together and your posts get real visual rhythm.

How writers can actually use inline highlighting

You often see this on websites. It’s a style form.

A few ideas:

• Guiding the eye. Long essay? Highlight the one sentence that’s the actual thesis so skimmers still get it.

• Color-coding. Use one color for definitions, another for action steps, another for quotes, a quiet system your readers learn to read.

• Promos and CTAs. Highlight the discount, the deadline, the link you don’t want missed.

BONUS tip: Callout boxes for the big stuff. Box off a key takeaway, a reader question, or a quote from another writer.

How will you use highlighting on Substack?

Tell me in the comments.

Leave a comment

Zach’s sign said it best:

“I work at Substack. I can make yours better. Ask me anything.”

The highlighting story proves that asking works. So let’s ask.

What feature do you want Substack to ship next?

I’ll go first:

• I want monthly and annual subscriptions to be properly separated , managed independently, with more control over how each is offered. That’s my top one.

Drop yours below. Worst case, nothing happens.

Oh and one nice anecdote, Karena now wants to call highlighting “Karena feature”. So if you also want to see your name on a feature..

Best case? Someone with a sign goes and builds it.

Shoot your shot!

Leave a comment

P.S. Need a FREE Substack for Beginners course? Sooo much too learn… not so miuch time. Learn from someone who has gone before you and helped 700+ Substack writers kickstart their journey.

Have you seen Substack’s new website yet?

Go look. Because the line sitting right at the heart of it stopped me mid-scroll today when I was recording my 👉🏻👉🏻Substack for Beginners course starting tomorrow:

“You deserve to make money doing the work you love.”

Let me join the class of 2026!

I just sat there and stared at it for a second. Maybe two.

Because that has been my whole motto since the day I started earning money on the online writing in 2021: get paid to be YOU.

So today I’m doing what I always do: pulling the latest Substack news together so you don’t have to dig, and adding my two cents from coaching hundreds of writers to their first 1,000 subscribers, their first $1,000, and well beyond.

Let me join the FREE class!

What the new website actually says

The new site reads almost like a manifesto, and honestly? It’s bold.

The argument goes like this: the old media models are broken. For decades, gatekeepers decided who got paid, who got seen, and who got left out. Substack is building a different model, one that puts writers, creators, and subscribers in charge instead. This s something I recently talked with CNN about when they asked me for an interview.

Here’s what they’re putting on the table:

• Free to start, free to leave. No platform fees. No tiers. No contracts.

• You earn from day one. 90% goes straight to you. The rest keeps the lights on.

• A real audience waiting. More than 5 million paid subscriptions, and climbing.

• Built-in growth. Over half of new subscribers come through Substack’s own network. More than 30% of paid subscriptions start inside it. Over a million posts get discovered in the app every single day.

• Reach. Tens of millions of people read, watch, and listen on Substack every week.

And you don’t need to be techy for any of it. The editor, the podcasts, live video, subscriber chat, payments, analytics, win-back campaigns, it’s all under one roof.

But here’s the part that actually got me

The stats are great. The writers are the real headline.

You might remember I found screenwriter and cultural critic Hunter Harris a while back — her publication Hung Up was one of my favorite examples when I was explaining the new Film & TV category on Substack.

Well, she’s on the new site now, and what the screenwriter says is exactly why this platform is different:

“As long as I’ve been on the internet, I feel like I’ve never had this kind of one-to-one relationship with someone who is reading my work.”

Because that’s the whole thing, isn’t it? Social media gives you followers. Substack gives you a relationship. With Chat, Notes and DMs you can build a flourishing community of humans you know.

Author Melinda Wenner Moyer, whose book came out back in 2021, says it still sells steadily every week;

“(…) it continues to sell steadily every week. My editor credits my Substack for helping to drive continued sales.”

This is exactly what I help people build, too, including indie authors (with and the ) who want to sell their books and keep selling them, reader by reader.

Which is why the timing of this couldn’t be more perfect

Substack is out there telling the whole world how good this platform is for solos and indies. For people exactly like us.

• The part-time moms.

• The folks adding a few real dollars on top of their social security.

• The ones with something to say and no big media machine behind them.

It’s spring, but summer is in the air.

And I don’t know about you, but I’m not coasting into it. We’re crushing our goals on the way in!

👇 Substack for Beginners opens its doors in 13 hours 👇

This Friday, my Substack for Beginners Class 2026 kicks off with a LIVE session.

Now, yes, you can join later, the doors don’t slam shut. But hear me on this: you want to be in the very first live. You want to be in the room from Day 1. The people who show up at the start are the ones who build momentum, make the friends, and look back in three months thinking,

“Thank GOD I didn’t wait.”

Here’s a little sneak peak into what we’ll cover together, on-demand and in live workshops:

• All the collab features — because growth on Substack isn’t a solo sport. I’ll show you how to plug into the network and rise together.

• Stats — how to actually read your numbers instead of guessing in the dark.

• Branding & visuals — how to look like the real deal from your very first post (yes, even if you’re “not a design person”).

• Mastering the editor — turning newsletter writing from agony into your favorite part of the week.

• Make money while you sleep — the kind of newsletter that earns whether you’re at your laptop or at the beach this summer :))

And there’s a big community piece this round: live classes in an exclusive circle small enough that we’ll actually become friends, an overview of every student in the room, and hot seats where we put your newsletter on the table and figure out your next move together.

We’re also covering the Substack status quo in 2026, the real role categories play in getting discovered, and I’ll be sharing my ranked categories list so you can see which are saturated, which are crowded, and where the real untapped potential is hiding.

Two ways to join the Class of 2026

🎁 Free as a thank-you when you join the annual membership of the Club.

Let me join!

Or standalone if you just want the class itself ($499).

Plus 6 weeks of live coaching, all the things I wish someone had told me when I started, part-time, with a kid and then a baby in the house.

Either way, if you’re serious about Substack in 2026, this is the class you want to be in.

👉 Save your seat for Friday’s live session

Let me save my seat!

You deserve…

You really do deserve to make money doing the work you love. You deserve to get paid to be you.

The platform believes it. I believe it. The only person left to convince is you.

See you inside,

Kristina

If this helped, do me a tiny favor ♻️restack it ♻️ so another writer trying to figure this out can find it too. That’s how we lift each other up here. Thanks!

P.S. If you’re an annual subscriber and you want to join the Substack for Beginner Course, check your emails. I sent you an email with the invite.

👉🏻You can also hit reply or email me: kristina@onlinewritingclub.com

Everyone who already added his email and name to the form is ALL set!

Substack categories sound boring. I get it.

When most writers start a Substack, they want to write, publish, grow, and maybe even get paid. They do not want to stare at a settings drop-down and wonder,

“Am I Culture? Am I Business? Am I Education? Am I having an identity crisis?”

But your category matters more than most beginners think.

Your category helps Substack understand where your publication belongs. It helps your writing show up in the right neighborhood. It helps readers, collaborators, and other writers understand what kind of publication you are building.

And in 2026, this matters even more because Substack’s leaderboards are now a bigger discovery surface.

Something fun is happening on Substack this week

Publications are rising. Mine included. (Yes, doing a little happy dance.)

Me rising in #International

rising in #Travel - Wonderful!

rising in #Education - Super!

And here’s what I love even more, writers from the Online Writing Club are rising in all kinds of corners. Travel. Education. International. Different writers, different topics, all finding their people.

Readers can browse category tabs in the app, where they can see…

• Rising publications,

• Top Bestseller publications,

• plus posts and Notes from that category.

So today, I want to make this simple.

This is your beginner-friendly, no-stress, “explain it to me like I’m new here” guide to Substack categories in 2026.

Substack has shipped 2 new categories

And yes, we now have 2 newer categories to pay attention to. Just like that!

I talked with a Substack employee who confirmed it. Substack’s team does this all the time, they watch how writers use the platform, they listen, and then they ship and suddenly there’s a new shelf in the bookstore.

So today I’m doing what I always do: pulling the latest Substack news together so you don’t have to dig and add my two cents from coaching hundreds of writers to their first 1000 subscribers, $1,000 or $10,000 and more. One is almost earning $90,000 now.

Picking the “right” category was how it all started when we were meeting.

Now they belong to the category:

“I knew him when we were picking their Substack category. Now they have a flourishing communitity and healthy and sustainable email list.”

I know how many of you have whispered to me:

“Kristina, none of these categories fit.” “Where does my publication even belong?” “I picked something random and now I’m scared to change it.”

So my online writing friend, let’s sort this out together.

👇🏻”Substack for Beginners” Class 2026👇

This post is part of the build-up to my Substack for Beginners Class, which kicks off with a LIVE session this Friday.

We’re covering the Substack status quo in 2026, the role categories play in getting discovered, and I’ll be sharing a list with the ranked categories so you can see which ones are saturated, which are crowded, and where the real untapped potential is hiding. (Spoiler: it’s not where most people think.)

The class is included as a THANK YOU in the annual membership of the Club, or you can grab it standalone.

Join the course for FREE!

+6 weeks of live coaching. All the things I wish someone had told me when I started, part-time with one and then two kids in the house.

Let me join and grow!

Let’s now get to the good stuff first.

Here’s what we’ll cover today:

1. What Substack categories actually are (in plain English)

2. Why they matter (and where people get it wrong)

3. The full A to Z list of Substack categories in 2026

4. The 2 brand new categories

5. How to choose the “right” one without crying

6. A shor FAQ

What is a Substack category, really?

Read more

Especially when you see writers suddenly ending up in The New York Times or The Guardian.

For most of us, publishing feels like one giant mystery:

• How do people ACTUALLY get published?

• How do they find editors?

• What do they even say in those emails?

• How many rejections happen first?

• How do you know if your story is good enough?

• How do writers suddenly end up in The New York Times?

And maybe the biggest question of all:

“Could this ever happen for me too?”

That’s why I loved today’s conversation with podcast guest , who I originally found through Substack Notes.

Because Tyler peels back the curtain on ALL of it.

The invisible work to become a published author

One thing we don’t talk about enough inside the Club is… the invisible work.

The unanswered pitches. The emotional messiness. The late nights. The self doubt. The moments where she had absolutely no clue what she was doing.

And Tyler herself said this perfectly on the Online Writing Club Show:

“I love writing these ‘behind the curtain’ pieces about how I got published in the NYT or the Guardian! When I started pitching it felt like such a mystery, so I’m happy to shed a little light! It’s actually really fun for me to peel back the curtain and revisit how I got to publication.”

THIS is exactly why I wanted to bring her story to the Club.

Because I think we need WAY more stories about the process behind the success. Not just the shiny headline or accolades at the end.

As someone who’s worked in journalism and has also been published, you know these things do NOT just happen overnight. We should be SO proud of all the invisible work.

And Tyler’s story begins with her whole life changing.

She left a four year relationship and called off her engagement after realizing her fiancé was involved in what she describes as a “high control group cult-like program.”

“I really blasted myself through a portal leaving that relationship and like so much of my life changed very quickly.”

And suddenly, for the first time, she had something she had not really had before:

Time. Time to think. Time to travel. Time to write. Time to finally build the life she actually wanted.

“This is the singular thing I want to do in my life is like write and tell stories.”

So she sat herself a goal.

A REAL one.

In 2025, Tyler made herself a promise

“In 2025, I am going to get published in The Cut by New York Magazine.”

At that point she had never been published before and she had ZERO insider publishing knowledge.

“So, I started by googling: How do you pitch an editor?”

Honestly, I think so many people are sitting exactly there right now. Wanting to write. Wanting to publish. Wanting to be taken seriously. But having absolutely no clue where to begin.

And Tyler KEPT going anyway.

“I have thrown so much proverbial spaghetti at the wall.”

Then came Tunisia.

The rejected Tunisia story changed everything

She originally pitched a travel story to a smaller publication. But once she actually arrived there and started interviewing people, the story completely changed shape.

A more honest story appeared. A more alive story. The publication rejected it because it no longer matched the original pitch. But Tyler trusted the story she had found. And that changed everything.

Late one night, she found an editor at The New York Times who had served in the Peace Corps in Africa. Tyler had too.

“And I thought, if anyone at the New York Times is going to read my email, it is this guy.”

So she emailed him. And he replied.

A few weeks later, Tyler was standing inside the newsroom of The New York Times.

“There’s the breaking newsroom with all the clocks on the wall. And I was like, this is so crazy.”

And then? After getting published?

She kept pursuing her BIG dream

Because once she stopped treating writing like a fantasy and started treating it like her REAL life, bigger things kept happening.

Writer sends draft → editor edits → writer sends draft→ Over and over and over again

Now she has ALSO been published in The Guardian.

And again, she openly shares what the process ACTUALLY looked like:

“Writer sends draft → editor edits → writer sends draft→ Over and over and over again”

Then came the moment that honestly made me emotional.

Tyler was walking through New York City when the email arrived saying her Guardian story was live.

Later she got home from the gym and hugged her friend Joanna.

“‘I can’t believe it,’ I say. ‘I got published in another international publication.’

She turns around and shakes her head at me,

“Yeah girl, you’re a f*cking writer. This is just the beginning.’”

I mean COME ON. How inspiring is that?

And I think there are so many lessons in Tyler’s story for every writer here.

Tyler’s top 3 tips to get published in The New York Times

1. Do pre-reporting before pitching

This was one of Tyler’s biggest lessons. Don’t just pitch an idea. Talk to people first.

Interview them. Gather real stories and bring substance to the editor.

“If I could give one piece of advice to people who want to do narrative reporting like I did for The Guardian, you must do pre-reporting.”

2. Use your Substack as your portfolio

Tyler literally sent Substack essays to editors when they asked for writing samples.

Your Substack is not just a newsletter. It’s proof. It’s your voice. It’s your body of work

And honestly, her Substack played a MASSIVE role in all of this.

3. Tell the stories you’re scared to tell

Tyler said:

“I’m very drawn to stories that say the thing out loud that you’re not supposed to say out loud.”

That’s where the best writing often lives.

In telling the truth.

Substack for Beginners Course for FREE as a THANK YOU

🙏🏻🙏🏻Almost 19,000 subscribers and 34,000 readers! Thank you all so much! Thanks so much to Substack.

This summer, I want you to feel the main character energy and power Substack gave me (Top #14 International, non-native, part-time with 2 kids) and gives you, too.

YAY, let me join

Okay, I have to be honest with you.

I knew this was coming. I just didn’t expect it to arrive this fast. Yesterday someone asked me about segmentation and I said:

“You need to use Kit AND Substack"

I also heard today:

“I want to send different things to different people. But I can’t. So I either send everything to everyone, or I send nothing.”

And Substack heard that. They hear a lot of things. They also ship a lot of things…some stay, some they test and quietly sunset again (remember the typewriter and the confetti?! Maybe similar as the green disco ball Spotify’s logo shows right now which will be sunsetted soon.)

But this one? This one is going to stay. Because this one is part of the bigger vision: making Substack a true all-in-one platform for independent publishers - the small guys and the big guys.

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Substack’s Product Team is shipping features as if they’re on Red Bull right now.

I'm part of the Substack Product Lab. Here's what they just told us and what it means for you.

So let me tell you what dropped, what it does, and how it compares to Kit which has had a head start on this for years.

I’ll be testing both in the coming days and will report back to you with everything I find. For now, here’s what you need to know short and sweet brought to you by my Substack for Beginners Course (included in the annual membership experience).

What are Substack Tags and Segments?

Just now Substack’s Product Team informed me via email that moving forward we can organize our subscribers with two new tools (in beta).

TAGS, your private subscriber labels

Think of tags as little sticky notes you put on individual subscribers.

They are internal only, your subscribers never see them. You can have unlimited tags per subscriber. You can edit and delete them anytime.

You can add tags in 3 ways:

#1 During a CSV import, so you can bring your existing lists from Kit or Beehive in already labeled

#2 By filtering your subscriber list and bulk-tagging the results

#3 By tagging an individual subscriber directly

Good use cases:

• live event attendees

• course students

• VIPs

• meetup guests

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SEGMENTS, your smart, saved audience slices

Segments are saved filters you build from your subscriber data, country, state, activity level, paid status, tags, and more.

What’s really cool: they update automatically.

If you build a segment of paid subscribers in Germany, anyone who subscribes tomorrow from Germany gets added without you doing anything.

• Stack multiple filters together (AND logic for now, more flexibility coming)

• Send an ad hoc email to just that segment

• Publish a post and notify only a segment, the post stays public, you just control who gets the email

That last one is my favorite. You can publish more without flooding everyone’s inbox!

Publish for the people it actually matters to. That changes how I think about content cadence completely.

And what’s next on their Substack Feature Roadmap?

Email automations triggered by segment membership. More flexible filter logic. More criteria.

How does this compare to Kit?

Since I have a huge email list living on Kit I pay more than $1,000 per year for this email srvice provider (ESP).

I always said it’s smart to have Kit AND Substack. Maybe at some point I’m gonna say:

“You ONLY need Substack (and save money)!”

Kit (formerly ConvertKit) has had tags and segments for years. So let's be real about where Substack stands right now and where Kit still leads.

For me this means:

• Kit still leads on automations

• Substack leads on integration

Kit is still more powerful if you run complex automated email sequences with branching logic. That’s the honest truth. But Kit is a separate tool, a separate cost, and a separate thing to learn, on top of Substack.

The vision Substack is executing on is: you should not need 5 tools to run your publication. And with every feature like this, that vision gets closer to reality.

Szbstack for Beginners: Want to know not just the WHAT but the HOW?

Inside the Substack for Beginners Course, I walk you through the exact steps to set up your Substack for growth, including how to use new (shiny) features like.

Come join us - course is included in the annual membership experience (worth $499) with live classes + on-demand course!

In the first live session, we’ll talk about the different ESPs as planned, pros and cons of Substack and this new feature.

YAY, let me join

PS. Don’t confuse post tags with subscriber tags, please. Here’s all you need to organize your beautiful Substack house with tags:

PPS. Sorry for ANOTHER email this week 🤪I know there are busy weeks where I’m sending nothing and then there are those types of weeks🤣 Thanks for being a reader and member of the Online Writing Club!

If this is news to you, please ♻️restack (share) ♻️this post so other writers just like you know about these awesome new features.

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“So… what should I charge?”

It’s the question I hear more than any other.. from the writers I coach, from people reaching out after my newsletter drops, and from the journalist I spoke with just last week. She’s been writing professionally for years and still second-guessesd her rates.

I’ve been helping people with coaching and ghostwriting newsletters for three years while now, and with my journalism background, rates have always fascinated me.

Partly because words and stories have real market value that rarely gets discussed openly. And partly because I’ve watched too many talented writers, especially women, chronically underprice themselves.

If you’re just starting out as a freelance writer in 2026, this is the guide I wish had existed when I started..back when I was guessing at numbers and hoping for the best …except you like the mystery…

Online Writing Club members now have the freshest industry benchmarking data available anywhere.

Let’s use it.

What Do Freelance Writers Actually Charge in 2026?

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Right now, as I’m writing this letter to you, my garden is doing the thing it does every May that makes me want to drop everything and just stand there.

The roses and rhododendron are opening. The bees are fat and slow and absolutely unbothered. My kids are bouncing on the trampoline in the background, shrieking about something that will be completely forgotten in about four minutes. And I’m standing in the middle of all of it thinking about you and about what it actually means to be seen as a writer.

If you’ve been following me for a while, you know I looooove flowers. They are the first thing I notice in a room. The thing I planted all along the fence this spring so that every time I open the back door, something blooms.

Which is maybe why, when I found today’s podcast guest, Brian Gomes, CEO of Social Flowers, on Google last autumn, I almost fell off my chair.

Besides Kofi and Buy me a coffee, there’s now a new way to show your appreciation with flowers

I was Googling, honestly. Looking for ways to help writers get appreciated that weren’t just paid subscriptions. I knew about the tipping tools Ko-fi. Buy Me a Coffee. Done all of it myself back in the day when I was writing daily on Medium. But I kept thinking :

“Is there something that actually crosses the line? That lands not on a screen but in someone’s actual life?”

And I found Social Flowers which we gonna talk about in today’s podcast episode.

But before I tell you what it does, let me tell you where it comes from. Because the origin or lean-in story is everything.

Brian’s business partner comes from a flower family that goes back to 1959. A real, local florist on Long Island, New York. His grandfather had greenhouses in the early 1900s. His brothers wholesale flowers, grow flowers, supply CVS stores across the country. Brian calls them “one of the first families of flowers” and when he says it, you can feel that he’s not exaggerating.

Their company has been delivering flowers online since 1999. The Social Flowers concept, sending blooms to someone you know only through a screen, no address needed, launched in 2007.

They were the first to send flowers on Facebook. It went viral on what was then Twitter (now X): 4.2M views in a single day.

There was especially one moment in Brian’s life that changed what flowers meant to him personally. His father passed away:

“It was important to me that people sent flowers to my father’s service. And they did. And then I realized…okay, this is about connection. This is about being thought of and being cared for and remembered.”

That sentence is the whole thing. That’s what we’re really talking about today.

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Why your writer’s thumbprint can change the way your readers see the world

I wrote my MBA thesis on identity-based marketing (my bootcampers know this concept very well). I won’t bore you with the theory but in short, it’s the idea that the most powerful thing any brand can do is know precisely who it is and let that identity do all the work.

For writers, I call it the writer’s thumbprint. Your DNA.

The thing that makes your writing recognisably, irreplaceably yours. The quality that AI can get close to but never actually replicate. The YOU-ness is what makes you paid.

We talk about this constantly in the Club. How to find it. How to protect it. How to build everything, your newsletter, your Notes, your offers, on top of it.

But here’s something I’ve never said out loud quite like this:

What if your writer’s thumbprint was so clear, so felt, so specific…that a reader reads one of your essays and thinks:

“I have to do something. Not just comment. A like. I don’t want to be a PayPal notification. I want to be something real.”

And then the doorbell rings.

A person standing at your door with flowers and a card that says:

“I read what you wrote and it changed something in me.”

Is that not the most insane, wonderful, writerly thing you’ve ever heard?

Recurring revenue is nice, so are flowers

Yes. Of course. Paid subscriptions are the dream. Recurring revenue, a community that invests in you, the feeling of sustainable creative work. I love all of it and I will never stop talking about it.

But here’s what we also know, especially in the beginning.

Before someone pays you, they have to know you, like you, and trust you. That takes time. That takes posts and Notes and showing up and being consistent and being real. And in that whole beautiful runway, while the relationship is building, what happens when a reader wants to show how much your work means to them?

They type “this really moved me” in the comments. And they mean it with their whole heart. And it still feels like almost nothing compared to what they wanted to do.

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Here are some moments I heard from my Club members:

You post something vulnerable about your marriage. You write about your kid being sick. You share the essay you’ve been avoiding for two years. You announce a book pre-launch and your readers have been with you for the whole journey. You have a birthday. You’re exhausted and it shows in the writing and three hundred people felt it. Someone reads your words at 2am and thinks:

“this person just described my entire year/life.”

In every single one of those moments…your reader wants to show up. They just have absolutely no idea how.

What flowers do that money can’t

Years ago, when I was writing daily on Medium, I had the Buy Me a Coffee link. The Ko-fi. I was doing all the things. And the tips came in sometimes and I was genuinely grateful.

But I’ll be honest with you the way I always am.

It landed in my bank account and got absorbed into whatever was waiting. The grocery bill. The electricity. The gesture was kind. The feeling evaporated within about twenty minutes.

Theer’s this hunger we all have. Not for fame. Not even for money. For the feeling of mattering enough to someone that they go out of their way. That they choose you, specifically, on this day, and do something just for you.

Also, the most powerful thing you can do is make someone feel like the only person in the room. That specificity, that I see you, I mean you, not a follower, you, is the whole game.

Flowers do that.

A human being goes to a website. Chooses something they think you’d love. Writes you a personal note. And something alive and beautiful appears at your door. You find a vase. You put them on the kitchen table. You look at them for ten days, every morning with your coffee, every time you walk past, and every single time you think:

“Someone who knows me only through my words decided I was worth this.”

That doesn’t evaporate into the grocery bill.

Social Flowers: how it actually works

The concept is almost offensively simple.

You can send someone real flowers without knowing their delivery address. You only need their email, their phone number, or a social media connection like a Substack handle.

The recipient gets a link. They choose when and where the flowers arrive. They provide the address. You never see it. Flowers show up and make your fave writer smile!

Social Flowers currently delivers across the US and Canada. International is coming…Brian told me he had lots of requests and he’s planning to expand in the next year or so. (I’m in Germany, so I’m already waiting.)

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But if you’re stateside, here’s what I’d do:

1. Visit socialflowers.com and click “How It Works” to understand the full flow

2. Create a free Flower Me profile at flowerme.socialflowers.com … takes five minutes

3. Link to your profile from your next post

4. Let your readers know you’re open to being celebrated this way

I’m sending flowers to Ellen and Karen

I couldn’t write this post and not do the thing.

my female co-hosts, my collaborators, two women who show up for the community again and again with everything they have, I’m sending them flowers.

And to every single Bootcamp grad and Online Writing Club member who has put in the work this year: you’ve earned something that arrives at your door, not just your inbox.

Because that is the whole point. Saying thank you in a way someone can actually hold.

THE Substack for Beginners Course 2026

My fully updated Substack for Beginners course opens its doors in the last week of May 2026 with weekly live Q&As with me included.

Everything I know about starting, growing, and monetising your Substack, rebuilt for 2026.

YAY, let me join

How do you get access?

Simply upgrade to an annual Club membership. That’s it. You’re in!

The course will start in the last week of May 2026.

Give me access

Because your writer’s thumbprint, that specific, irreplaceable YOUness you bring to every post, deserves more than a like.

It deserves someone standing at your door.

More flower power to everyone,

Today, I’m thrilled to share a guest post from the wonderful Online Writing Club member and professor at Columbia Business School .

Jeremy is the creator of the , and the author of the forthcoming book The Opportunity Map, arriving in March 2027.

I’ve loved following Jeremy’s work because he has this rare ability to combine deep research, powerful storytelling, and genuine hope. His writing explores inequality, opportunity, and the hidden stories shaping America, but always through a deeply human lens.

In today’s guest post, Jeremy shares how writing on Substack helped lead to his book deal with publishing house Hachette (one of the Big Five!) and why “increasing your surface of luck” might be one of the most important things a writer can do.

So now take it away, Jeremy…

I directly attribute my Substack to helping me landing a book deal.

When I signed with Hachette in the summer of 2024, I had been writing on Substack for 3 years, publishing every 2 weeks without fail, and had grown my subscribers to a decent size of 13,000. I had also carved out a solid identity on the platform - covering hard-hitting issues on U.S. inequality, creating data visualization to highlight regional divides, and offering solutions that might help America forge a path forward. But it wasn’t the dogged writing or the interesting charts that led to my book deal, it was increasing my surface of luck.

Tend Your Garden

Cate Hall taught me the term about increasing my surface of luck.

She was the world’s top-ranked female poker player and then founded a biotech startup that set a global record for fastest clinical trial. In her upcoming book she wrote,

“It sounds stupidly simple, but it’s profound: the more times you interact with the outside world, the more chances you have to get lucky — to find collaborators, friends, and projects that, together, provide the right soil for you to bloom in.”

After hearing this, I realized that for the longest time I had been thinking about luck as though it were lightning - random, rare, and entirely out of my control. But Cate explains that luck is more like a garden, one that needs cultivating, where you plant lots of different flowers to see what grows, and where you create the right conditions to let your plants flourish.

I think about two quotes in particular that really stick with me about trying to increase my surface of luck:

• “You can’t plan to meet the people who will change your life.” - Steve Jobs

• “I find the harder I work, the luckier I am.” - Thomas Jefferson

Writing in Public Increased My Surface of Luck

I started writing because I was in grad school sitting on a bunch of interesting charts, data, and papers that I thought people would be interested to see.

But once I started writing, I started reconnecting with people from different walks of my life who were also interested in these same topics, as well as totally new people that I had tons in common with without even knowing it.

All of this came to a head in early 2022 when an old friend of mine from college who happened to be working on his own book mentioned my newsletter to his editor. She had just taken a new role in publishing where she was focused on signing authors writing about economic, policy, and social issues.

After we spoke, she introduced me to a handful of agents and within a few weeks I had signed with Dan Greenberg as my agent and 3 months later I had a book deal.

Building a Proof of Concept

In the traditional publishing world, risk is the enemy.

Acquisitions editors and literary agents are constantly looking for reasons to say “no” because every book is a massive investment of time and capital. This is where my Substack becomes my greatest negotiator. I’ve heard the analogy many times now that big-book-publishing is like venture capital - publishing houses take a lot of small bets, knowing that most won’t pay off, hoping that eventually one of those books becomes a Harry Potter or The Kite Runner.

I love data and I used numbers to my advantage when pitching my book to agents and publishers. What I realized is that Substack turned my writing into a market test. The stats from every post meant that publishers didn’t have to take as big of a leap of faith on me. If I could show an agent that 1 in 3 subscribers consistently opened my emails, that I had an active audience of now +23,000, and hundreds of those readers engage in the comments, I could help remove the guesswork.

Substack is particularly helpful here versus traditional journalism because authors have so many stats on how well their articles perform. Click-through rates, retention, sharing, audience location, overlap with other publications, and more.

Using Substack Data to Pitch

In my proposal I used a lot of this data to build my argument that people would clamor for a book.

Every two weeks, I had a new opportunity to refine my big ideas. I learned that while readers appreciated the hard data of regional economic divides, they were moved by the narrative hooks that connected that data to human stories. People were also hungry for solutions. In a time of tremendous injustice and where we get so much bad news from our phones and TVs already, opportunity was just as important, if not more so, than the stories of inequality. Substack was a laboratory where I could test various theses in real-time.

My newsletter got people to pay attention, but I had to prove that my book could stand on its own.

American Inequality already existed in the world for years, I had covered a lot of topics and places, and so I had to make sure that I was presenting something novel that would make people say, I need to read this book. Even as great as I thought some article might be for my Substack, I kept the big picture in mind and held some stories back so that way when someone read it in my book, it would be the first time that insight was out in the world.

Beyond the Inbox

While the goal of a Substack is often to build an internal list, its most powerful feature might be its ability to act as a beacon for external opportunities.

I used my Substack as a portfolio to try to catch the eyes of editors at legacy media outlets. It took me a while to start calling myself a writer, because I’ll admit that the identity was foreign to me, but editors could see with a 30 second Google search that I had a real body of work and subject matter expertise to back it up.

Finally, Substack is a community of peers. By engaging with other authors on the platform—sharing their work and having them share mine—I created a cross-pollination of audiences, which turned into some of the “lucky breaks” that helped me.

I spent a lot of time supporting other authors before I asked them to support me. I linked to their work, quoted their articles, promoted their stories, sent their newsletters to friends, and recommended their Substacks in the portal. I gave generously because I thought that was the right thing to do and it felt easy to me, but it also helped increase my surface of luck.

Those authors would recommend my Substack, share my maps, invite me for a Substack Live, or link to one my works.

When Paul Krugman reshared my life expectancy article, it was because I happened to publish a piece at the right time that a lively debate was going on about inequalities in global survival rates and how the U.S. stacked up.

I will also say, the #1 thing that helped my Substack grow was recommending other authors in the dashboard portal and having them recommend my Substack too.

But not all of this passive. I sent countless cold outreach emails to people asking them to co-write articles, to recommend my Substack, to add a quote to a piece, to do a Substack Live, to link to an article, to mention my newsletter to their students.

I also paid attention to every single new Subscriber, which was a lot of work. If I noticed a .gov or .edu or email address for a large publication, I would follow-up and say hey I saw you just subscribed, let me know what you are interested in and would love to find some time co connect.

This was how I ended up getting to publish articles in TIME Magazine, Business Insider, and the Harvard Magazine.

As Luck Would Have It

Writing a newsletter and writing a book are very different beasts.

I had to get more comfortable putting myself out in the world, cold calling people, enduring rejection, getting feedback that my ideas were half baked or needed restructuring.

If a newsletter doesn’t land the way I want it to, I can always say to myself there will be another one. But when it came to writing a book, I had to turn the volume up to 11. I hired a small fleet of fact checkers, I had 13 different people edit my book, I wrote +1,000 notecards to organize storylines. I mailed hand-written letters to people I wanted to interview.

I believe deeply that luck plays an important part in my life, but I also deeply believe that when luck did strike, it was on me to seize that moment.

As much as writing helped me develop my big ideas, my stories, and my novel insights that could drive a book forward, it also helped me build a strong community of writers.

When the time came to work on the book, writers I had met offered me all sorts of amazing book insight — tools for coming up with titles, insights about what it would take to get on a best seller list, tricks for never losing the URL for a footnote.

I’m incredibly grateful to that community of writers, and so my work in this post is to try to help other writers think about where those next steps can be.

The book world is a labyrinth, and now that I’ve found my way inside, I want to help pull others through. If you need a steer or a boost, reach out—I’ve seen a dozen writers turn their Substacks into book deals, and I’m ready to see you make it onto that list.

I’ve found that writing in public week after week is one of the best ways to tend to your garden.

Eventually something is bound to bloom.

Put yourself in a position of luck: THE Substack for Beginners Course 2026

PS. You can also meet in our upcoming Substack Livestream together. We’ll meet 5/19 at 9am EST. You’ll see the calendar invite in your inbox, if you’re subscribed.

Okay, I heard you. Loud and clear!

You asked for more ways to get visible, build authority, and land features that actually move the needle, so here we go. This is the second drop from our 30+ Substack categories (Substack’s incredible PM team listened and shipped some new!), and I’m curating these personally so you’re not wading through noise.

What you’re getting today: a handpicked list of journalist requests (incl. Mother’s Day!) actively looking for experts just like you to quote, feature, and interview.

Real deadlines, outlets and opportunities to get your name out there!

Even if your topic is not included in these queries, you can find media outlets to submit your stories to.

My tip:

Ask to add a link to your newsletter if possible to get valuable backlinks! Paid Community Member Ellen Scherr did this when she got featured by Oprah and she got lots of new subscribers.

And this is just the beginning. Next week: I’ll share the first brand deal with you that almost everyone of you could get - designed to help you monetize your expertise, grow your reach and get paid to be YOU.

I also included Marketing for Erin! If you have a topic/category, you’d like me to feature, let me know.

Oh and if you’re a journalist/writer reading this and would like to be featured with your request, send me an email to: kristina@onlinewritingclub.com Same for sponsorships, affiliate partnerships and brand deals for small- and midstackers.

Now, scan the list, find your category, and pitch today!

The world’s largest educational and scientific computing society, AOL, MSN and many more are included!

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Yesterday evening, I had a deadline. My two-year-old daughter had a fever… the kind that makes you tap the thermometer twice because surely a small human cannot be this warm and still demand chocolate. She was on me, glued to my chest like a tiny, very hot koala. And I sat there at 11 p.m. with a half-finished draft and I did something I have never, in my entire professional life, done before:

I asked for an extension.

I’m writing this today, on that extension. And I’m still a little wobbly about it, honestly.

Because here’s the thing: the woman who would have sat at her desk until 4 a.m. to deliver on time, that woman is gone. I’m writing her obituary in this post. She had a good run. She was very productive. She also needed a stern talking-to and possibly a nap.

A brief history of me never asking for anything

Let me set the scene for those of you who don’t know me yet.

Corporate me? Never asked. 15 years across agencies and offices. Statements due before a 6 a.m. news cycle? I worked till midnight to get them right. Deck for a 9 a.m. board meeting and the data came in late? I worked till midnight. Once I worked through a migraine because I genuinely could not picture the sentence “I need to push this.” My brain did not contain those words in that order.

MBA me? Also never asked. Group projects, individual papers, case studies the night before a 9 a.m. class… I worked till midnight, turned things in, never flinched.

Here’s what’s changed since then, and it’s not subtle: I have two kids now, and sleep is non-negotiable. Not in a cute Instagram-self-care way. In a I-cannot-function-as-a-mother-or-a-writer-on-five-hours way. Midnight is my edge. Past that, I’m not producing better work…I’m producing tomorrow’s mistakes. That math doesn’t work anymore.

So part-time-business me, yesterday? Looked at my desktop screen. Looked at my daughter. Looked at the cursor blinking like it was personally disappointed in me.

Did the math:

“if I push past midnight tonight, I am useless tomorrow with two small humans who need me. And typed the words: “Hi — would it be okay if I sent this tomorrow EOB? My little one is sick and I want to give this the attention it deserves and to my sleep.”

Hit send. Immediately wanted to throw my desktop into the sea.

The reply: “I totally understand how life gets in the way sometimes..”

THIS! For a thing I have spent 15 YEARS believing would end my career, my reputation, …possibly the company.

What Douglas Adams knew that I didn’t

You know who I thought of, sitting there with my feverish koala?

Douglas Adams. The Hitchhiker’s Guide guy. The man wrote nine books and missed approximately every deadline attached to them. Editors had to physically lock him in hotel rooms to extract manuscripts. He spent ten years not writing his final novel, mostly in the bath.

And the most famous thing he ever said about deadlines was:

“I love deadlines. I love the whooshing noise they make as they go by.”

I used to read that quote and think what a slacker. Like, with affection…but also with the smug certainty of a person who has never missed one. I would never. I love a deadline. Deadlines are my muse.

Reading it last night, holding my kid? Hit completely differently. Because Douglas Adams wasn’t bragging about being a slacker. He was telling on himself with humor, which is a thing writers do because the alternative is crying. He knew he was bad at deadlines. He talked about it openly his whole career. And he wrote Hitchhiker’s Guide anyway. He created Marvin the Paranoid Android anyway. He gave us 42 anyway.

The deadlines whooshed by. The work still happened. Different timeline. Still happened.

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“Under pressure, diamonds” - a slogan I have beef with

When I worked at the world’s leading CommsMarketing agency Edelman, there was a wall in Frankfurt. Big. Green. Very corporate. Very “I will be photographed in front of this for LinkedIn.”

It said:

“Pressure makes diamons.”

The Edelman philosophy back then was:

“The pressure you’re feeling isn’t to break you. It’s to make you”

Listen, writing superstars. I have thoughts.

That line works great on a motivational mug. It works less great when you’re crying in a bathroom at 9 p.m. trying to turn around a media statement. Under pressure, diamonds assumes the pressure is the good part… that the squeeze is what makes the magic. But that’s not what I learned in 15 years of squeezing.

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What I learned is: under pressure, you finish. That’s the actual benefit. You produce a thing. The thing is usually fine. Occasionally it’s great. Sometimes it’s a shapeless coal lump you’ll spend Monday cleaning up. The pressure didn’t make it brilliant. You made it as brilliant as you could despite the pressure, because you are good at what you do, and pressure is the reason it had to exist by Tuesday but not the reason it was good.

The honest version of that wall would say:

“Pressure makes mostly fine work, occasional brilliance, sometimes a tension headache and a snippy email you’ll regret.”

But that doesn’t fit on a wall in a marketing agency… of course.

What I’m starting to believe instead, at the ripe age of having-a-two-year-old, is that brilliance comes from craft and rest and reading a lot, none of which fit on a green agency wall.

Pressure just gives you a finished draft to edit later. Which is valuable! It’s just not a diamond. It’s more like a rock you can polish on Sunday. haha

What other writers acutally say (Greatest Hits)

This morning, I went looking for company in this. I found it. Here’s the wisdom of the craft, ranked by how hard I personally felt each one in my chest:

Dave Barry, humorist and truth-teller:

“Like all writers, my greatest inspiration, my ultimate muse, is a deadline.”

The muse is fear. We all know.

Rita Mae Brown:

“A deadline is negative inspiration. Still, it’s better than no inspiration at all.”

This belongs cross-stitched on a pillow in every writer’s office.

Jerome K. Jerome, Victorian writer, spiritually he is us:

“A deadline is negative inspiration. Still, it’s better than no inspiration at all.”

Rick Riordan, the Percy Jackson guy, dozens of bestsellers:

“Deadlines just aren’t real to me until I’m staring one in the face.”

If he can admit it, you can stop pretending you’re “just doing research” three weeks before something is due.

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Karl Kraus, who was apparently in a mood the day he said this:

“A journalist is stimulated by a deadline. He writes worse when he has time.”

Brutal. Suspiciously accurate. Give me three months and I will write you a worse personal essay than I would have written in three days. Someone needs to study this scientifically.

The 2 kinds of writers (according to yours truly)

After polling my own brain at 11 p.m., here are the two camps:

Type A: The Corporate Refugee. This was me until yesterday. Trained in agencies and offices where you do not, will not, cannot miss a deadline. Will reschedule a dentist appointment. Will work through a migraine. Will ship something rather than ship nothing.

• Upside: stuff gets done.

• Downside: cannot tell the difference between “this genuinely needs to be tonight” and “I have manufactured this urgency in my own head because resting feels illegal.”

Often confuses self-punishment for professionalism. Often confuses being available with being valuable.

Type B: The Whoosher. Spiritual disciple of Douglas Adams. Vibrant inner life. Notes app full of brilliant opening lines. Relationship with deadlines best described as “open.” Will write the best thing you’ve ever read. Will deliver it eleven days late. Genuinely does not understand why you’re upset.

Most of us are Type A in our paid work and Type B in our personal projects…which is why my novel is on chapter three but my client deck got delivered at 11:58 p.m. with a smile emoji.

What I learned this week

Three things, and then I’ll let you go and hope to see you in tomorrow’s conversation with subject line writing rockstar Jay Schwedelsohn:

#1 A finished mediocre thing beats a perfect thing that lives in your head

The piece I just sent, written one-handed under a sleeping koala toddler, it’s out in the world. The brilliant version I would have written with eight hours of sleep and no responsibilities does not exist, has never existed, will never exist. Because I am a person with a life and two kids and a thirty-something body that needs sleep.

#2 Asking is not weakness

When I sent that text yesterday, I thought I was confessing a failure. What I actually did was give the other person a chance to be human with me. She was.

The thing I have been bracing against my whole career was, in this case, a door that opened the second I knocked. I’m not saying every door does. I’m saying I never even tried the handle for 15 years.

#3 The woman who worked till midnight every time, no matter what, wasn’t a hero. She was scared.

Scared of being seen as less-than. Scared that if she said I can’t once, the whole edifice would collapse. (Spoiler: it doesn’t. Yesterday’s edifice is fine. Today’s edifice is, frankly, better, because I slept.)

She wasn’t wrong to push hard, she was good at her job, some even said “brilliant” and she delivered. But somewhere along the way, “I’ll get it done” stopped being a strength and started being a reflex. Two kids later, sleep non-negotiable, that reflex doesn’t fit my life anymore. And maybe it never really fit yours either.

You’re allowed to ask. You’re allowed to be a person.

Subscribe now

A toast, Superstars

To you, writers, authors, creators, the whole brilliant, sometimes-anxious, sometimes-tired-out lot of you. You who deliver. You who whoosh. You who do both, depending on the week.

May your deadlines be reasonable. May your extensions, when you need them, be granted in four minutes flat. May you raise a glass…of water, of tea gone cold for the third time, of hot milk with honey if you’re soothing a small human … to the version of you who finally, finally asked.

And if a deadline whooshes past you sometimes…well. The man who invented Marvin the Paranoid Android is right there with you, holding the door. You’re in good company. The very best, actually.

Tell me yours in the comments… What’s your worst deadline story?

Have you ever asked for an extension? Did the world end? (It didn’t, did it.) Are you a Whoosher or a Corporate Refugee? Did you also hate the green wall?

Substack for Beginners (Substack School) opens May 7, access for annual paid members!

I built Substack School, so you don’t have to figure Substack out alone. You get the map. You get the community. You get me in your corner.

On May 7 you’ll have access to THE Substack for Beginners course. My signature course as a Substack coach and top 15 #International Substack educator.

Totally updated for 2026… because Substack keeps changing, and so does everything inside.

I need this course!

Here’s the TOC: Substack School: Substack for Beginners

♥ Find your niche, your voice, and your writer’s thumbprint

♥ Set up your Substack the right way, from day one

♥ Grow on Notes and turn readers into your community

♥ Collaborate, cross-promote, and get discovered

♥ Monetise and earn your first $1,000

• weekly Q&As and monthly masterclasses

Love the TOC!

What’s new in 2026?

One upgrade. Everything included:

• The complete Substack School course — fully updated for 2026

• Weekly live Q&A sessions with me starting in May

• Full annual Club membership with everything that comes with it

• All future updates, additions, and recorded answers, yours automatically

I need Kristina as my coach

How do you get access?

Simply upgrade to an annual Club membership. That’s it. You’re in!

🤳🏻LIVESTREAM: People who are stupider than you have higher open rates!

👇🏻Join my LIVE with subject line expert Jay Schwedelsohn on May 6!

I want to join!

See you in tomorrow’s life session with Jay, in the comments and all annual members see me in their inbox with an invite to join the Substack for Beginners Course!

xx, your fellow club member who is, somehow, at thirty-something years old, finally learning that she’s allowed to be tired.

Hey, I’m Kristina, the heart of the The Online Writing Club.

I started writing on the internet in December 2020, newborn in arms, during one of the most disorienting and beautiful seasons of my life. What began as a creative outlet quietly became something I never expected: a 6-figure business, a global community of 18,000 writers, dreamers, builders, and work I genuinely fall in love with every single day.

In my corporate life, I’m an award-winning marketing professional and brand strategist. Here, I pour everything I know about writing, growing an audience, and building something real into every post, every lesson, and every conversation.

If you’ve ever believed your story deserves to be heard and want to get paid to be you, you’re exactly who I built this for.

Picture a freezing Sunday morning on Long Island, New York. is sitting with the cold and the quiet, sick of the grey winter that won’t let go. Instead of scrolling his phone, he opens a blank page and writes a poem about mountains, about sunrise, and about climbing something that feels impossible.

He calls it Alpenglow. 1 He posts it on Substack and it goes viral.

But let’s back up. Because the poem isn’t the beginning of this story.

The beginning is a hospital room, two years earlier, and 26 days in the pediatric ICU watching his son fight for his life.

A Father, a son and a reason to write poems

Online Writing Club member and today’s podcast guest joined Substack seven months ago with ..

• zero following

• no email list

• no strategy

What got him started was the a feeling he couldn’t shake…that his son Brayden, who everyone calls Bray Bray, deserved to have his story told.

Bray Bray was born with a rare genetic disorder, DNAI1. He uses a wheelchair. He doesn’t walk or talk.

But I asked his father about him and listened to what comes out:

He's a shining light and the happiest kid on the planet.

Two years before joining Substack, Chris almost lost him. Twenty-eight days in hospital. Twenty-six of them in the pediatric ICU. The kind of experience that reshapes a person completely, that makes everything before it feel like a different life.

And yet, here is what he said when he finally sat down to write:

I joined to give him a voice, to be a witness to the miracle that he is.

That word, witness, carries the entire weight of what makes his Substack work.

The one post that started everything

His first post was called His One Smile.2

He describes it as his “hero post”, the one where he put all his cards on the table.

I'm just like, you know what? I'm going to lay it all out there. I'm going to share Bray Bray's story. I'm going to tell them exactly what's going on and why I'm here.

No easing in. Straight to the heart of it. That, right there, is a masterclass in how to launch a Substack with something so real people have no choice but to feel it.

And then came Alpenglow.

It went viral a couple of weeks ago. And I think it's just a very relatable poem because there's an ethereal message here of the imagery of the Alps. We had a very, very cold winter here in Long Island, New York, and I wrote this poem on a very frigid Sunday morning. I was sick of the cold weather. There's a metaphor here of climbing that impossible mountain that maybe isn't so impossible.

One poem. A frigid Sunday. An impossible mountain that maybe isn't.

Over 200 likes. Over 100 comments. People sit with Chris’ peoms.

The “Writer’s Thumbprint”: your human superpower in the “age of AI”

Here is a phrase worth writing on a Post-it and sticking to your screen:

writer’s thumbprint.3

We’re often talking about this in the Online Writing Club since I talked with a Google expert two years back and he already empasized the importance of it with AI. Chris has it and that’s why he’s rising on Substack and growing his audience.

Writer’s thumbprint = the quality that makes your writing recognisably, irreplaceably yours, the thing AI can approximate but never replicate, the thing that makes a reader feel like they know you before they’ve met you. As my friend said in our podcast interview: “The YOU-ier, the better”4

Chris has this in abundance. He describes his approach with an elegant simplicity:

I always tend to say more with less. And you can tell my writing by the personality between the lines. I write with specific imagery and I try to ground those images. But then I also have an abstract or emotional component to my writing.

That’s the structure of his poems, and it’s worth studying closely.

Take his poem Shave.

I thought I’d teach you how to shave as you ask me about cologne. You’d say it’s only men’s perfume.

It opens with something universal: a father teaching his teenage son how to shave for the first time, that timeless rite of passage. Almost every reader can place themselves there.

Then the poem pivots and everything changes.

But then as we get towards the end of the poem, there's a shift that talks about, you know, all of a sudden I'm lifting you from your wheelchair. We won't be able to do certain things that we imagined.

From cologne and teenage swagger, to a wheelchair lift. That gap, that distance the poem travels in a few lines, is where all the emotion lives. And then the poem comes back, circles around to the original image. It always returns home.

There's always a specific image that I have in mind... really tying in my unique experiences as Braden's dad or as a caregiver to then express a larger point that anybody can really hold on to and interpret it.

That's Chris’ top-secret formula for his Subsatck poems he shared with me.

• Begin in the particular.

• Arrive at the universal.

• Let your reader bring their own story to meet yours.

Grief, grace and who Chris writes for

Chris knows exactly who his reader is. They're poetry lovers and people in the middle of something hard…sandwiched between raising their own kids and watching their parents' health decline, or caring for someone who needs them full-time, or simply living with losses they don't have language for yet.

My community, I feel like, is the later millennials into the Gen X crew. So I'm talking probably 35 to about 65. A lot of them are sandwich (caregivers). They have their own kids and then all of a sudden their parents have issues and they're thrust into those roles. And really people who understand that there are different ways to express what you're going through, but you can still do it with grace and humility.

He writes toward their pain but he never leaves them there. Even when he's expressing the anger, the exhaustion, the nights he nearly falls into despair, there is always what he calls "a tinge of hope." Because there is Bray Bray's smile.

His smile is the closest thing you can get to pure innocence on this planet. And really that carries us through during all of the harder times... But we learned a long time ago to grieve the life he would have had and embrace the life he does have.

That sentence: grieve the life he would have had and embrace the life he does have…is itself a poem. It's also, quietly, the philosophy of his entire Substack.

It's okay to have those feelings. It's valid to feel angry, frustrated, tired, exhausted. And what I try to do is express those feelings, but I always just naturally also provide that tinge of hope, that tinge of perseverance, and his smile shows that too.

Chris’ 3 tips for writing poems on Substack and make your fist $1000

It happened. Chris made the first thousand dollars in seven months. from poetry. From a wheelchair-bound boy’s shining smile. From a father who decided the world needed to witness something.

When asked directly: what would you tell other poets who want to share their work here? Chris gave three answers.

#1 Connect with other writers and actually pay attention

I write naturally, I write in waves, and I’ve been very prolific because when I read the other people on Substack, they’re inspiring me to then write in different ways that I hadn’t even thought of before. Don’t just scroll through. Like, scroll through.Pay attention, sit with some of them for a while and you’ll be surprised what you come up with based on being inspired by them.

#2 Write from an audience of ONE first

Don’t be afraid to put yourself out there. Just be honest. Don’t worry about the reception because you should write from an audience of one first. If you write from that audience of one first, the rest will follow. Be true to yourself.

#3 Collaborate, it leads to only great things

I’ve collaborated with so many people over the past few months and it’s led to only great things... collaborations are amazing and I really recommend aligning with those people and then going that extra mile and collaborating with them.

What built Chris’s paying audience

I joined Substack seven months ago with no prior following on a whim, right? But I figured it out. I honed my craft. And the biggest key is being real, being present, being yourself, showing empathy, building community, doing those things consistently. So don't go for those cheap things. You know, subscribe for subscribe... lend a unique perspective.

And then, about vulnerability, specifically about being a man sharing vulnerability in public, which is its own kind of brave:

A lot has to do with me just going all in on the authenticity of it and just being me, but being consistent with it. I am on Notes, I am present on Notes... just being accessible and knowing that everyone started somewhere is huge.

And when the unsubscribes come and they will here's how to hold your nerve:

For every one or two I lose for every time I post, I tend to gain like five, six or seven back from people who discover me anyway. So again, I think it's just a natural realignment going on.

Your right readers finding you, and the wrong ones making space for them.

BONUS tip: Substack Notes as your poetry teaser machine

One of the most practical and most underused tactics Chris has mastered is using Substack Notes not as a replacement for his poetry, but as a window into it.

My poetry is definitely shareable in snippets. And it's perfect for notes when I do teasers of my longer posts. I can have like four different stanzas in a poem and tease it on notes with certain stanzas that emphasise certain things.

My poetry is definitely shareable in snippets. And it's perfect for notes when I do teasers of my longer posts. I can have like four different stanzas in a poem and tease it on notes with certain stanzas that emphasise certain things.

People know they don't have to spend too much time reading it but they can sit with it, digest it further and then emotionally respond to it in a way that I think fits with their lifestyle.

Tease on Notes. Let them want more. Send them to the full poem.

That's the loop and it works.

Substack for Beginners (Substack School) opens May 7, here’s how to get access

Chris ended our conversation with something I have not stopped thinking about. I asked him about Bray Bray, about what it means to build something on Substack around a person you love this much.

And he said:

I truly feel like he was born to be my miracle. There's a great movie called Winter's Tale and it's basically about that concept where some people are born to lift others up in ways that you might not expect. And that's what he does for us.

Some people are born to lift others up in ways you might not expect.

Chris’s secret sauce: Show up. Be real. Do the hard work. Share the scary thing. Repeat …for as long as it takes.

But knowing the template and executing it are two very different things.

That is exactly why I built Substack School, so you don’t have to figure it all out alone, the way Chris did on a whim seven months ago. You get the map. You get the community. You get me in your corner.

On May 7 you’ll have access to THE Substack for Beginners course. My signature course as a Substack coach and top 15 #International Substack educator.

I need this course!

Totally updated for 2026… because Substack keeps changing, and so does everything inside.

Here’s the TOC: Substack School: Substack for Beginners

♥ Find your niche, your voice, and your writer’s thumbprint

♥ Set up your Substack the right way, from day one

♥ Grow on Notes and turn readers into your community

♥ Collaborate, cross-promote, and get discovered

♥ Monetise and earn your first $1,000

• weekly Q&As and monthly masterclasses

Love the TOC!

What’s new in 2026?

Starting in May, I am adding weekly live Q&A sessions with me.

Me, live, answering your exact questions every single week. And if there is something inside the course I do not cover? I will record it and add it. This course breathes and grows, just like your Substack will.

In addition, I’ll open up some slots for 1:1 support and coaching. I f that’s you, please send me an email at kristina@onlinewritingclub.com

I need Kristina as my coach

World Press Freedom Day Deal — open until this Sunday evening only:

The full value of Substack School is $499.

Until Sunday, you get it for a fraction of that — bundled with your full annual Club membership.

Get it for about $100!

Let me upgrade!

One upgrade. Everything included:

• The complete Substack School course — fully updated for 2026

• Weekly live Q&A sessions with me starting in May

• Full annual Club membership with everything that comes with it

• All future updates, additions, and recorded answers, yours automatically

YAY, let me join

How do you get access?

Simply upgrade to an annual Club membership. That’s it. You’re in!

Give me access

Want Substack School as a standalone purchase instead? Just hit reply and I will send you the details directly.

See you at the launch!

Hey, I’m Kristina, the heart of the The Online Writing Club.

I started writing on the internet in December 2020, newborn in arms, during one of the most disorienting and beautiful seasons of my life. What began as a creative outlet quietly became something I never expected: a 6-figure business, a global community of 18,000 writers, dreamers, builders, and work I genuinely fall in love with every single day.

In my corporate life, I’m an award-winning marketing professional and brand strategist. Here, I pour everything I know about writing, growing an audience, and building something real into every post, every lesson, and every conversation.

If you’ve ever believed your story deserves to be heard and want to get paid to be you, you’re exactly who I built this for.

Half of your subscribers decide whether to open your email or ignore it forever based on just a few words in their inbox.

I know. WILD, right?

We’re talking one word. At the start of your subject line. That’s it. That’s the difference between a 19% open rate and a 75% one.

And yes, those are REAL numbers from inside our membership.

Every single week, I work with my Beyond members to take their subject lines from “meh, I’ll read it later” to “WAIT I NEED TO CLICK THAT RIGHT NOW.”

And online writing rockstar? I want that for you too.

So here’s what we’re doing today: I’m handing you subject line BOOST tips, the exact words, the real data, the moves that actually work, so you can stop guessing and start getting clicked.

My marketing heart is literally racing right now because what I’m about to share with you? It’s going to set you so far apart from the crowd that you’ll be out here dancing… instead of stressing.

Let’s get into it.

👇🏻👇🏻Here are 20 words — backed by fresh data from April 2026 — that can immediately boost your open rates👇🏻👇🏻

Read more

Okay, I heard you. Loud and clear!

You asked for more ways to get visible, build authority, and land features that actually move the needle, so here we go. This is the first drop from our 29 Substack categories, and I’m curating these personally so you’re not wading through noise.

What you’re getting today: a handpicked list of journalist requests actively looking for experts just like you to quote, feature, and interview.

Real deadlines. Real outlets. Real opportunities to get your name out there!

Even if your topic is not included in these queries, you can find media outlets to submit your stories to.

And this is just the beginning. Coming soon: sponsorships, brand deals, and affiliate opportunities, all curated, all relevant, all designed to help you monetize your expertise, grow your reach and get paid to be YOU.

Now, scan the list, find your category, and pitch today.

Read more

There's a Substack note that stopped me mid-scroll:

First, because it’s a simple template that works on Notes. Second, I read it three times because it was true. The kind of true that sits in your chest for a minute before you can scroll past it.

That Note was written by from . And if you weren’t in this year’s Substack Notes Kickstarter Bootcamp, you missed one of its absolute rockstars.

Who is Ryan Hennessy and why his story matters

One year ago, on April 9th, 2025, Ryan showed up on Substack Notes for the first time.

Just a former science teacher from Minnesota who had spent 10 years in public education, burned himself out, was trying to get his doctorate, teaching night classes and one day looked up from all of it and asked himself why.

He had 18 subscribers in week one. Friends. Family. People who showed up out of love, not because he had earned it yet.

And then he just kept going. Every single day. For 365 days.

In this week’s podcast episode he shared with me that his mentor had told him early on:

“Commit, if you’re going to commit, commit to a year. Can you do that of like showing up every single day on Substack Notes?”

Ryan’s answer, looking back:

“It’s the first thing in my life where I’m just like, this is my commitment and I’m going to stick to it. And I stuck to it.”

He didn’t write to grow. He wrote because he needed to

This is the part most growth content leaves out.

Ryan didn’t sit down and build a content strategy. He didn’t study the algorithm or reverse-engineer viral Notes. He wrote because a therapist told him to.

“The way that I actually started writing was in private through a therapist. When I was going through a really dark time. And that’s when like that note about writing is nervous system work — that’s where it actually all started for me was writing when I was in a really dark time, and trying to get myself a little bit of separation, pull my ego out of it, to write the other person’s narrative from their point of view. So it kind of forces empathy and allows you to process it all.”

That was almost 10 years ago. A divorce. The hardest period of his life.

And here’s what got me: even when he wrote about that divorce recently, eight years after the fact, he still found things to work through.

“Even when I was writing about it a few months ago, they’re still like, I’m finding these little charges and I’m finding these things that are going on inside my body and it’s allowing me to work through those that I didn’t even know — like I assumed it was all good and I moved past that and I learned my lessons and it’s great. But you never quite do until you actually go through. And there’s always a little something left there to work through.”

That is someone using writing the way writing was always meant to be used, to understand yourself better than you did the day before.

In our conversation, Ryan also described his Substack this way:

“It kind of was to a large extent a classroom that I felt like the world kind of needed where I could be unfiltered, where I didn’t have to choose my words and I didn’t have to write for anybody other than myself and write about the things that I’m passionate about learning and exploring myself.”

The performance gap that is silently killing your growth

Ryan spent 10 years in a classroom where, in his own words:

“You’re not allowed to have an opinion on anything without fear of retribution from parents and students and admin.”

A decade of shrinking, filtering and performing.

Sound familiar?

Maybe it wasn’t a classroom. Maybe it was a corporate office, a toxic relationship, or a family that had very specific opinions about who you were supposed to be. The result is the same: you learned to perform.

Ryan described it this way and this is the part I keep coming back to:

“There’s still going to be a me that is performative to some degree, that’s going to not say all of the things that are on my mind. Then there’s going to be me that’s more raw and authentic, the one that my close friends and family would see. And for me, I’m trying to close that gap of like, I don’t want to be performing, you know, 90% of my life and then get home and get to breathe and like not be entirely sure who I am.”

That is the whole f*cking point of writing on the internet. if you do it right.

The point is to close that gap.

And he also said something that I think is the most important thing any writer on the internet needs to hear:

“The more distance there are between those two yous, the more friction there is in your life and the more it feels like you have this incongruence that you’re trying to work through.”

The real Substack Notes growth timeline, from 18 subscribers to 8,000

Nobody talks about the slow part. So here it is, honestly.

Months 1–4: Ryan was stuck under 100 subscribers. Four months of showing up every single day for almost no one. During this period he spent twice as much energy engaging with other writers as he did on his own Notes.

“Typically in a day, I would spend twice as much energy on outreach as I would on my own notes. I would be engaging with other writers and commenting on their work and through that kind of building a community that actually supported."

The first click: Around 100 subscribers, something shifted.

“It felt like after I got to 100, it was about two weeks later, I got to 200. And then it was like three weeks later, I got to 500. And then at 500, it just kind of like something hit, right? One or two notes kind of caught fire. And then that fire kind of spread across everything.”

The growth that followed:

“Instead of just getting like one or two subscribers a day, it was like, sometimes it was as much as like a hundred subscribers a day. And sometimes it was like a consistent 15 to 20.”

Today: 8,000 subscribers. 97% of that growth from Substack Notes alone.

“When I compare my notes subscribers to my essay subscribers, it’s like 97% of growth has come from notes alone.”

In my opinion, the algorithm did not randomly reward Ryan. He educated it through consistent behavior and it started showing his Notes to exactly the right people.

The 3 Substack Notes tips that actually moved the needle

Tip 1 — Show up on Substack Notes every single day

Not most days. Every day. This is the non-negotiable.

“The first one we’ve already talked about to death is just that consistency of showing up on notes every single day.”

Ryan also described how he uses Notes as the building blocks for everything else:

“A lot of times that’s what I’ll do is I’ll have the different parts of a story as notes. And when I write a note, I try to keep it just one succinct idea and then put it out there. And what I love about that is then I labor over the word choice and I get it exactly how I want for this little, usually it’s like seven or eight lines and I get it exactly how I want. And then those pieces are the larger part of a story that I’m working on for a long form story.”

Tip 2 — Spend twice as much energy on outreach as on your own writing

This is the most overlooked part of any Substack Notes strategy.

“There is something to be said about — when I kind of get into these lulls of just like I show up for like 10 minutes, I write a note, and then I just sign off of the app, everything responds. So if you’re actually looking at your stats, and you’re looking at your growth. Growth slows as soon as you stop that outward energy. You stop interacting with other people. You stop doing any kind of collaboration because you really are kind of stimulating those connections. And when they are commenting with you and you’re commenting with them, you show up in each other’s feeds. And as soon as that lever kind of dials down, it dials down for them as well.”

Tip 3 — Share the thing you are most scared to say

“Third one would be share the thing that you’re scared to say. I mean, share it, be honest with it. If you need to write from a pseudoname or something to build that muscle, do that. But you’d be so surprised by the amount of people that are actually like they resonate with yourself. Message they feel seen they feel validated even if it’s like your deepest darkest fear you’re not alone in that and it actually is energizing when other people are like I feel seen in that thank you so much for speaking that truth I know that had to be hard and just by witnessing from the readers or being witnessed there’s this profound power of just like an exhale that happens after you put it out into the world and slowly but surely you become a lot more confident in your writing.”

The first time Ryan wrote about his divorce, he hit publish and then:

“I think I went back to the app like three times at night. And I’m like, I can’t, I got to, maybe I should edit this. And I didn’t sleep that night. And I had to like get up in the morning and go for a run to like work through that frantic energy.”

Then the comments came in. And now:

“Each time I share something vulnerable it scares the shit out of me to put it frankly — every time that I do it anyways I gain the confidence in myself to like hold that ground and to continue doing it.”

Substack for Beginners (Substack School) opens May 7, here’s how to get access

Ryan ended our conversation with something I have not stopped thinking about.

I asked him where he would be in a year. His answer:

“I’m going to answer this as honestly as possible, and I don’t know, and that excites me. My life is kind of in this, like I said, following the breadcrumbs, doing the next right thing.”

That is what writing on the internet can give you back. The permission to follow the breadcrumbs, to build something that grows with you instead of something you have to shrink yourself to fit inside.

Ryan’s story is not the exception. It is the template. Show up. Be real. Do the outward work. Share the scary thing. Repeat for 365 days.

But knowing the template and executing it are two very different things. That is exactly why I built Substack School and why hundreds of students have already gone through it.

This is THE Substack for Beginners course. My signature course as a Substack consultant and top 15 #International Substack educator. Totally updated for 2026 — because Substack keeps changing, and so does everything inside.

What’s new in 2026?

Starting in May, I am adding weekly live Q&A sessions with me.

Me, live, answering your exact questions every single week. And if there is something inside the course I do not cover? I will record it and add it. This course breathes and grows, just like your Substack will.

In addition, I’ll open up some slots for 1:1 support and coaching.

Subscribe now

The deal — open until this Saturday only:

The full value of Substack School is $499.

Until Saturday, you get it for a fraction of that — bundled with your full annual Club membership.

One upgrade. Everything included:

• The complete Substack School course — fully updated for 2026

• Weekly live Q&A sessions with me starting in May

• Full annual Club membership with everything that comes with it

• All future updates, additions, and recorded answers, yours automatically

How do you get access?

Simply upgrade to an annual Club membership. That’s it. You’re in!

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The 6-year-old version of you already knows what they want.

Time to go get it.

Hey, I’m Kristina, the heart behind The Online Writing Club.

I started writing on the internet in December 2020, newborn in arms, during one of the most disorienting and beautiful seasons of my life. What began as a creative outlet quietly became something I never expected: a 6-figure business, a global community of 18,000 writers, dreamers, builders, and work I genuinely fall in love with every single day.

In my corporate life, I’m an award-winning marketing professional and brand strategist. Here, I pour everything I know about writing, growing an audience, and building something real into every post, every lesson, and every conversation.

If you’ve ever believed your story deserves to be heard and want to get paid to be you, you’re exactly who I built this for.

P.S. Go follow Ryan at on Substack. Read his Notes feed from the beginning. You will understand immediately why he was this bootcamp's rockstar and why I found him on Reddit at 8,000 subscribers and immediately thought: the world needs to hear this guy.

P.P.S. If you love video, here’s our video interview for audiovisual learners.

There are conversations that change the way you see the world. I had one of those yesterday evening with Uwe Walter, one of the greatest storytellers I’ve ever met.

I first crossed paths with him in my twenties, when I attended the RTL Journalistenschule in Cologne, Germany's most prestigious TV journalism school. Uwe was one of the teachers there and he was unlike anyone else in the building.

He introduced us to the Hero's Journey, the universal story structure that has driven every myth, every epic, every film that has ever moved a human being to tears. He hadn't learned it from a textbook. He'd learned it from Volker Schlöndorff, the legendary German director behind Die Blechtrommel (The Tin Drum), Oscar winner and winner of the Palme d'Or at Cannes.

We sat together, and he told me something that hasn’t left me since.

And since I assume you might not have a clue — I didn't either until yesterday — I want to share that story with you.

It started with twelve million men who had seen things no human being should ever have to see.

Where is Creative Writing coming from?

Picture this: 1945. World War II is over. More than twelve million American soldiers come home. They step off ships, off trains. Some are limping. Some are shaking. All of them are carrying something invisible, something heavy, inside their chests.

They couldn’t just walk back through the front door and sit down for dinner. They had seen the worst of humanity. They had lived through things that had no name. And before they could return to their families, before they could be normal again, someone had a radical idea:

Write it down.

The US government passed the GI Bill in 1944. One of the most consequential pieces of legislation in American history. It gave returning veterans access to universities, housing loans, a real shot at a new life. And by 1947, nearly half of all college students in America were veterans. They flooded campuses, and something unexpected happened: they didn’t just want to study law or engineering. They wanted to tell their stories.

They enrolled in writing classes by the thousands. And the Universities of Iowa and Stanford, seeing this flood of broken and brilliant men with something urgent to say, created something the world had never seen before: the first graduate programs in Creative Writing. The first Master of Fine Arts degrees. The very first time in history that writing was treated not as a hobby or a gift from God but as a craft you could learn.

Uwe Walter told me this, and I sat there with my jaw slightly open. Because that’s what Creative Writing is, at its core.

It started with trauma, with truth, with twelve million people who desperately needed to make sense of what had happened to them.

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And I find it fascinating and a little bit moving that America led the way. While Europe was rebuilding its cities brick by brick, America was rebuilding its soul through stories.

What actually is Creative Writing?

Before we go further, let’s clear something up because a lot of people have a slightly wrong picture of what Creative Writing is.

Creative Writing is not just novels. It’s not just poetry. It’s not just the kind of thing you do when you’re wearing a turtleneck and gazing meaningfully out of a rain-streaked window.

Creative Writing is any writing done for artistic expression. As opposed to technical writing (conveying data), academic writing (arguing a position), or journalistic writing (reporting the news). Creative Writing is the writing that moves people. That makes them feel something. That makes them see the world differently after they’ve read it.

It includes fiction (short stories, flash fiction, novels), poetry, screenplays, stage plays, personal essays, memoirs, creative nonfiction, graphic novel writing, and yes even the best newsletters and blog posts you’ve ever read.

Now here’s what I love about this: Europe still largely treats writing as something you either have or you don’t. A talent. A gift from above. In Germany, in France, in most of the continent you study about literature. You analyze it. You write essays dissecting what Goethe meant in 1790.

In America, you learn to make it. You sit in a workshop with eleven other writers, you hand your story to everyone in the room, and they tear it apart, lovingly, specifically, usefully, so you can rebuild it better. That difference in philosophy is enormous. And I genuinely love that America had the courage to say: writing is a craft. Anyone can learn it. Let’s build a school.

How to start the creative writing process?

Okay, you’re inspired. You want to write. Where do you even start?

First, you need to figure out what kind of writer you are. And there are exactly two kinds: Plotters and Pantsers.

Plotters

A Plotter maps everything out before they write a single word. Character arcs, chapter outlines, plot twists planned months in advance. They know the ending before they write the beginning. They have color-coded index cards and possibly a dedicated corkboard on their office wall.

Pantsers

A Pantser writes by the seat of their pants. No plan. No map. They start with a character or a first line or a feeling, and they follow it wherever it goes. Every day is a surprise, even to them. Stephen King is famously in this camp. He puts interesting characters in difficult situations and writes to find out what happens.

Neither is better. Both produce masterpieces. But here’s the honest advice: if you’re a Pantser, learn the basics of structure anyway. Not to cage yourself but so you know what rules you’re breaking and why. Because when you hit page 200 of a novel and realize your entire middle section makes no sense, a little structural knowledge will save your life.

The basic Story Mountain Structure every story has lived inside for three thousand years looks like this:

Exposition → you introduce your world and your character. Hook us. Make us care. This is not the boring part, this is the part where you make a promise to the reader.

Rising Action → things get worse. Then worse. Then somehow even worse than that. Every time your character tries to fix the problem, it gets more complicated. This is where great stories live.

Climax → the peak. Everything comes together. The biggest confrontation. The moment of truth.

Falling Action → the dust settles. We start to breathe again.

Resolution → the new normal. Who is your character now? What has changed? What does their life look like on the other side of this story?

This story mountain is timeless! Works for a two-page short story and a thousand-page epic.

What are the 9 components of a good story?

Here’s something that will change how you read and write forever: every story that has ever gripped you, every book you couldn’t put down, every film that made you cry on a plane. was built from the same basic components.

Not all nine will be in every story. Some stories use three or four and that’s enough. But once you see them, you can’t unsee them.

1. Once Upon a Time — the dramatic opening. The stage-setter. The first sentence that makes you lean forward. Your opening doesn’t have to be explosive, but it has to be a promise. It has to make the reader feel: something is about to happen.

2. A World View — your angle, your lens, why this story matters. Every great story is told from a specific perspective — not just who the narrator is, but what they believe about life. This worldview flavors every sentence.

3. Great Characters — the hero. The villain. The person who seems minor in chapter two but turns out to be everything in chapter twelve. Characters are the reason we read. Plot is the vehicle. Character is the destination. Give your hero a flaw — not a small one, a real one. Perfect characters are boring. Indiana Jones was terrified of snakes. Superman had Kryptonite. Your hero needs their version of that.

4. Challenging Situations — what is the problem? What is the thing that is hard? This is not optional. Without challenge, there is no story. There is only a pleasant afternoon.

5. Conflict — the engine of everything. If two characters are agreeing pleasantly and everything is fine, you have a tea party, not a story. Conflict is not just people yelling at each other. It can be quiet. Internal. A person fighting their own beliefs. But it must be there.

6. Drama — the heightened version of conflict. The stakes made visible. Drama is what makes you stay up until 2am telling yourself you’ll read just one more chapter.

7. Lessons Learned — what does your character understand at the end that they didn’t understand at the beginning? This doesn’t have to be a moral lesson pasted on like a sticker. It should emerge organically from what they’ve been through.

8. New Possibility — the moment where the story opens up something you hadn’t thought about before. The unexpected angle. The door you didn’t know was there.

9. Happily Ever After — not necessarily happy. But resolved. The ending that makes the reader feel the journey was worth it. Not rushed. Not easy. Earned.

Part Five: The Secret That Changes Everything — Know Your WHY

Here’s where most writers get stuck, and it’s not where you’d expect.

The thing that separates forgettable writing from writing that sticks with people for years is this:

Do you know why you’re writing this?

Not “I want to change the world” — though beautiful, that’s too big to be useful.

Not “I want everyone to read it” — we all want that.

What is the specific, precise, human-scale reason this story exists?

Ask yourself after writing your first lines…

What is the why of your work here? What are you really trying to do?

Because writing without purpose is just beautiful noise. The words can be gorgeous. The sentences can be polished. But if there’s no sense of direction underneath it all, the reader finishes and thinks:

What did I just read? What am I supposed to take from this?

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The why doesn’t have to be grand. It can be small and specific and intensely personal. In fact, the more specific it is, the better. Don’t try to write universally. Write for ONE person, one feeling, one truth. Universality is a side effect of being deeply, specifically honest.

Write about your strange specific experience. The thing only you have lived through. The thing you’re almost embarrassed to admit bothers you. That’s where the best writing hides.

And once you know your why, let it guide every scene, every sentence, every word choice. Not loudly. Not by announcing it. Just by being there, underneath everything, quietly making sure nothing is wasted.

Why I’m grateful for the 12 Million American Soldiers

I keep coming back to that image Uwe Walter gave me. Twelve million men, stepping off ships and trains. Carrying something invisible and heavy. And someone saying to them:

write it down.

They did. And from that act of collective necessity, from that urgent human need to make sense of the unspeakable,came an entire discipline. An entire culture of craft. A world in which writing is something you learn, not just something you’re born with or not.

America led the way. I find that beautiful. While the rest of the world was still deciding whether writing could be taught, the Iowa Writers’ Workshop was already running workshops in army barracks, producing Pulitzer Prize winners, changing literature.

Europe is catching up…slowly. But the gap is still real. And maybe that’s the opportunity. For those of us who didn’t grow up in a culture that takes Creative Writing seriously as a craft, we get to choose it deliberately.

We get to decide:

I’m going to learn this. I’m going to take my stories seriously. I’m going to write badly for a while, and then less badly, and then one day I’m going to write something that makes someone feel less alone.

That’s what writing does, at its best. It takes something that lived only in one person’s chest, one specific, strange, irreplaceable human experience, and makes it available to everyone.

The twelve million soldiers knew that. Uwe Walter knows that.

Now you do too.

Go write something!

Hey, I’m Kristina, the heart behind The Online Writing Club.

I started writing on the internet in December 2020, newborn in arms, during one of the most disorienting and beautiful seasons of my life. What began as a creative outlet quietly became something I never expected: a 6-figure business, a global community of 18,000 writers, dreamers, builders, and work I genuinely fall in love with every single day.

In my corporate life, I’m an award-winning marketing professional and brand strategist. Here, I pour everything I know about writing, growing an audience, and building something real into every post, every lesson, and every conversation.

If you’ve ever believed your story deserves to be heard and want to get paid to be you, you’re exactly who I built this for.

Want to go deeper? Here’s how I can help:

📲 Book a life-changing 1:1 Substack Strategy Session or FREE Discovery Call (email to kristina@godknows.de).

🪩 Find me on YouTube and LinkedIn.

🟠 And if you want to fire up your beautiful and joyful Substack Growth Machine, grab a seat in the Substack for Beginners Course. It’s available on-demand starting May 3 with weekly Q&As. Join as a paid premium member to get access!