P.E. Moskowitz of “Mental Hellth” on Starting Your Own Newsletter

On November 10, 2021, Study Hall held an AMA with Study Hall co-founder P.E. Moskowitz about the business of newsletters. P.E. runs a successful Substack on mental health, and in this AMA they speak about how to launch a newsletter, and the benefits and potential pitfalls of doing so.

On November 10, 2021, Study Hall held an AMA with Study Hall co-founder P.E. Moskowitz about the business of newsletters. P.E. runs a successful Substack on mental health, and in this AMA they speak about how to launch a newsletter, and the benefits and potential pitfalls of doing so. P.E. started their Substack, called Mental Hellth, 8 months ago. The newsletter, with approximately 4,200 free subscribers and 900 paid subscribers, now accounts for the majority of P.E.’s income. Their most viral essay on Substack has received nearly 100k readers, and the average post gets anywhere from 5-6k readers. Here’s a condensed version of the AMA.

 

BUILDING A FOLLOWING

Twitter is really important for building a following. My Twitter following allowed me to promote my Substack right away, but I think the most important thing was to start building it slowly. I asked people to subscribe so that I would have room to explore and experiment with my thesis and medium. I didn’t set expectations too high at first so that people weren’t disappointed. And then when I started publishing content, I promoted the shit out of every story.

I think it’s possible to start a Substack without a large following, but unfortunately harder than it should be. My first recommendation would be to create a Twitter, or an Instagram, or a Discord, or something where you can start building your audience.

FINDING YOUR SUBJECT MATTER

Finding a niche is really important. My Substack isn’t just about mental health. It comes from a very specific perspective, and it basically has a thesis that runs through it that isn’t too broad to appeal to my audience.

Like any good essay, your newsletter should have a strong thesis that you’re proving in every post. My thesis is that mental health is not an individual problem, but has been sold to us as such. Instead, I argue that we must collectivize and politicize mental health in order to really tackle it. Having such a specific thesis allows me to find books, interviews, and other content that all back up that argument.

I’ll also add that a successful Substack should be part of a larger beat. My whole thing is writing about mental health, identity, the internet, and capitalism. If you have a beat, people know to come to you for that kind of information. If you are writing about something really random, you’re gonna draw less of an audience.

I want to emphasize that you need to answer the question “Why you?” I.e. Why would people come to you to read these things? That’s true of articles, books, everything. I’m now known for writing about a particular subject, with a specific style and argumentation. Differentiating yourself with your voice and your perspective is really important, otherwise there’s no reason for people to subscribe to your content over someone else’s.

TRADITIONAL JOURNALISM VS. THE NEWSLETTER

One of the things I’ve been surprised by is that people really enjoy informal content. I thought everything I wrote had to be a viral essay, but it turns out that people really like posts that are just link roundups of relevant news with a little commentary, too. People like feeling a relationship to the writer, so informal content where you can be yourself and not constrain your voice helps with that.

As for the difference between traditional journalism and Substack, I think that’s kind of a false binary. You can do a lot of traditional journalism on Substack, it just has to be in a little bit more of a broken up format. Maybe instead of one 6,000-word investigative story, you write three 2,000-word posts over the course of three months. The first 2,000-word post gets people to subscribe, and the writer gets paid, which allows you to invest in your next two stories.

PITFALLS OF STARTING A NEWSLETTER

I don’t know if I see many pitfalls. Traditional media is dying. I think maybe the biggest pitfall is that it can individualize you and your work, like we no longer collectively work together. My dream would be to have a substack that is run by several people, like a magazine.

Substack is now my main source of income, which takes off a lot of pressure from other things. So I really only write for other outlets when it’s good pay, or a good assignment. I’ve also had editors approach me because they read my Substack and want me to write things in a similar vein for them.

TRANSITIONING FROM UNPAID TO PAID CONTENT

Simply asking people for support really works — people want to support journalism that is meaningful to them. And I think you can slowly transition by making a paid level and putting a big essay behind the paywall, while keeping most of the content free. From there, you can slowly add more paid posts. And as I said earlier, I’m a fan of doing a free version of posts and a paid version that’s longer and has more info, so that if you’re a reader who’s really into the story you can subscribe to find out more.

Also, no one has asked this question but one piece of advice I have is to not over-promise. I do a post a week. And I won’t stray from that because if you start pumping out more content, people expect more and more.

WHEN DOES IT START MAKING MONEY?

It honestly started paying off immediately. If you get 10 subscribers, that’s $600 a year

and $600 a year for a post is a lot more than most journalism outfits pay! I don’t think it’ll be that way for everyone — as I said, I already had a following. But I think it’s easier than you think to make money.

Starting a Substack with paid subscriptions is really important. You can ask people to support your work before you write a word. It’s a huge mistake to give away content for free, because then people will expect it for free. I currently make two versions of every post that I publish — a free version that is shorter and cuts off halfway through the story, and a paid version of the full story. If someone reads half a story and then it cuts off, they might be more inclined to buy a subscription.

EXPANDING YOUR NEWSLETTER

Half or more of the posts on my Substack now are stories I’ve commissioned from other people, and I’ve become the editor of my newsletter. But originally, I started this Substack as a way to pay myself to research a book proposal. I could read a theoretical book one week, take lots of notes on it, turn that into a post, and then also use that info for my proposal. It also helps to build a following so that when you pitch your proposal you can say you already have an audience.

PITCH MENTAL HELLTH:

In case you’re interested, I pay a minimum of $200 for something like a short Q+A, and have paid up to $700 for longer essays. Mental Hellth publishes personal stories about your mental health journey; screeds on psychology and psychiatry; deep dives into psychological topics; book reviews; interviews with cool people, and more. Send pitches to [email protected].

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