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Michael Kauffman helps newsletter creators take the scenic route to success

Plus: NiemanLab prediction time, lessons for newsroom collabs and more!

👋 There’s been an influx of new subscribers in the past few weeks, so first: Welcome! I’m Liz and each week I share work from amazing creator journalists, tips and how-tos on making the transition into sustainable independent journalism a reality for you and the latest thinking on everything from standards & ethics to news consumption trends. It’s a lot, but it’s all so important. I’m glad you’re here. If there’s a creator I should know about or a resource that would help the entire community or even a question you want answered, don’t hesitate to share it in comments or reach out to me directly at liz@projectc.biz.

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the lede

Michael Kauffman is a serial entrepreneur who happens to live in a place he thinks is lovely enough to write about. So that’s what he started doing. A little over a year ago, Kauffman, an avid outdoorsman, launched Catskill Crew, a things-to-do newsletter laser-focused on his passion for the outdoors and what to do there.

“I saw an opportunity in the Catskills where there was no local newsletter,” said Kauffman in a call earlier this week. “There was no place to find what was really going on.”

Fast forward 13 months and the free newsletter is now paying Kauffman’s bills with a blend of local advertising, events and curated discount cards to local businesses. Kauffman’s editorial has evolved beyond just things to do, becoming a tapestry of stories that explore the art, culture and history of the region.

Now Kauffman is sharing what he’s learned, and trading lessons with an expanding cohort of fellow Beehiiv local newsletter writers in The Newsletter Club, a members-only community for a group of 60+ local newsletter writers like him from across the country and around the world.

“It was about bringing together other local newsletter creators, giving them tools, tricks, sharing all of our tactics that we're using to compound knowledge to move faster, go further,” said Kauffman, who adds the group covers everything from adjusting to life as a writer to monetization. But, he added, he’d like to grow the kind of support the club offers – maybe even standing up a SaaS solution to fill in some of the tool gaps he and the cohort have identified.

Kauffman and the newsletter club are doing their work largely outside any existing journalism industry frameworks or support orgs. This jibes with the recent Pew findings that 77 percent of news influencers do not come from a traditional newsroom background. But, Kauffman said, he’s open to learning more about organizations like Tiny News Collective and widening his coalition.

the latest

  • Audience teams will be the next wave of newsroom staff to go solo. Now that creator journalism has officially arrived, those independent journalists need support, too, writes Ryan Kellett in his NiemanLab 2025 prediction for journalism.

  • Video creator aggregator Nebula is partnering with Julia Angwin’s Proof to distribute the indie newsroom’s video to Nebula’s 680,000 subscribers.

  • In Houston, one woman has built a thriving Instagram following for Emily Takes Notes, her meticulously-written coverage of city council meetings.

  • Another former Vox video producer signs up with NewPress, Johnny & Iz Harris’ growing independent video company: Christophe Haubursin. The channel, Tunnel Vision, is billed as “a new independent video news show that dives deep into mysteries from all corners of the internet.” Per Publish Press, NewPress owns the channel, while Haubursin is a salaried employee.

tips + hacks

  • How can journalists still working within newsrooms operate more like content creators? Trusting News’ Mollie Muchna shares three tips to borrow that add up to creating more approachable, relatable work.

  • TikTok shared 10 tips for creating long-form video. Pretty basic stuff, but sometimes basic is good, right?

things to do

  • 🚨 There are still two open slots in next week’s free Project C Pitch Slam. We’ll mini-workshop your idea for going solo. Join us!

  • The American Press Institute is looking for lessons learned from newsrooms that have already experimented with influencer collaborations. If that’s you or your newsroom, take their survey ASAP.

TTYL!

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