MAY 9, 2025

Welcome to The Tilt, the newsletter for content entrepreneurs from Tilt Publishing. Together, we’re redefining what it means to be a publisher.

content entrepreneur spotlight

Authenticity Pays Off: Inside the Success of Dominee Calderon’s Self-Love Rainbow

Entrepreneur: Dominee Calderon

Biz: Self-Love Rainbow

Tilt: Gentle, accessible peer-to-peer self-care and mental health support

Primary Channels: Facebook (325k), Instagram (282k), Patreon (5k), Newsletter (39k), Pinterest (123.6k)

Time to First Dollar: 1 year

Revenue Streams: Patreon, planners (print books), workbooks, and other content downloads

Our Favorite Actionable Advice:

Be authentic: Dominee says being relatable to your audience is essential.
Keep going: She followed the slow-and-steady path for her business, quitting her full-time job about nine years after starting her blog. She says if what you’re doing doesn’t feel like it’s paying off in the present, it will pay off in the future.
Build a mutually beneficial community: Dominee built a three-tier subscription community on Patreon, where her audience gets access to her content and she gets to have one-on-one interactions with her community members.

– Lauren Vassallo

Changing a life … Writing a book can change the author’s life, and it’s not exactly how you would expect. [USA Today]
MrBeast and Mr. Patterson … MrBeast, aka Jimmy Donaldson, adds fiction author to his lengthy list of products. He’s writing a book with mega-million-thriller author James Patterson. [The New York Times]
Get to it … Everyone has a piece of flash non-fiction in them. That’s the advice from essayist Jason Schwartzman from a few years ago, and it remains true today. [Electric Lit]
Bookstore talk … Is it self-published or self-distributed that causes consternation from some bookstore owners? [The Bookseller]

Bite into Apple: Patreon launched a new version of its iOS app that lets creators accept payments outside the Apple App store, which takes a 30% cut of purchases. The move came the same week that a judge found Apple in violation of a 2021 injunction issued after a fight over its fee for in-app purchases. [The Verge]
Tilt Take: Payment alternatives are great only if consumers are willing to use them.

Music to creators: Spotify is introducing a “plays” metric, which shows creators an overview and individual episode analytics – “a near-immediate snapshot of how content is performing based on active engagement.” [Spotify]
Tilt Take: Data like that is immeasurably helpful (well, in this case, it’s measurably helpful) to understand your audience.

Hear this: Substack releases a new feature that allows for audio-only livestreams. [Tech Crunch]
Tilt Take: Helpful for creators who prefer to be heard and not seen. It’s also a valuable reminder for livestream producers that some consumers will only listen even if you have visuals, so adjust your content accordingly.
AI expansion mode: All US Google search users can now access AI mode. It also lets searchers track their AI-mode searches in a new left-side panel, so you can pick up where you left off. [Google]
Tilt Take: We really like not having to start from scratch in searches conducted for longer-term projects (or that get disrupted by life for possibly days at a time).

Believe it or not: US President Donald Trump says he may extend the TikTok sell-off deadline of June 18. Others say that would be a clear violation of executive privilege. [Social Media Today]
Tilt Take: We’re glad The Tilt isn’t on TikTok, so we don’t have to keep guessing the future.

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