Dear Mad Editor,
I enjoy reading your blog. You seem to know a lot about publishing, so I thought you might be able to help. I been thinking about publishing a newsletter (a regular printed newsletter with paid subscriptions). I’ve heard that you can make good money from newsletters. I though a good topic for my newsletter would be stocks and stock trading. Do you think this is a good idea?
Newbie Newsletter Publisher
Dear Newbie Newsletter Publisher,
The short answer is that, yes, it’s probably a good idea for a newsletter. The long answer is more complicated.
See, I got myself involved with stock trading. It was about ten years ago. I had a little money to invest so I opened an account with an online broker. I won’t say I lost my shirt, but I lost more than I could afford to lose. I made bad decisions, investing in a lot of tech stocks just before the Internet bubble burst. I didn’t know anything about online trading, or stock trading in general. I’m the last person who should be publishing anything related to investing.
My point is this: what do you know about stocks? Because, while newsletters can sometimes be profitable (I know one guy who sold his newsletter for $11 million), the topic of the newsletter has to fill a need and have good, well-researched information that’s also well-written. If not, you are probably not going to do very well. If your newsletter is about stocks and trading, then even if you are not an expert, you still have to be savvy enough to work with writers who are and to know the difference. Also, you have to realize that there are probably lots of newsletters out there on the subject, already established (not to mention blogs and other resources online).
My advice to you is don’t publish a newsletter just because someone told you it’s profitable. Anything can be profitable under the right set of circumstances. Blogs can be profitable too sometimes. Mostly, they are not and neither are many newsletters. Your best chance is to publish something on a topic you are passionate about — something you know a lot about.
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