APRIL 11, 2023

Welcome to The Tilt, a twice-weekly newsletter for content entrepreneurs.

full tilt

While 50 million people operate in the creator economy, most attention goes to the 1% (or less than 1%) who make big bucks and have audiences totaling over 1M. Middle-class creators – those earning money from a content business – get ignored.

That’s why The Tilt launched the Content Entrepreneur Awards with the inaugural class of Unsung Content Entrepreneurs.

We asked you, the readers of The Tilt newsletter, and our social media audiences who are creating content and running businesses they love. Self-nominations were encouraged, and a few were selected from our weekly content entrepreneur spotlights. Then, we combed through the nominations and conducted additional research to winnow the great nominations and create this 47-member class of 2023 Unsung Content Entrepreneurs.

Read the full version to learn more about their content tilt and products. Now for the 2023 Class of Unsung Content Entrepreneurs (in alpha order by business name):

Ashley Cummings of Ashley R. Cummings, Ryan Biddulph of Blogging From Paradise, Shane Parrish of Brain Food, Dasha Kennedy of The Broke Black Girl, Christine Gritmon of Christine Gritmon, Albert Tam and Wesley Anna of Combat Culture, Michael Piperno of The Comvia Group, Alex Cattoni of Copy Posse, Jocelyn Elizabeth of Crazy Lamp Lady, Jay Clouse of Creator Science, Justin Moore of Creator Wizard, Anthony Fasano of Engineering Management Institute, Ruky T of Firm for the Culture, Josh Spector of For The Interested and I Want To Know, Kate Jackson of Framed Cooks, Ray Glier of Geezer Jock News, Marianne Lehnis of Green Techpreneur, Joe Philipson and James Tennant of Indie Bandits, Lisa Sicard of Inspire to Thrive, Leslie Samuel of Interactive Biology, Sumana Jeddy of Jeddy Wellness, Peter Keep of Jewellery Training Solutions, Khudania Ajay of The KAJ Masterclass Live, Marc Leach and Tricia Leach of Keep Your Daydream, Sadie Carpenter and Gavriel HaCohen of Leaving Eden, Lori Harder of Lori Harder, Jamie Northrup of Minimalist Hustler, Michael Becker of New Earth Knowledge, Sarah Stewart Holland and Beth Silvers of Pantsuit Politics, Jamie Pootlepress of Pootlepress, Nora Dunn of The Professional Hobo, Ian and Ana of The Other Side, Jason Norris of Recipe Teacher, Roberto Blake of Roberto Blake, Ryan Robinson of Ryan Robinson, Heather Lloyd-Martin of SEO Copywriting, Jörn “Joe” Menninger of StartupRad.io, Caroline Guntur of The Swedish Organizer, Jeff Gargas of Teach Better, Alexis Grant of They Got Acquired, and Philip Van Dusen of Verhaal Brand Design.

– Ann Gynn

Read more to discover the content tilt, channels, and products of the Unsung Content Entrepreneurs Class of 2023.

content entrepreneur spotlight

Entrepreneur: Tim Stoddart

Biz: Stodzy Inc.

Tilt: How to create multiple income streams

Primary Channels: Website, newsletter, Sober Nation, LinkedIn (15.6K), Twitter (27.4K)

Other Channels: YouTube (803), Instagram (1.6K), TikTok (99)

Time to First Dollar: Tim checked a box to indicate he was game to monetize his original blog on Blogspot. He didn’t even really know what that meant. At the time, he was going through his sober recovery journey and reading The Secret, which encouraged him to imagine a check in the mailbox each time he walked to it. In 2011, about a year into blogging, a check arrived from Google. “It was $23, and I still have it,” he says.

Our Favorite Actionable Advice:

Start but don’t tell anybody: Tim followed advice from Seth Godin, who suggested people start a blog in private. Eventually, Tim’s blog turned into Sober Nation.
Treat social media as a marketing tool: Tim grows his email list from his social media channels, finding particular success with LinkedIn and Twitter.
Publish a lot: Don’t painstakingly perfect each post on social media. Go for volume because you don’t have a clue what could go viral.

– Sarah Lindenfeld Hall

Get the longer story about Tim Stoddart.

Join Tim Stoddart at Creator Economy Expo May 1-3, 2023, where he’ll talk about making money from social. Register today!

Know a content creator who’s going full tilt? DM us. Or email [email protected].

things to know

Money

VC not necessary: While venture capital for creator-focused startups dropped 51% year over year, creator-related startups increased 550%. Also, U.S. influencer marketing spend is expected to grow 23.4% this year ($6.16B). (Insider Intelligence)
Tilt Take: Content creators don’t need venture capital to start their businesses because launch costs are manageable from their savings or credit cards.
Shorts and longs: Interviews with YouTubers found the cut of ad revenue for long-form creators ranges from $1.61 to $29.30 per 1K views. Shorts creators earn 4 to 6 cents per 1K views. (Yahoo! Finance)
Tilt Take: Use YouTube Shorts as a marketing tool – not a revenue stream – to entice an audience to view your long-form videos, where you’ll make more money.

Audiences

Twitter spat: Substack creators can’t reach their audiences on Twitter as the platform has blocked the ability to like, retweet, or even find search results for anything with the word “Substack.” Evidently, they’re irritated by Substack’s new Notes feature, which is similar to the blue bird’s platform. (The Verge)
Tilt Take: Don’t rely on a single platform. You never know when pettiness might get in the way of your business.

Tech and Tools

Finding Artifact: Instagram’s creators are working together on Artifact – a news-reader app. To ultimately develop a social network, the duo is starting with the individual – asking them to enter 10 news categories of interest and click on 25 articles over two weeks – to personalize the scrollable news feed. (Bloomberg)
Tilt Take: Hmmm … maybe expect the word “Artifact” to be banned on Twitter very soon.
Podcast promotion: YouTube added the podcasts tab to channel pages, giving it the same real estate as live and playlists tabs. Oh, and only content marked as podcasts will appear in YouTube Music. (9To5 Google)
Tilt Take: Direct access to your podcasts should draw a bigger audience because they don’t have to remember the name and search for it on YouTube.

And Finally

First hires: Creators say among the hires on their behind-the-scenes team – an editor (and then a creative director) and a chief operating officer to handle the business side of things. (Digiday)
Tilt Take: Your first hire? Think about what you’re not good at (or what you always put off doing on your to-do list).

the business of content

Most podcast growth advice is broken. The proof? The median show still only gets 127 downloads/episode. Subscribe to the Scrappy Podcasting Newsletter for a weekly dose of (often unorthodox) podcast marketing ideas you won’t find anywhere else.*
How much is business insurance? (USA Today)
Do you know the key ingredient to scale your startup? (startupdaily)
In this week’s Content Inc. podcast, Joe hosts a special episode with Jay Clouse, founder of Creator Science. (Content Inc. podcast)
Joe and Robert go back and forth, each sharing the five best decisions they made over their careers that helped them build a loyal audience. (This Old Marketing podcast)

*The Tilt receives a small commission if readers (at no additional cost) make a purchase using this link.

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the tilt team

Your team for this issue: Joe Pulizzi, Pam Pulizzi, Ann Gynn, Laura Kozak, Marc Maxhimer, and Dave Anthony, with an assist from Sarah Lindenfeld Hall.

2023 Class of Unsung Content Entrepreneurs – April 11, 2023