All posts tagged: Substack

Newsletter tips for publishers from the Edinburgh Minute

Newsletter tips for publishers from the Edinburgh Minute

Published by Sam Flores

Michael MacLeod. Picture: Andrew Paterson Edinburgh Minute founder Michael MacLeod has shared his newsletter tips for publishers. The Edinburgh Minute was launched in 2023 on Substack and later moved to Ghost in 2025 as the newsletter gained more revenue through paying subscribers. In May 2024, MacLeod set up the London-based iteration, The London Minute, which remains on Substack. At £45 a year, the newsletter includes links to around ten news stories from other organisations with additional context and summaries also provided. The ad-free newsletter is sent every weekday and has inspired imitators around the world, MacLeod told Press Gazette, including: The Glasgow Wrap, The Belfast Drop, The Bath Bee, The Melbourne Snap and two newsletters based in Tokyo. While paid subscribers details are not shared, the Minute emails have doubled free subscribers every year since launch to 30,000 today. MacLeod shared his insights for publishers on how to produce an effective daily newsletter. How to identify a content gap for your newsletter “The Minute newsletter is free daily newsletter letter that arrives at 7am every …

Mehdi Hasan’s Zeteo launches in UK targeting ‘dissatisfied’ audiences

Mehdi Hasan’s Zeteo launches in UK targeting ‘dissatisfied’ audiences

Published by Sam Flores

Mehdi Hasan, the former MSNBC host who is now launching a Substack-based publication called Zeteo. Picture: Mehdi Hasan Former MSNBC host Mehdi Hasan is launching his left-of-centre news company in the UK after surpassing 50,000 paid subscribers in the US. The Substack-based newsbrand launched in the US in April 2024 with the promise of “hard-hitting” interviews, “unfiltered” news and “bold” opinion via a newsletter, website, podcasts and Youtube videos. It has more than 650,000 subscribers (up from 94,000 in March 2024), with between 50,000 to 100,000 of these paid, Hasan told Press Gazette. Zeteo UK will produce “semi-regular” content and grow the team before its official launch, when it will start to publish daily, in September. Hasan said the launch is driven by a “gap in the market” among “super dissatisfied” audiences in the UK. “People are so fed up with the media,” said Hasan, citing left-wing supporters, Green voters, Muslims, and those interested in foreign policy. He added: “The UK market is a market that is less invested in subscriptions than the US market, …

At the Substack House, Media Is Still Fun

At the Substack House, Media Is Still Fun

Published by Jenni Sidey

“Have you seen the indoor pool?” Matt Starr asks. The founder of Dream Baby Press, Starr made a name for himself via Perverted Book Club, a New York City literary reading series held at amusing, lowbrow venues like a three-story Burger King, a train-station Sbarro, and the cruising spot Blue Door Video. But Starr is also a key member of the Substack elite, the man behind one of the most popular newsletters on the publishing platform, which positions itself as the future of media. And today, Starr is emceeing not at a fast food joint or a sex den, but at 214 Lafayette Street, a swanky SoHo townhouse that has been done up in bright-orange, Back to the Future-inspired decor, and temporarily dubbed “The Substack House.” The century-old five-floor building has undergone several reincarnations, explains Starr, who also works for Substack as a creative strategist and events lead. In the ’80s, art dealer Max Protech used the building as a gallery, and later it became a popular site for video productions like Beyoncé’s “Halo.” The …

Rob Shuter Wants His Gossipy Substack to Be the National Enquirer of Our Era

Rob Shuter Wants His Gossipy Substack to Be the National Enquirer of Our Era

Published by Sam Flores

The platform, he said with visible satisfaction, “should be horrified that I’m going to be successful.” (“Ultimately, people decide what resonates by subscribing to those they want to hear from, and Rob has clearly found an audience!” a Substack representative told me. “He’s currently #43 Rising in Culture, and hundreds of people pay for his Substack, which speaks to the connection he’s built with his community.”) Despite the boasts, Shuter has an air of good cheer that makes him hard to resent. “You could write a gossip column about you or me,” his friend Elvis Duran, the longtime Z100 radio host, said, “and you could make it nice or mean, and he always makes it nice.” On this point, opinions may vary—it depends what one makes of a headline like “EXCLUSIVE: MEGHAN MARKLE’S NEW ASTROLOGY OBSESSION IS NOW RUNNING HER LIFE.” “Publicists are still not sure what to do with Substack,” Shuter said, but he has admittedly run afoul of some of them with his coverage. One is Matthew Hiltzik, CEO of communications firm Hiltzik …

The Ankler ditches Substack to fly solo

The Ankler ditches Substack to fly solo

Published by Sam Flores

One of the biggest publishers on Substack – The Ankler – has ditched the newsletter-focused tech platform to run on its own in-house tech infrastructure. The Hollywood-based B2B brand, which covers the entertainment industry, has around 150,000 paid subscribers and around $10m per year in annual revenue. Substack takes a 10% share of publisher subscriptions sales, which looks like a good deal for smaller titles but is more expensive for larger ones. The simplicity of Substack, both in terms of front-end functionality and data available at the back end, also starts as a benefit for creators getting started but can hinder titles as they become more sophisticated. The Substack ‘network effect’ helps new titles grow but becomes less important once they have reached critical mass. Ankler chief executive Janice Min and editorial director Richard Rushfield (also co-founders) set out the changes in a letter to subscribers. They explained that Ankler Media has grown from a single email newsletter to a multi-platform operation with 18 full-time staff. It now publishes 15 newsletters, as well as podcasts, …

March Google core update brings modest gains for news websites

March Google core update brings modest gains for news websites

Published by Sam Flores

Google search results for ‘Strait of Hormuz’ search including The Guardian, The Independent and ITV News on 10 April 2026 The Guardian, Money Saving Expert, Substack and The New York Times appear to have been the biggest winners from Google’s latest core update, according to new Sistrix data. But overall there was “little impact” on news websites, SEO consultant Barry Adams told Press Gazette. Google described the rollout as “a regular update designed to better surface relevant, satisfying content for searchers from all types of sites”, the standard wording for its core algorithm updates when there is not a specific behaviour being targeted. It rolled out between 27 March and 8 April, following quickly behind a separate update designed to target spam sites. Sistrix has now shared data showing how the search visibility index scores of major UK and US news websites changed during that period. In the UK, The Guardian saw the greatest absolute visibility gain of 9.014 points, rising to 228.076 – already by far the highest visibility score for a newsbrand. The …

Daily Beast makes subscriptions ‘core focus’ of revenue growth

Daily Beast makes subscriptions ‘core focus’ of revenue growth

Published by Sam Flores

Daily Beast subscription sign-up page The Daily Beast saw double-digit percentage growth in subscribers in 2025 after starting to treat subscriptions as a “core growth engine”. Paying subscribers to the core Daily Beast website/app surpassed 100,000 in January. Daily Beast president and chief operating officer Keith Bonnici told Press Gazette the brand saw double-digit year-on-year growth, describing subscriptions as a “meaningful revenue influencer” for the business. “We’re investing in it so that should actually be something that continues to drive our growth.” The Daily Beast reported an annual profit for the first time in its 17-year history in 2025. It has launched separate paid offerings on Substack and Youtube, hoping to reach different audience bases. Four Substack newsletters collectively have thousands of paying subscribers and the Youtube channel has a further few thousand. [Read more: AI is ‘direct contributor’ to increase profitability at The Daily Beast] The newsbrand began to ramp up subscriptions marketing late last year after hiring Reema Rao, who had been leading subscriptions growth at the Wall Street Journal and previously helped …

Hailee Steinfeld uses Substack to announce birth of first baby with husband Josh Allen

Hailee Steinfeld uses Substack to announce birth of first baby with husband Josh Allen

Published by Daniella Wilson

Stay ahead of the curve with our weekly guide to the latest trends, fashion, relationships and more Stay ahead of the curve with our weekly guide to the latest trends, fashion, relationships and more Stay ahead of the curve with our weekly guide to the latest trends, fashion, relationships and more Hailee Steinfeld and Josh Allen have welcomed their first child. The couple announced the birth of their daughter Thursday via Steinfeld’s Substack newsletter Beau Society. “Our baby girl has arrived!!” they wrote in the post. “We’re feeling incredibly grateful and blessed and savouring these early moments. Thank you so much for the love and well wishes.” The note is signed “Love, Hailee and Josh.” The birth comes after the Sinners actor, 29, made a pregnant red carpet appearance at the 2026 Golden Globes in January, which she attended alone as her Buffalo Bills star husband took on the Jacksonville Jaguars. Steinfeld and Allen, both 29, mostly kept the pregnancy private, with the baby’s gender just being revealed upon her birth. However, the “Starving” singer …

Guardian’s first Substack experiment is republishing food newsletter

Guardian’s first Substack experiment is republishing food newsletter

Published by Sam Flores

The page on The Guardian’s website for the Feast newsletter The Guardian has decided to experiment with Substack by recreating its weekly food newsletter Feast on the platform. The Substack play is part of Project Berger, the multi-year transformation plan designed to make The Guardian “more visual, digital and experimental” as first outlined by editor-in-chief Katharine Viner to Press Gazette in October. Feast has more than 100,000 subscribers and open rates of almost 70%, according to The Guardian. It is one of almost 60 newsletters at The Guardian following a pivot over the past four years away from link-led automated dispatches towards authored emails with more original reporting and analysis. In total The Guardian reports having more than five million unique newsletters subscribers. By cross-publishing Feast on Substack, Feast can make use of social media style features on Substack like the Notes feed. Readers can now sign up for the Substack version here. Substack also has recommendation features that mean, for example, food publishers can recommend each other to their subscribers. Some Guardian food writers, …

Hyperlocal newsletters find revenue covering Kent coastal towns

Hyperlocal newsletters find revenue covering Kent coastal towns

Published by Sam Flores

Don’t Miss Media Group home pages, and founder Georgina Wilson-Powell (top right). A local newsletter business covering UK coastal towns is on track to hit £85,000 in annual revenue from its first location in under two years. Don’t Miss Margate was launched in May 2024 by former magazine editor Georgina Wilson-Powell, who expects the business to support a full market-rate salary within the next year. The newsletter launched under the Don’t Miss Media brand, later renamed Don’t Miss Media Group (DMMG) as it expanded to Ramsgate in September 2025. A third edition is set to launch in Broadstairs in April, with plans to scale further across the coast. Wilson-Powell, who has spent 20 years in journalism, previously held editorial roles at Time Out, BBC Good Food and Morrisons magazine. She also founded sustainable living magazine Pebble, which was sold after growth stalled during the pandemic. The idea for the newsletter came after she spotted a gap in the market, with “people missing events, not knowing what’s on” and relying on Instagram. “We’ve lost that kind …