Writers in the Storm

by Penny Sansevieri 

“Should I charge for my newsletter?”

I’m getting this question a lot these days as it seems that paid newsletters for authors are having a moment, largely because platforms like Substack make monetization feel simple and creator-economy success stories make it look like easy recurring income. But “simple to start” is not the same as “easy to sustain.” If you are thinking about charging for your author newsletter, the first question is not pricing. It is whether you can deliver ongoing, repeatable value that readers cannot get free somewhere else.

In book marketing terms, a paid email list only works when it strengthens reader loyalty, deepens your author brand, and supports your long-term platform. If it becomes another exhausting content obligation that steals time from writing, book promotion, or reader engagement, it may be costing you more than it actually earns.

What Are You Trying to Accomplish?

Before you choose a platform, set a price, or start planning bonus content, you need to start with a simple question – and that is: what do you want this newsletter to do?

If the goal is recurring revenue, the strategy will look very different from a newsletter designed to deepen reader loyalty between book releases. If the goal is selling more books, I would want to know whether putting some of your best content behind a paywall actually helps that goal—or whether you have simply created another barrier between a prospective reader and your author brand and, more importantly, your books.

This matters especially for newer authors. Visibility is usually the bigger challenge. If hardly anyone knows who you are yet, monetizing access to you may be solving the wrong problem.

A Paid Newsletter Is an Actual Product, Not Just a Marketing Tactic

This is where authors need to make an important mental shift: a paid newsletter is not simply your regular newsletter with a price tag attached. Much like your book, it’s another product.

Products need positioning, promotion, customer retention, and a clear reason to exist. That means you now have two marketing jobs. You still need to market your books, but you also need to market the newsletter itself—convincing free subscribers to upgrade, reminding paid subscribers why they should stay, and attracting enough new readers to offset inevitable cancellations.

That does not make paid newsletters a bad idea. But it does mean they are not passive income, and I would be very wary of any advice that frames them as an easy income.

What Would Someone Actually Pay You For?

Why would someone pay you for your content? That’s a good question to start with because there’s a lot that we can get online and via services like ChatGPT and others. So, what makes your information special? Well, maybe a lot because sometimes users want one curated place to get information from someone they trust. Other times it could just be to get more from you – more of your stories, more character deep dives, etc. I have fiction authors I read who I would absolutely pay for to get more content in between releases. But sometimes it’s mission support: they believe in the creator and want to help fund the work. Sometimes it is true exclusivity, meaning members get something that is not posted publicly and not recycled across social media.

The strongest paid newsletters usually have a very specific value proposition. “More of my thoughts” is rarely enough. “A weekly breakdown of what changed in my industry and what you should do next” is much stronger. So is “one exclusive short story every month,” “early access to every new release,” or “monthly office hours with me.”

If you cannot explain the paid value in one sentence, readers probably will not understand why they should subscribe.

Fiction and Nonfiction Authors Have Different Opportunities

I alluded to this earlier but nonfiction authors generally have an easier path to making the economics work because expertise itself can be the product. Readers may pay for industry analysis, commentary, templates, research, recommendations, or access—particularly when the information helps them make money, save money, avoid mistakes, or save time.

Fiction authors have a different challenge. Your readers primarily came to you for stories. So before promising a weekly paid newsletter, ask whether what they really want is more newsletter—or simply more of your fictional world. If you already have a strong fan base, this could work very well for you! Consider things like bonus novellas, serialized fiction, exclusive epilogues, deleted scenes, character backstories, or early chapters – you get the idea! It’s doable, but my recommendation for both fiction and nonfiction is start with a base of readers already in place, because building a paid newsletter while you’re still trying to cultivate your fan base is a steep climb.

The Platform Matters—But Not for the Reason You Think

Platform choice matters more than most writers expect. Substack is plug-and-play, which helps authors who do not want to wrestle with website setup, email tools, landing pages, or payments. The downside is that you are building inside someone else’s ecosystem, competing in a crowded marketplace, and potentially pulling attention away from your own website, which for search engine optimization reasons (SEO aka showing up in Google) should absolutely be a consideration.

For the revenue model let’s consider the math first. Substack currently allows creators to publish for free, but it takes 10% of paid subscription transactions, with Stripe processing and billing fees layered on top. Other platforms use different economics. For example, beehiiv promotes 0% platform fees on paid subscription revenue, though its more advanced plans carry monthly software costs.

For an author testing an idea with a very small audience, that distinction may not matter much. If the newsletter becomes a meaningful revenue stream, it absolutely does.

If discoverability and SEO are part of your strategy, publishing newsletter-like content on your own site can also support Google visibility, keep readers in your ecosystem, and strengthen your overall search footprint. So, in this case a hybrid model can make sense: keep the broad author newsletter free while offering a paid tier for readers who want deeper access.

AI Has Raised the Bar for Paid Content

There is another issue that matters much more now than it did even a few years ago: AI has dramatically increased the supply of perfectly acceptable free information.

Generic advice has never been harder to charge for.

If your paid newsletter offers broad writing tips, generic productivity advice, or information a reader can get by asking an AI tool a question, your perceived value is going to be low. Information is abundant. Trusted interpretation is not.

That is also why personality and specificity matter so much. The more generic the newsletter feels, the more replaceable it becomes.

The Hidden Cost of a Paid Newsletter: Feeding the Content Machine

The biggest hidden cost is still the content demand. A paid newsletter raises the bar on consistency, quality, and uniqueness. Subscribers are not just fans anymore; they are customers, and customers expect delivery.

That means you need a realistic production plan: frequency, format, topics, and a backlog strategy for busy weeks. You also need a defensible differentiation statement: what do subscribers get that they cannot just Google, pull from AI, or find in fifteen other newsletters?

If your paid content becomes generic, cancellations follow. If it becomes too time-consuming, you risk burnout or you start skipping issues, which erodes trust and retention.

Before launching, I would map out at least two or three months of content. But if that exercise already feels exhausting, pay attention to that signal.

Now Let’s Do the Math

I know, we all hate math – or at least I do, but the numbers matter and, frankly, this is where many paid-newsletter dreams quietly start to collapse.

Beehiiv’s 2026 analysis of thousands of paid newsletters reported a median free-to-paid conversion rate of 0.62%. In practical terms, that is about six paying subscribers for every 1,000 free subscribers. The top 25% of publishers across many categories do considerably better—roughly 2% to 5%—but I would not build a business plan around being an outlier from day one.

The same report found that $10 per month and $100 per year remain common paid-newsletter price points. Put those numbers together and the reality check gets very clear: 1,000 free subscribers converting at the median rate produces about six paid subscribers. At $10 a month, that is roughly $60 in gross monthly revenue before fees.

Suddenly the question is not, “Wouldn’t recurring revenue be nice?” but rather, how many hours a month are you willing to work for that $60 while you grow the audience?

That can still be worthwhile if the newsletter deepens loyalty, creates a high-value reader community, supports book sales, or feeds other revenue streams. But you need to define what success looks like at three months and twelve months—and be honest about the opportunity cost.

So, Should an Author Start a Paid Newsletter?

I would consider it if your free list is already engaged, readers routinely ask you for more, you can describe the paid value in one sentence, you have content that genuinely belongs behind a paywall, and you can sustain the commitment for at least a year without sacrificing the work that actually drives your author career.

I would hold off if you’re considering launching one primarily because everyone on Substack seems to be making money, or because your existing newsletter is not growing and you hope charging will somehow fix that, or because you need another revenue stream immediately.

The goal should not be to monetize every interaction you have with readers. The goal is to build an author platform that keeps getting stronger.

Sometimes a paid newsletter can do exactly that. Sometimes your best marketing move is to keep the newsletter free, make it excellent, grow the audience, and let the books remain the product readers pay for.

Monetization magnifies an engaged audience. But it rarely creates one.

* * * * * *

About Penny

Penny C. Sansevieri, is a powerhouse in the publishing industry. As the Founder and CEO of Author Marketing Experts, Inc., she has revolutionized book marketing, shaping the careers of authors and guiding them to bestseller status. Penny's influence is undeniable—named one of New York Metropolitan Magazine's Top Influencers of 2019, she's known for her cutting-edge Amazon campaigns and innovative strategies that catapult exceptional books onto bestseller lists. She is also the author of 24 books and the co-host of the Book Marketing Tips and Author Success Podcast!

To learn more about Penny's books or her promotional services, visit www.amarketingexpert.com, penny@amarketingexpert.com.

Top Image by Mohamed Hassan from Pixabay

By Sarah Sally Hamer

I've been thinking about stories lately. Not plots, exactly, and not character arcs or structure or any of the things writers tend to gather around and discuss with great seriousness. Those things matter. They help us build the house.

What I've been thinking about instead is the soul of a story. I realize that sounds like the sort of thing a person says before everybody quietly backs away from the conversation, but stay with me for a minute.

Because I think every story has a soul. Not a theme. Nor a moral. Not even the thing the author later says they meant to write about. I'm talking about something deeper than that. A pulse. A living center. The thing that keeps drawing us back long after we've forgotten most of the details.

You know how sometimes you'll finish a book and somebody asks what it was about? You can explain the plot, the characters, and maybe even the theme. Yet somehow none of those things fully explains why that particular story moved in and made itself at home inside you.

And the funny thing is, I don't think writers always know what that deeper thing is when they begin.

I certainly don't.

Usually I start with a confident idea of what I'm doing. I build outlines. I tell myself this story is about forgiveness or belonging or courage. Then somewhere along the way, after I've become thoroughly attached to my own brilliance, the story gently informs me that I've misunderstood the assignment.

I've revised outlines, rearranged scenes, and convinced myself the problem was pacing or structure. Then eventually, usually while washing dishes or driving somewhere completely unrelated, I realize the story isn't about the thing I thought it was about. The deeper thing has been sitting quietly in the corner the whole time, waiting for me to notice it.

Honestly, I find this mildly irritating.

I'd prefer stories to arrive with instructions.

Instead, they behave more like people. You think you're having one conversation and then discover there's another conversation happening underneath it. The real one.

Maybe that's why the soul of a story tends to hide in such ordinary places.

Not in the dramatic speech. Not in the chapter where everything explodes. The soul usually appears somewhere quieter. Two people making coffee. Someone looking out a window. A conversation in a parked car. A moment that doesn't seem important until suddenly it is.

I think that's because we work that way too.

Most of us don't change because of big speeches. We change because of conversations. Because somebody says one sentence at exactly the right moment.

I've had entire stories reveal themselves through a line of dialogue I almost deleted.

That's always humbling.

You spend months constructing a story only to discover that its heart was hiding in twelve words spoken by a secondary character while reaching for a coffee mug.

The older I get, the less writing feels like building and the more it feels like listening.

The soul leaves clues. A recurring image. The memory that won't go away. A scene that should be minor but somehow refuses to stay minor. You don't entirely understand why it matters, but you know enough not to rush past it.

And I don't think that's unique to storytelling.

Love works that way. Grief works that way. Faith certainly works that way. We live through things long before we understand them. A child knows she is loved long before she can define love. We fall in love before we understand why. We walk through grief long before we understand what it changed inside us.

Meaning is often the last thing to arrive.

Stories seem to follow the same path.

Readers are drawn to particular books.

Maybe that's why readers connect so deeply with certain books. They're not simply recognizing events. They're recognizing experiences they've lived themselves. A reader may never have traveled to Oz or flown away in a house carried by balloons, but they know longing and loss. They know hope. They know what it feels like to search for home or to love someone they can't keep.

I think the soul of a story connects to something deeper than our intellect. At least that's what it feels like to me. And maybe that's the closest I can come to describing what I'm talking about.

The soul of a story is the thing that remains after the plot has been explained. It's the part that follows you into ordinary life. The part that shows up while you're folding laundry, driving across town, or standing at the kitchen sink staring out the window.

Maybe try this the next time you're revising: make a list of the images, memories, conversations, and questions that appear more than once. Don't analyze them yet. Just look at them.

Sometimes the soul of a story becomes visible simply because you've finally gathered all the clues into one place.

Because the soul of a story rarely announces itself.

It waits.

And if you're willing to slow down long enough to listen, it usually reveals itself.

Just enough to keep you following.

For a free video with more information, click here.

What's the soul of your story?

Sarah (Sally) Hamer is a lover of books, a teacher of writers, and a believer in a good story. Most of all, she is eternally fascinated by people and how they 'tick'. She’s passionate about helping people tell their own stories, whether through fiction or through memoir. Writing in many genres - mystery, science fiction, fantasy, romance, medieval history, non-fiction – she has won awards at both local and national levels, including two RWA Golden Heart finals.

A teacher of memoir, beginning and advanced creative fiction writing, and screenwriting at Louisiana State University in Shreveport for over twenty years, she also teaches online at both margielawson.com and nostresswriting.com and blogs for writersinthestormblog.com/ and thewriteconversation.blogspot.com. Sally is a free-lance editor and book coach at Mind Potential, with many of her students and clients becoming successful, award-winning authors. Find her at sally@mindpotential.org

Featured picture created by CoPilot.

by Susan Watts

In my last few Writers in the Storm articles, I’ve shared several discoveries that completely changed the way I revise emotional scenes. First, I realized I was relying too much on visceral reactions. Then I over-corrected by leaning too heavily on interiority. After that came another discovery: readers don’t just want to witness emotion, they want to experience emotional movement. Most recently, I learned that what a character notices often reveals more than an additional paragraph explaining how they feel.

I thought I had finally found the balance.

Then I started another revision pass on my current work in process.

This time, I was simply trying to tighten scenes that felt slower than they should. Like many writers, my first instinct was to trim words. Surely shorter scenes would create better pacing.

Sometimes that helped.

Most of the time, it didn’t.

I eventually discovered that I had developed a habit many writers fall into when trying to deepen character emotion: I showed the emotion through a visceral reaction, reinforced it with body language, explained it through interiority, and sometimes confirmed it again through dialogue.

Instead of making the emotional scene stronger, I was often weakening it through repetition.

When Visceral Reactions, Body Language, and Interiority Say the Same Thing

In one of my scenes, the character’s stomach tightened. Then her hands shook as she rubbed the back of her neck and looked away. Then she thought: This was a terrible idea. I shouldn’t have come here. What if everything went wrong?

The visceral reaction, body language, and interiority are essentially delivering the same message: she’s afraid. Rather than deepening the emotion, I was translating the same emotion into three different languages.

Emotional repetition happens when visceral reactions, body language, interiority, dialogue, or narration communicate information the reader already understands instead of revealing something new about the character.

This doesn't mean an emotional moment should use only one technique. Different methods can work beautifully together. The problem begins when they are all doing the same job.

I started thinking about the difference as emotional repetition versus emotional layering. Emotional repetition tells readers the same thing through different techniques. Emotional layering uses those techniques to reveal varied aspects of the character's experience.

This is different from the emotional movement I discussed in an earlier article. Emotional movement is about how a character's emotional state changes across a scene. Emotional layering is about the different emotions and meanings that can exist within a single moment.

Movement gives the scene direction. Layering gives the moment depth.

So, I tried approaching the scene differently:

Her stomach tightened. Before he could notice her hands shaking, she shoved them into her pockets. She’d promised him she could handle this. She wasn’t about to prove him right.

Now each element reveals something new. The visceral reaction gives us fear. The body language shows concealment. The interiority takes us deeper, showing us her pride and her fear of being proven wrong.

I found the same problem in several scenes between Sam (short for Samantha) and Brad, the main characters in my current manuscript. Their relationship carries a lot of unresolved tension, which made it tempting for me to make absolutely certain readers understood what Sam was feeling.

Imagine Brad questioning whether Sam is ready to handle something dangerous:

Sam’s chest tightened. She crossed her arms and looked away. Why did Brad always have to question her? Anger flared through her. “I said I can handle it.”

There’s plenty of emotion on the page, but almost every signal points in the same direction. Sam is angry and defensive. And just in case readers missed it, I actually tell them anger flared through her.

But Sam’s feelings toward Brad are rarely that simple. Beneath the anger is something much more interesting: Brad’s doubt matters because Sam desperately wants to prove she can handle things, and his doubt touches her own fear that she isn’t as capable as she wants to believe.

So instead of adding more evidence of anger, I can let the different elements expose those layers:

Sam crossed her arms before Brad could see her hands shake. “I said I can handle it.”

His expression didn’t change. Somehow that was worse. He’d looked at her that way after the dragon too, as if he were waiting for her to break again.

Emotional Revelations of Body Language

Now, the body language isn't simply telling us Sam is angry. She's hiding vulnerability. Her dialogue reveals her defensiveness and need for control. And what she notices about Brad exposes the deeper wound beneath both: His expression may not actually mean he's waiting for her to break. That's what Sam notices, because she's afraid he sees the weakness she's desperately trying not to see in herself.

That was the distinction I had been missing. The question wasn’t whether I should use a visceral reaction, body language, or interiority. It was whether each one gave the reader something the others hadn’t already provided.

That led to the question I now return to whenever I revise an emotional scene:

What new information does this give the reader?

Why Deep POV Can Lead to Emotional Repetition

This kind of repetition can be easy to miss in deep POV because we're constantly looking for ways to keep readers inside the character's experience. The temptation is to add another thought, another physical reaction, or another piece of body language. But deep POV isn't created by giving readers more evidence of emotion. It's created by giving them meaningful access to the character's experience.

When each layer contributes something different, the scene unfolds. Readers move beyond simply understanding what the character feels. They begin to understand why the emotion matters and how it influences the next decision.

Trusting the Reader Creates Stronger Emotional Scenes

This discovery reminded me of something I learned years ago in martial arts.

Beginners often believe that throwing the same technique harder or faster makes it more effective. One of the lessons I learned along the way is the value of economy of movement. Power rarely comes from adding more motion. It stems from eliminating every unnecessary movement until only the essential action remains.

I realized I needed the same economy in my emotional scenes. Tightening an emotional scene doesn't necessarily mean making it shorter. It means removing repetition so the details that remain carry more weight.

The goal isn’t to use fewer emotional tools, but to make each one earn its place.

If a character’s hand hesitates over a doorknob before knocking, readers already sense her uncertainty. If the next paragraph explains that the character is nervous, and the paragraph after that describes a racing heartbeat, we may simply be confirming something the readers already understand.

And it’s only delaying the story.

How Do You Know If You're Over-explaining Character Emotion?

I've started looking for places where I can underline several consecutive sentences and write the same emotion beside each one.

Fear, Fear, Fear.

Or

Anger, Anger, Anger.

When I can do that, I know it's time to look more closely. Which detail carries the most weight? Do the others deepen the moment, or are they simply confirming what readers already know?

Why Cutting Emotional Repetition Can Make a Scene Stronger

As I continued revising, something unexpected happened. I wasn't removing emotion from these scenes. Many times, they felt more emotional after I cut the repeated explanations.

That surprised me. I'd assumed more emotional detail created a deeper emotional impact. Instead, the details I'd removed had been competing with the one that mattered most.  This also helped increase the pacing rather than the repetition slowing it down.

Give readers enough evidence to experience the emotion, then use the next sentence to take them somewhere new.

That's what trusting the reader finally came to mean for me.

A Question for You

What’s one scene in your manuscript where removing an explanation actually made the emotion stronger?

* * * * * *

About Susan

Under the pen name Michelle Allums, Susan Watts has authored a young adult urban fantasy titled, The Jade Amulet and is currently writing the sequel. Her short stories are also included in the anthologies Christmas Roses and Forever and Always.

Susan has dedicated over four decades to training in multiple martial arts styles and holds the impressive title of a five-time US Karate Alliance world black belt fighting grand champion. Through her karate school, she is able to impart martial arts and life skills. Susan also incorporates her martial arts knowledge into her writing.

An avid triathlete, she keeps in shape by running, biking, and swimming. She lives in the country with her husband, where they raise animals and enjoy being outdoors. Susan also has three grown children and numerous grandchildren. In addition, she is a CPA and VP of finance for a company in her hometown. 

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Image by Stefan Keller from Pixabay