Haley Nahman’s newsletter “Maybe Baby” was the first Substack I properly started reading back in 2020. Every week I loved receiving her emails that made me think, laugh and reflect. My intrigue around Substack as a platform grew in tandem. She is also the first person who I followed who turned her newsletter into a full-time writing job after leaving her media job, and the first person I saw who opted for the support of her paid subscribers during her maternity leave. I’ve been following Haley since the Man Repeller days where she wrote and edited the site for four years before 2016-2020 and it was a joy to speak to her for this Creative Coffee hour.
In this episode, we discuss how Haley runs her successful newsletter, her previous experience at a small but intense media company, being authentic in your work, managing your newsletter business, the loneliness of freelance work, thinking about the reader, how to come up with ideas, the benefits of working with an editor behind-the-scenes, where she writes, and having boundaries regarding email. Hope you enjoy!
Things discussed:
Haley Nahman’s Substack Maybe Baby
Haley’s Instagram @halemur
How Haley is changing up her newsletter schedule
How Haley’s paying subscribers supported paid maternity leave as part of Maybe Baby
Natalie Wynn on Patreon: “Contrapoints”
The Debrief website aims to be more than 'BuzzFeed for girls'
For people who loved Man Repeller: Leandra Medine’s venture cafeleandra.com
Can a newsletter be a full-time job?