How many hours a week does it take to run a local newsletter business?

Over 40 hours a week. Probably more like 60 between my wife and me. That was our first five months, and we had nothing to show for it financially.

"People think three hours a week for 75 grand a year."

Both numbers can be true. The early hours are mostly setup and learning. The steady-state hours for one newsletter are much smaller. The business around it, especially selling, is what fills the week.

Is a local newsletter a side hustle?

Not if you want it to be a real business. The operators who succeed are making six figures, some way more, and they treat it as a business.

There is a side-project version. One guest on my show runs his at three to four hours a week for about a 10% lift on an existing business. That's a different goal.

How long does one newsletter take once it's running?

If you're focused and not a perfectionist, two to three hours for a weekly issue. Weekly is what you should do, so that's two to three hours a week in maintenance mode.

Getting there takes longer, even with help. Once we had a process, setting up a new brand (Beehiiv, Meta ads, all of it) took roughly eight hours, maybe 16. Then there's a lull for a couple of weeks before the first issues, and after that each newsletter took my team about three to five hours.

Stage	Time
Setup of a new brand, with a process	About 8 to 16 hours
Each issue, team doing it by hand (2025)	About 3 to 5 hours
Each weekly issue, focused person in maintenance mode	About 2 to 3 hours

Where does the time go?

Production, at first. Writing 20 newsletters a week took two to three hours each, even with a VA, and my wife spent a lot of time on the mistakes. That's why I spent 18 months building software to cut it down.

In February 2025, with two newsletters live and a third about to launch, my wife was putting in about 30 hours a week as editor, a full-time VA spent around 80% of his time on it, and I spent 40% to 50% of mine, including the ads. It's not rocket science. There's just a lot of detail.

Selling is the other big block. A guest on my podcast said you have to be comfortable doing sales yourself, and that's what separates local outlets that sell well from those that don't. More in should I hire a salesperson first.

What do I do with the rest of a full-time week?

Build the business. Most people write a newsletter in a couple of hours, less with AI. Social media takes some time too. Together they don't come close to 40 hours a week, which leaves real capacity for everything else.

Sam Harper, who runs The Waco Buzz, told me on my podcast that once he went full time he filled those 40 hours mostly with relationships and new partner development, coffees and meals, not cold email.

How many newsletters can one person handle?

My working ratio has been one VA for three to four newsletters. After a month of training, a capable assistant can easily do three, if not four or five, as long as the job is newsletter only. Add Instagram or a full website like mine and the number drops.

• Get it 95% done. Have your person hand it to you nearly finished.
• Check it in 30 to 60 minutes. They'll word some things awkwardly or miss a link, so you rewrite and check.
• Don't be too picky. At four newsletters, 40 hours is 10 hours each, and it should not take 10 hours once you know what you're doing.
• Hire ahead. My plan is a new VA every time I add a fourth newsletter, training for a month before taking their own group.

I'd always keep one employee more than you need. Making the newsletter is something anybody on the team can do, and the extra person can move to social, sales or something new.

Should I bother if I can't commit?

No. I run into a lot of people who see the potential, and when we talk it through, they recognize they probably wouldn't do it right. Then don't do it. I hurt myself telling people that, because they probably would have paid me. But if you're not willing to really go in on it, don't bother. If you are, it can absolutely crush.

Most people don't follow through. From what I've seen, it's not even 10% who take serious action. More like 2%.

How do I get the hours down later?

Hand off and automate. Have an assistant do 80% to 90% of the newsletter and add your local flavor on top. A remote team can't say your family loves a restaurant and went last weekend. You can.

By late 2025 my own time on the newsletters was about 10 hours a week, with four or five people on the team, and I was close to only handling the high-level decisions. I expected my software to cut the effort in half so each person could run twice as many. Details in how to cut newsletter production time.