Can a local newsletter be a six-figure business?

If done correctly, if you really go after it, a local newsletter is a six-figure business standalone. That means putting a lot of effort into sales.

What are real operators making?

Operator	Reported revenue
Many operators I work with	about $3,000 to $10,000 a month
A partner, after six months full time	about $11,000 a month
A college-town operator, under a year	about $17,000 a month
Another operator I interviewed	$20,000+ a month
A Canadian operator in a town of about 60,000	about $400,000 a year (reported)

Those are other people's numbers as they shared them. The Canadian operator runs a newsletter and Instagram with several content creators, so that's a team.

What separates the six-figure operators?

"The people putting effort in are making six figures. Nobody is putting in real effort into this, including me."

• They sell. Inbound alone rarely gets there. I pressed one new full-time operator on whether he'd personally sell, because inbound wouldn't hit his $5,000 to $6,000 monthly target.
• They have content-creator energy around them. Family or teammates who make content.
• They find early revenue fast. Dinner clubs and upmarket events like wine tastings are the quickest early money before sponsorships scale.

Is there a ceiling?

Market size sets one. In markets of 100,000 to 200,000 people you can grow a decent revenue, but probably not a million dollars. In a metro over a million, that's much more viable.

I'm fine with that. A boring, steady local media business can plausibly make $250,000 a year. It probably won't make $5 million. Excitement means highs and lows. Boring means lower highs, but also lower lows, and I'd pick that.

What if I don't want to sell?

Then use it differently. You can skip the sales grind and use the newsletter as a marketing tool for a real estate business, or to become the mayor of your town. Or pay a friend about 25% commission to talk to businesses for you. See can you run it as a side hustle.

There are so many ways to monetize this. A guy who runs one of those free local magazines mailed to houses, mostly ads, looked at me like, holy crap, when I walked him through it.