How I'm Scaling My Newsletter from $2–3k to $10K/Month (Without Burning Out or Selling My Soul)
My chapter from the $10k Secrets book and a download link to the entire book (in case you've missed it).
The Setup: Why This Strategy Exists
Most newsletter growth advice sounds like someone yelling into a void in 2019.
“Pick a niche!” “Be consistent!” “Give value!”
Great! But I wanted revenue. Predictable, scalable, monthly cash. Not likes. Not followers. Not vague “potential.” Actual income. Something I could build on.
I didn’t have a huge audience. I wasn’t famous on Twitter. I did go viral on Medium, but that brought me just 60 subscribers in 7 months.
What I did have?
A marketing and sales background.
A serious respect for systems and tech.
Zero tolerance for vague advice that’s not tested.
I used that to build what I now call a solution-centric newsletter business, which I scaled to $2–3K/month in about 90 days, and am now ramping to $10K/month using the exact same list.
No social media. No chasing followers. No begging people to “join my list.”
Here’s exactly how (I leave nothing behind).
My Tech Stack
Let’s start with tools.
Most creators build for complexity. Then burn out. I saw that so I aimed to avoid it at all costs. Simplicity rules the online game.
I use only three:
Substack — My publishing hub and audience home base. Everything starts and ends here.
Kit — This is the automation tool that powers all my follow-ups, conversions, upsells, and sequencing. It’s not Substack or Kit, it’s both.
Gumroad — My storefront for one-off sales and experimental offers. It has it’s own discoverability and by far the most comprehensive set of tools for beginner writers.
That’s it. No fancy site. No social media hustle.
Pro tip: Tech shouldn’t be your bottleneck.
The Positioning Strategy
Let’s be honest: “grow your newsletter” is one of the most bloated niches online.
And I still chose it, because I knew how to bring a new angle: “I show creators how to grow a profitable email business using Substack AI + simple marketing systems, backed by 15+ years in sales and marketing.”
And that last part? The sales and marketing background?
That’s my thing. Most writers out there don’t have it. Most creators are learning on the job. I’m building with fundamentals I’ve already tested with a multi-billion big tech in my day job.
That builds trust faster.
Because I’m not just saying “write consistently.” I’m saying, “Here’s the funnel that converts a cold subscriber in about 10 days.”
You can’t fake that.
My bullet-proof approach: I have all three types of topics you need to grow:
1. Trend: AI
2. Evergreen: growth and monetization
3. Meta: I write on Substack about Substack (but not only)
This can be applied in any field of expertise you might have.
The Product Strategy
I didn’t start with a $1,000 course.
I didn’t even start with a course.
I started small. Strategic. Low-risk.
Opposite of what everybody told me: Paid newsletter.
I kept hearing that going paid was for later — when I have at least 5k-10k subscribers. I saw it differently. It’s a low-ticket offer. The perfect tool to test potential future mid and high-tier offers. I can disguise and test it in so many ways — a challenge, a workshop, a series of articles, etc.
Here’s my starting tier:
$9/month
$36/year (That’s a 66% discount — a deliberate pricing cue.)
Then I added a $120 founding tier for subscribers who wanted to work more closely with me.
This tier gave me:
1:1 feedback
Early testimonials
A reason to overdeliver from Day 1
Once I hit ~100 paying subscribers? I raised prices.
But not arbitrarily. I added more content. I refined onboarding. I made it painfully obvious that the value was 10x the price.
Pricing isn’t just math. It’s psychology.
Sell an outcome. Make it feel obvious. Then deliver like hell.
Now that I’ve proven conversion, I’m building on top.
The Growth Strategy
Most creators post when they’re “inspired.”
I post 3–10 times a day. On Substack Notes.
Why? Because Substack is the only platform right now where distribution is still organic. And it explodes!
Every Note is a hook. Every hook leads to my freebie. Every freebie leads to my conversion funnel.
It’s not social media. It’s short-form SEO for writers.
My full growth strategy looks like this:
1. Substack Notes
Hooks
Contrarian takes
Mini case studies
Questions that spark comments
I’ve built a custom GPT in ChatGPT — trained it with thousands of viral Notes I collected from the platform. It now generates 4 different types of Notes out of any topic you give it, which you can slightly edit and post directly. Takes me 15 minutes per day.
Brought me 75 subscribers yesterday. Not a joke.
This GPT is also available for my paid subscribers. The most committed from them get a viral Note with an instant subscriber boost every now and then.
2. Lead Magnet
A free 10-day email course: “How to Grow a 1000 Subscribers From Scratch”
It educates about my offers while delivering value
I link to it anywhere I can
3. Content SEO
I optimize long-form content on Substack for Google.
I choose titles that match search intent.
I embed freebie opt-ins throughout.
Tip: You don’t need 7 freebies. You need one that works and a dozen ways to distribute it.
The Monetization Strategy
Here’s the part most creators skip: selling.
They’re scared of it. Or worse — they try to inspire people into paying.
I use automation, not inspiration.
Here’s my strategy in a nutshell:
Step 1: The 10-Day Email Course
Every free subscriber gets this on Day 1.
It builds trust, shows proof, and plants the seed for the upgrade.
The CTA to become a paid subscriber is sprinkled throughout — not just at the end.
Step 2: Kit-Driven Conversion Sequence
After the course ends?
They enter a sales sequence built in Kit.
I offer them the original $36/year price — only available for a limited time.
I use social proof, urgency, and benefits to make the offer feel stupid not to buy.
Result? 6.5% conversion from free → paid and growing.
That’s not theory. That’s data.
Pro tip: This only works if you have tons of value behind the paywall.
Step 3: Monetizing Free Readers
Here’s the spicy part most people miss:
Some free readers will never subscribe.
But they will buy something one-off — if it solves a painful problem they currently face.
So I extract the most valuable, outcome-driven pieces of the paid subscription and package them as:
Toolkits
Templates
Mini guides
Then I sell them on Gumroad — at a price that’s higher than the yearly plan.
Yes, you read that right. I sell one-off products that cost more than the annual plan.
Why?
Simple: it’s cheaper to sign-up the annual plan and get all of the products. Stupid not to buy, right?
What’s Next: Scaling to $10K/Month With the Same Audience
Right now, I’m doing $2–3K/month with the above strategy.
That alone is more than most creators make from their writing. But I’m not stopping there.
Here’s the scale plan:
Part 1: Mid-Ticket Offers ($300–$600)
Async courses
Group workshops
Private Slack communities
These are launched via Kit sequences, promoted via Substack, and sold through urgency-based landing pages.
I run one offer per month. Evergreen + monthly pulse.
Part 2: High-Ticket Offers ($1,000+)
1:1 consulting
Inner circle communities
Done-with-you workshops
Same audience. Higher intent. More depth.
You don’t need more people. You need better offers.
The System Behind the Scenes
Everything I just described fits inside one repeating system:
Notes → Freebie Hook → Email Course → Offer → Upgrade
This is the engine. You create. Kit sells on autopilot.
Every new person drops into the same predictable funnel. I tweak as I go, but the core never changes.
Most creators throw content into the void and pray someone reads it.
I build systems and automation. I love tech, so I use this as my lever.
Because leverage beats luck.
Every.
Single.
Time.
The Bottom Line
There’s nothing “lucky” about this strategy.
And I’m not pretending it’s easy.
But it is repeatable — if you treat your newsletter like a business, not a blog.
Here’s what I’d tell the version of me starting from scratch:
Pick one offer. Make it convert. THEN scale.
Use automation, not willpower, to sell.
Don’t post when you feel like it. Post like it’s your job.
Price with logic. Sell with psychology.
Money loves motion. Keep the reader moving. Notes → Email → Offer. Always.
You don’t need a personal brand. You need a sales machine in disguise.
You’ve got the playbook now.
Don’t just copy it. Adapt it to your needs. Thank me later.
Stay Unplugged!
Yana
P.S. That’s my chapter from the “$10k Secrets” book.
It has a dozen stories from creators (some big names) who built their own path to consistent $10k+ months through newsletters, courses, communities, consulting, and more.
No fluff. No silver bullets. Just what actually worked for them.
In case you missed that book, you can download it here: