Editor’s Note: Conversations spark ideas. Field Notes are what happens next. They're not a transcript or a recap—they're my reflections on the ideas that stayed with me after we pulled away from The Publisher's Desk. Conversations explore ideas. Field Notes capture what was worth remembering.
The Publisher’s Desk · Conversation 003 | Ellen Newhouse and I talk about what happens when you stop asking “What should I give paid subscribers?” and start asking a much better question: “Who am I helping them become?”
📓 Field Note 003
When Ellen Newhouse sat down with me for Conversation 003 of The Publisher’s Desk, we were supposed to look at her Substack and we did.
Her About page needed a few things.
Her paid landing page needed buttons.
We went through benefits, welcome emails, publication settings, Spotify, article structure, and approximately 35 other places Substack hides things and then apparently expects you to know they exist.
Normal day at The Publisher’s Desk, but somewhere in the middle of all that, Ellen asked a much bigger question.
She’d recently started thinking seriously about her paid tier and she wasn’t sure what people should actually get. This was unusual territory for her.
Ellen has spent more than three decades doing healing work.
In that world, the exchange makes sense to her. Someone comes to her for a session, she helps them, and they pay her. Clear.
But her Substack, The One Who Always Knew, isn’t a healing practice dressed up as a newsletter.
It’s memoir.
Music.
Creativity.
Reinvention.
Healing.
It’s Ellen starting an entirely new career in music at 67 and basically telling anyone who thinks they’re too old to start again: Come watch me.
So when people started telling her she should have a paid tier, she had a problem.
What exactly was she supposed to sell?
More writing?
Classes?
Access?
Sound healing?
A signed copy of her book?
A monthly group?
She had plenty of things she could offer, but that’s not where I wanted her to start.
So I asked her:
Who is this person going to be in a month?
Who are they going to be in a year?
What are you helping them become?
Suddenly, we weren’t talking about Substack benefits anymore. We were talking about the person on the other side of them.
Go Backwards
This is where I think a lot of us screw up paid offers.
We start with the boxes.
What do I put in here?
What can I add?
What can I give them every month?
What would make this worth $15 or $30 or $55?
And before you know it, you’ve promised two workshops, a private chat, bonus posts, monthly zoom calls, a book club, and possibly interpretive dance on Thursdays.
Meanwhile, we still haven’t answered: Why would somebody want any of this?
So I told Ellen: Work backwards.
→ Reverse-engineer the offer and start at the end.
Forget the benefits for a minute and imagine someone stays with you for a year.
What’s different?
Ellen started talking about the women she wants to reach.
Women who know they’re ready for something else, but haven’t moved yet.
Women with feelings they can’t quite name.
Women who’ve spent years taking care of everybody else and have lost pieces of themselves somewhere along the way.
And then Ellen said it. She wants to give them a model of what it looks like to: come home to yourself.
There it was. And the funny thing?
It wasn’t new. It was already all over Ellen’s work.
→ Her About page talks about women reclaiming their voices, creativity, desire, joy, and truth, which she calls it: Self-return.
Ellen didn’t need to manufacture the purpose of her paid tier. She needed to recognize it.
The Benefits Come After
Once you know the destination, then you can ask what might help someone get there.
For Ellen, maybe that’s a monthly sound-healing experience.
A Q&A where someone can bring the thing they’re struggling with.
A signed copy of her book.
Maybe it’s access to more of the music, stories, and experiences she’s already creating.
Those are benefits, but they’re not the transformation.
The benefits support the transformation.
That’s a distinction worth making before you start piling things into your paid tier because some guy on the internet told you paid subscribers expect seventeen exclusive benefits and a pony.
→ Your offer doesn’t become more valuable because you put more stuff in it.
Your offer becomes more valuable when what you provide has a clear reason for being there, which brings us to the other side of this.
Your Offer Has To Survive Your Actual Life
Later in the conversation, we started talking about Ellen’s schedule because she isn’t sitting around wondering how to fill her Tuesdays.
She’s writing.
She’s doing healing work.
She’s making music.
And she’s preparing to tour.
So there’s another question that has to come after: Can you actually keep doing what you’re about to promise?
Because we can design Ellen the most spectacular paid membership on earth.
Weekly calls!
Classes!
Private sessions!
More writing!
More music!
More everything!
And then Ellen goes on tour and starts wondering why the hell Jessica talked her into creating a second full-time job. Nope.
Ellen had already told me she didn’t want to spend her time teaching classes. That matters.
→ Your paid tier has to fit the person paying for it, but it also has to fit you.
Otherwise, you’re building an offer for some imaginary version of yourself who has unlimited time, unlimited energy, and apparently never needs to sleep. We don’t know her.
Transformation → Offer → Capacity
That’s the order I’d use.
1. TRANSFORMATION
Who are you helping them become?
What changes because they stayed?
What do they understand, feel, know, do, or have that they didn’t before?
2. OFFER
What would genuinely support that change?
Not what can you throw in?
What belongs there?
3. CAPACITY
Can you keep the promise?
Does this work with your actual schedule, energy, interests, and life?
Because the goal isn’t to build the biggest paid tier.
The goal is to build one that makes sense for the person joining and for the person who has to keep showing up.
So if you’re staring at those little benefit boxes in the publication settings wondering what the hell you’re supposed to put in them, don’t start there.
Start at the end.
Who are you helping them become?
Who is the person on the other side?
What are you helping them achieve?
Then work backwards.
20% OFF UNSTUCK TO PUBLISHED 💜
If you’ve been thinking about joining the paid side of Unstuck to Published, now’s a pretty damn good time.
Join annually for $177.60/year (normally $222) and unlock:
📕 The Ultimate Substack Beginner’s Blueprint ($47 value!!)
🎓 My Substack Masterclass — 10 Things I’d Do If I Were Starting My Substack Today ($197 value!!)
✅ Build Your Substack in 90 Minutes Foundational Checklist
💬 Private Community Chat & direct access to me for questions and hands-on support
🔓 Full access to my paid Substack content + subscriber perks
20% off. One year. Everything inside.
👉 Join Unstuck to Published for $177.60/year
The tools are here. Let’s build the damn thing. 💜
Resources From This Conversation
Unstuck to Published Articles We Mentioned During the Live:
Conversation 003 Takeaway
→ Don’t start with what you’re going to give them. Start with who you’re helping them become.
Once you know the transformation, you can work backwards to build an offer that supports it—and that your actual life can sustain. 👑
Start at the end. Then build something you can keep showing up for.
Continue The Conversation
Thank you for pulling up a chair at The Publisher’s Desk.
If today’s conversation sparked a new idea or perspective, I’d love for you to continue the conversation by sharing your biggest takeaway in the comments.
↑ Listen to Conversation 003 of The Publisher’s Desk: Start At The End
One of my favorite parts of The Publisher’s Desk is introducing you to thoughtful people whose work I genuinely admire.
I’m super grateful that Ellen’s the first woman to pull up a chair at The Publisher’s Desk.
About Ellen Newhouse
Thank you so much to everyone who tuned into our Live!
I appreciate you spending part of your day with us. And to everyone watching the replay, thank you for being here too! 💜
Ellen Newhouse is the creator of The One Who Always Knew.
Through her writing, healing work, and music, Ellen explores what it means to come home to yourself—to reclaim your voice, creativity, joy, and truth after years of burnout, caregiving, people-pleasing, reinvention, or simply losing pieces of yourself along the way.
After more than three decades of helping women heal, Ellen is also stepping into an entirely new chapter of her own: building a career in music at 67! 👑🐐
If today's conversation resonated with you, I think you'll really enjoy Ellen’s work at The Woman Who Always Knew. →
Scan the QR code below to subscribe to Unstuck to Published →
Thank You
Thank you so much for everyone who tuned into this live, your presence is truly appreciated, and to the people who are watching the replay, thank you!
-Jess, The Creator & Ellen Newhouse
