Local Newsletter For a Small City: $200K Last Year

📝 Ryan Sneddon writes Naptown Scoop, a local newsletter for Annapolis, Maryland…

The Scoop does soft news, meaning coverage is generally light and lifestyle-focused.

Per a recent profile, the newsletter earned about $200,000 in 2023 🤑

(Check out their homepage. Amazing that something so simple can be the front door to a $200k/year business.)

Ryan started his first newsletter just before the pandemic…

Ryan quit his job to start his own thing (he wasn’t sure what). He landed on The Daily Thread, which he now says was “a terrible newsletter. It was a terrible project, but it did teach me all the basics of how to start a newsletter.”

Over 10 months, Ryan spent “500 or 800 bucks” running The Daily Thread, which topped out around 800 subscribers, a 35% open rate, and $300 in revenue.

Even though it never took off, working on that newsletter for 10 months was a valuable learning experience 🧠

Ryan then moved in with his parents to Annapolis and started Naptown Scoop in August, 2020.

(Naptown is a nickname for Annapolis.)

🚀 Naptown Scoop quickly…

overtook The Daily Thread in terms of subscribers within a month, and [Ryan] sold that “terrible newsletter” to one of its subscribers for $800, going all-in on the Scoop.

In the 3.5 years since, Ryan has grown it to 18,000 subscribers and has been able to quit his day job.

A recent edition of the newsletter 👉 Come for the fun, take the cannoli

As you can see there, Ryan monetises via multiple ad slots.

😍 I love local newsletter businesses like this, and Ryan proves that it can work well even in a small city.

(Annapolis population = 40,000)

Could you do something similar for your city or region?

Other location-specific online businesses we’ve profiled 👇

• $300,000/Year: Love, London & Digital Coloring Books
• $1M/Year Sharing Local News in the Middle East
• $1 Million Hyperlocal Website (Frisco, Texas)
• $2500/Month Website + Newsletter (Mallorca, Spain)
• $12K/Month 1-Woman Tourist Website (San Francisco)
• Turning Her Passion Into $16K/Month (Rome, Italy)
• Started 3 Years Ago, Now Earns $50K/Month (Mexico)

💬 Ryan’s advice for starting a newsletter…

Mastering the basics is what makes you win. It’s just about not quitting. So many people say they’re going to do a newsletter, write three episodes, and then quit. 

If you commit to writing a newsletter, and you say you’re going to send it at this time on these days, and you just do exactly that, and you don’t miss an edition for three-and-a-half years — I’m living proof it can change your life.

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