Hi writers,
This Friday I’m going on Substack Live with Olivia Wickstrom, and I’d love for you to be there.
Olivia writes Petal + Hearth, a bestselling Substack about creative entrepreneurship and life as an American in the south of France. She started it in early 2025 with zero subscribers, after years as a freelance copywriter, and about a year later it was her full-time job.
Today more than 28,000 people read it, and over 700 of them pay for it. You might remember her from her GuestStack interview here back in February. This is the live sequel!
Here’s what we’ll get into:
How she went full-time in a year, and why paid subscriptions are only about half of her income
When to turn on paid, what to charge, and when to raise your price
The Notes habit that brought her 5,600 new readers in 90 days
Pinterest for writers who have never touched it (it has sent her more than 100,000 visitors)
How to pitch collaborations, which brought in about a third of her readers
So many of you are growing a Substack on the side of client work, or have one you keep meaning to start. Olivia built hers in public, slow months included. She has said the results she’d call life-changing didn’t show up until month nine, after more than 200 posts.
This is the conversation for anyone who wants to know what happens if you keep going. Bring your questions, too. I’ll save time at the end for them.
Join us live on Substack this Friday, October 16 at 11am PT / 2pm ET
See you there,
-Amy
p.s. thanks to all of our paid subscribers who make this interview series possible!