How do you run local newsletters in many cities?
Short answer
Three main ways: one owner in one town, a company that owns every market and pays local people, or a partner or franchisee who owns their town while you run the back end. I started out preferring local partners. Lately I lean toward owning them and paying locals a revenue share, because I control it. Either way, someone local has to care.
I count three models for running local newsletters, maybe more. I've run versions of all of them at the same time, and my preference has shifted as I learned what each one costs.
What are the models?
- Do it for cash. One owner runs a newsletter in their own town as their own business.
- Own everything and hire. A company owns 100% of every market and pays a writer in each one.
- Partner with someone who lives there. A local entrepreneur or small business owner runs the market as a partnership or franchise.
In late 2025 I was setting up three versions in parallel, which sounds stupid because they all do the same thing, but there was a reason. If one became a problem, I still had the others.
| Track | How it works | Who sells ads |
|---|---|---|
| Partner-owned network | A sales-focused partner and I launch newsletters directly, nobody on the ground | Us |
| Done for you | A local professional pays monthly and becomes the face; they own nothing; they get 50% of any ads they sell | Realistically us |
| Franchise | The owner holds a territory and pays thousands a month; I do most of the work and take about 10% of ad revenue | The owner |
On the franchise math: if an owner makes $300,000, I get $30,000 and they keep $270,000.
Why does someone local have to care?
Because salaried writers tend to do the minimum. Someone with a stake shows up at chamber events, meets business owners and films short-form content. The content creator has to be local, not someone overseas.
People ask why I don't just launch 20 newsletters in cities I don't live in. It might work short term. Long term, someone notices the owner isn't even there and launches a better one. When there are six AI newsletters in a town and one run by local people who do a good job, the local one wins.
The big chains know this. At a local media conference, the CEO of a large multi-city newsletter company told me their product isn't that great, and he knows why: nobody has a personal stake in its success. The founder of another big local media company, with 40 newsletters, said he wished they could do what we do but didn't see how.
Timing matters, though. For roughly the first 5,000 subscribers, call it two months, a central team can run it without the local owner doing much. Once you get to scale, the face of the brand really matters.
Why have I leaned toward owning them myself?
Control. In 2026 my sales-focused partner ran the numbers, and he and a teammate both concluded it makes more sense to own every newsletter and pay people to be the face. I agreed. Local people don't need ownership to do the work. You can pay an hourly wage, a monthly stipend, or something like 25% of ad revenue if they do specific things.
The corporate model is the one I have the most control over, as opposed to selling people on paying us to do it for them. The big venture-backed city newsletter chains already do it corporately and use AI for a lot of it. My question is whether you can be the bootstrapped version.
"We know this works. This isn't TJ just having this random idea that nobody else, that hasn't been proven. It's been proven hundreds of times by hundreds of different people."
What's not proven is doing it at scale, in places you don't live, without money. The chains raised a lot and have lots of salespeople. My constraint is cash. I could probably get a good salesperson at $2,000 a month base plus a high enough percentage, but if they quit after 30 days I've lost $2,000 and the time. With 50 newsletters making $7,000 a month each, I'd have the money to find content creators and salespeople. Scale solves almost everything.
What does the math look like?
My early model: get a newsletter to $3,000 or $4,000 a month, spend about $2,000 to launch the next one, and keep going. $2,000 a month isn't a lot for one newsletter. Thirty of them is $60,000 a month. With one partner we launched six with nobody on the ground and reached almost 50,000 subscribers in about two and a half months.
- Running ads for 50 isn't 50 times the work. Ads, outreach and sales pool well. One salesperson can call on businesses for 10 newsletters.
- Content can be shared. Readers only care about their own town, and nobody reads two of my newsletters, so some of them carry the same content.
- Staffing can be lean. In early 2025 I sketched one writer overseas per 10 newsletters, writing two a day, and one editor over 30.
Most people I talk to run one newsletter in their town, and that's smart if you want to make about $100,000 and be out filming. I'd rather launch a hundred and make $3,000 or $4,000 each, with software writing them and a person reviewing each issue for about 10 minutes.
The catch is quality. A long-term valuable brand can't be an AI newsletter, so each one takes real effort. Doing two is already a lot. Doing four, five or six means systems, processes and, most importantly, people: at least one trustworthy local person you don't have to pay a ton. That's not easy to find. Nick of Oakville Digest told me on my podcast his original vision was 10 or more newsletters pooled to 100,000 to 150,000 subscribers to pitch regional and national advertisers, and he wants much better production systems first.
How do partners split the money?
It varies, and I don't have one proven split. Here's what I've used or seen:
- My franchise design: about 10% of ad revenue to me.
- A nearby-town partner: I'd tell a part-time operator who's proven one town to set up neighbors for about 30% of their revenue.
- Hired locals: hourly, a stipend, or around 25% of ad revenue.
- Handoffs: I know founders who built big newsletters and handed markets to entrepreneurs who write, post and sell. I don't know their numbers; I'd guess 50-50 or maybe 70-30.
- From guests on my show: one planned a 70/30 profit split with a cousin for one season, no equity, with the option for the cousin to take over day to day. Another publisher splits gross revenue with partners and builds card fees (about 3%) and rep commission into the deal up front.
For my own franchise designs, see how a local media franchise works.
How do I find partners?
So far, mostly through my network. My first partner heard about it while we were working on something else, said "tell me more," and now his newsletters are bigger than mine at about 30,000 subscribers. My insurance agent network alone could get me to 100. My partner is deeply connected in real estate. I tried Meta ads to recruit realtors as franchisees, but we didn't try that hard and couldn't figure it out.
The honest blocker: real estate people love the idea, and nobody buys until there's proof it produced deals. Proof in one market comes first.
If you already have a playbook, read Who Not How and hire someone to run each suburb. A once-a-week suburban newsletter doesn't need a full-time person. It can be someone cheap and part time, while you provide the infrastructure for advertisers. It's not easy, though, or I'd be doing it everywhere.
Is there an easier way in?
Fix an existing business instead of starting from zero. If you're trying to get a new newsletter from nothing to $10,000 a month, compare that with helping a company already making $100,000 a month fix its newsletter for about 10% of revenue. That's probably a lot easier. Nearly all entrepreneurs don't understand newsletters or the technical side, which is the opportunity.
Answered by TJ Larkin. From Local Media HQ podcast conversations, partner and consulting calls, 2024-2026. Last updated .