🔶 #51: "Five things effective subscriptions leaders do"

Hello, and welcome back to the News Alchemists newsletter!

And a special first welcome to new subscribers from Rappler, Mutante, The Globe and Mail, Uusi Juttu, Scena9, Devex, OBC Transeuropa, Behanbox, the Constructive Institute, the European Commission, Startupticker, Data and AI Ethics PH, NLPO, the University of Amsterdam, and all of you brave souls working independently.

Did you see how long that paragraph was today? Most new subscribers told me they arrived here after reading my 2025 Freelance Year in Review – which was by far the most clicked link in the last edition, even if I put it at the bottom of the email because I wasn't sure if people would be interested.

Judging by the messages I received, that post clearly struck a chord with many readers:

Just wanted to say that your post with reflections about freelancing was really good. I admired your transparency about the struggles and hopes you experienced.

Thanks so much for sharing this! The part about saying yes to everything in your newsletter resonated with me. I find it hardest to balance the uncertainty with the new assignments coming your way: I want financial security, but also time to do deep work. 

I saw one of your posts on LinkedIn about your journey last year as a freelancer and I found it super interesting and necessary because, as you said in the post, we don't talk about that enough.

Who knew that talking openly about anxiety and revenue could be so popular...

A massive thank you to everyone who messaged me in private and reacted on LinkedIn. We can do this.

Big thanks also to JournalismUK and the International Journalism Festival (aka: 'Perugia') for sharing my post in their newsletters.

And speaking about Perugia: if, like me, you sent a proposal and it was not selected, keep reading after the seven links. I have an idea.

📚 Enjoy the links, and see you next week!