NOVEMBER 12, 2024

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

Holiday Tips To Help Operations and the Bottom Line

Between U.S. Thanksgiving (Nov. 28) and New Year’s Day, much of the business world seems to slow, if not come to a screeching halt. People take time off to celebrate the holidays or use up vacations. They must use up money left in their budgets or forfeit it in 2025. And many celebrate clients and colleagues at end-of-year parties.

Are you and your content business ready?

Take some time this week to prep from a revenue, audience, and production perspective with these tips:

Revenue

People always want to know what to buy their family, friends, colleagues, and customers. Why not have them buy something from you?

​Books and merch are obvious choices. But if you don’t have those, think subscriptions, shout-outs, course gift certificates, or even sponsored posts, which would be a truly unique client gift.

Remember that gifting requires a little more work than a standard transaction. Ensure your process allows someone to buy and give. Online retail sites enable buyers to ship to a different address. Can your online shop let buyers “ship” to a different email address? Can the buyer send a gift notification? And can that notification be scheduled?

Last year, I was buying a monthly subscription gift and found that not all businesses give gifting options. Of the half-dozen sites I considered, only one let me pick the first shipment date after the holiday so I could let the recipient know when we exchanged gifts instead of having the box show up on their doorstep the previous week. (Guess which one I bought?)

Does the buyer get anything that can be wrapped? Some of your buyers will be gifting in person. They want something to wrap (or at least put in a pretty bag.) A simply designed, old-fashioned gift certificate could work well. Don’t forget to include all the redemption information on the back.

Caveat: If you don’t have an automated gifting option, you can do a manual process and just make the coupon code for 100% so it’s treated the same as a redemption code. Just make sure to set it up for one use of the coupon code.

With your content gifting set up, you’re ready to let everybody know about the options. Create a landing page on your website and pin a link to the top of your social media channels. Mention it in your content. Consider doing a small paid campaign on social.

Caveat: Don’t forget to keep good records – operationally and financially. Depending on your accounting method, the 2024 gift payments will enter your bank account, but you won’t record it as earned income until the gift is redeemed.

Audience

Think about your audience. How do the holidays affect them? Consider this from two perspectives: topics and timing.

As you fill out your editorial or content calendar (or revise it), identify subject matter that might be more relevant in this season. End-of-the-year wrapups and goal-setting (i.e., resolutions) are often relevant. You also can go a little deeper.

For example, a blog with a cooking tilt might include recipes that can be made quickly or with pantry ingredients. They aren’t “holiday” topics, but they answer a need for audience members who are crunched for time more than usual. An Instagram creator with a business-related focus could make a video to help their audience explain what they do for a living when relatives inevitably ask.

Next, figure out if your audience will have more, less, or the same amount of time to consume your content.

For example, if your data shows they usually consume your content while at work, you might want to take a break in your schedule between Dec. 25 and Jan. 1. Or, if you typically get more traffic on the weekends, you might think about adding more content to the schedule because your audience may have more downtime to enjoy it.

Not sure of what’s up with your audience? Ask for their feedback. You could even do a simple poll:

We are looking at our publishing schedule for December. In regards to our content, do you expect to have:

• More time to consume it
• Less time to consume it
• About the same time to consume it

Production

Now, let’s make it about you and your content business. Are you planning to take time off? We highly recommend it.

Block out the time on the calendar when you won’t be working. Then, pull out and update your production schedule. Adjust the deadlines. If you work with other team members or contractors, talk to them about their time-off plans and incorporate those. Don’t forget to make sure they’re good with the revised deadlines.

Caveat: Give yourself more time to complete your “vacation” content than you think you need. Remember, you still have to produce your current content.

If you operate a community, whether it's on social media or an interactive platform, decide how you will handle days when you're not working. Is there someone on your team or in the community who could manage in your absence? Let your community know you'll be away in a post (if possible, pin it to the top).

Go forth to gift and plan

Now is the perfect time to take steps to make your business shine in the holiday season, from adding a new revenue stream to giving your audience what they want. And finally, to give yourself a gift of time away from the day-to-day business.

– Ann Gynn

Your ideas are priceless — let’s get them published with Tilt Publishing.

supported by: Grow Your Revenue, Connect with Your Audience Looking to turn your content into a sustainable business? Memberful makes it easy to unlock new revenue streams by engaging your audience and building a membership business. Offer exclusive content, including paid newsletters, subscriber-only podcasts, premium courses, and private community chats. Retain full control and ownership over your brand, audience, and data. Integrate seamlessly with WordPress, Mailchimp, Discord, Apple & Spotify podcasts, and more. Simplify revenue collection with Stripe-powered, secure payment processing and automatic payouts. Customize your membership offerings with audience tiers, pricing options, and personalized access levels. Start building steady monthly income and take charge of your content business. Ready to get started? Discover Memberful today.

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Entrepreneurs: Zain and Awais Kahn

Business: Superhuman

Tilt: Advances in the world of AI to help productivity and career development

Scene: Website and newsletter (800K), Twitter (516K), LinkedIn (952K), Instagram (32.2K)

Snack Bites:

• Brothers Zain and Awais Kahn first published the Superhuman newsletter once a week. Less than six months later, they moved to five days a week.
• The newsletter Superhuman gained 135K subscribers in the first three months and hit 350K in the next month three months. In 2024, it is the self-proclaimed world’s largest AI newsletter, with over 800K subscribers.
• Ad space in the newsletter consistently sells out, bringing in six-figure monthly revenue.
• Eight humans and six AI platforms operate Superhuman.

Why We Stan: The Kahn brothers found a content tilt that resonated with the audience and acted quickly. They also knew gaining a subscribed audience through newsletters was the best way to build their business.

– Leo Bonnacci

​Read the Superhuman story.​

Know a content creator who’s going full tilt? DM us. Or email tilt@thetilt.com.

Content Entrepreneur Expo returns to Cleveland – August 2025!

Content Entrepreneur Expo – is August 24-26, 2025, at the Cleveland Convention Center. CEX is the one event to help content entrepreneurs build an audience, drive revenue, and learn better content operations. Registration opens later this month, so stayed tuned!

Want to speak at CEX 2025? Call for Speakers is now open. Submit your presentation proposal today!​

• ​It's How You React that Matters (Content Inc.)
• ​Election Marketing: Why Trump Won (This Old Marketing)
• ​How to Maximize ROI on In-Person Events​ (Publish & Prosper)
• ​Tilt Your Business podcast​ at its new time – 4:30 p.m. US ET Tuesdays. Join Ann and Michelle to talk about how to grow your content business.

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