🧰 20 Free Newsletter Directories to Promote Your Publication

And 12 more you can safely ignore.

If your newsletter is hosted on Subtack, be sure to check out our series on Substack.

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Here’s a simple hack to help you increase the exposure of your newsletter: submit it to newsletter directories.

Submitting to newsletter directors provides several benefits:

• Gain new subscribers from people who discover your newsletter while browsing the directory.

• Gain backlinks that help your publication rank better in search engines like Google.

• Get connected to other newsletters of a similar size for cross-collaboration opportunities.

• Get access to sponsorship opportunities to monetize your publication.

Best of all, it’s free to do and won’t take more than a couple of hours.

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Welcome to another edition of Really Good Business Ideas. Last week’s article about how I use Cal.com was my most popular edition yet, and I’ve gotten a lot of great feedback on it.

Really Good Business Ideas traffic by day

Given this response, I’m going to keep experimenting with this type of quick-tip content. If you’re here for the super in-depth stuff, don’t worry; detailed research and analysis will always be a core part of Really Good Business Ideas.

As always, I welcome your feedback! Please let me know if there’s anything you’d like me to cover here.

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Today, we’ll discuss which newsletter directories to submit to, when to submit, and how to submit.

Get Your Assets in Order

A little upfront planning makes this process a lot easier. Start by creating a folder on your desktop with everything you need to submit. Different directories require different items from this list, but having everything ready will make it much easier to complete multiple back-to-back submissions.

Item 1: A document with all the information you’ll need:

• Newsletter name

  • Example: Really Good Business Ideas

• Author name

  • Example: Casandra Campbell

• Newsletter tagline

  • Example: From curiosity to opportunity.

• Short description

  • If you have a Substack publication, you probably already have one written.

  • Example: Really good business ideas to help you start and grow a profitable business. All ideas are backed by research and analysis.

• Long description

  • 2-3 paragraphs that describe your newsletter in more detail and highlight several of your top-performing editions.

• Audience description

  • Anything you know about your audience that might be useful for advertisers, like demographics, interests, and what they like about your newsletter.

• Link to subscribe

  • On Substack, new visitors to your homepage will be prompted to subscribe, but you may also have a different page you prefer to use.

    • Example: www.reallygoodbusinessideas.com/about

• Link to past issues

  • Example: www.reallygoodbusinessideas.com/archive

• 2-5 topics/tags that describe your newsletter

  • You may need to make minor changes based on the options available when you submit.

  • Example: business, growth, entrepreneurship, marketing, strategy.

• Posting frequency

  • Example: Weekly

• Payment model

  • Example: Freemium

• Number of subscribers

  • Example: 5,000

• Open rate

  • Calculate the average using the last 5-10 issues

  • Example: 50%

• Click rate

  • Calculate by dividing the number of unique clicks by the number of subscribers you sent the email to. Then calculate the average for the last 5-10 issues.

    • Example: 20%

• Social media account links

  • Example:

    Twitter: https://x.com/rlygoodbizideas
    
    LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/really-good-business-ideas/

Item 2: A small square logo.

• If you have a Substack publication, you probably have a square logo created already.

• You’ll need an image URL for some publications and an image file to upload for others.

• Example:

  https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_96,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fcdf25d04-0229-4668-890f-119420cd813c_500x500.png

  

Item 3: A larger banner image.

• This could be a designed banner or screenshot of your publication’s homepage. You’ll need an image file to upload it with your submission.

• Examples:

20 Free Newsletter Directories

Once everything’s ready, it’s time to start submitting! I’ve grouped the directories into two categories:

• Submit At Any Stage ✔️

  • Submitting to these publications at any stage can be beneficial, even if your newsletter is brand new.

• Wait to Submit ⚠️

  • These publications have specific requirements or some degree of curation, so you should wait to submit to them until you’re more established and more likely to be accepted.