Writers want to write. They don’t want to market.

But if you want to get paid to write these days, you have to market and sell too.

The grand promise of Substack was that writers could focus on the writing while the platform found you an audience and helped you make money.

Medium promised this too.

Both of them lied.

Sure, some writers do make money on these platforms, but as we’ve already debunked, those writers are often doing the bulk of that labor themselves.

STILL. There are some legitimate ways Substack, Medium and even social media platforms bolster your audience building and monetization.

And they are replaceable when you know what to replace.

Introducing The 3×3×3 Growth System.

A three part system to guide you in becoming your own best marketer whether you’re ditching Substack or just taking control of your publication’s growth.

The 3×3×3 Growth System

To make a living from your work, you need to be able to:

1) Find your audience and
2) Turn that audience into income.

That’s what the 3×3×3 system is going to do for you.

The first step helps you find your audience. The second and third steps help you make money.

I’m gonna cut right to the chase here, but if you want more explanation, skim to the bottom.

🛠️ Download the spreadsheet and fill in your 3×3×3 as you read this

Step 1: Choose THREE list growth channels

• Social media: pre/post teasers on stories and newsletters

• Reddit: pre/post teasers on stories and drop links in comments

• Cross-promotion: find 1-3 relevant partners to cross-promote and list build with

• Guest posts: guest in other newsletters or publications

• Paid promotion: pay for newsletter ads from other publishers (or use something like beehiiv Boosts)

• Referral program: get readers referring you to friends, neighbors, colleagues

• Google/SEO: optimize stories and headlines for search engine discovery

• YouTube: promote stories on your YouTube channel and link your newsletter in video description

• Facebook/Instagram ads: pay for ads on Facebook’s network

• Speaking: promote your publication and newsletter through speaking gigs

• Podcast hosting: promote your publication and newsletter through your own podcast

• Podcast guesting: promote your publication and newsletter through podcast guest interviews (check out PodMatch)

• Earned media: get quoted or stay in the news as an expert on your newsletter topic (check out Source of Sources, PressPulse or better yet, cultivate your own relationships for this)

• Community promotion: promote your work in topic-based communities (Facebook Groups, Discords, Slacks, etc)

• Email signature: promote your newsletters in your 1:1 emails or autoresponders

• Personal connections: leverage your own network to get the word out

• Add your own!

Step 2: Choose THREE revenue streams

• Reader subscriptions or memberships: readers contribute on a recurring subscription

• Reader donations: one time contributions (tip jar or tax-deductible donations)

• Pay per article: paywalls that allow one time payment (check out Acta and read my story about how Rascal uses it)

• Programmatic ads: a service like BuySellAds serves up ads on your website or newsletter

• Self-booked ads: book ads for your website or newsletter and manually insert them into content (check out Kaitlyn Arford’s Passionfroot page and Josh Spector’s ads page)

• Self-booked sponsorships: similar to ads but longer term partnerships where you charge a premium for lending more of your own brand rep and/or doing paid content (Read Book Partnerships the 2025 Way)

• Licensing/syndication: get paid for republishing your stories in other publications (check out 404 Media’s deal with Wired)

• Physical products: merch, books, guides or anything you want to package, ship and sell (drop shipped or otherwise)

• Digital products: downloadable guides, ebooks, toolkits, etc

• Coaching: 1:1 or group coaching offers to your readers

• Services: 1:1 done-for-you or done-with-you offers like editorial services, ghostwriting or strategy

• Speaking: book paid speaking gigs related to your reporting/writing

• Teaching: offer webinars or classes yourself or guest teach for other groups

• Events: host one off events, conferences or retreats (can have a dual stream of attendees paying and sponsors paying)

• Add your own!

Step 3: Choose THREE promotion mechanics

Applies to all revenue streams except for programmatic ads

• Fast action discount: use the welcome email or thank you page to offer a discount or special bonus if they buy something right away (automated)

• Why pay sequence: delayed sequence of 3-5 emails that send a few weeks or months after they join your list (automated)

• Anniversary discounts: offer a special discount at 6 months or a year (automated)

• Upgrade sequence: email sequence you send EXISTING donors or subscribers asking if they’ll bump up a tier (automated)

• Call to action blocks on website: promotional blocks at top, middle or bottom of article or on sidebar for any of your revenue streams (automated)

• “Just bought” notifications on social: use Zapier to send a notification to your social feed every time someone upgrades or buys something. This encourages others to do it too! Grab the recipe (automated)

• Annual sale: running an annual sale for any of your revenue streams (manual)

• Contribution campaign: I also call this a “dedicated reader appeal” and it’s when you email readers or donors and ask for contributions (manual)

• Sponsorship campaign: similar to the contribution campaign but focused on finding sponsorship or ad leads from within your mailing list (manual)

• Call to action blocks in newsletter: this is the “upgrade to paid” block we see all over everyone’s newsletters. You’ll want to change that language regularly (manual)

• Social promotion: use social posts to make your audience aware of any of your revenue streams—this recently bagged me a new sponsor! (manual or automated via tools like Hypefury or Manychat)

• Paywalls: use paywalls to drive one time or recurring contributions (manual or automated)

• Cold/warm outreach: works for sponsorships, services or big dollar donors (manual)

• Event-based fundraisers: hosting events designed to get you more contributions (manual)

• Add your own!

How to use the 3×3×3 system

You’re going to choose, test and optimize each bucket.

🛠️ Download the spreadsheet and fill in your 3×3×3 as you read this

Choose your 3s

• Look at what’s already working for you. Check analytics, check sources for subscribers, run a reader survey, look at your past revenue split.

• Consider what feels fun or easy for you (no need to make this hard on yourself!)

• If nothing’s showing promise, pick from the list above and test it!

Test your 3s

• Try out anything in the 3 buckets for a month and see if you can get it working for you.

• Take note of your expected result before you try it. Make sure the juice is worth the squeeze.

• Don’t obsess over minor data yet (for example, don’t analyze every single social media post or email yet—look at the macro—did this work overall?)

Optimize your 3s

• Got some signal? Great! Optimize by digging into the micro data now. Was it the subject line that worked or the body of the email? Which social posts worked and why? Is cold outreach showing a pattern?

• Reset your expectation higher for this optimizing stage. You need this thing performing more reliably now.

• Once it’s performing reliably, you have yourself an operational growth strategy!

• No signal? No sweat! Swap in another strategy from the set above and test it.

Hot tips for cool people

• Start with what’s already working for you. Ideally your 3×3×3 is a mix of stuff that’s working and a couple things you’re testing.

• If nothing is working for you yet, test just one new thing at a time.

• ONLY CHOOSE THREE in each step to start. That will combat the overwhelm you feel by having a million options to market and sell your work.

• You can also choose less than three, especially if they perform well, but over time, diversifying your options makes you more resilient to market shifts.

Examples of the 3×3×3 in action

Here’s an example of a 3×3×3 for a publisher who likes social media and prioritizes reader funding. This system could work for a smaller audience size and is really similar to my own growth strategy.

And here’s one for a publisher who splits between programmatic ads and reader contributions. This requires a bigger audience, hence Google being part of this plan.

Ready to try it? I made you a tracker!

🛠️ Download the spreadsheet and fill in your 3×3×3

Got questions?

I’d love to hear them! You can either comment on this post or send me a question. I might even use it to create a new issue based on what you’re most interested in!