Online Writing Club Show

About Online Writing Club Show

Get inspired to start, grow, monetize, and market your online writing business, one powerful episode at a time. Every week the Substack bestselling author and award-winning brand manager Kristina God chats with the most inspiring writers and authors. This show is your chance to take inspir-ACTION and watch your online writing change your life. We celebrate small and big successes, from self-published wordaholics to NY-Times bestselling authors. Tune in, get inspired and paid to be you. It's time to join a community of 19,000+ like-minded writers exploring how to have fun, be seen and get read in a noisy online world. www.onlinewritingclub.com (https://www.onlinewritingclub.com?utm_medium=podcast)

Publisher

Get paid to be you!

Category

business · education

Language

en

Explicit

No

First episode

4 Aug 2024

Latest episode

6 Oct 2026

Latest episodes

61 episodes in the feed.

1. 

   6 Oct 2026

   From Zero to 1,000 Paid Subscribers | w/ Orange Badge Bestseller Yana

   Today’s podcast guest is my long-term online friend and Online Writing Club member Yana G.Y. (https://substack.com/profile/136431837-yana-gy) , and she has done what most newsletter writers only dream about. She built a business of more than 1,000 paying subscribers on the side of a demanding full-time job at a bank! Yana didn’t wait for the perfect moment. She didn’t quit her job. She didn’t go viral on social media. She simply built a system and kept showing up. And she just earned her orange Bestseller badge, which we want to celebrate in today’s podcast episode. Please keep in mind: some keep telling me:” Kristina, it’s one of the toughest years for online writers and entrepreneus.” However, money is still moving, and the dollars are rolling in the Substack accounts of people who have decided to talk about it, ask for it and expect it. Oh and we’ve got a surprise for you to really take ACTION and hit your 2026 goals together! Want to make money with your Substack? Only 3 days left to grab your seat for $47 We’re hosting a masterclass together on Friday, October 9. Come learn how she did it, my tips and insights, and how you can get paid to be you. It’s a no-brainer. For only $47 you can join our exclusive circle! Money is everywhere. It’s not scarce, even when it feels like it. Who’s Yana G.Y.? Why should I care, Kristina?, you ask. Yana has spent 15+ years in telecom and banking, building subscription products that bring in billions in annual recurring revenue. Today she’s a director at a bank and she writes Yana G.Y. (https://substack.com/profile/136431837-yana-gy) She took everything she knows about subscriptions at work and applied it to her newsletter. In about two years: * 20,000+ subscribers * 1,000+ paid members and the orange Bestseller badge * $50K+ in annual recurring revenue, from paid subscriptions alone * Her first $30,000 month this August * All in about 2 hours a day, next to her 9-to-5 So how did she do it? Here are the five things Yana is doing that you can steal for your own Substack and hopefully stop you from telling me: * I don’t have a clue what to offer paid subscribers. * People won’t pay that amount of money. * I’ll wait until I’ll feel ready to go paid. * Who am I to charge that much? * Money isn’t everything. Let’s hear from Yana now who was dreaming of doing something like this for a looooooooooooooong time: 1. She treats her newsletter like a product Yana runs Unplugged like the subscription products she builds at work: a clear offer, a value ladder, and numbers she actually tracks. And that’s exactly what the most successful newsletters do. They give their publication one clear focus from day #1. 2. She lets automations do the selling About half of Yana’s paid subscribers come in through automations. Often while she’s sitting in meetings at her day job. Instead of pitching every single day, she built systems that turn free readers into paying members in the background. It’s a proven play: one large newsletter brought in more than 311,000 subscribers through lead magnet automation alone. 3. She grows without other social media channels Yes, you read that right. Yana doesn’t post all day. She grows with data, automations, and paid ads to Substack. And honestly? That’s a smart bet right now. 68% of Google searches now end without a click. AI tools read your work but send back only a tiny fraction of visitors. The email list is the one audience no algorithm can take away from you. Want to earn money on Substack with paid subscriptions and beyond? Yana and I invite you to join our Monetization Masterclass on Friday, October 9. She’ll show her automations and ads live on screen. Join the fun! It’s a no-brainer. For only $47 you can join and we’ll share ALL our insights! 4. She runs focused launch campaigns In August, Yana ran one campaign that added 202 paid subscribers in 19 days. That’s the launch that got her the orange badge. Learn more on the podcast and our LIVE masterclass on Friday. 5. She built it on the side of a full-time job The secret is having a system in place that’s soooooooooo Yana. Newsletters actually get stronger over time: median open rates are about 40%. So if your numbers feel flat right now, that’s normal. Most people quit right before it starts working. Join our Monetization Masterclass this Friday On Friday, October 9, Yana and I open up our two Substack businesses, live on Zoom. What we sell, how we package it, how we launch, and the real numbers on screen. * When: Friday, October 9, 11am New York / 5pm Berlin / 6pm Sofia * What: 60 minutes inside our backends, plus 30 minutes of live Q&A * Can’t make it live? The recording and slides are included * Price: Only $47 for your live seat (it goes up to $97 after October 15) Overthinking money is basically the whole problem we’re here to fix. Now we want to hear from you * Have you ever thought “I don’t have time to build a paid newsletter”? * What would change if you only had two hours a day? * Which of Yana’s five moves are you trying first? * Any Qs for the LIVE masterclass on Friday? GET A FEATURED SPOTLIGHT IN A NOTE BONUS ⭐⭐⭐Join the Masterclass on Friday (https://monetization.yana-g-y.com/), tell us in the comments and I’m happy to feature you in a standalone note to my about 40,000 followers.⭐⭐⭐ This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.onlinewritingclub.com/subscribe (https://www.onlinewritingclub.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_2)

2. 

   4 Oct 2026

   From Zero to $1 Million on YouTube Cooking Budget Dinners | Now Cookbook Author Jen Chapin Is Starting Over on Substack

   ▶️ Prefer to listen? Hit Listen. This conversation is worth your ears. Here’s the thing about doubters: sometimes they live in your own family. When today’s podcast guest Jen Chapin started posting videos about what she packed her kids for lunch and what she bought at the grocery store, someone in her family told her nobody would ever watch videos about groceries. Nobody. Then Jen set up her camera, filmed what she was already doing anyway, recorded a voiceover… and that video crossed one million views. “And they were obviously very wrong about that.” I love this sentence so much because every single one of us has heard some version of “nobody is going to read that.” Nobody is going to buy that. Nobody cares. Jen is the living proof that somebody always cares. You just have to keep showing up long enough for them to find you. Want to make money with your Substack? 4 days left to grab your seat for $47 Long-term Online Writing Club member Yana G.Y. (https://substack.com/profile/136431837-yana-gy) . just earned her orange badge. That means 1,000 (!) paid subscribers, and counting. We’re hosting a masterclass together on Friday, October 9. Come learn how she did it, my tips and insights, and how you can get paid to be you. https://monetization.yana-g-y.com/ (https://monetization.yana-g-y.com/) It’s a no-brainer. For only $47 you can join our exclusive circle! Who’s Jen Chapin? Why should I care, Kristina?, you ask. Jen is a nurse. For 20 years. She lives in a small town in the Midwest, she’s married, and she has two teenagers, 14 and 17. And she has always worked full-time. Around 2017/2018 she saw a gap on YouTube: there were barely any full-time working moms making home and cooking content. So she thought: well, I’ll just create it myself. Since then: * 140,000 subscribers on YouTube * 1,000 videos, all pre-recorded and edited * A cookbook, The Essential Pantry Cookbook * A physical meal planner she makes herself in her office (with her printer and binder plus laminating machine, “because I am crazy. And I say I'm good crazy”) * And… $1 million made on YouTube That’s how this whole conversation started. A few weeks back, on Notes, Jen casually mentioned the million. ONE MILLION. And her reaction? “It’s funny because it sounds impressive. But then when you divide it by like seven or eight years, it’s actually not that impressive.” And now she’s here on Substack with the Dinner Done Club. Why, if YouTube works so well? Because YouTube never felt like a community. Even YouTube memberships felt like a one-way conversation: people watching extra videos. Jen wanted a place to talk back and forth, and she always had this dream of a membership with budget meal plans. Want to earn money on Substack with paid subscriptions and beyond? Yana and I invite you to join our Monetizazion Masterclass on Friday, October 9. Join the fun! It’s a no-brainer. For only $47 you can join! “Nobody will see your first 20 videos anyway” Jen said something that might take so much pressure off you: “I don’t know that there’s one successful YouTuber that I’ve met that wasn’t afraid to start filming themselves.” Her golf comparison: you don’t go golfing once, play badly, get mad and never touch a club again. But that’s exactly what we do with YouTube and social media. Jen’s reality check: nobody will probably see your first 15 to 20 videos anyway. The algorithm needs time to learn what you’re about and who to send you to. 💡 TIP: Nervous on camera? Jen started by filming her cooking and adding a voiceover afterwards. And if you teach classes or give presentations at work… “you already know how to talk on video. You just don’t know it yet.” What a 20-minute video really costs “YouTube is very misleading. You see a 20-minute video on YouTube, right? And it probably took six to seven hours of total work to create that content.” Here’s Jen’s workflow: * Pick a theme. Cooking for two for X dollars. Five family dinners for less than $100. * Plan the grocery list around prices so she stays on budget. * Shop. In-store or delivery. People love the in-store videos, but Jen films discreetly, never other people, no spectacle. * Film over five to seven days, often dinners she’s cooking for her family anyway. * Edit for two to three hours, faster now with AI tools. Let’s talk money: where the $1 million came from I asked Jen straight out how the million splits. Her answer: roughly 50/50, maybe 60% sponsorships, 40% ad revenue. Why are her AdSense rates so high? Her audience is 92% women over 45. Advertisers love that audience: women make a lot of the financial decisions at home, and people over 45 tend to have more money to spend. 💡 TIP: Your niche matters for ad revenue. But so does who is watching. Know your demographics. “I don’t work for free” A few weeks ago, someone left an angry comment because Jen had Amazon affiliate links in her video description for a salad spinner. Her reply: “I don’t work for free, and I don’t think any woman should work for free. And I think women especially, people feel entitled to our free labor, and I reject that.” 140k subscribers doesn’t mean easy mode on Substack If you’re thinking “oh, Jen has a huge audience, Substack must be a walk in the park for her”… nope. “It’s not a guarantee that all of my subscribers are going to come with me.” Translating a video-first audience into readers is hard. Platform intent matters: people on YouTube want to watch, people on Pinterest want to scroll. She still has to show the value and invite people over. Yes, she has an unfair advantage but she earned it with years of sweat. At the time of our live, Jen was at 54 paid subscribers, aiming for the Bestseller badge (100 paid). The gap she’s walking into The category Food & Drink on Substack is full of beautiful, gourmet, Hamptons-summer energy. Jen is very much not that, and proud of it. “I live in a small town and I have limited access to, you know, fancier ingredients. And I think there is a lot of us like that in America.” Normal family home cooking, on a budget. She’s also collaborating already on Substack and on YouTube. And lives? Not really her thing. Live cooking has too much natural downtime, and her AdSense rates make YouTube the smarter home for her videos. Her Substack is for the community and the paywall. Want to film your first video today? Start here I asked Jen: smartphone in hand, some daylight, a few notes (she doesn’t use scripts, they make her sound robotic, just bullet points). Where do I start? * Research what already works. Which videos in your niche get views? Which titles and thumbnails? * Check AnswerThePublic by Neil Patel to see what people actually search for in your niche. (We used it back at Edelman, too. Highly recommend.) * Film one practice video. Edit it. Tell yourself you don’t even have to post it. Hearing your own voice and seeing your face is uncomfortable at first. You get desensitized. * Package it as a solution. YouTube is search-based. Title and thumbnail should tell people exactly which problem you solve. * Be consistent and authentic. Upload on a steady cadence. Be yourself. Solve your viewers’ problems. “Everybody that starts on YouTube starts with zero subscribers. So we all start from the same place.” On Friday in our Live Meetup we talked about going live on Substack and the Substack Recordgin Studio for on-demand videos. If you missed the lives, you find the recordings in the Trainings section in the video vault for paid members, Now I want to hear from you * Have you ever been told “nobody will watch/read that”? What happened next? * Video, writing, both? How are you building your flywheel? Oh, and if you’re feeling extra loving, I would be really grateful if you left me a review over on Spotify or Apple. Indies, share this with a mom, a nurse, or anyone who’s been told their idea is “boring.” Every like and restack ♻️ helps our ideas travel farther and keeps the light on in this lovely little corner of culture on the internet streets. Grab your ticket for $47 only to join this week’s masterclass with orange badge bestseller Yana! We’re both doing Substack part-time. We’re both earning a good amount of money $ with Substack per month and year. We want to show you how you can do it too as we were also in your shoes. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.onlinewritingclub.com/subscribe (https://www.onlinewritingclub.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_2)

3. 

   2 Oct 2026

   The Ultimate Guide to Going Live on Substack

   This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.onlinewritingclub.com (https://www.onlinewritingclub.com?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_7) Going live on Substack is the fastest way for readers to really get to know you. On a Live they hear your voice, see your smile, and ask you questions in real time. And you don’t need a studio, a shiny mic, or any tech skills or headaches. Most of us never press the button because we think it’s complicated but it’s not. At my very first Live, I expected nobody. More than 80 people joined. When Ayodeji’s Substack (https://open.substack.com/pub/buildawritingbusiness) and I went live last week, 29 people were already in the room after only a few seconds. Here’s your step-by-step guide, from “I’m nervous” to “I did it, Kristina” * Before: the setup takes 2 minutes * During: the first two minutes and the chat * After: Substack does the editing for you In our weekly Live I showed you livestreaming, click by click: * where Live video is in your dashboard * the only requirement you need to go live * why your Wi-Fi matters more than your mic or camera * how to pick the audience: everyone, all subscribers, or paid only * why you should schedule your Live so people get an RSVP * how to invite a co-host, even if they’re not on Substack yet * the 15-minute rule and the 2-minute rule * what to do with your recording, thumbnail, and clips afterwards Invest in yourself! Join the Club + Substack for Beginners Group This week: FRIDAY, 2 pm Berlin · 1 pm UK · 8 am ET · 5 am PT Topic: Substack’s NEW Recording Studio We’ll cover: * where to find the NEW Recording Studio * how to get into the studio and record yourself * how to invite a guest and co-host a show * how to share your screen * how to add your branding to the recording * how to do voice-overs * how to go “faceless” if you’d rather not be on camera * how to promote your recording * how to share clips and create a video post * 3 modes to pick from * tips and tricks from my recordings * how to monetize on-demand videos BONUS: Frankfurt Book Fair BTS, booth parties, meeting Substackers, Substack insiders and more Grab your FRANKFURT BOOK FAIR offer! * Link behind the paywall, in the comments and in the paid chat. Please upgrade via your computer! * Need 1:1 support, just upgrade to Founding member (BEYOND member) or book a session here. (https://courses.onlinewritingclub.com/purchase?product_id=6391588) Can’t make it live? Come anyway. Every session is recorded. 🔗 Grab the Zoom link below the paywall 👇🏻

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