Hey, quick heads-up.
I know a lot of you skim (no judgment) and maybe just want to listen instead of reading. If that’s you, no problem.
But if you stick around, we’ve got something fun to celebrate 1 year of podcasting with the Online Writing Club show… 🎉 Engagement Prizes!
You can win a FREE subscription to Anne-Kathrin Gerstlauer’s paid newsletter TextHacks.
👉 To enter: leave a comment, review, share this podcast on Notes, and/or forward it to a friend.
Why This Episode Is Sooooo Special
I’m excited, for the first time ever, to introduce a fellow non-native writer friend from Berlin in Germany on the podcast! Germany is my home country.
I know many of you actually enjoy our German accent, so we’ll call that a bonus for us. And we’re in good company: Diane Kruger, Daniel Brühl, Sandra Hüller (Anatomy of a Fall), or Matthias Schweighöfer (Army of the Dead). And if we count Austria, there’s Christoph Waltz and, of course, Arnold Schwarzenegger.
Not bad company to share an accent with.
In my heart, I feel more like an international. But it’s still extra special to spotlight someone who’s building something groundbreaking in the German-speaking world.
You love video? Here’s the video interview!
Meet Today’s Guest: Anne-Kathrin Gerstlauer
is a Berlin-based journalist and consultant.She has spent the last years editing and shaping hundreds of texts for the internet, and more precisely, for the smartphone. First as Head of top-tier magazine ZEIT Campus ONLINE, then as Deputy Editor-in-Chief of watson.de.
And she jokes about her time in the newsroom with this line:
“I want to apologize to everyone I ever tortured with my favorite sentence: Let me read this out loud to you.”
Also, she turned a side project into one of Germany’s largest newsletters about writing.
Her German-language newsletter TextHacks has grown to more than 18,000 subscribers.
Also, she belongs to the top #29 bestsellers in the Substack category International!
She monetizes in two familiar ways:
A paid subscription tier.
Advertising slots.
But what really sets her apart and why she won this year’s Inbox Award for Innovation and Revenue
from our mutual friend and newsletter expert Dan Oshinsky , is her third revenue stream which is a model no one is using (yet! because NOW you can capitalize on this!):
👉🏻Licensing her newsletter content to companies, just like a photographer licenses their photos!
Here’s how it works:
German businesses buy old issues of TextHacks.
Others pay Anne-Kathrin to personalize an issue specifically for their employees.
These companies then redistribute the content — often inside their own internal newsletters.
The results?
She’s already signed 4- and 5-figure deals ($30,000 in Q1 alone), all from content she originally published for free.
In my opinion, this move is bold, brilliant, and proof that there are always new ways to think about what your words are worth.
ℹ️ I think it’s a nice addition to Anna Wharton's approach to get her posts that people already paid for in newsletters and get FREE Money. Syndication is one form of licensing.
Anna: “It was already written. I did it for my paid subscribers and the iPaper asked me if they could use it. It required no effort from me. And so, in my mind, that’s free money."Can’t wait any longer and want to listen to the full conversation?
Meet Anne-Kathrin Live Inside the Club: Master AI Text Hacking and Licensing
📅 Wednesday, October 8
🕓 16:45 Berlin | 15:45 UK | 10:45 ET | 7:45 PT | 01:45 Sydney (Oct 7)
Inside this members-only session, Anne-Kathrin will:
Share how she built her revolutionary licensing model that’s already landed 4- and 5-figure deals and made her $30,000 in the first quarter of 2025.
Show us how she as a journalist and course instructor writes and text hacks with AI and why it matters for speed, clarity, and creativity.
Explain how she combines journalist-level precision with AI tools and hacks to make writing sharper and more engaging.
You’ll also have the chance to ask her your own questions in the Chat and Q&A.
Replay of Master AI Text Hacking and Licensing with
will be available!7 Highlights From My Conversation With Anne-Kathrin
✅ The Licensing Model That Changes the Game
“I’m selling the articles that I’ve already written to companies who then send out those as kind of an internal newsletter… I already made like 30,000 euros just with the licensing model this year.”
✅ Tripling Her Prices Thanks to TextHacks
“I tripled the prices. I can choose with whom I work just because of my newsletter.”
✅ Why Sharing Beats Growth Hacks
“My newsletter has grown just from sharing. There is no big secret growth hack. It’s just people like it, people feel educated, people share it with their friends and with their colleagues.”
✅ The Ego Trap in Writing
“The best hack for a newsletter writer and every writer is like, take back your ego. Most people are writing for themselves… but if we really want to sell something, educate people, we really have to think on what should other people learn and then put that at the top of the article.”
✅ Storytelling? Sometimes Overrated
“I think storytelling is a little bit overrated. I educate people in a snackable content format… I think the most important thing in writing is: do you have something to say? Is what you say really a clever thought?”
✅ The Challenge of Paid Content in Germany
“People in Germany are not very willing to pay for content. They got a lot of free content on the internet for a very long time. So you have to have like a really specific model to make them pay.”
✅ Thinking Internationally About Growth
“I feel like if I’d have the same newsletter in English, I’d probably have between 50 and 100,000 people.”
Anne-Kathrin Answers Your Community Questions
Q: How do I get more readers without spending on ads?
Anne-Kathrin: “My newsletter has grown just from sharing. There is no big secret growth hack. It’s just people like it, people feel educated, people share it with their friends and with their colleagues.”
Q: What if I struggle to get people to pay for my newsletter?
Anne-Kathrin: “People in Germany are not very willing to pay for content… so you have to have like a really specific model to make them pay. That’s why I have not just the paid subscribers, but different income streams that work for me.”
Q: Do I need to use storytelling to succeed?
Anne-Kathrin: “I think storytelling is a little bit overrated. I educate people in a snackable content format. Sometimes I share a little bit about myself, but not a lot. The most important thing in writing is: do you have something to say?”
Q: How do you keep writing consistently without running out of ideas?
Anne-Kathrin: “The content from the newsletter is actually coming from those workshops… But also I’m writing a newsletter episode and then I’m like, oh, that’s a great idea. I should include this in my next workshop. So it’s kind of a full circle moment.”
🫵🏻Your Turn!
If you could license one piece of content you’ve already written, an article, a newsletter post, or a post on Notes, which one would it be, and why?
Share the link in the comments for us to check out!
I think licensing is such an exciting model and I know so many of you are eager to learn how to write with AI, grow your newsletter faster, and become better writers.
That’s exactly why I’m thrilled Anne-Kathrin will be joining us live inside the Club next Wednesday. Don’t miss it!
With excitement,
Here’s how I can help you even MORE
⭐Calm Your Stack (FREE tool) to get your zen back on Substack to hide the annpying column on the left on your home feed. Thansk to my hubby
⭐StackBudy Collaborations (FREE tool) no excuses! Patrick built a tool for us to find collab partners in no time.
