Week 17: My first Beehiiv Boost

I logged on this morning, not really sure what I was going to write about in today’s email. It’s not that I haven’t been doing anything this week, just that there is nothing that particularly stands out.

And then, as if the newsletter gods were shining down on me, I noticed an email from Beehiiv, letting me know I’d had my first Boost invite.

What does this mean? It means another publication has offered to pay me a commission if I help them get new subscribers by promoting their newsletter.

So here is the newsletter. Take a look, and if it’s of interest, hit the subscribe button. If not, come back and finish reading this update.

I signed up for the paid version of Beehiiv last week, and the Boost feature is one of the features I now have access to.

I haven’t really had a chance to play around with Beehiiv since upgrading, as I’ve been busy with other things. But since they have now got me started with the boosts, I thought it would make a good subject for today’s update.

The other thing that I have access to since upgrading is the Beehiiv Slack community. I didn’t know about this (or maybe I did but hadn’t given it much thought). But as soon as my payment went through, I got the invite. It’s full of threads with advice, questions, guides and general newsletter chat.

I haven’t interacted much, but I have posted in the intro thread where you are encouraged to introduce your newsletter.

I actually think the community is a great idea - it feels like you get something for your money straight away. It’s nice to have a place where you can ask a quick question and interact with other Beehiiv users (as well as Beehiiv employees).

But back to Boosts.

What are Beehiiv Boosts?

Boosts are one of the ways you can make money with Beehiiv by “boosting” other newsletters. Newsletters available to boost offer a small commission fee for genuine subscribers. They are listed on the boosts page (and you can filter by category, language, size and so on).

You can apply to the newsletter to become a booster (not sure if booster is what they refer to it as - I might have just made that up😂).

Or, as it turns out, some newsletters will invite you (which is what happened to me this morning.

If you decide to boost a newsletter, you can share the link on your socials and in your emails, and you can also add recommendations to your sign-up flow.

When you turn the recommendations page on, people who subscribe to your newsletter will get a pop-up after they subscribe, asking if they’d like to subscribe to your recommended newsletters.

I only have the one recommendation so far (the one that invited me). I imagine some people apply to any that pay just to try and make as much money as possible. I want to be more selective and only recommend newsletters that I think will be relevant (and good quality).

I didn’t read all of the Ecom Advertisers newsletters, but I did give their site a quick scan and read a couple of their latest posts. It looks as though they provide some useful info and insights so I’ve accepted the invite.

I have, however, tested the link I added earlier, and it doesn’t look like it is working exactly as it should. That might be because it somehow recognises that it’s me using it so I’m going to leave it in. But I would be interested to know what happens when you click it - do you get a 404 page with all their posts listed below?

If so, I wonder if this will still record subs that sign up directly from my link. Who knows. It’s an experiment, so let’s find out.

Anyway, that’s pretty much what I know about boosts so far. I’m going to have a browse through some of the newsletters and apply to any I think will be a good fit. Then we’ll see whether I make any pennies from it.

Weekly Progress Report

So what have I been up to this week? Well, I took Monday and Tuesday off to spend time with my mum, so not an awful lot on those two days. I pre-wrote my Monday TFF newsletter last week, and then I added a post as usual on Wednesday.

But to say I’ve only been working half the week, I feel like I’ve been pretty busy.

I have been trying to interact more on Substack. As is the case with social media, you attract more followers if you engage more with other users. I’ve been trying to post more notes and engage with other people’s content. Maybe it’s paying off because I had a new sign-up for my next New Brew Networking event.

I’ve also been trying to use Reddit more, and I’ve updated my profile to include links to all my newsletters. I did get into a Reddit conversation with someone yesterday who was asking about starting a Substack. Doesn’t look like they subscribed to my newsletter, but they did say they checked out the links.

Last night, I made a start on a new article about which of the three platforms is best - I’m comparing the features and giving my feedback on the first four months. I will do updated versions as the year goes on, but I felt like I needed to start pulling my findings together a bit. I’m hoping to finish this before next week’s update, so I’ll share the link then.

I’ve also been importing my WWL stories to Medium, and last week, I decided to start adding my TFF posts as well. I wasn’t expecting to make any money from doing this as they aren’t original Medium stories, but I thought it might help me attract a few new subscribers.

Randomly, one of my posts has been boosted by Medium (which means they will show it to more people). My last boosted post earned me around £35, so if I get anywhere near that with this one, it’ll be a nice little bonus I wasn’t expecting.

Considering my issues with Medium were the inspiration for this entire experiment, it would be ironic if it turned out to be Medium that made me the most money over the year.

Anyway, that’s what I’ve been up to this week (apart from managing to temporarily delete all my course content from my website and having a meltdown before managing to get my web host to restore it all).

As always, if you have any questions or comments, please do feel free to email me. I read and respond to all emails personally.

And if you’d like to join my next co-working event, it’s on May 15th, and you can sign up here.

P.S If you like my content and would like to show your support, you can buy me a beer here.