The Substack Playbook I Wish Someone Had Handed Me Two Years Ago
Four systems, ten templates, and your own member page. It's live today.
Two years ago I sat with a notebook and tried to write down everything I didn’t know about growing a newsletter.
The list filled three pages.
How often to post.
What to write when nobody’s reading.
When to turn on paid.
What to charge.
Why some posts bring 40 subscribers and others bring 2.
You get it. The list is endless.
I had to figure out every single line the slow way, one experiment at a time, 159 published issues and counting.
A few weeks ago I finally did something I’d been putting off for a year. I took everything that worked and organized it into one place.
Today it goes live for paid members, on its own member page.
What’s inside
The Playbook is four systems. Read them in order if you’re new, or jump straight to the one that hurts most right now.
The Growth System covers growing from zero: the setup, the publishing cadence, the daily routine, the Notes engine, and what to realistically expect at 3, 6, and 12 months. No fantasy numbers.
The Publication System is how to publish posts people actually read, every week, without burning out. My formats, my headline process, my weekly workflow.
The Engagement System turns silent subscribers into a real community. Chat, lives, challenges, and the reactivation plays that wake up quiet readers.
The Money System is the one most of you have been asking for. When to go paid, how to price, the welcome email that converts up to 30% of free subscribers, and how to launch your first paid offer without feeling gross about it.
And then there are the ten templates. These are fill-in documents. The welcome email. The pricing worksheet. The launch checklist. The first 90 days roadmap. Open one, replace the brackets with your answers, use it the same day.
Two ways to get it
If you just want the Playbook on its own, you can buy it outright for $99 here:
Or become a paid member for $99 a year and it’s simply included, along with everything else: the Monthly LIVE Substack Glow-Up (one real Substack gets a live makeover each month), my Notes Scheduler (worth $180 on its own), and every new module I add as I keep learning. Same price as the Playbook alone.
Here’s what one member wrote when she joined:
“I subscribed to Claudia because I wanted to learn from someone who actually built a five-figure newsletter in just a year and could show me the exact playbook instead of theoretical advice.”
That playbook is now literally the Playbook I am offering today.
Below the paywall: your member page link and where to start.
