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This "Atomic Substack Newsletter System" Is The Easiest Way To Make Money 📧

Learn from atomic, minimalist writer Jamie Northrup the most efficient system for writers to monetize their newsletter

Kristina God and Jamie Northrup

Sep 11, 2024

∙ Paid

I don’t have time.

You don’t have time.

Nobody ever has time.

It’s the world we live in now.

High on stress and low on time!

Not to mention, low income, and high inflation.

“Everyone wants a side hustle, and I don’t blame them”, shared Jamie Northrup

“I always loved side hustles since I was a teen in the mid-90s. Through trial and error, I think I’ve found the perfect framework for anyone looking to start a writing side hustle. And not just a side hustle, it can scale over time to a full-time income.”

The short version: Write on Substack, start an atomic newsletter, and earn money in a minimalist way.

It’s called “Atomic Newsletter” side hustle.

No worries, it’s not as ~~bad, as hard, or as time-consuming~~ as you may think!

Jamie has tried dozens of side hustles, online and offline.

He prefers the online ones by far, especially the minimalist side hustles.

He has found the easiest one you can start right now, it’s free, you don’t need any special skills, and you can scale it as much as you want.

In our LIVE session (replay in this post), tribe member Jamie shared his system with us.

Let me break down Jamie’s "Atomic Substack Newsletter System" for you as simply and quickly as possible.

What’s an Atomic Newsletter?

I bet you know the concept of atomic essays by

Dickie Bush and Nicolas Cole and their “Ship 30 for 30”.

Atomic essays are a way to stay consistent with publishing content daily.

It’s inspired by the NYT bestseller “Atomic Habits” by James Clear.

An atomic essay consists of:

1 single idea.
A maximum of 250 words.
Published via 1 single screenshot.

Participants write 30 atomic essays in 30 days:

What’s the idea of atomic essays?

I love the idea of atomic essays.

As a busy part-time creator with two kids in the house, I embrace minimalist, short-form writing.

So here’s the concept:

Instead of writing a 3000 to 7000-word blog post (the type of stories that get Boosted on Medium, curators love 7000-word posts) and feeling as if you’d talk into the void
…you write a short 250-word essay to gather data points.

Here’s what Jamie offers:

This way you can see what type of content resonates with your audience.

Once you've validated your ideas, you can spend the time necessary to produce longer content on topics that have proven to work.

This is a smart, data-driven approach to audience growth and content marketing. And it’s a concept you can easily apply to starting and growing a profitable newsletter, shared Jamie’s friend Evan Kelly in our interview on YouTube.

Jamie has been writing and sending his daily (!) newsletter at 8:20 am ET for 910+ issues every day.

How do I write an atomic newsletter?

What I love about atomic newsletters is that they are written within only a few minutes (!). This is super fast. And you can make your first dollars with it even faster.

An atomic newsletter is a short 1–2 sentence email that links to either…

a piece of curated content or
created (original) content.

Each newsletter consists of…

short curiosity-driven headlines designed to make your reader click and consume relevant content around their topic of interest.

Based on the number of opens and link clicks, you can make an informed decision about what type of content your readers enjoy.

Every newsletter issue is a data point.

Starting an atomic newsletter is also low friction.

All you need is a reliable email services provider (ESP).

In the replay, you’ll learn more about the pros and cons of Substack and ConvertKit.

How to make money with an atomic newsletter?

Although there are many different ways to monetize an atomic newsletter, the easiest way is with affiliate links, referral links, sponsorships, and participating in specific networks.