Creator Spotlight

?? "That's not what podcasting is. You just fell for what tech companies are trying to do. You fell for Spotify, for their 10X return, for their bottom line." Eric Silver has strong opinions on video podcasting, so I obviously had to get him on the Creator Spotlight video podcast. We spoke about: ??? How he teaches podcasting ?? Audio-only podcasts are still the future ?? Spotify toxicity ?? Building an ethical, creator-first business ?? Why "actual play" podcasts work so well And plenty more. I'll put the full episode in the comments.

"It is so much harder to teach someone who has no imagination how to have a creative idea than to teach a creative person to learn Excel." From the guest on tomorrow's episode of The Creator Spotlight Pod.

“This is also part of why I try to over-communicate with my audience and maybe why I spend more time than I should on Reddit newsletter forums. Because I want everybody to think about how the sausage is made. I want writers like us to take responsibility and think of themselves as part of this greater, cohesive internet. This is the union guy in me speaking. We gotta have some solidarity with each other.” A pleasure to speak with Matt Brown for the Creator Spotlight pod this week. Our conversation covered a lot, including: ???The full story of how Matt sold and bought back?Extra Points ???A thorough breakdown of how Matt’s subscription business works ???How to approach newsletter acquisitions as a buyer I'll link the full episode in the comments!

“For me, when you take on the label of creator, you're more saying that you're making content, obviously, and that content is being shared and owned by these platforms where you have no control over anything.” Profiled Alicia Kennedy in Friday's newsletter ???How to be a writer-as-writer, not a writer-as-creator ???Turning a Twitter following into a newsletter into a new type of publication ???The hardcover-book paid subscription model: $30/year or $10/month ?? Alicia shares plans for a new publication/education project Give it a read:

"Something is happening to the food writers: We’re losing our minds. This job requires knowledge of not just food and cooking, plus whatever one’s niche is that makes them desirable on the market, but also to be a photographer (not new) and now a videographer—perhaps with three cameras in various positions in order to ensure a cinematic result, when we go on to act as editors. Oh, and we should maybe know how to host a podcast and edit audio, for good measure." Alicia Kennedy in her 2022 essay, "On Selling a Lifestyle" Alicia came on the Creator Spotlight pod today and we talked media literacy, rejecting the creator label, her salon-style community, writing books vs. newsletters, horizontal media ecosystems, and more. Newsletter out tomorrow and I'll share the pod in the comments!

A creator is an entrepreneur. More specifically,?a professional-grade content creator is an entrepreneur whose business is built on digital media production and distribution. The problem is that not all creators understand themselves as entrepreneurs and those that don’t are disadvantaged. Wrote about creators and the religion of entrepreneurship in Friday's Creator Spotlight — my work aims to close that advantage gap. Will share the link in the comments!

“The value I place on being able to control my work and control my life is more valuable to me than the salary I would make working for a place like Polygon or any of these other platforms.” Today on The Creator Spotlight Pod, Jenna Stoeber, an independent video essayist, podcaster, and streamer, formerly an in-house video producer at Vox's Polygon. We spoke about her refusal to bend to algorithmic norms, tricking the algorithm to 100k+ views, what's unique about streaming over any other form of creator work, and plenty more. It's live on YouTube and all the podcast platforms —?I can share a link in the comments.

One year ago this week I published my first Creator Spotlight interview, with Henry Winslow. To mark the occasion I had him back on. And he's tripled his revenue since! Henry runs Tricycle Day, a newsletter about the maturing fields of psychedelics research, policy, and business. When we first spoke, he'd been running it for a year. Successfully — $77k revenue in his first year, 37k newsletter subscribers, 8k Instagram followers. But he wasn't making a living, pouring every dollar back into the business. One year later, two years into the project, he's tripled revenue and IS making a living from the business. I'll link the full episode in the comments.

I'm hiring an Assistant Editor. We hit 330k subscribers at Creator Spotlight this week. Next year, that number will be 1 million. We are building a lighthouse publication for the creator economy — the leading source of strategic writing and industry analysis, serving creators at all levels, as well as other media companies and the picks-and-shovels builders operating in this industry. I'm looking for an excellent writer and researcher to help increase our output, the quality and depth of every piece we publish, and grow the audience. Please apply at the link.

“Before I create something, I always have a way to monetize it first, which is, I think, the opposite of what a lot of creators do. And that's why I would describe myself as a founder." Today on The Creator Spotlight Pod we've got "The Newsletter Guy" himself, Matt McGarry. We discuss: ?? The differences between newsletter-focused vs. newsletter-first businesses ?? Matt says do NOT start a newsletter-only business ?? Lessons from running $10-20 million worth of newsletter growth ads ?? How he nails cross-channel content distribution This is a great episode. One of the most tactical to date. Find it in full on YouTube and all the pod platforms. I'll share it in the comments.