Writing Challenge: January 2026

Let's Kick-Start 2026 with that ALL-NEW Monthly Writing Challenge + a brand NEW Data-Driven Online Writing Course to make your writing contagious

New Year - New Growth - New Challenge - New Writing Course

Post are going viral like crazy right now. No matter if you have a paid or a free newsletter, your posts now bring your FREE AND PAID subscribers like crazy.

That’s why this Challenge is so important.

But first, let’s announce the winners from the Christmas Edition!

WINNERS AWARDS

With the help of Finn Tropy and his brand new StackContacts solution, I’m now able to identify who is the most active in Challenge, using actual data, i.e. your exact activity on the sharing posts. Yes, I now SEE YOU ALL, minus the manual work!

So, before I announce the winners, I want to personally congratulate all of the members who took their growth seriously last month and were active:

Stella Chibuike-Ezike, Larry C. Brown, Juan Gonzalez, Charisse Tyson, Scott Hughes, Chris Humphrey, Chris Craft, Susan Telford, Kathleen Hall, Kathleen Thorne RN, LMT, Daniel Chadwick Boswell, Nancy H., Nir Hindie, Marylee Pangman, Author, Lynn Stevens, Sara, Judith Frizlen, Hope Coach Kelli, Ibtissam C.| In Transit, Christie Sausa, MS, Swapnil Shinde, Not Exactly Ana, Investing Lawyer, Chris B. Writes, Timeless Muse, Bijibilla Rama Rao

Congrats to all of you! You’re ABSOLUTELY amazing!

Now, to select the winners, I have to see you in the Accountability tracker, and since not all of you added yourselves, I’m gonna honor that and select ONLY among the ones who did.

Ok, so the winners are….

….drumrolls please.…

Winner from last month Writing Challenge:

Soooo, the winners are:

1. SPOTLIGHT SESSION → Susan Telford ←

2. 1 Additional 60 Minute Strategy Call with me: Judith Frizlen

3. 6 MONTH FREE: Juan Gonzalez

BIG Congrats to all the winners!!! I can’t wait to jump into the session with Susan, I’m sure it’s gonna be lots of fun! Looking forward to it!

The Spotlight Session Award

→ #1 Award is a Spotlight Session to talk about your Substack and more. To give you and your Substack more exposure, I will share this session:

• all subscribers

• my YouTube channel

• my BiTES atomic newsletter

• my other social media accounts

→ Watch all previous spotlight sessions here.

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Time to kick off the ALL-NEW WRITING Challenge!

My New Year Gift for You:

This new Challenge comes with the all-new Data-Driven Online Writing Course designed to help you sell (without selling).

It’s short, it’s essential, and it’s zero fluff. For you, if you’re still struggling to “find your voice” or to get high-quality output from AI.

Based on the tons of analyzed sales and engagement data from my 481 published stories on Medium, 546 published posts on Substack, and 745K emails sent on Kit, bringing me to my first $10k/month in sales in just 13 months after I went all in on Substack, helping me maintain above-average conversion and retention rates.

Not just information I learned, not just research I’ve done, not just my gut feeling what works. But real data + deep AI-powered analysis + real sales I made with it.

Infused with my core NLP tactics I incorporated in my content.

Designed to help you train AI - the right way.

Publishing date: 6th of January.

I can’t wait to see you inside!

Here’s a sneak peek in case you’re curious:

Why a Writing Challenge?

I start seeing more posts getting viral, or getting distributed by the algorithm outside if your audience. I also just recently got my first viral post and another one right after it, so I made an analysis → read it here.

It’s clear: posts do get you new subscribers. And sales.

But it might be challenging to stay consistent. That’s why this challenge exists.

Within Unplugged, you have everything you need to grow your Substack:

• the monthly Notes30 Challenge where you grow your subscribers,

• the weekly Write2Sell column where you learn how to convert them to paid and keep them paying,

• the Substack Quest designed to bring you to your first (or next) bestseller badge faster,

• the QUEST LABS with all the AI and automations, which helps you grow while you sleep, and…

• this monthly Writing Challenge where you apply the knowledge from the Write2Sell column and the Quest in practice and actually work to grow your paid subscribers,

• plus: the AI tools you can use to grow easier and faster (find the links below).

• and: the ALL-NEW Data-Driven Online Writing Course to make your writing contagious + make sure it sells (coming in your inboxes shortly).

What is it?

It’s a challenge for writing.

But not just writing.

It’s built to help you convert more subscribers, applying everything from the Write2Sell column and the Quest in practice, and feed your automations with more sales. Because learning how to do things is nothing if you don’t take action.

So, in this challenge, we’ll take action.

The Challenge:

PARTICIPANTS:

This month again: I’m gonna run the weekly sharing boost posts for ALL UNPLUGGED MEMBERS.

As usual: Paid and V.I.P. members have their private access to the GPTs, and the Data-Driven Online Writing Course with all templates, cheat sheets, formulas, checklists, data banks, and supporting materials (coming soon).

What you need to do:

• Write and publish at least 1 post per week.

• Join the challenge by adding yourself to the Accountability tracker

• Share your posts in the weekly thread (you can do that every day until the next post comes on Sunday), read, like and comment on other peoples posts - it helps them, AND YOU grow. Make this challenge your daily engagement workflow.

How to do that (faster)?

• Take the ALL-NEW Data-Driven, NLP-infused, Online Writing Course to make your writing contagious, AND make sure it sells for you (without selling) - soon in your inboxes.

• Watch the Positioning, the Product, and the Content Strategies from the QUEST: to make sure your content matches your audience's needs.

• Use my custom GPT the CREATIVETECH Writer Pro (free for paid members - use the link below) for outlines. I give my GPT one of my notes and ask it to expand it into a 1000-word article. I then edit and post for free. It works.

• Make sure you add links to other posts, so that people keep reading (or start buying if they are paywalled - that’s what I did)

• Add a compelling headline, one that opens a curiosity gap. Use my custom GPT the TITLE Generator (link below) - give it your entire article and it will come up with 10 titles suggestions.

• Make sure you have a CTA at the end of your post, selling your product in a non-salesy way. How? Use my brand new custom GPT High Converting CTAs Writer (link below). Just give it the product description and it will generate you 10 non-salesy CTAs that convert. If you don’t have products to sell, become my affiliate and earn 30% from each sale. Apply here (I approve everyone).

• Stay active in the weekly boost posts:

  • Share a quote from it on Notes (select some shareable sentence & restack quote)

  • Share a link to it on the Weekly Writing Challenge Sharing Thread: I will post one every Sunday - it will arrive in your inbox.

  • And remember to read, like, comment and restack some of the other posts you like. This is how we help each other grow.

• Track your consistency: add yourself to the Accountability Tracker. I have a Prize for the most active!

The GOAL?

Real CA$H!!

Sales is what I do best, and in this newsletter, I help you do it too, without the fear of failure or alienating our audience. It’s all in the Quest.

WINNERS AWARDS:

Spotlight Session with me to talk about you and your Substack.

Rules for the winners’ selection:

• I’ll select one of the most active participants in the Challenge based on the Accountability Tracker and your activity in the sharing posts. Rules:

  • 1. must be in the Accountability tracker

  • 2. must have completed the challenge (at least one post a week)

  • 3. you can win the same challenge more than once but in different months

  • 4. you can’t win both Writing and Notes challenges in the same month. If you do, I’ll invite the next most active person for a session

• Priority of selecting winners:

  • 1. most active among the VIP members

  • 2. most active among the annual paid members

  • 3. most active among the monthly paid members

  • 4. this month only: most active free subscribers

• Announcement of the winners: start of next Challenge - 2nd day of next month

• When do we do the spotlight: during next month upon your availability. We’ll do the session only if you’re willing to. If not, I’ll invite the next most active member until I get a “yes”.

• How do we do the spotlight: over Zoom. I ask you questions (we initially agree on the list), and we discuss :). You can prepare slides if you want to (not a must, nobody did so far :D). I’ll do the spotlight sessions monthly after the Challenge finishes.

• To give you and your Substack more exposure, I will share the spotlight session:

  • all subscribers

  • my YouTube channel

  • my BiTES atomic newsletter

  • my other social media accounts

The Challenge includes (download links at the end of this post):

• Link to the Accountability Tracker. If you haven’t already, add yourself now!

• [NEW] ALL-NEW Data-Driven, NLP-infused, Online Writing Course to make your writing contagious, AND make sure it sells for you (without selling), including:

  • My FRAMEWORK for contagious writing

  • My TOP 6 RULES OF CONTENT

  • MY NLP TACTICS + 13 EMOTION TECHNIQUES & THE NLP WORDBANK

  • 12 RULES of AESTHETIC WRITING

  • The 3 VIRALITY PATTERNS & VIRAL WRITING CHECKLIST

  • The WRITING CHECKLIST

  • THE SUBSTACK PUBLISHING CHECKLIST

  • The POWER WORDS CHEAT CHEET

  • TOP 3 POST TEMPLATES

  • 30+ PROVEN HOOK FORMULAS WORKBOOK

  • 21 COMMON DOs and DON’Ts

  • 12 RHETORIC TECHNIQUES CHEAT SHEET

  • My 19 Writing Rules for Highly Engaging Writing, which helped me get lots of stories go viral (previously a supporting material to this Challenge)

  • 13 Ideas on How to Use Emotions with Examples of Uncommon, Emotional and Power Words to use in your writing - because emotions are a huge part of great writing (previously a supporting material to this Challenge)

• Training courses from the Substack Quest: everything you need to nail positioning, product, growth, and sales.

• A mini workshop on how to Generate Stunning Midjourney Images without Prompting (link below)

• My custom personalized GPT CREATIVETECH Writer PRO trained on my viral stories to write high-quality long-form articles. Just updated with new training data. (link below)

• My custom GPT TITLE Generator 2.0 trained on 1000+ viral titles on Medium to generate titles that drive clicks. Just updated with new training data. (link below)

• My custom GPT High Converting CTAs Writer trained to turn your product descriptions into non-salesy CTAs you can use in your posts. Just updated with new training data. (link below)

• Dedicated Weekly Writing Challenge Sharing Post. I’ll ask you to share links to your posts, so that it can get even more traction. Comes every Sunday, you can share through the entire week. Make sure you also check other’s posts - that’s how we grow together!

Find the links below. Use this knowledge. Adapt the templates and guidelines to your niche and style.

Ready?

Let’s do this!

Here’s your Challenge pack of resources:

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Link to Challenge Resources