2024 A Year in Review-What Worked Worked and What Didn't
Creators Getting Paid
There are parts of the year that are just completely gone from my memory. The last 5 years it has been that way. Perhaps, willfully forgetting parts of the years is a way to protect myself from what didn’t work during a year of great plans. Weirdly, I feel like in 2024 I was in a holding pattern. Just testing my way to see what did and didn’t work as I quietly built out my online brand. I thought it would be good to start with what didn’t work and end with what did.
I’m using “The Ugly, The Bad and The Good” Metric in today’s newsletter.
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The Ugly
There were a number of strategies that I tested out that just didn’t work in 2024. I’m going to be honest and say this was so frustrating. However, there’s a lesson to be learned.
Too Many Workshops-I love running workshops and helping community members learn new concepts. What I realized this year is that people have a lot coming at them and if you offer a lot of resources…that’s good…but, people need time to hear your messaging, see your marketing and plan to attend these events.
Not Marketing Enough-I’m wildly impressed by the growth that I’ve had with Creators Getting Paid given that I basically didn’t market my brand at all in 2024. I think I recorded ONE podcast interview as a guest, I wasn’t a guest in anyone’s digital community. I just…seemed to float out there.
No New Brand Media-I’m way overdue for some new headshots and other media. What has been the hold up? I don’t like how I look currently. Don’t bother sending me a “You look great” email. I feel like I’ve let myself go and as a result there has been a general reluctance to take pictures.
The Bad
These are areas of improvement where I could be doing better than I am currently.
Income Growth-This one is weird because I made the same amount of money….a little more easily than before but really, I’m looking to aggressively grow my income in 2025.
Creators Getting Paid Subscription Rate-This might not necessarily be an issue with me so much as challenges on the Substack platform. I feel like my Subscription opt-in rate is lower than I would like given the type of content that is being shared and the work that goes into curating that information. That said, I’ve heard from other newsletter creators to stay focused and double-down on what works. That’s what I plan on doing moving forward.
Podcast Frequency-It pains me to admit this but my Creators Getting Paid podcast frequency was not where I wanted it to be. The content is good, but I’ve grown another show to around 125,000 downloads so I know how to grow a show.
Slowing down on batching content-One of the most important pieces of advice I give to creators is to batch your content. While I did a good job of doing that at the beginning of the year, I slowed down after summer.
Attended the Wrong Event-Basically, I picked a good event but attending didn’t help me move towards or achieve any of the business related goals I’d attached to attendance.
The Good
Despite everything that I’ve mentioned up to this point, there were a lot of good, great, amazing things that happened in 2024.
My First Keynote! For the amazing Black Podcasters Association Summer Picnic in Brooklyn, NY. I had an absolute amazing time being in community with the Black Podcasters Association. A time was had!
Social Media Lite Brand-I do not lead with social media as a way to market my brand. I’m really glad that I decided to stop leaning so heavily on social media a couple of years ago and doubled-down on growing my list instead.
Ending a Brand-In the Spring I ended my personal finance brand. I’d worked on it for 10 years and it was just time to end it. I’m glad that I did because I’m rebranding the project and launching a new personal finance brand in 2025.
Hosting the Newsletter Meetup at FinCon-I had a great time at FinCon 2024 and one of the highlights was hosting the Newsletter Meetup. There were so many cool creators, projects and communities being built. I look forward to reconnecting with everyone in 2025.
Gifting a ticket to a conference/in-person event-One of my core values that drives the work that I do is to expand access to events that folks. With that in mind, I’ve purchased tickets to several events with the goal of gifting tickets to members of the Creators Getting Paid community to help lower the cost of attending conferences. The three events that I’m in the process of purchasing tickets from include the following:
FinCon 2025 in Portland, Oregon-Great town, one of the best food cities in the United States (am serious)
Podcast Movement 2025 in Chicago-Podcasting is my preferred mode of content creation. I love it so much.
Afros and Audio 2025 in Baltimore-This
Stabilized My Cashflow-This is a project that I’ve been working on for years! I’m happy to say that in 2024, I was able to stabilize my cash flow and it was glorious. Now, let’s see how things go in 2025.
Consulting-May be my favorite B2B income stream. For the past 6 months I’ve helped two organizations build out impactful projects that will serve their community members for years to come. It also pays nicely too!
Writing Romance Again-One of my favorite ways to earn money is by writing romance. I’m back at it and I’m loving it!
Growing Creators Getting Paid-At the point this edition of the newsletter is published I have 2,193 subscribers. It’s kind of amazing to me given that I basically sat in my house and quietly worked. There are so many things that I love about building out this community.
Opportunity for experimentation
Meeting people in person-”Hi!” to everyone that I got to hangout with in 2024
The many expert conversations with creators who very graciously gave their time to this project.
Sharing case studies!
Constant Nurturing of Friendships/Relationships-My most important area of focus is maintaining healthy friendships. How do I do that?
Seeing people in person if I’m in their town
Hanging out when people are in my town
Spending time with folks at different events in and outside of my state
Shouting out the amazing work that my wonderful friends are gifting the world. My friends are so amazing.
Being a part of small masterminds-You can’t do this type of work alone.
Writing a Book
The other huge development for 2025 is that I’ve decided to write and self-publish a book focused on business. I’m really excited about this project and the conversation that I would like kick start with this work. I’ve self-published a number of books and used to teach a course called “Make Money with Ebooks” (Should I teach that as a workshop? Let me know)
There’s more and I plan on recording a podcast with some additional reflections on the year. Currently, I’m working on where I’m going for my beginning of the year business retreat. Do you go on a staycation or multiple day retreat to kick off your year? I swear by it.
What resonated in today’s newsletter?
Let me know,
Michelle
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Please run your workshop again. Publishing an ebook is on my goal list for 2025!
Thanks for the transparency, Michelle. I'm thinking of sharing a similar 2024 overview, but the bad involves investing in a popular writers program that I felt provided no ROI. Given its popularity, do you think it's wise to out this program? I want to spare others from wasting money on it, but am worried about the potential backlash...