Write stuff people want to share

There’s no better growth lever than a good story.

Alissa Walker said something to this effect earlier this year when I asked her why she thought so many of her readers shared her work.

It really is amazing to watch. Alissa will publish a piece, I’ll see it appear in my inbox and then moments later, I’ll open LinkedIn or Bluesky to see her readers posting about it nearly right away.

Seems like this magic would be hard to copy—and it is—but there’s a few strategic choices Alissa made that set her up to be so consistently viral.

That’s what today’s issue is about: how to write stuff people want to share featuring Alissa Walker of Torched.

Alissa Walker knows how to get the people talking

Alissa launched Torched in April 2024 to cover the 2028 Olympics and their impact on Los Angeles.

Why that topic?

Alissa had been simmering on a newsletter idea for a while, and during a recent writing retreat, she kept coming back to this mega event that was looming over everything LA was doing (or not doing).

Everyone she talked to wanted to know what was really going on with the Olympics.

Even people from the mayor’s office. (How comforting that they needed journalistic intervention to communicate.)

For Alissa, Torched became “a framework through which I can view everything else that's happened.”

As soon as she was live, her longtime fans jumped in right away.

Readers old and new are highly engaged with the publication just a few months in—clamoring to get into the events, offering to sponsor issues and posting her stories like crazy all over social media.

She’s almost halfway to her 2025 subscriber goal of 500 paying readers already! And she’s adding loads of new readers every week to the Torched newsletter list.

Alissa’s winning growth strategy is super audience-centric and I wanted to know more about her methods.

The audience for a “hyper local” publication is actually pretty big

You might think a publication that’s about LA and the 2028 Olympics has a small reach. Not so!

Torched is read by a global audience.

“Local relevance. International consequence.” Alissa said noting that LA is a “laboratory for the good and the bad” when it comes to how cities operate.

Alissa has always had a national platform from her former work at Gizmodo and Curbed, but she was still surprised so many of her Torched readers lived out of state or out of the country. She found out when she invited her paying subscribers to a launch party in LA back in September.

Why is Torched’s audience so big?

It cuts across cities, interests and industries.

There’s a lot of people who care about the Olympics and who care about how LA’s going to handle them (again). That includes academics, mega event organizers, developers, urbanists and government officials from around the world.

Writing for the internet: Make it good. Ship it fast.

Back to Alissa’s comment that a good story is the best growth lever.

I agree. But how do you actually pull this off?

Alissa draws on how she was trained to write for the internet at Gawker Media. Anything can be compelling when framed well.

Alissa uses her subject lines and headlines as a *tap tap is this thing on* moment to intrigue her readers. She avoids traditional headline formats on purpose.

A few recent ones:

• Echo Park is so not ready for its close up

• They were always Trump’s games

• “Everyone was excited because the Olympics were coming. Now everyone is worried.”

Every edition of Torched is both playful and thoughtful. Fellow newsletter writer and podcaster Hayes Davenport called Alissa the “most enjoyable living writer about LA.”

She also keeps her ear to the ground so she knows what’s coming. That’s really helpful when a retiring City Councilor is appointed Olympics czar just as she’s walking out the door to go on a class field trip with her kids.

Alissa was ready with that story and published it from the bus (which she does fairly often—shoutout to Ghost for being usable on mobile).

Still, she knows as a one person newsroom, she can’t cover everything. She gives herself “assignments” which helps her avoid chasing too many stories at once.

But why do readers share the stories so much?

Reader replies and shares are great measures of content/market fit. Torched readers waste no time in shouting every story from the rooftops.

I asked one of Alissa’s readers, Vyki Englert, what was behind all the shares. Vyki said:

“Alissa reliably breaks down complexities and lays bare power structures in ways that are digestible to anyone who takes the time to read. I can’t help but want to share every article with my peers. Thanks to Torched, we have new tools and stories to hold accountable our civic leaders and demand change.”

Worth noting that Vyki runs an LA-based software consultancy called Compiler that builds tech for government projects. Professionals who have cultivated an audience that overlaps with yours make for great referrers to your work (and actually great sponsors too.)

How Alissa drives traffic for Torched

Readers spread the word about Torched faster than fire on a palm tree but Alissa drives lots of traffic too.

She hates social media. And with X melting down daily, she knew she couldn’t rely on it. So she created a few more paths to reach her readers.

Source 1: Events and real life interactions

Events and speaking have always been a big part of Alissa’s work, and as she transitioned out of her last full time role, she started directing people to her newsletter every time they asked “what’s next.” Subscribing to Torched became her primary verbal call to action (yes, that’s a thing).

This strategy has worked so well that Alissa joked that she can’t miss a party because she picks up new paid subscribers every time.

Source 2: Google

Alissa uses Ghost as her platform and she makes sure to tag stories with several keywords like “public bathrooms” and “LA28.”

Google has been sending a lot of traffic her way, and that’s not just because of tags, it’s also because people are searching for what she’s writing about.

Alissa recommends “taking advantage of big events where you know people are going to be looking to you.”

In her case, that was the Paris Olympics over the summer. Alissa deliberately didn’t cover Paris but she knew eyes would be on LA too and thus, people would be seeking out something like Torched. Her website was ready and waiting for them.

Source 3: Earned media

A great side effect of being plugged into what’s buzzy is that people want to interview and feature you.

Torched repositioned Alissa as an expert on LA’s Olympics, and even though she’s still interviewed about other things, she’s now on speed dial for her newsletter topic. That creates a very direct article-to-newsletter pipeline, because if you’re reading those articles, you’d probably like Alissa’s newsletter too.

Pieces like this one featuring her in the LA Times drove a new subscriber per minute when it came out.

Source 4: Bluesky

Alissa may hate social, but it loves her. Bluesky traffic is soaring for Torched, not just because Alissa has started posting there a bit, but mainly because her readers do.

Some readers take to Bluesky or X as soon as her newsletter comes out to share the latest reveal and others quote tweet Alissa’s posts to spread the word farther.

Source 5: LinkedIn

LinkedIn is brand new for Alissa this year, who previously had most of her social following on X and Instagram, but she’s noticed that it connects her to a different side of her audience: the mega event planners.

“The mega events are being talked about on social media, but they're being planned on LinkedIn. You can actually see people convening new projects.”

That’s why Alissa publishes her Torched Talks event series on LinkedIn and she’s found she gets a lot of RSVPs there because that’s where the industry folks are.

Source 6: Microsoft Teams

A hidden gem found in the analytics of Torched was a Microsoft Teams account that funneled in several sign ups from the same email domain.

Alissa thought one of her posts probably got dropped into a team chat. We love to see it and we can even suggest readers do more of it.

No paywalls. Just parties.

There’s no paywall on Torched right now. So what makes free readers become paying readers?

”The warm feeling of knowing that you helped keep Torched lit” as Alissa says on her upgrade page.

But also: events.

Alissa gives paid subscribers early, and sometimes exclusive, access to events she hosts for Torched.

Her launch party in September drove a bunch of new subscribers, as did the tour she led last month inside the transportation-monitoring center built for the 84 Olympic games.

If you skipped to the bottom, here’s what you need to remember

Know what makes a story too good not to share.

Hanging out with your readers online and in person is a great way to get that intel. Learn who they are, what they care about, what makes them share and what makes them pay. All of that insight will serve you well on both the reporting and business sides of your publication. The more your readers share, the less you have to!

Get The Paid Sub Playbook!