It was a restorative weekend. My friend and I watched the first two (original) Friday the Thirteenth films from 1980. I cleaned the house, did some good reading, unpacked, paid my quarterly taxes, caught up on work, wrote this newsletter, and saw another friend for a walk. I’m making progress on The Bee Sting. It’s a big one!
This week is very full. I have several brand campaigns to film and evening plans most nights. That part of my business has really ramped up over the past couple of weeks, which is great, but I have to be super disciplined and focused if I’m going to get everything done!
Anyway — this is my monthly “unfiltered column,” which is only for paid subscribers. A refresher on paid perks can be found here.
In this newsletter:
As always, I chose one lucky subscriber and will be sending them some happy mail. I’m using this month’s “unfiltered” letter a bit differently than usual, as last week marked a full year on Substack (and six months of paid perks). I wanted to give you a bit of a“state of the union.”
Here’s what we’ll discuss:
What it was like to turn on paid subscriptions
How many of you are here
YTD and projected annual income (newsletter only)
Blog income and what’s going on there
Why Substack is a big deal to me
Little wins
What’s next
Quick refresher: Every month, I choose one (US or Canada-based) paid subscriber and send them a special treat. This month’s treat is a big box of beauty goodies. There’s an Augustinus Bader moisture mask and the brand’s light cream, makeup from NARS, the Dennis Gross peel pads, and tons more. Plus my copy of The Wedding People. A big congrats to Jennifer Dill! I emailed her yesterday to let her know she’d won.
My friend did something similar back in August, and I thought it was a great read. Check out her post - it’s what inspired this letter.
I tend to keep numbers close(ish) to my chest. With a handful of industry friends (who I love and trust —it’s truly like having co-workers), we lay it all out on the table. I genuinely believe that it is SO important to talk about money with your peers! Outside of that small circle, this is probably the most I’ve ever shared. Putting things like this behind a paywall feels a little safer, I suppose.
I moved my newsletter to Substack last September. On April 2nd, I turned on paid perks. You can read about that here. It was a scary decision and one I agonized over. After all, I already had the blog and had been providing all of my content for free for nearly 15 years. What’s that about milk and cows?