Newsletter strategy for creators: attention, tools, rules

Creators are quietly rebuilding their "algorithm" back into something older: an inbox full of people they trust.

Sounds wholesome. It is. It's also a problem, because everyone else is doing the same thing... and the inbox has a hard ceiling. There are only so many opens to go around.

Attention doesn't disappear. It just gets reassigned. Your job is to make sure it gets reassigned to you.

What happened

A very specific habit is spreading in creator circles: people are treating newsletters as their input system again. Not "subscribe to 200 things and feel productive." More like: keep a tight set of must-reads, rotate a few specialist picks, and ruthlessly unsubscribe when something stops earning the click.

At the same time, the platforms underneath newsletters are going through their own identity crisis.

Substack isn't acting like "email software" anymore. It's acting like a social platform that happens to deliver email: Notes (short-form posting) has been around since April 2023, and it's been layering in more social behavior since - publishing from profiles, stronger discovery, and even experiments like live video. Substack also raised a big Series C in mid-2025 that pushed it past a $1B valuation, and the company has said it's investing in broader reach and better tools for creators.

Meanwhile, beehiiv is pushing the opposite bet: less "social network," more "creator growth machine." Ads, paid boosts, more marketing tooling. Ghost is planting its flag on the open web - ActivityPub/fediverse connections, built-in analytics, and the pitch of ownership without the walled garden vibe. And ConvertKit completed its rebrand to Kit in late 2024, leaning into the "creator operating system" narrative with more integrations and an app ecosystem.

Zoom out and it's simple: newsletters are hot again, so everyone wants to be the layer you build on.

Why creators should care

1) Distribution is shifting from "feeds" to "loops." If your content lives inside a platform with built-in discovery (Substack-style), you get free surface area. But you also inherit platform risk, platform culture, and platform constraints.

2) Monetization is splitting into three lanes. Subscriptions are still the cleanest story. Ads are getting more standardized (especially on platforms built for it). And paid acquisition/referral loops (Boosts, cross-recs, etc.) are becoming normal - even if creators are loudly arguing about quality and fake subscribers in public forums.

3) Workflow is now a competitive edge. The creators who win aren't reading more. They're reading better. They have an "essentials" set that shapes their thinking, and a rotation set that fills gaps (news, strategy, skill, inspiration). Then they turn those inputs into outputs fast: hooks, scripts, briefs, product ideas.

4) Your inbox deliverability is not optional homework anymore. Gmail and Yahoo's bulk-sender rules (authentication, one-click unsubscribe, complaint thresholds) have made "just blast emails" a great way to slowly disappear into spam. If email is your business, deliverability is ops. Boring. Mandatory.

If your newsletter growth plan is "post more," you don't have a plan. You have a coping mechanism.

What to do next

Build a real content rotation. Pick 3-4 newsletters for the next 30 days: one that tracks platform changes, one that teaches strategy, one that upgrades your craft, one that keeps you creatively awake. Everything else goes on probation.
Decide what you're optimizing for: discovery or control. Substack can hand you "found" traffic and social momentum. Ghost/Kit/beehiiv can give you more control, customization, and business plumbing. You don't need the "best" platform. You need the one that matches the way you actually work.
Stop treating comments/replies as a nice-to-have. If you want a newsletter that survives competition, build feedback into the product. Ask questions people can answer in 10 seconds. Publish reader responses. Turn the inbox into a conversation, not a broadcast.
Do a deliverability check this week. Make sure your domain is authenticated (SPF/DKIM/DMARC), you've got clean one-click unsubscribe behavior, and you're not sending to dead weight. If you're scaling, monitor complaint rates like you monitor revenue - because it's the same thing in disguise.