avatarJ.J. Pryor

Summary

The article introduces "The Sample," a free online tool designed to help newsletter writers grow their subscriber base through algorithmic and human-curated newsletter discovery.

Abstract

"The Sample" is presented as a valuable resource for newsletter writers seeking to increase their audience. It operates by sending full-text newsletters from various authors to readers, who can then rank and subscribe with a single click. The service aims to promote lesser-known newsletters and offers passive growth for writers, who can also opt for paid promotion or cross-promotion through referral links. The author, J.J. Pryor, shares personal positive results from using the tool, emphasizing the ease and efficiency of gaining new subscribers with minimal effort. Despite a minor inconvenience for Substack users, who must manually export and add new subscribers, the overall benefit of the service is highlighted, especially for those struggling to expand their readership.

Opinions

  • The author, J.J. Pryor, expresses a preference for "The Sample" due to its effectiveness in passively growing a newsletter's audience.
  • The article suggests that "The Sample" is particularly beneficial for non-famous writers, as it helps level the playing field in the competitive space of online newsletters.
  • The author appreciates the service's approach to reducing inequality among newsletters by using the Gini index, a metric typically applied to income inequality.
  • Pryor notes the ease of use for both readers and writers, with a simple sign-up process for readers and a straightforward submission process for writers.
  • The author is satisfied with the results achieved through "The Sample," considering the minimal time investment required.
  • A minor criticism is directed at the slight inconvenience faced by Substack users due to the incompatibility of "The Sample's" one-click signup with Substack's processes.
  • The author endorses "The Sample" as a tool that offers a good return on investment for the time spent, especially when compared to other daily tasks like ordering coffee.

Building a Newsletter? Here’s One Super Simple Growth Tool (And It’s Free!)

Boost your subscribers with this free passive online tool

Photo by Lubo Minar on Unsplash

If you’re an online newsletter writer like me, you know two things are incredibly important to your success:

  1. Coffee. So many coffees.
  2. Subscriber growth

And while I could tell you how to make the meanest coffee on the block (hint: it involves Tim Horton’s), I’d rather go briefly over a neat little tool I’ve been testing out since February.

Let’s jump in.

Free Newsletter Subscriber Growth Tool

It’s a simple solution meant to solve a complicated modern problem. If you’ve ever deep-dived into the idea of “what makes a newsletter successful?”, then you’ve probably come to a sad realization.

In most cases, newsletters become famous because the author was already famous.

That’s a hard pill to swallow, or even snort, if that’s your preference.

But that doesn’t stop us from trying to grow our little babies just a bit every day, right? Because the other underlying factor in newsletters is — at least for those non-famous plebs — every single subscriber matters.

And that’s why I’m quite fond of this little tool.

The so-called simple solution is “The Sample.”

What is The Sample?

Well, for readers, it’s simple. It’s a newsletter discovery service that aims to cut through the noise of thousands of newsletters to choose from. The service is run by a man named Jacob O’Bryant and his business partner.

They use a combination of algorithms and human curation to send out samples of newsletters from a wide variety of authors.

For the reader, they’ll get 1 newsletter sent to their inbox each day, always from a different author. They get the full text of an author's latest email, as well as an ability to rank it from 1 to 5 and the ability to one-click subscribe.

It looks something like this in the email:

Screenshot by Author on The Sample

One of my favorite parts about The Sample?

“The algorithm is also designed to promote long-tail newsletters instead of a few popular ones. We measure this with the Gini index, the same metric used to gauge income inequality in populations.”

Solving inequality in the online social media space? Sign me up!

Again.

How Does The Sample Work for Readers?

If you’re a reader and just want to discover some cool scheiss out there, just simply navigate to their homepage and enter in your email address. The website then asks you to select a few topics you’re interested in to help guide the first few emails.

After that, you get one newsletter a day from a random source in their list, where you can rank it and subscribe if you like what you see.

How Does The Sample Work for Writers?

If you’re a writer, it’s just as easy. Go to their main page, scroll to the bottom, and click the “Submit a newsletter” button:

Screenshot by Author on The Sample

Once there, you simply add your newsletter URL (ex. Pryor Thoughts, hint, hint) and your email. The info will go to The Sample’s curators and after their approval, you’ll be well on your way to doing…well, nothing.

That’s passivity for ya, baby!

Behind the scenes, The Sample will slowly disseminate your newsletter issues to their reader base over time.

For me, the results look like this so far:

Screenshot by Author on The Sample

That’s somewhere around 800+ extra copies of my newsletter sent out to people around the world — all for 2 minutes of work.

Not a bad deal in my books. From those 800+, so far around 20 people have signed up to my newsletter.

Nothing huge, but again, 2 minutes of work? I can’t even order a Tim Horton’s double-double delicious coffee in that time.

There’s also 2 other ways to boost your “forwards” with The Sample:

  1. Paid promotion using their bidding system, where you can set a maximum price you’d pay per signup and per week (the website says you can expect around 10 new subscribers per week for $3 each sub)
  2. Cross-promotion using their referral link, where you can mention the service and post your referral link to get more “forwards” (not any monetary value)

And as I’m sure you guessed, the links I’ve been using in this article are for option #2.

Takeaway

While this free service probably won’t make or break your newsletter, if you’ve experienced anything like me, gaining new subscribers is an uphill battle, to say the least.

And since every single subscriber matters, and apparently my time does, too, then spending 2 minutes to gain 20 subscribers in 2 months was a deal I couldn’t miss.

The other cool thing is the potential network effect of this service. Since it’s seemingly still a relatively small service, as it gets bigger, your work has the potential to be shared among more and more readers and writers.

The only caveat of the service is a slight inconvenience for those of us on Substack. The Sample uses one-click signups in their functionality, but it doesn’t mesh well with Substack’s own processes.

So, about once a week (you can set the frequency), The Sample will send you a report showing how many new subscribers and viewers you’ve had. In there, you’ll have to click the “export” button and manually add the new subscribers in Substack.

Sounds tedious, but it only takes 30 seconds once a week — about as much time as it takes me to burn my mouth chugging down one of those sweet sweet delectable double-doubles.

Mmm, Tim Hortons.

I mean, The Sample.

So, what are you waiting for? Go spread your work, you coffee-loving newsletter writer, you.

J.J. Pryor

👇Click the clap thingy? The algorithm loves it. I love it more.👇

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