Happy Thursday, writer friends!
When I launched The Wordling in April 2022, the business model was very clear to me: advertising. We got rave reviews right away and within months, we were being offered sponsorship rates of $500 or more per issue from multiple sponsors. It was an easy decision to make and one that would have made this newsletter profitable immediately.
But when it came down to it, I couldn’t do it. I launched The Wordling with the goal to educate writers. To give you the unvarnished truth about what’s happening in the industry and the players involved.
It’s a problem, however, when a company I’m writing about in the newsletter is also sponsoring it.
There are only two ways it can go—I either say what I want to say and have pissed off sponsors or I have to water down my message. Plus, I can’t really tell you how a publisher or retailer is shortchanging writers and still have them sponsor the issue because, no matter how many times I say it’s not an endorsement, an ad is still seen as a recommendation.
I saw this problem in the first month itself when, after I interviewed an author who was making his living writing on Substack, he got extremely pissed off at me for posting a story about how many in the industry were questioning Substack’s true commitment to supporting writers. He accused me of “creating an obstacle” to his success. I knew that if an author could be so unreasonable about a story I was sharing, sponsors would be even more.
I had to make a decision. It was an easy one. But it now left me without a primary business model.
It didn’t take me long to figure out that I what I needed to do was what I’d been doing all along: go directly to my readers. But this time, I didn’t want to do it through individual courses, scattered trainings, and infrequently updated resources.
I wanted to create a single hub where writers could get everything they need as they grow in their careers. And I wanted to make sure that the pricing was inclusive—that it was affordable for not only people in the developed world, but writers in Asia, Africa, and South America.
Enter: Wordling PLUS.
Wordling Plus is the vision I’ve had for this business before I even had a business. From the moment I launched my first course in 2013, I’ve known I wanted to do something like this. I just lacked the capability, the confidence, and most importantly, the content, to do it in the way I truly wanted.
But now I have all three, and it’s culminating in a product that I’m extremely proud of and cannot wait to share with you.
Wordling PLUS will not only help support this newsletter, but will be the most comprehensive training platform for multi-passionate writers that exists today. While there are a lot of resources available for writers (and many of them are excellent), none of them bring together personal experience in a variety of industries, with a focus on empowering writers in the way you’ve come to expect of me. Plus, most resources are country specific, and I’m truly committed to making this a global brand that serves writers in India and Ghana as much as it does those in the US and UK.
We’re officially launching in September, but we have a special pre-launch sale that will be available to the first 100 people only.
In order to hear about it, you MUST be on the waiting list.
So hop on and come August 31, I will send you an email telling you all about Wordling PLUS and our special founder member pricing. Regardless of whether you decide to join, it’s still worth signing up to the waiting list since that’s the only way to hear about the promotional offer. Click here to join.
This is the next step in The Wordling’s journey and one I’ve been working on for months. I can’t wait to invite you in!
Cheers,
Natasha