How My Cybersecurity Newsletter Gained Over 1K Subscribers in 2023
Why Starting a Newsletter is worth it in 2024 !
At the end of 2023 I reached a major milestone which was hitting over a 1000 subscribers on my newsletter
My newsletter is called The Cloud Security Guy and it is mostly similar to what I write on Medium i.e. Cybersecurity career advice, Cloud Security, AI risks etc.
I initially started a Substack as a backup for my Medium articles but I REALLY started taking it seriously in 2023
The main reason .. the changes which Medium made to their algorithm in 2023
Suddenly tech writers were seeing huge decline in their views and earnings
It really woke me up to the whole “own your audience” thing that everyone keeps going on about
Now .. don’t get me wrong .. I love Medium
This platform has some of the best writers in the world and going through my feed is part of my daily routine
But .. I don't like the way the platform is going honestly
Which is why having my own newsletter was the next logical step
I started taking my Substack more seriously and revamped the whole design
I also started linking it to my LinkedIn, Twitter and YouTube Accounts to drive traffic and subscribers
A large part of my email subs came from a lead magnet which is my free Ebook on monetizing your Cybersecurity skills
I put a CTA for that on every Medium article
The growth was slow but steady and I finally managed to hit over 1000 subscribers at the end of 2023
I am planning to double down on this in 2024 and try to reach around 5K subscribers .. crazy but achievable !
This is why I think everyone who is seriously about building a brand should start a newsletter in 2024
Why You Should Start a Substack
If you are in Cybersecurity and like writing then there is really no reason not to have a Substack
Actually any platform will do but I just prefer Substack :)
A Newsletter means you own your audience
You might have a million followers on LinkedIn or Twitter but those can go away in a second if the platform wishes it
You will always be at the mercy of the algorithm if you rely 100% on these platforms for your audience
Not to mention you can monetize your email newsletter it later if you want to
My Tips
The best time to start a Substack was yesterday .. the next best time is today
If you are serious then these are my recommendations:
- Start with a consistent routine of publishing one newsletter a week. Do not worry about building an audience at first
- Start sharing your newsletter on sites like LinkedIn, YouTube (if you have a channel), X and Medium
- Follow other writers on Cybersecurity and comment on their posts
- The Substack ecosystem is quite massive with millions of readers so you can get quite a lot of readers just from Substack itself. Engage with others on Substack notes
- Do not worry about going “viral” as that will just lead to frustration. Focus on small incremental growths
Goals for 2024
I plan to take this whole newsletter thing seriously in 2024 with the following goals:
- Try and hit 5K subscribers
- Look at how to monetize my newsletter with gated/paid posts
- Try and collaborate with other writers to grow my following
Thats it. Will be fun to revisit this post in a year and see how I did. Good luck on your newsletter and dont forget to subscribe to mine here !
Thanks for reading this ! If you are interested in monetizing your Cybersecurity knowledge then check out my Free Ebook HERE
Taimur Ijlal is a multi-award-winning, information security leader with over two decades of international experience in cyber-security and IT risk management in the fin-tech industry. Taimur can be connected on LinkedIn or on his YouTube channel “Cloud Security Guy” on which he regularly posts about Cloud Security, Artificial Intelligence, and general cyber-security career advice