#Substack Marketing Strategies

[mehmetyildizmelbourne-blog]

Free December Gift for Freelance Writers

Creating a Plan and Strategy to Boost Your Newsletters A Free Video and Audio Book Presentation of Substack Mastery Book for Your Enjoyment Dear Subscribers, Happy December! I hope this post finds you well. This month is very busy for me as I am helping our editors, updating all submission guidelines, and creating a new onboarding pack for 2025.  I will publish it soon as so many new writers…

[mariacallous]

When I caught up with Elizabeth Warren, the senior Democratic senator from Massachusetts, by telephone on Wednesday evening, it seemed like she didn’t know whether to laugh or scream. Hours earlier, Donald Trump had caved to pressure from the financial markets and announced, via social media, a ninety-day pause on many of his tariffs. On Wall Street, stocks shot up. Later in the afternoon, Warren, who sits on the Senate finance and banking committees, had spoken from the floor of the upper chamber, where she demanded an independent investigation into whether Trump had manipulated the markets to benefit Wall Street donors. (Anybody who had known about the policy pivot in advance could have made a fortune buying stocks or stock futures.) But while, in her floor speech, Warren had bristled with righteous anger at the idea of Trump, or anyone else at the White House, tipping off rich friends, during our conversation she couldn’t stop herself from chortling at the Administration’s claim that the President’s reversal had been the product of an artful negotiation strategy. “No serious person believes that, and I can’t even find an unserious person who believes it,” she joked. “The tariffs are on; the tariffs are off. The tariffs are on; the tariffs are off. Donald Trump is playing the biggest game of Red Light Green Light since ‘Squid Game.’ ”

Since Trump’s return to the White House, his chaotic style of governing has often seemed to catch Democrats off balance, and deprived them of a stationary target. Warren, however, has been on the offensive throughout. Unlike Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who have joined forces for a “Fighting Oligarchy” tour, she hasn’t been barnstorming around the country. (Although, as part of the mass “Hands Off!” protests last weekend, she did speak to a large crowd in Nashville.) But Warren has been busy in Washington. In February, when a team from Elon Musk’s DOGE gutted the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (C.F.P.B.), which she was the primary figure in founding, she denounced the attack as illegal and joined a street protest by the agency’s staff. More recently, Warren has broadened her critique of Trump’s policies to encompass other areas, including trade, taxes, financial regulation, and the debilitating effect of his over-all blitzkrieg. “Chaos is its own tax on the economy,” she said to me. “No business wants to plunk down the millions of dollars it takes to build something, or assemble a team, if they don’t know what the rules will be next week, much less next year. The only consistent theme is chaos, and no one can plan against chaos.”

Warren, who has long been a leading voice on the progressive left, is part firebrand and part policy wonk. During the run-up to the great financial crisis of 2008, when she was a professor at Harvard Law School, she cautioned, in speeches and blog posts, about the dangers of financial deregulation and Wall Street greed. After becoming a senator, in 2012, she focussed on soaring inequality, and, in 2020, when she ran for President, she proposed an annual wealth tax on the top 0.01 per cent. Even before last week, when Trump announced his blanket tariffs and brought the United States to the brink of another financial crisis, Warren was warning about the dangers that Trumponomics posed, including the likelihood that it would plunge the U.S. economy into a recession. “Look, this is the dumbest financial crisis in U.S. history,” she told me in an interview on Wednesday morning, shortly before Trump did his about-face. “Unlike earlier crises caused by viruses or subprime mortgages, this is one man who woke up with a crazy idea and imposed it on the world. But the tariff crisis is layered onto other ways in which he is weakening the economy.”

On a new Substack newsletter that Warren launched on Friday, in conjunction with other Democrats on the Senate Banking Committee, she highlights some of the Trump policies that she sees as particularly pernicious, including efforts to weaken financial deregulation, Musk’s slash-and-burn tactics at key federal agencies, and the pursuit by Republicans in Congress of a highly regressive tax policy that could well force spending cuts which could rip up the social safety net. “Lights are flashing red, but it is not too late,” Warren writes. “We still have time to prevent economic calamity for American families if we act quickly.”

Since coming to office, Trump has appointed new regulators—or, rather, deregulators—at many of the nation’s oversight agencies: the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Federal Reserve, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, the Federal Trade Commission, and the C.F.P.B. To Warren, this is a recipe for disaster. “The lesson we should have learned from 2008 is that if the regulatory players don’t do their jobs in enforcing the laws and overseeing large financial institutions, these institutions will go for profit every time and load risk into the system,” she told me. In February and March, the shell of the C.F.P.B., where Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent is now the acting director, dropped more than half a dozen enforcement cases. In one of them, the agency had accused the bank Capital One of cheating customers out of two billion dollars by misleading them about interest rates offered on its savings accounts. In another, it had accused three big banks—JPMorgan Chase, Wells Fargo, and Bank of America—of failing to protect their customers from rampant fraud on Zelle, a payments platform in which they have ownership stakes.

In our conversation, Warren underscored that the Republican desire for tax cuts seems to know no bounds. “Even in the middle of this chaos, they are moving forward on a bill that has trillions of dollars in giveaways to corporations and billionaires, and cuts the underlying investment in working families,” she said. “That’s a terrible idea in the best of economic times, but it will be a complete disaster at a time when more American families are coming under financial stress.”

The struggle over taxes and spending seems set to dominate the legislative agenda on Capitol Hill until the end of the year. But, for the moment, Warren is focussed on Trump’s tariffs. Even though some are now lower than they were at the start of the week, they are all still very much in place. (For most goods from China, the import duty is now a hundred and forty-five per cent. Autos, auto parts, steel, and aluminum face rates of twenty-five per cent, as do many other goods from Canada and Mexico. Items from most other countries are subject to a rate of ten per cent.) The policy debate about how far the federal government should go to protect manufacturing jobs remains heated. Even as elected Democrats have lambasted Trump for panicking investors and tanking the markets, some of them, particularly in industrial states such as Michigan and Pennsylvania, have joined the United Auto Workers union in expressing support for at least some of Trump’s tariffs.

When I asked Warren what stance Democrats should adopt on tariffs, she marked out a middle ground, describing them as “an important tool in the economic toolbox,” but arguing that they should be introduced only in certain situations and industries. “If you get sick, and fill your prescription in America, there’s a ninety-per-cent chance that the drug was manufactured overseas, probably in Asia, and the materials for it probably came from China,” she said. “That’s a dangerous place for our country. If we got into a back-and-forth with a couple of countries, suddenly there’s no antibiotics for heart medication.” Warren argued that the keys to employing tariffs successfully are targeting them on goods that have strategic value, using them in conjunction with other policies designed to encourage production in the United States, such as subsidies, and introducing them gradually so that businesses and investors can plan for them. This was the approach of the Biden Administration, and Warren pointed out that it is very different from what Trump is doing. “Imposing tariffs on virtually every country for virtually every product sent to the United States, at rates that seem to be randomly pulled from a bingo cage, is not a way to strengthen America’s economy,” she said. “And it is certainly not a way to attract long-term investment and good jobs to the United States.”

But with Trump and the Republicans holding power in Washington, what can the Democrats do? Warren insists that, at least when it comes to Trump’s blanket tariffs, they are far from powerless. In introducing these levies, which it falsely described as “reciprocal,” the White House invoked the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, of 1977, which gave the President the authority to introduce broad tariffs during a national emergency. “But we are not in an emergency right now with Belgium or South Korea,” Warren pointed out. “That same law gives Congress the power to pass a resolution and say, ‘Nope. No emergency here,’ and roll back the entire tariff authority that Trump is using.”

On Thursday, as the stock markets fell again, Warren, together with her colleague Ron Wyden, of Oregon, introduced a piece of legislation that would do just that. Four Democrats and one Republican—Rand Paul, of Kentucky—joined them. With only forty-seven seats, Democrats seem unlikely to get the votes that they need for the bill to make it out of the Senate, especially now that Trump has announced his timeout. But Warren insists that bringing the legislation to the floor is still worthwhile because Republicans will be forced to vote on it. She said, “They will have to declare for everyone to see: Are they still simply Donald Trump’s suck-ups? Or are they legislators who will exercise independent judgment to protect the people and the economy of the United States?”

Warren surely knows the answer to her questions, which may explain, in part, her enthusiasm for the bill. When I spoke with her for a second time, after Trump’s reversal, she insisted that it was now more important than ever. “Trump demonstrated again that his whims will determine tariff policy for the entire world,” she said. “That will be true right up until Congress says no. Our resolution is the no.” 

[feetpiclovers]

Tired of chasing passive income that never pays off? In 2025, creators are stacking multiple income streams using tools that actually work. From FeetFinder and Substack newsletters to Etsy digital products, affiliate blogs, and smart AI tools for creators — this video breaks down how to build a sustainable income strategy that doesn't rely on going viral. Learn how to boost your content monetization, leverage TikTok marketing, and simplify content automation using a proven creator tech stack. Whether you’re exploring affiliate marketing, creating digital content, or just want a real FeetFinder review, this is your full guide to making money online smarter in 2025.

[emptytheaterblog]

god i feel like calypso. for one second, the lover, the beloved, the healer. the next, the after-thought, the footnote.

HA HA YOU STUMBLED INTO AN ELABORATE MARKETING STRATEGY (see also: slightly desperate) SUBSCRIBE TO MY SUBSTACK??? NEXT POST DROPS ON 21ST 9:30PM EST

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Robert Reich:

Friends, If you are experiencing rage and despair about what is happening in America and the world right now because of the Trump-Vance-Musk regime, you are hardly alone. A groundswell of opposition is growing — not as loud and boisterous as the resistance to Trump 1.0, but just as, if not more, committed to ending the scourge. Here’s a partial summary — 10 reasons for modest optimism.

1. Boycotts are taking hold.

Americans are changing shopping habits in a backlash against corporations that have shifted their public policies to align with Trump. Millions are pledging to halt discretionary spending for 24 hours on February 28 in protest against major retailers — chiefly Amazon, Walmart, and Best Buy — for scaling back diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives in response to Trump. Four out of 10 Americans have already shifted their spending over the last few months to be more consistent with their moral views, according to the Harris poll. (Far more Democrats — 50 percent — are changing their spending habits compared with Republicans — 41 percent.) Calls to boycott Tesla apparently are having an effect. After a disappointing 2024, Tesla sales declined further in January. In California, a key market for Tesla, nearly 12 percent fewer Teslas were registered in January 2025 than in January 2024. An analysis by Electrek points to even more trouble for Tesla in Europe, where Tesla sales have dropped in every market. X users are shifting over to Bluesky at a rapid rate, even as Musk adds more advertisers to his ongoing lawsuit against those that have justifiably boycotted X after he turned it into a cesspool of lies and hate (this week, he added Lego, Nestle, Tyson Foods, and Shell).

2. International resistance is rising.

Canada has helped lead the way: A grassroots boycott of American products and tourism is underway there. Prime Minister Trudeau has in effect become a “wartime prime minister” as he stands up to Trump’s bullying. Jean Chrétien, who served as prime minister of Canada from 1993 to 2003, is urging Canada to join with leaders in Denmark, Panama, and Mexico, as well as with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, to fight back against Trump’s threats. Mexico’s President Claudia Sheinbaum is standing up to Trump. She has defended not just Mexico but also the sovereignty of Latin American countries Trump has threatened and insulted. In the wake of JD Vance’s offensive speech at the Munich security conference last week, European democracies are standing together — condemning his speech and making it clear they will support Ukraine and never capitulate to Putin, as Trump has done.

3. Independent and alternative media are growing.

Trump and Musk’s “shock and awe” strategy was premised on their control of all major information outlets — not just Fox News and its right-wing imitators but the mainstream corporate media as well. It hasn’t worked. The New York Times has done sharp and accurate reporting on what’s happening. Even the non-editorial side of The Wall Street Journal has shown some gumption. The biggest news, though, is the increasing role now being played by independent and alternative media. Subscriptions have surged at Democracy Now, The American Prospect, Americans for Tax Fairness, Economic Policy Institute, Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, The Guardian, ProPublica, Labor Notes, The Lever, Popular Information, Heather Cox Richardson, and, of course, this and other Substacks. As a result, although Trump and Musk continue to flood the zone with lies, Americans aren’t as readily falling for their scams.

4. Musk’s popularity is plunging.

Elon Musk is underwater in public opinion, according to polls published Wednesday. Surveys by Quinnipiac University and Pew Research Center — coming just after Trump and Musk were interviewed together by Fox News’ Sean Hannity, with Trump calling Musk a “great guy” who “really cares for the country” — show a growing majority of Americans holding an unfavorable view of Musk. In Pew’s findings, 54 percent report disliking Musk compared to 42 percent with a positive view; 36 percent report a very unfavorable view of Musk. Quinnipiac’s results show 55 percent believe Musk has too big a role in the government.

5. Musk’s Doge is losing credibility.

On Monday, DOGE listed government contracts it has canceled, claiming that they amount to some $16 billion in savings — itemized on a new “wall of receipts” on its website. Almost half were attributed to a single $8 billion contract for the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency — but that contract was for $8 million, not $8 billion. A larger total savings number published on the site, $55 billion, lacked specific documentation. In addition, Musk and Trump say tens of millions of “dead people” may be receiving fraudulent Social Security payments from the government. The table Musk shared on social media over the weekend showed about 20 million people in the Social Security Administration’s database over the age of 100 and with no known death. But as the agency’s inspector general found in 2023, “almost none” of them were receiving payments; most had died before the advent of electronic records. These kinds of rudimentary errors are destroying DOGE’s credibility and causing even more to question allowing Musk’s muskrats unfettered access to personal data on Americans.

6. The federal courts are hitting back.

So far, at least 74 lawsuits have been filed by state attorneys general, nonprofits, and unions against the Trump regime. And at least 17 judges — including several appointed by Republicans — already have issued orders blocking or temporarily halting actions by the Trump regime. The blocking orders include Trump initiatives to restrict birthright citizenship, suspend or cut off domestic and foreign U.S. spending, shrink the federal workforce, oust independent agency heads, and roll back legal protections and medical care for transgender adults and youths. In other cases, the Trump regime has agreed to a pause to give judges time to rule, another way that legal fights are forcing a slowdown.

[...] 9. Trump is overreaching — pretending to be “king” and abandoning Ukraine for Putin. Trump’s threats of annexation, conquest, and “unleashing hell” have been exposed as farcical bluffs — and his displays this week of being “king” and siding with Putin have unleashed a new level of public ridicule. [...] 10. The Trump-Vance-Musk “shock and awe” plan is faltering. In all these ways and for all of these reasons, the regime’s efforts to overwhelm us are failing. Make no mistake: Trump, Vance, and Musk continue to be an indiscriminate wrecking ball that has already caused major destruction and will continue to weaken and isolate America. But their takeover has been slowed. Their plan was based on doing so much, so fast that the rest of us would give in to negativity and despair. They want a dictatorship built on hopelessness and fear.

Robert Reich wrote a solid Substack piece on the 10 reasons anti-Trump Americans should feel some optimism in.

[yonahsienna]

This Was Supposed to Be Fun

Or: WTF happened to the online Commons, and where do we go now?

Let me start by saying that I don't want to be a "content creator" or “online influencer”. I don't want to "optimize engagement" or “build an agile social strategy”. I don’t even particularly want to Start a Blog or Podcast. I just want to f#¢&!ng hang out with my friends and community online, and I feel like we should have The Technology to just do that by now.

Of course (infuriatingly) we did have that technology! I first connected to the World Wide Web in 2001 when I was ten years old. Back then, the whole family shared one computer, which I mostly used to play Age of Empires, Bugdom, and Oregon Trail. Connecting to the Internet meant that nobody could use the phone, so we would log on quickly (accompanied by a symphony of discordant whistles and beeps), check emails and/or MSN messages, and then pass the computer to the next person.

As our access to the Internet grew through my teens, so did the diversity of content we consumed, shared, and bonded over. eBaum’s World and Newgrounds hosted a plethora of simple, free webgames we'd play once we got bored with the handful my parents were willing to buy, as well as the first viral videos like Numa Numa and Star Wars Kid. We also connected in new ways with a growing “social web” — profiles on sites like Myspace and Livejournal and eventually the early Facebook were a way that anyone could have their own site on the web, a little virtual locker that you could decorate and fill up to your liking, and have your friends stuff with virtual notes.

In my late teens and early twenties, the Internet was mostly for research and keeping up with student government and clubs via long weekly emails stuffed with hyperlinks and attachments. It wasn't until I was well into my twenties that I got my first smartphone. At university, the only way to connect to the Internet “on the go” was to tweet my on-the-go thoughts by sending an SMS text message to Twitter at 21212. I also hardly used the social web anyways, other than for a quick dopamine distraction or break from long study sessions in the library. I had even deleted my Facebook account that I'd had since high school, since the campus coffee shop and bar served as more than enough of a hub for socializing, philosophical and political debates, and important announcements posted on cork boards or delivered by intercom.

I know I probably sound like a stereotypical Millennial, whining about the “good ole days”, but I wanted to spend this time on memory lane for a reason. I think that no matter when you grew up, this feeling is probably close to universal: from the early 2000s to early 2020s, the Internet and social web seemed to just work. There were a lot of things wrong with the world, but the Internet was where we went to complain about other problems, not a source of them. But of course, even back then we were living on borrowed money and time. The virtual Commons we had grown comfortable in never actually belonged to us, the users. From the moment they incorporated, the big sites belonged to venture capital, who sold them out to the oligarchs, who sold them out to the fascists. We were never the customer, always the product.

Flash forward to 2025. The “big four” North American social media outlets (Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and TikTok) have all been captured by the Trump administration. Smaller sites, like Reddit, Telegram, and Substack have long been a hotbed for bigotry and hate speech. Searches on Apple, Google, Microsoft, and even Pinterest are serving up LLM “AI” slop before authentic and unique human creations. Ads, suggestions, sponsored posts, and cookie pop-ups take up far more space than the content I came for. And if I ever want my family, friends, and community to actually see my updates, I either need to send them to each person directly, or market my posts not to them, but to an algorithm optimized not for users or even businesses, but shareholder profit. On top of all of this, there is a pervasive sense of how uncomfortably public, permanent, and surveilled it all is. (In parallel to all this: efforts to gather in person are cut at the knees by a lack of coherent and safe public health policies, the dismantling of Third Spaces and affordable public transportation, and the militarization of the police.)

It is horrifying that exactly when the biggest thing we need for survival is to build and strengthen community, that the only accessible tools to do so, are hostile to our very existence.

Obviously this isn’t a coincidence. Every time we, the people, can talk to each other directly, we start getting dangerous ideas about the fact that the ultra-wealthy and hyper-elite are so few, and the rest of us are so many. Pamphlets facilitated the French and American revolutions, the telegraph and radio hastened the collapse of the Russian and German Empires, and Twitter fanned the flames of the Arab Spring. And here in America, The Powers That Be, Red and Blue alike, overwhelmingly want the American government in strict control over where and how we can communicate with each other.

And here I am, just hoping for a single F#¢&!NG site on the whole World Wide Web where I can just hang out with family, friends, and community that isn't owned and operated by literal fascists, kept behind a paywall, or too technical for our Elders to use. A comfy virtual coffee shop with announcement boards, conversations, the occasional performance, and a locker nearby for collecting memories and passing notes.

I don’t really know what the Takeaway/Call to Action is here. Yes, I’m already on Tumblr, Mastadon, and Bluesky, and would love it if we all continued to grow these kind of alternatives while divesting from profit-driven social "platforms". I’m still on Discord, Snapchat, and Signal and even have accounts on Loops, Pixelfed, and Xiaohongshu, in case the center of gravity ever moves over to those places. All of them still feel very "under construction" though, so I don't even know which (if any) I feel comfortable asking friends and family to "switch over" to. In the meantime, I'm just feeling lost, sad, lonely, and adrift; and wanted to share these musings with y’all. Just in case anyone has any advice you want to share, or are feeling the same way and want to commiserate.

xposted to Facebook, Tumblr, Medium, and WriteAs. God, I hate the Internet right now >:(

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

The Playbook is the Point: How Trump Turns Words into Weapons and Targets into Enemies

Weaponizing Words, Building Fear, Silencing Dissent

James B. Greenberg

May 11, 2025

We’ve seen this script before—not just in history books, but in the memories of those who fled regimes that began with slogans and ended in silence. The pattern is familiar: label, isolate, inflame, punish, expand, normalize.

What makes Trump’s rhetoric dangerous isn’t just its cruelty—it’s the infrastructure being built around it. This isn’t style. It’s strategy.

Thanks for reading James’s Substack! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.Pledge your support

He doesn’t just insult critics—he marks them. He paints targets on the backs of immigrants, trans kids, and political opponents, then lets the crowd or the state take it from there. Like authoritarians before him, he tests the boundaries—starting with the vulnerable, then his rivals, and eventually, anyone who dissents.

This is authoritarianism in real time: the weaponization of language to create moral panic and public consent for state violence.

Language sets the stage. When Trump calls immigrants “animals,” protestors “thugs,” or opponents “vermin,” he’s not speaking in metaphor—he’s establishing who’s outside the circle of empathy. In every authoritarian regime, violence begins with this redefinition of who belongs—and who does not.

Trump’s power lies in provocation. One crime becomes an “invasion.” One protest becomes a threat to the nation. It’s not sloppy—it’s surgical. Fear is the fuel, and complexity is the enemy. Blame the outsider. Purify the group. Promise control. It’s an old formula, but in a diverse society, it doesn’t unify—it divides. It turns governance into spectacle and punishment into policy.

And he doesn’t just stir fear—he markets it as safety. He creates the fire, then offers to put it out. But fear doesn’t just activate. It desensitizes. Cages, bans, raids—each more outrageous than the last—until outrage becomes background noise.

The first term targeted asylum seekers, Muslims, trans youth. Now, the targets grow bolder: mass deportations, detention camps, civil service purges, prosecutions of political opponents. What’s tolerated at the edges spreads to the center.

This isn’t chaos—it’s construction. Schedule F let him gut the professional civil service. The Insurrection Act could let him deploy troops domestically. A captured Justice Department becomes a weapon, not a shield. These are not campaign bluster. They are working plans.

Control doesn’t begin with a crackdown. It begins when the public shrugs. The lies wear us down. The spectacle numbs. And the longer we pretend this is normal politics, the more normal it becomes.

The next phase goes beyond punishing enemies. It targets resistance itself. Authoritarian regimes start with high-profile dissenters. Trump has called critics “traitors,” prosecutors “animals,” and opponents “vermin.” Expect lawsuits, surveillance, selective prosecutions, even digital “enemies lists.” Not to eliminate dissent entirely—but to scare others into silence.

The tipping point won’t be when the first critic is punished. It will be when the rest of us fall quiet.

But resistance is still possible—and it doesn’t start in Washington. It starts in community. Not just in marches or petitions, but in conversation. In how we talk to neighbors, how we rebuild trust, how we remind each other of the values democracy requires.

Propaganda isolates. Connection disrupts it. Not with shouting, but with honesty. Not with slogans, but with shared humanity.

Because democracy isn’t just a system. It’s a commitment to each other. And when we remember that, we become harder to tear apart.

Suggested Readings

Arendt, Hannah. The Origins of Totalitarianism. New York: Harcourt, 1951.

Ben-Ghiat, Ruth. Strongmen: Mussolini to the Present. New York: W. W. Norton, 2020.

Bernays, Edward. Propaganda. New York: Ig Publishing, 2005. Originally published 1928.

Lakoff, George. Don’t Think of an Elephant! Know Your Values and Frame the Debate. White River Junction, VT: Chelsea Green Publishing, 2004.

Snyder, Timothy. On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century. New York: Crown Publishing, 2017.

Stanley, Jason. How Fascism Works: The Politics of Us and Them. New York: Random House, 2018.

[beardedmrbean]

As the 2024 presidential race enters its final stretch, former President Donald Trump appears to be gaining traction with at least some undecided voters. Two of those explained their reasoning on the latest episode of the Morning Meeting podcast.

Co-hosted by veteran political journalist Mark Halperin, former White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer, and political commentator Dan Turrentine, Monday's YouTube show explored why some voters who remain on the fence are now leaning toward Trump over Kamala Harris. Many of these voters cite concerns over economic instability and national security as key factors in their decision.

"Some of those undecided voters... have started to move toward Trump a little. That's why the number of undecideds is beginning to shrink," said Halperin, referencing recent poll numbers showing an improvement for Trump and explaining the shift among undecided voters.

The podcast featured insights from real voters, including Steve, a man from New Jersey, and Terry, a woman from Connecticut, with both finding themselves leaning back toward the former president as Election Day approaches. While neither expressed full support for Trump, they said they saw him as a more reliable option in uncertain times.

Steve, who voted for Trump in 2016 but did not support him in 2020, explained that his shift is driven by concerns over immigration and national security.

"It's a tough decision, but I'm leaning toward Trump," Steve said during the discussion. Although he still harbors reservations about Trump's behavior, Steve emphasized that issues like border security now take priority in his decision-making process.

Spicer, who served as Trump's first press secretary, emphasized the importance of personal persuasion in swaying undecided voters, downplaying the influence of high-profile celebrity endorsements that Harris has received over the past two months.

"The most impactful endorsement you can get is when a neighbor, a friend, a family member, or a coworker asks you to vote for someone," Spicer said.

Terry, another undecided voter from Connecticut, voiced dissatisfaction with the economy under the Biden administration. After casting a protest vote for Biden in 2020, she now feels "immediate remorse" for that decision. Her concerns focus on the financial struggles of lower-income Americans, particularly those who don't benefit from rising stock markets or retirement portfolios.

"Half of America—75 million people—do not have access to a 401(k) or a stock portfolio. We've got to help this segment... If we don't help the people without access to wealth, we're in trouble," she said.

The hosts also questioned Kamala Harris' campaign strategy as early voting continues. Halperin asked why Harris isn't doing more to engage voters in battleground states. "Why isn't she working harder? If you assume she's behind, why isn't she in three battleground states a day?" he wondered, suggesting that Harris' relatively limited schedule could be contributing to her struggles with undecided voters.

Dan Turrentine suggested that Harris' approach has been overly defensive, which may be hindering her momentum with key voter groups. "After the convention and the debate, she shifted into a defensive posture. She's been trying not to make mistakes and saying very little," the analyst said.

He also noted that Harris has focused on appealing to "soft" Republicans and specific voting blocs like Black men, rather than aggressively courting undecided voters regardless of their party affiliation or demographic.

Trump has seen encouraging signs over the last week following strong showings in several major national polls. Nate Silver, the polling guru who is closely modeling the race on his Substack, noted that, with 21 days remaining, the former president has reason to feel more optimistic about the race.

Silver's analysis indicated that Trump is gaining slight ground against Harris. His Silver Bulletin presidential model, which tracks polling data and electoral trends, showed a 0.3 percentage point shift in Trump's favor over the past week, signaling a more competitive race as the campaigns head into the final stretch.

The updated forecast reflects small but significant gains for Trump in key swing states like Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania—states pivotal to both Trump's 2016 victory and his 2020 defeat. Harris and her running mate, Tim Walz, are barnstorming those states this week, with multiple stops scheduled in all three over the coming days.

[cruxcreations]

When I started my business, I thought passion and hard work were enough. I quickly learned that without the right digital marketing strategy, I was nearly invisible online.

After months of trial and error, I discovered Crux Creations — a digital marketing agency that finally made things click. They helped me with:

Search engine optimization (SEO)

Content strategy that actually gets seen

Social media planning that saves time

I shared my full journey in my latest Substack blog. If you’re a small business owner or creative entrepreneur struggling to stand out online, this one’s for you.

🔗 Read it here: What I Wish I Knew Before Trying to Market My Business Online

💬 Let me know if you relate, and feel free to reblog or share with someone who might need it!

[xpressluna]

I Hate Seeing Writers Not Making MoneySo Here Are 8 Ways to Make More as a Writer

Here’s the truth: great writing alone doesn’t guarantee great income.

I’ve seen too many talented writers underpaid, undervalued, or stuck in passion projects that don’t pay the bills. And it frustrates me — because writing is a skill that’s in demand everywhere. You just need to know how to position it, sell it, and scale it.

If you're ready to stop writing for exposure and start earning what you're worth, here are 8 practical, proven ways to make more money as a writer.

Freelance for High-Paying Clients (Not Content Mills)

You don’t need to accept \$20 blog posts when there are companies and entrepreneurs willing to pay \$300–\$1,000+ per article. The secret is targeting niches that need content to drive business, like:

SaaS and tech

Personal finance

Healthcare

B2B services

Pitch directly, build a niche portfolio, and learn how to charge by value, not word count.

✅ Pro Tip: Start by rewriting your services to focus on outcomes — like “I help SaaS brands attract customers with SEO content” vs. “I write blog posts.”

Offer Ghostwriting Services

Ghostwriting is one of the highest-paying forms of writing — and most clients don’t care about you getting credit; they care about results. You can ghostwrite:

LinkedIn thought leadership

Executive blogs

Nonfiction books

Email newsletters

It’s creative, lucrative, and repeatable.

✅ Rates: Ghostwritten LinkedIn posts can earn \$200–\$500/post. Books? Thousands.

Sell Digital Products

Turn your knowledge into scalable income with digital products like:

Ebooks

Notion templates

Writing guides

Pitching scripts

Once created, they can sell indefinitely with no ongoing labor. Perfect for writers with an audience or niche expertise.

✅ Tools: Use Gumroad, Payhip, or Podia to start selling fast.

Start a Paid Newsletter

If you love writing essays, storytelling, or niche commentary, why not monetize it with a paid newsletter? Services like Substack or Beehiiv let you build free + paid tiers.

You don’t need 10,000 subscribers — just 100 people paying \$5/month = \$6,000/year in recurring income.

✅ Best Niches: Personal finance, creator economy, niche analysis, industry trends.

Teach What You Know (Courses & Workshops)

Writers often forget — the way you write, think, and communicate is a teachable skill.

Package it into:

Online courses (e.g., “How to Write Better Cold Emails”)

Cohort-based workshops

Private coaching for new writers or business owners

✅ Platforms: Teachable, Circle, Maven, or even Zoom + Stripe to start.

Monetize with Affiliate Writing

If you write product-based content or reviews, affiliate marketing is a great passive income stream. You write once, and earn commissions every time someone buys through your link.

Best niches: Software, writing tools, education products, lifestyle gear.

✅ Pro Tip: Focus on high-ticket or recurring commissions (like SaaS tools).

License Your Writing

You can earn money by licensing your existing content to brands, newsletters, or websites. If you’ve written a high-performing article, offer a non-exclusive license to republish it for a fee.

Also consider:

Licensing quotes or content to marketers

Offering a “writing bundle” to creators or agencies

✅ This works well for evergreen, data-driven, or inspirational content.

Write for Yourself — Then Monetize It

Blogging, storytelling, or journaling can become income if you build a brand around it. Writers like Morgan Housel and Anne-Laure Le Cunff built huge audiences through consistent, personal writing — then monetized with books, speaking, courses, and sponsorships.

✅ Just start: Build your platform. Even 1,000 loyal readers can turn into six figures over time.

Final Thoughts

Writing is not a dead-end job. It's a high-leverage skill that can create freedom, income, and impact — if you treat it like a business.

If you’re a talented writer struggling to make money, it’s not a lack of skill. It’s usually a lack of strategy.

Pick one or two methods from this list. Go deep. Get paid.

And never again write “just for exposure.”

[wherechaoswins]

50 Essential To-Do List Items for Writers to Earn Online in 2025

Discover the 50 actionable tasks every freelance writer should include in their to-do list to maximize online income. From setting up profiles to mastering SEO, get started today!

Whether you are a seasoned wordsmith or just starting out, earning online as a writer requires more than just a knack for language. You need a clear roadmap—a to-do list that guides you through building your brand, honing your skills, finding clients, and optimizing your online presence. In this article, we will break down 50 essential tasks that will help you launch and grow a sustainable online writing career in 2025.

1. Set Your Foundations

Define Your Niche

Establish Your Writing Goals

Outline Your Unique Value Proposition

Create a Professional Email Address

Purchase a Domain Name

2. Build Your Online Portfolio

Set Up a Personal Website or Blog

Showcase 3–5 High-Quality Writing Samples

Write an “About Me” Page with Keywords

Add a Clear Call-to-Action (CTA)

Include Testimonials or Case Studies

3. Optimize for SEO

Research High-Value Keywords

Implement On-Page SEO Best Practices

Write SEO-Friendly Headlines (H1/H2/H3)

Use Internal and External Links Strategically

Ensure Fast Page Load Times

4. Establish Your Presence on Freelancer Platforms

Create Profiles on Upwork, Fiverr, and Freelancer

Write Compelling Profile Summaries with Keywords

Set Competitive—but Sustainable—Rates

Apply to 5 Relevant Gigs per Week

Solicit Initial Reviews from Small Jobs

5. Leverage Content Marketplaces & Agencies

Join Contena, Scripted, or Clear Voice

Submit Proposals to 3–5 Agencies

Complete Platform Skill Tests

Network with Other Writers in Private Groups

Track Applications in a Spreadsheet

6. Grow Your Network

Engage in Writing Communities on LinkedIn

Participate in Twitter Chats (e.g., #WritingCommunity)

Attend Virtual and Local Writing Workshops

Collaborate on Guest Posts

Ask for Referrals from Past Clients

7. Develop Your Skills

Enroll in an SEO Writing Course

Practice Copywriting Techniques Weekly

Learn Basic HTML/CSS for Formatting

Study Content Marketing Strategies

Read 1–2 Industry Blogs Every Day

8. Diversify Your Income Streams

Write and Self-publish an eBook

Create a Paid Newsletter (e.g., Substack)

Offer Editing and Proofreading Services

Run Paid Writing Workshops or Webinars

Develop a Patreon or Membership Tier

9. Market Yourself Effectively

Build an Email List & Send Weekly Updates

Optimize Social Media Profiles

Share 2–3 Samples of Your Work Per Month

Use Tailored Pitches for Prospective Clients

Invest in Targeted Ads (LinkedIn/Facebook)

10. Stay Organized & Maintain Growth

Use a Project Management Tool (Trello/Asana)

Set Weekly and Monthly Income Targets

Review Analytics (Website & Social)

Schedule Time for Rest and Skill Building

Periodically Update Your Portfolio & Rates

Building a successful online writing career is a marathon, not a sprint. By systematically working through these 50 to-do list items, you will create a robust foundation for attracting clients, boosting your visibility, and maximizing your earnings in 2025. Bookmark this article, check off tasks as you go, and revisit it regularly to stay on track—your freelance writing empire starts today!

Ready to act? Start with item #1: define your niche—and watch your online writing income grow!

[mehmetyildizmelbourne-blog]

Why Print Books Are Not Dead and How to Be a Successful Author

For Book Authors, Substack Is Vital, & Medium Can Accelerate Your Growth I explain why print books are not dead and they are livelier than before. You can also read this story in my Substack newsletter for free or if you an account you read it on Medium to engage with your writing and reading community there. Inspiration for Book Authors As a seasoned book author who tried both traditional…

[cindylouwho-2]

RECENT SEO & MARKETING NEWS FOR ECOMMERCE, AUGUST 2024

Hello, and welcome to my very last Marketing News update here on Tumblr.

After today, these reports will now be found at least twice a week on my Patreon, available to all paid members. See more about this change here on my website blog: https://www.cindylouwho2.com/blog/2024/8/12/a-new-way-to-get-ecommerce-news-and-help-welcome-to-my-patreon-page

Don't worry! I will still be posting some short pieces here on Tumblr (as well as some free pieces on my Patreon, plus longer posts on my website blog). However, the news updates and some other posts will be moving to Patreon permanently.

Please follow me there! https://www.patreon.com/CindyLouWho2

TOP NEWS & ARTICLES 

A US court ruled that Google is a monopoly, and has broken antitrust laws. This decision will be appealed, but in the meantime, could affect similar cases against large tech giants. 

Did you violate a Facebook policy? Meta is now offering a “training course” in lieu of having the page’s reach limited for Professional Mode users. 

Google Ads shown in Canada will have a 2.5% surcharge applied as of October 1, due to new Canadian tax laws.

SEO: GOOGLE & OTHER SEARCH ENGINES 

Search Engine Roundtable’s Google report for July is out; we’re still waiting for the next core update. 

SOCIAL MEDIA - All Aspects, By Site

Facebook (includes relevant general news from Meta)

Meta’s latest legal development: a $1.4 billion settlement with Texas over facial recognition and privacy.  

Instagram

Instagram is highlighting “Views” in its metrics in an attempt to get creators to focus on reach instead of follower numbers. 

Pinterest

Pinterest is testing outside ads on the site. The ad auction system would include revenue sharing. 

Reddit

Reddit confirmed that anyone who wants to use Reddit posts for AI training and other data collection will need to pay for them, just as Google and OpenAI did. 

Second quarter 2024 was great for Reddit, with revenue growth of 54%. Like almost every other platform, they are planning on using AI in their search results, perhaps to summarize content. 

Threads

Threads now claims over 200 million active users.

TikTok

TikTok is now adding group chats, which can include up to 32 people.

TikTok is being sued by the US Federal Trade Commission, for allowing children under 13 to sign up and have their data harvested. 

Twitter

Twitter seems to be working on the payments option Musk promised last year. Tweets by users in the EU will at least temporarily be pulled from the AI-training for “Grok”, in line with EU law.

CONTENT MARKETING (includes blogging, emails, and strategies) 

Email software Mad Mimi is shutting down as of August 30. Owner GoDaddy is hoping to move users to its GoDaddy Digital Marketing setup. 

Content ideas for September include National Dog Week. 

You can now post on Substack without having an actual newsletter, as the platform tries to become more like a social media site. 

As of November, Patreon memberships started in the iOS app will be subject to a 30% surcharge from Apple. Patreon is giving creators the ability to add that charge to the member's bill, or pay it themselves.

ONLINE ADVERTISING (EXCEPT INDIVIDUAL SOCIAL MEDIA AND ECOMMERCE SITES) 

Google worked with Meta to break the search engine’s rules on advertising to children through a loophole that showed ads for Instagram to YouTube viewers in the 13-17 year old demographic. Google says they have stopped the campaign, and that “We prohibit ads being personalized to people under-18, period”.

Google’s Performance Max ads now have new tools, including some with AI. 

Microsoft’s search and news advertising revenue was up 19% in the second quarter, a very good result for them. 

One of the interesting tidbits from the recent Google antitrust decision is that Amazon sells more advertising than either Google or Meta’s slice of retail ads. 

BUSINESS & CONSUMER TRENDS, STATS & REPORTS; SOCIOLOGY & PSYCHOLOGY, CUSTOMER SERVICE 

More than half of Gen Z claim to have bought items while spending time on social media in the past half year, higher than other generations. 

Shopify’s president claimed that Christmas shopping started in July on their millions of sites, with holiday decor and ornament sales doubling, and advent calendar sales going up a whopping 4,463%.

[sodrippy]

apparently marketing is shifting from websites to "private discords and substacks" which is insane like. you want me to sign up to some fuckass thing to get insights into products? what? how is this an effective way to combat ai and broaden an audience? you are restricting your accessibility ?? is this supposed to be a sound strategy

[mariacallous]

Ads containing abortion-related misinformation are allowed to run on Facebook and Instagram in countries across Asia, Africa, and Latin America, while legitimate health care providers struggle to get theirs approved, new research has found.

The report, released today from the Center for Countering Digital Hate and MSI Reproductive Choices, an international reproductive health care provider, collected instances from across Vietnam, Nepal, Ghana, Mexico, Kenya, and Nigeria. Between 2019 and 2024 in Ghana and Mexico alone, researchers found 187 antiabortion ads on Meta’s platforms that were viewed up to 8.8 million times.

Many of these ads were placed by foreign antiabortion groups. Americans United for Life, a US-based nonprofit whose website claims that abortion pills are “unsafe and unjust,” and Tree of Life Ministries, an evangelical church now headquartered in Israel, were both linked to the ads. Researchers also found that ads placed by groups not “originating in the country where the ad was served were viewed up to 4.2 million times.”

In the report, researchers found that some of the ads linked out to websites like Americans United for Life, whose website describes abortion as a “business” that is “unsafe” for women. The abortion pill is widely considered safe and is less likely to cause death than both penicillin and Viagra. Other ads, like one run by the Mexican group Context.co, linked to a Substack dedicated to the topic that implied there is a secret global strategy to manipulate the Mexican populace and impose abortion on the country.

One ad identified in Mexico alleged that abortion services were “financed from abroad … to eliminate the Mexican population.” Another warned that women could suffer “severe complications” from using the abortion pill.

Meta spokesperson Ryan Daniels told WIRED that the company allows “posts and ads promoting health care services, as well as discussion and debate around them,” but that content about reproductive health “must follow our rules,” including only allowing reproductive health advertisements to target people above the age of 18.

“This is money that Meta is taking to spread lies, conspiracy theories, and disinformation,” says Imran Khan, CEO of the Center for Countering Digital Hate.

In these countries, where Meta often has partnerships with local telecom companies that allow users to access its platforms for free, Facebook is a key source of information. Some of these ads also ran on Instagram. “Anybody with a cell phone can access information. People use it to find services. When we ask clients, how did you hear about us? a lot of them will cite Facebook, because they live on Facebook. It's where they know to search for information,” says Whitney Chinogwenya, marketing manager at MSI Reproductive Choices. So when disinformation runs rampant on the platform, the impact can be widespread.

“Good health information saves lives. By actively aiding the spread of disinformation and suppressing good information,” Khan says, “[Meta is] literally putting lives at risk in those countries and showing that they treat foreign lives as substantially less important to them than American lives.”

Many of the countries impacted by this report also have high maternal mortality rates, making access to reproductive services particularly crucial. In Nepal, for instance, there are 239 maternal deaths per 100,000 live births, as opposed to only 32 in the United States. In Ghana, it’s even higher: 319 deaths per 100,000 live births. This comes as the US continues to grapple with the implications of the 2022 Supreme Court decision that struck down Roe v. Wade. On Tuesday, the US Supreme Court heard oral arguments on a milestone abortion case that will determine access to the abortion pill across the country. These laws and policies in the US are often fodder for those seeking to roll back abortion rights elsewhere in the world.

These findings are not the first instances of right-wing groups using social media to promote antiabortion messaging abroad. In 2022, the Spanish far-right group CitizenGo orchestrated a disinformation campaign on Twitter to rebrand a reproductive health bill focused on regulating surrogacy as an “abortion bill.” (The legislation did not address abortion.) A 2023 report from Amnesty International also cited social media as a key way that antiabortion groups disseminate their messaging and target reproductive-health workers.

The report also found that the problem extends beyond just abortion. In one instance, Meta removed one MSI Reproductive Choices ad for cervical cancer screenings in Nepal, saying it involved “sensitive information.” Another ad promoting breast cancer awareness in Ghana was also flagged, as was one in Kenya providing information on vasectomies.

After trying and failing to place ads on Meta’s platforms in Nepal and Vietnam, MSI’s local accounts were restricted from placing any further ads, forcing the organization to start new ones. “But of course, it doesn't have as much audience as we did on the original page,” Chinogwenya says.

Glenn Ellingson, a former Meta employee who worked on civic misinformation, tells WIRED that there are several factors that might lead to an ad being rejected from the platforms, including if it’s targeting a group considered “sensitive,” particularly in an automated system.

“When you’re operating at the scale Meta is at, there are always going to be errors,” he says, adding that greater investment in humans who could review and flag content would likely help the platform distinguish between content that violates its policies and content that doesn’t.

[bardnuts]

I have a few different projects in the works because I want to grow something akin to an author platform, but I hate money and I hate marketing and I hate social media. Most agents won't look at you twice if you don't have some kind of digital foothold, but I'm basically unwilling to do any of the shit necessary to get one. So: what's to be done?

I'm probably going to revise and re-release a horror serial I half-finished a few years ago, called The Carving Bones, on Substack. Kind of hard to establish myself as a writer if I don't have any work out there, right? TCB was pretty well-received when I first released it and I'm sure a few folks would like to read it again in a new format.

I'm also giving serious thought to a YouTube channel? I have a lot of thoughts I want to verbalize to a camera, especially in regards to queer and mental health readings of media. I love to analyze writing choices as well, and since video essays are one of my favorite kinds of Content (another thing I hate), I do sort of want to dip my toes into the pool.

But when I'm considering all these new projects and why I want to do them--to get noticed, to get my work noticed, to get eyeballs on my art so other people can enjoy it--I start wondering if I'm really missing the point of art. Isn't it supposed to be about community? Isn't art deeply social? If I say I hate marketing and I hate social media, does that mean I also hate the prerequisite of art that is true human connection? I don't think so, but it is a worry.

I'm just thinking out loud here, really, but I think chasing fame is natural. Most people don't want to throw their art into a void. The pursuit of fame is a fun game to play, most of the time, but achieving it is more typically an indicator of skills in marketing and consistency--if not pure dumb luck--than a true endorsement of the honesty of your art.

I don't know if anyone else has noticed, but fame seems to be a miserable curse to the famous. They'll say it to anyone who will listen. It's isolating, exhausting, and sometimes even dehumanizing. And still we insist on playing the game. Posting, marketing, making content, pivoting, changing strategy, changing our art, changing ourselves. If we know how miserable fame can be, why do we still chase it? What, exactly, are we looking for?

I think I'm hoping not to die alone.