I earn $263,000 in annual revenue from my Substack side hustle. It's an incredible bonus to my writing career.

Amy Suto. Courtesy of Amy Suto Amy Suto and Kyle Cords run a Substack that helps writers find freelance opportunities. "Make Writing Your Job" has 58,000 subscribers and brings in $263,000 in annualized gross revenue. They grew it mostly without paid ads, using free content, search, and social media. This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Amy Suto, a 32-year-old freelance writer based in San Francisco. It has been edited for length and clarity. I started my career in Hollywood as a TV writer. By 2020, I was ghostwriting memoirs and traveling the world with my partner, now husband, Kyle Cords, to work with clients. Kyle was also a freelancer. In June 2023, I started a Substack documenting the realities of being a working writer. People kept asking me, "How do you get these jobs?"