How to Make $5,000.00/Month With a Small Audience (As a Writer)

Here's the playbook that worked for me

I've been monetizing small audiences for over a decade.

And here's what I can tell you: 95% of your followers will never buy anything from you.

They’ll double-tap, scroll on, and forget your name tomorrow.

But there's still a way to make serious money – even with a small audience.

Here’s the playbook:

This medium is where money flows

Email is how you make money online.

Not social media. Not views. Not likes.

But cold email addresses.

Everybody says build an email list. Few actually do it right.

They keep chasing the viral post. The spike. The dopamine hit. All while sending their best ideas into a feed they don’t control. Occasionally, they'll send out an email or two with "free value."

That's why I like Substack.

Building a list is baked into the platform. You write, people subscribe. Medium’s not bad either—they let you drop links without punishing your reach.

Compare that to Facebook or X, where adding a link is like committing a crime. You’re throttled. Shadow-banned. Practically erased. To hell with these stupid platforms.

The best way to get people onto your list is to give them a reason to subscribe.

“Get my newsletter” sounds so 1999.

Nobody wants more emails. But they do want solutions. Fast ones. Simple ones. Specific ones. That’s where the lead magnet comes in.

Like:

• A short template

• A punchy checklist

• A quick-start guide

Think aspirin, not a 12-week bootcamp. One easy-to-swallow painkiller for one sharp pain.

Don't be a math donkey

If the math doesn’t work, the strategy doesn’t matter.

You can write daily. Build a following. Craft perfect headlines. But if your business model is broken, none of it pays. You’re not a TikTok influencer chasing clicks. You’re a writer trying to build a business.

That’s a whole different ball game.

Most people get sucked into low-ticket nonsense. “I’ll just charge $8 a month and stack up subscribers.” Sure. Let me know when you hit 5,000 paying members.

I'll wait.

Only 1–3% of your email subscribers buy. If you’ve got 1,000 subscribers, that means 10–30 buyers. Now do the math. If you’re charging $8, that’s $80 to $240 a month. Total. Before taxes. That doesn’t even cover your coffee.

The numbers aren’t broken. Your model is.

You can’t monetize like the big creators/influencers. They make money on reach:

• Sponsors,

• ads,

• brand deals

Their product is attention. Yours isn’t.

You need fewer buyers spending more. That’s it.

A $200 offer to 20 people? That’s $4,000.

Add a coaching call or a service on top and you’re already past $5K.

Stop selling cheap nonsense.

Stop shitting your pants over hitting "send"

The way to make money is to make offers by email.

But that won't happen if every time you hit "send" feels like launching a missile.

For most people, it does. Full panic. Sweaty palms. Draft saved, never sent. They treat their email list like it’s made of explosives.

That fear will keep you broke.

You don’t make money by popping in once a week with “an update.” You make money by showing up. Frequently. Casually. Like a regular in their inbox. Not some stranger asking for a favor.

I write daily emails for two reasons:

1- I love it
2- It works.

Every email builds familiarity. Familiarity builds trust. And trust? That’s what generates income.

You don’t have to write daily. But aim for at least 2–3 times a week. Otherwise people forget you. They unsubscribe. Or worse—stay subscribed, drag you into the promo tab, and ignore you.

Now you might be asking: But I'll annoy people.

That's a losing mindset.

Learn to write short, entertaining emails. It does not require you to have genius ideas all the time. It’s about being present. Being human. Being useful. Over and over.

When I started showing up more, something weird happened: people replied. They said things like “This made my day” or “This is exactly what I needed.” That’s how relationships form.

That’s how sales happen: After the rapport, NOT before.

Write more often so people remember who the heck you are.

Stop giving away the farm

People love your free stuff—until they ghost you when you sell.

That’s what happens when you train your audience to expect FREE STUFF.

Sending useful emails is great. But if you never mention an offer, you’re just running a charity. You’re teaching people that your content is free, always free, and oh—here’s another freebie.

You need to rewire that dynamic.

I don’t wait for a “launch.” I sell every day. Casually. Inside the same content you’re already reading. A link here. A mention there. Nothing pushy.

Just: “Hey, if this makes sense, here’s where you can go deeper.”

And if you’ve got nothing to sell? Good. Start with coaching. Easiest offer you can make. You don’t need a funnel. You don’t need a team. You just need a quick sales page, a TidyCal link, and a Stripe account.

I’ve sold coaching to people off a two-line PS. No pitch. No sales page. Just context + timing.

Because when you’ve been showing up consistently, you don’t need fireworks. You need an offer. One that makes sense based on what you’ve already talked about.

No offer, no business.

Don't sell anything below that number

Let's do the math:
3,000 email subscribers. 1% buy. That’s 30 people.

Now price your offer at $200. You’ve made $6,000.

That’s how you make the numbers work with a small list. Not by lowering your price. But by focusing on what that 1% actually needs—and charging accordingly.

This is why I like online courses. They scale. They build authority. They don’t require a new client call every time someone buys.

The best offers are specific. It can’t be “Here’s everything I know about topic X.” No one wants a buffet when they’re starving for one specific dish.

I went granular. I built courses around one tight, painful, clear problem.

Teach less. Charge more.

Okay… Now what?

Making $5K once is simple.

Doing it again next month? And then the month after? That’s the real game.

You don’t just need an offer. You need offers. Plural.

Every time I launch a new course, it solves one problem. That’s it. Not ten. Not five. One.

Like:

• Daily newsletters

• Get more traffic with SEO

• Build your list with sponsorships

• Write welcome sequences that generate income on autopilot

Could I roll it all into one massive course and slap a “flagship” label on it? Sure. But then I’d have to discount it, over-explain it, and deal with people who never finish it.

Instead, I break things apart.

Granular means:

• higher price

• easier to sell

• faster to create

When you do it this way, you’re never stuck wondering what to sell next. You’ve already got the roadmap. Each problem leads to the next.

Like a TV series—finish one, and you want the next episode. Not a 9-hour movie with no bathroom break.

Charge 10x more

Courses are great. But some people need handholding.

That’s where coaching comes in.

The simplest offer I ever created? Monthly coaching at a fixed fee.

No fancy funnel. No slides. No 97-email autoresponder.

Just: pay here, and let's meet every week and solve your problem.

Simplest way to make $5k/month with 2-3 clients.

Now, charge 5x more

Truth is, people don’t want your knowledge.

They want the result.

That’s where done-for-you services come in. You stop teaching them how to fish—and just hand them the damn fish.

Most people are overwhelmed. They’re tired. They’re juggling five tools, twelve tabs, three ideas, and zero time. They want it off their plate.

So you give them that.

I'm currently not offering done-for-you services because I am happy with the business I’ve built for myself.

But in my world, it might look like SEO as a service. Not a course. Not a call. Just: I’ll do the keyword research, map the content, and write it for you so that your website starts ranking.

You’d be shocked how many people pay for that. Not because they can’t learn it. But because they don’t want to.

And it doesn’t have to be complicated. You probably already know how to do something that saves people time, stress, or energy. Package that. Put a price on it.

So if you’re good at doing the thing? Don’t just teach it. Sell it.

Now, stack 'em on top of each other to build your way to 6-figures

This is where it gets fun.

You stack the offers. And the whole machine starts printing.

Someone buys your course. It’s specific, helpful, and solves a problem. Now they trust you. And once trust is there, something funny happens—they want more.

More guidance. More feedback. More hands-on help.

So what do you do? You sell coaching. Or a service.

The course wasn’t the end. It was the front door.

That’s how 75% of my coaching clients found me—they bought something small first. Not through cold DMs. Through trust built on a real result.

Most creators only sell one thing. You? You build a staircase.

Each step is another way to help—at a deeper level, for a higher price.

Stack your offers so every product becomes a gateway to the next.

Let's finish here

Creating a $5k-a-month income stream with your writing won't happen overnight.

But if you follow this playbook, I can guarantee that it's going to be a hundred times easier.

Now, do with this playbook what you want.

Most people are just going to say "interesting" and binge-read other content. Without implementation.

I hope you won't be one of them.