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  There are many ways for writers to earn a living with their skills. In Nigeria, many of them choose to become freelancers. Others land full-time jobs producing content for businesses. A smaller number try to succeed with authoring books. But not a lot of people think about how to make money from writing newsletters. It’s a niche that holds plenty of promise, but isn’t being explored enough.
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We aren’t talking about writing newsletters for companies (either as a full-time employee or a freelancer). What we’re referring to is starting your own newsletter and generating an income from it. Isn’t that appealing? If this idea has piqued your interest, you’ll do well to read on. Here, we’ll show you the steps you can take to launch and run a successful newsletter-based business in Nigeria.

Why Should You Consider Starting a Newsletter?

These are some reasons why having your newsletter is a great way to earn an income:
  • You have the freedom to write whatever you like, and potentially earn from it
  • Work with your schedule
  • Determine how much money you’ll receive for your work, without having to negotiate with a client or other parties
  • Contribute to positive change (for individuals, communities, or industries) with your writing (and get paid in the process)
  • Multiple ways to generate revenues through a newsletter
  • The possibility of building a larger business with the newsletter serving as just a starting point

Ways to Generate an Income from Newsletters

Here are several ways you could make money from your newsletter:
  • Subscription for extra newsletter content
  • Sell advert space to businesses that want to advertise in the newsletter
  • Sell your products or services through the content
  • Operate a consulting practice, with the newsletter serving as the referral source
  • Sell a newsletter course
  • Gateway to a paid membership community
A brief note about earning potential is in order here. The larger the number of people who receive your newsletters, the higher your revenue from the business will likely be. Assuming you’ve amassed 20,000 readers, and you sell them a product they might be interested in. If your conversion rate is 5% (which is common), you’ll have 1,000 people buy that product. Paid subscriptions may work for a business newsletter targeted at executives, which provides them with truly rare insights about how companies operating in Nigeria’s unique environment can achieve outsized profits. But a paid membership community model could be preferable for a newsletter about personal finance/investing.
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How to Build a Newsletter Business

Do these things to create a newsletter that earns you a decent, sustainable income:

Pick a Niche You Understand and Love

Some people just set out to write newsletters in “profitable niches”. While it’s important to investigate the earning potential of a niche, it shouldn’t be the only thing you’ll consider. Think about two things: first, so-called “profitable niches” tend to be saturated, so it may be harder to do well with them; also, the grind of producing content and building an audience will wear you out if you have little passion for what you’re writing about. It’s better to choose something you’re truly interested in, are knowledgeable about, and can write about even without being paid to do so.

Start Writing

Don’t wait until you have a perfect platform before you begin to write. That could take a long time anyway. The earlier you start, the sooner you’ll be able to begin earning. Produce drafts whenever you get the chance. Write down any ideas that come to you (whether they’re for long articles on Medium, short posts on X, or any other relevant thing). Some of these will be evergreen items; others will address specific situations, events, or phenomena in the present. Just write.

Build an Audience

The aim here is to position yourself as a voice in your space and attract a following. What constitutes an appropriate place to kick off depends on what you’ll be writing about and who your audience is. If you’re speaking primarily to business professionals, LinkedIn would be a good place to go. If you cover fashion or home décor, Instagram would be ideal. And if your domain is tech, posting on X may be fine. Whatever platform you choose, be active on it and stay consistent. Share interesting, informative, and engaging content, and respond to comments and posts by others.

Choose a Newsletter Platform

There are several newsletter platforms to choose from. If you’re just starting, Substack would be nice to use. It’s free, and allows you to write, set up your newsletter, and take payments from the same platform. But if you’d like more control over customization (branding and aesthetics, for instance), Beehiiv would be worth considering. While both these platforms collect payments using Stripe (which is currently unavailable in Nigeria), you can create links and buttons for payments using Paystack.

Leverage Your Audience

As you grow your audience across social media, you’ll be able to get more people to subscribe to your newsletter. People who find your briefer writing on platforms like X interesting may be willing to read your extended thoughts in your newsletters. You have a good chance of maintaining this flow of readership to your longer reads if your writing is top quality and delivers value to your audience.

Earn from Your Writing

When you have a large enough number of readers, you can proceed to monetize your newsletter. “Large enough” is relative. A good starting point may be 1,000 subscribers, but conversions at this stage would probably not cross double-digit figures. If your conversion rate is around 3%-5%, a subscriber base that’s 10,000 strong may yield between 300 and 500 paying readers. What they pay for is also up to you. As we said earlier, you have several paths to monetization. Choose one (or a few) that works best for your type of audience. Just make sure it’s something you can sustain—whether that’s a paid tier, products, or consultancy.
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Final Words

In this article, we’ve explored how to make money from writing newsletters. It’s a route that offers many rewards. Besides receiving an income, it’s also a means to establish yourself as a leading voice in your space. The opportunities that could arise from this are numerous; they make the idea of launching a newsletter even more attractive.
Did you find this article useful? Contact us: editor@connectnigeria.com
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This article was first published on 9th April 2025
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ikenna-nwachukwu

Ikenna Nwachukwu holds a bachelor's degree in Economics from the University of Nigeria, Nsukka. He loves to look at the world through multiple lenses- economic, political, religious and philosophical- and to write about what he observes in a witty, yet reflective style.

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