1 million email subscribers

In January of 2021, blogger and best-selling debut author, James Clear, published the
screenshot above on Twitter. Less than two and a half years from the day (October 16,
2018) Atomic Habits was published, Clear had crossed the one-million email subscriber
threshold.

But his publishing journey didn’t start in 2018.

Since 2012, Clear has published hundreds of articles and leveraged an evolving suite
of promotional strategies to achieve his amazing audience growth. We wanted to know
exactly how Clear did it.

So we decided to pull back the curtain on Clear’s success. This guide is a deep dive
into James Clear’s historical publishing routines, marketing techniques, and writing
style—going back to 2012. By the end, you’ll know how Clear took his blogging
audience to such massive heights.

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But first, some introductions...

“Every action you take is a vote for the type

of person you wish to become.”

Who is James Clear, anyway?

James Clear blogs about habits and self improvement at his blog, JamesClear.com, which
he launched in 2012 after a few other entrepreneurial ventures like freelance web design,
app building, and blogging (under different URLs). Today, JamesClear.com receives 10
million website visitors per year. He is a popular keynote speaker and podcast guest. You
may also know him as the New York Times bestselling author of Atomic Habits, which has
sold over 4 million copies since it was published at the end of 2018.

Now that we’ve gotten introductions out of the way, let’s investigate how Clear built his
one-person blogging empire.

We’ve broken this subject down into two core sections: writing and promotion.
Fortunately for us, Clear has spoken extensively about these subjects over the years
across podcasts, YouTube interviews, and keynotes. Without further ado, here’s what
we’ve learned about how Clear grew his audience to over 1 million email subscribers.

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Contents

04 Not his first rodeo: Tactics from growing Passive Panda

07 Write blogs worth sharing

“ „

13 Promote your content

20 Leveraging traditional media

22 The shareable newsletter

25 TL;DR — Key takeaways from James Clear about

building a massive blog and newsletter

27 Start a newsletter in 2021

Not his first rodeo: Tactics from
growing Passive Panda

Source: Think Traffic

Before JamesClear.com, there was Passive Panda, a blog by James Clear about
personal finance and making money. Clear used this blog to start making a full-time
living within just six months of launching the blog. This is also where Clear got his start
building online newsletters.

We won’t discuss Passive Panda for long, but here are some interesting audience-
building takeaways from this season of Clear’s blogging career.

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Send guest post traffic to landing pages, not your home page

In a 2012 interview with Think Traffic, Clear talked about some of his guest posting
techniques, which he used to drive subscribers to the Passive Panda newsletter: “I try
to send [site visitors from guest posts] to a landing page, as opposed to just a random
page.” Every link back to his website was a call-to-action to subscribe.

Use roundup posts to build industry connections

When Clear still had no audience, he decided to make his introduction to the blogging
scene by getting on the radar of freelancers he respected. Clear created a roundup
post featuring established freelancers. This led to added promotion from established
industry leaders and the ability to network with people further along in their careers.

Contact the editor, not the outlet

Clear used a lot of guest posts to drive traffic to Passive Panda. To get featured in
major media, Clear recommended working backward from the outlets you want to
be featured in. If you want to be featured in the New York Times, for example, start
by researching who writes about your subject matter for that publication. Instead of
submitting your content through the generic New York Times submission form, you can
“find people who are writing similar articles, and then just reach out to that editor.”

Focus on the customer or reader

Corbett Barr asked how James Clear writes articles that are good enough to be
guest posts on major websites. Clear said, “I rarely talk about personal stuff. I try to
focus primarily on the customer, client, or reader. I try to give stuff that is as useful
as possible for them. I think a lot of people will convince themselves, ‘My story is
interesting, so people will pay attention.’ But people buy into results. It doesn’t matter if
you provide a product or service or story. It needs to provide a result for them.”

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People share headlines

Clear focuses heavily on headlines. He explained that when someone likes a headline,
many people will give the article a quick scan and then share it on social media. They
don’t have to read the article—just the title. The share doesn’t necessarily have anything
to do with the content. Powerful headlines themselves make the rounds.

Focus on evergreen topics

Clear mentioned that many digital marketers write articles that are time-based. They
publish topics that will be irrelevant in three months. Clear has taken the opposite
approach, researching and writing about subjects that are evergreen.

“I think the most successful people online

find one thing that works and then repeat
that one thing a million times. A lot of times
when you just get started, you’re trying to
figure out what works, so you do as much
as possible. And that’s fine at the beginning.
But once you find something that works, do
more of that.”

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Write Blogs worth sharing

Months after Clear’s conversation with Corbett Barr on Think Traffic, Clear pivoted from
writing for Passive Panda to writing under his own name at JamesClear.com. The rest
of this guide highlights how he grew that blog to its current heights.

Find consistency

On November 12, 2012 (a Monday), Clear decided to get consistent with his writing. He
would publish an article every Monday and Thursday, without exception. “It didn’t matter
how good or how bad it was. It didn’t matter how long or how short it was. It didn’t matter
how I felt about it. If all I could do was write three good sentences that day, then that was
getting published. I did that for three years and that’s how the site grew.”

This point can’t be overstated.

Through all our research, “consistency” was the theme Clear continuously came back to
when asked about the growth of his blog. Yes, he would occasionally break down his latest
promotional tactics (which we’ll cover!), but no topic received airtime comparable to the
practice of simply showing up every week to put in his writing reps.

“Coming up with a creative marketing

strategy, developing an interesting book
idea, having a savvy new product launch—
this is a high-level part of the game that
requires creative thoughts. But the only way
to get to those creative thoughts is to first
internalize the fundamentals.

If you’re fighting the friction of the

fundamentals, you don’t have a chance at
reaching peak performance.”

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 Source: ConvertKit

Clear wasn’t always a consistent writer. Even the master of habits himself spent years
writing inconsistently.

In December 2013, James Clear published his first-ever annual review. One of the
accomplishments he was most proud of was his newfound publishing consistency.

Clear wrote, “After writing inconsistently for years, this was the year when I finally
turned it around. I wrote a new article every Monday and Thursday in 2013.” From the
publication of his first article on Jamesclear.com on November 12, 2012 through the
end of 2013, Clear wrote 114 blog posts, generating traffic of 686,937 total site visitors
— leading to 40,637 email subscribers.

Fortunately for his readers, Clear’s writing frequency was also met with quality.

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Put in the hours

“The most important thing is also the least sexy one. I wrote two to three articles per
week for three years, and I tried my best every time.” - James Clear

In an interview on North Star Podcast, Clear broke down some of the metrics behind
his writing routines. He explained that most of his articles are between 1,000 to 3,000
words, with the median between 1,500 to 1,800. He usually spends 20 hours writing a
single article.

“The fastest I’ve maybe ever written an article was eight hours or ten. And on the high
end, I probably spent 50 or 60 on a couple. But most of the time, it’s probably 15 to 20.
If you essentially make it your full-time job to write two great articles every week, then
at the end of the month you’ve got two or three really good articles. I don’t know which
ones they’ll be, but I know I’ll have a couple.”

On research and reading

“For a long time, I focused on books over

blogs, even though I was blogging. The
information density is higher; there’s been
more effort and time put into books, generally
speaking.

Even if someone has a good blog, usually

their book is their best work because they
take their best ideas from the blog. They’re
the same writer spending two years instead of
two days on the idea.

But one of the advantages blogs have over

books is cycle time: you can get through more
ideas in less time, so you can come across
more gems.”

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Structure for simplicity; write with clarity

Source: JamesClear.com

Like most bloggers, Clear’s website has evolved over the years.

Today, Clear organizes his blog with great simplicity, avoiding images and flashy fonts. Any
reader could click around this website for only a moment to realize Clear’s website is all
about the content. It’s minimalistic.

Articles are organized by topic under a simple information hierarchy. Click on any article,
and the design remains sleek and content-focused.

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 Source: JamesClear.com

Every article emphasizes information. He doesn’t hide behind bold images. The occasional
photos and graphics that Clear does use in an article are usually understated. They don’t
distract from the content you’re reading.

Meanwhile, information is well-structured to emphasize the content itself, the author bio,
title, and sections by heading.

The end of every article has a single primary call-to-action: subscribe to Clear’s newsletter.
In many articles, he includes a link to a related article in the final line of the post, allowing
readers to dive deeper into the same subject.

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 Source: JamesClear.com

What does any of this have to do with promoting a blog?

For Clear, it seems obvious that clarity and simplicity matter. Through his blog and
newsletter, Clear has achieved massive success. To understand his success, we can’t
underestimate the power of any particular detail.

As you consider how to design your blog, look for ways to simplify the message. Give
readers just one primary call to action. Make it easy for people to get to the substance of
your articles. And find ways to make connections between this article and previous ones
that are similar, so that readers always have another post to read next.

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Promote your content

“If you have good work, every marketing strategy is easier. I can reach out to Time,
Entrepreneur, or The New York Times and see if they want to cover or republish my
article. Since it’s good, it’s way easier to get that media attention. Same thing with
gaining traffic on social media. At the end of the day, it’s all about your work. Your work
is your brand. That’s one reason I’m fine with JamesClear.com as the name. I don’t need
something bigger because eventually, the work I do represents itself. And that comes to
mean something—hopefully it comes to mean something of quality.” — James Clear

Now that we’ve covered how James Clear writes, let’s dive into how he promotes his
articles and newsletter.

Syndication agreements

The same article, syndicated from JamesClear.com to Lifehacker

Early in his blogging career, Clear saw a lot of other bloggers talking about the power
of guest posting. At that time, if you could get a guest post on a blog that had 50,000
followers, it was a big deal. That made Clear wonder, “Could I do this much bigger?
Could I get in front of 500,000 people instead of 50,000?”

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That’s what got him thinking about working with major media outlets like Time,
Entrepreneur, Business Insider, and Lifehacker. As Clear put it, he skipped guest posting
entirely and went straight to the next level: syndication agreements.

He asked editors at major media companies if they would build syndication partnerships
with him, the same way these media brands built partnerships with one another. He’d
say, “I’m an individual, but just treat me like a media brand.”

And it worked. Clear built a syndication network that often republished articles from his
blog on their sites—always providing a backlink to the original post on JamesClear.com.

“There are always best practices in any

industry. That stuff is important to do and you
should do those things well. But then I like to
ask, what’s one level above this—the game
that’s not being played by all these people?

Can I play that game?”

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Search engine optimization

We couldn’t find any specific conversations with James Clear about his knowledge
of SEO. But it’s clear from looking at his website through Ahrefs that Clear ranks
for some heavy-hitting search terms that drive hundreds of thousands of monthly
readers to his blog.

Source: Ahrefs

This could come down to the fact that Clear understands and intentionally
chooses articles based on keyword research. After all, Clear did say that he writes
with the end user in mind. But based on the interviews we heard, writing for Google
search doesn’t appear to be his main priority.

His ability to rank competitively on Google might have more to do with, again, the
quality and structure of Clear’s content. After all, what does Google really want,
anyway?

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Google is trying to connect people to the most relevant article or website based on
that person’s search request. Google rewards quality. Google rewards structure.
Google rewards clarity. And all three of these characteristics define a typical
James Clear article.

In other words, we don’t think Clear is hacking his way to the top of the SERPs.
He’s simply writing the best articles on the web about certain topics. And Google
is doing what Google does best: feeding the best articles on the web to the people
who are searching for those subjects.

Gaining traction on social media

Clear has relied on several social media platforms over the years. Lately, he’s most
active on Twitter, where he’s amassed a sizable audience of nearly half a million
followers.

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But he’s also gained ample traction on more niche social media over the years. In
an interview with Noah Kagan, Clear explained that he used to get a lot of traction
using Quora. The forum site would email his answers to a large base of Quora’s
email subscribers. He gained many subscribers by simply including a link to his
website in the answers he provided for Quora responses.

Over time, traffic from Quora slowed. And Clear pivoted.

He has also had articles and threads go viral on Reddit and likely many other
similar platforms. But the point is not the individual social media channel. The
point is, Clear looks for opportunities within growing trends. He rides the wave
of distribution while it lasts, investing heavily in platforms while they provide
exponential returns.

When the traction slows, often Clear experiments with new platforms.

When it comes to more common social media channels, something we noticed is

that James Clear is a shameless promoter. He adds a lot of value on social media
platforms like Twitter and Instagram by providing frequent insights into ideas he’s
processing. But he follows up that value with frequent calls-to-action for people to
subscribe to his email list, as well as tweets about Atomic Habits.

“The web moves very fast. The good news

about that is, since the landscape is shifting
so quickly, opportunities are popping up a lot.
You just need to look for what the next thing
is—but it can also be frustrating.”

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Not just a writer

Other than his yearly reviews, Clear has mostly

avoided writing about how he grew his blog and
newsletter over the years. Fortunately, he hasn’t
shied away from the topic during interviews and
some speaking engagements. From that content,
we were able to create this entire guide.

What matters most about these interviews and

speaking engagements is that he has done them
consistently since very early on in his blogging
career. This tells us that Clear likely generates a
lot of traffic and opportunities by appearing on
YouTube shows, podcasts, and even stages.

Just in the couple of months following the release

of Atomic Habits, Clear appeared on more than 80
podcasts and other interview-style shows. That
means his total media appearances since 2012
easily cross the hundreds. And these days, he
gives keynotes a few times every month.

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So how do you become a good enough speaker and show guest to keep receiving
invites to new shows? Well, according to one of Clear’s Twitter threads, it all
comes back to writing…

“Before I’m about to do a podcast interview

or a live event, I scroll through any articles
related to what I’m talking about.

The headlines are usually enough to spark

my memory of a few stories. When the
presentation starts, I can drop a story in
whenever relevant.

It makes me look much smarter than I am. It

seems like I can pull out an interesting story
to make a point or answer a question. And
nearly any point you want to make will come
alive with the right story. But it’s only because
I wrote about it in detail previously…

So that’s my best public speaking tip. If

you want to be a better speaker, become a
better storyteller. If you want to be a better
storyteller, write about great stories.

Finally, review what you wrote, so you’re

ready to use the stories in conversation when
relevant.”

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Leveraging traditional media

From 2012 to 2018, James Clear amassed a 400,000-person following. From the end
of 2018—when Atomic Habits was published—to the beginning of 2021, he more than
doubled his subscribers and crossed the million subscriber threshold. The book and its
corresponding campaign took off like Dogecoin a rocketship.

James Clear went from obscure blogger to massive New York Times best-selling
author. He has appeared on CBS This Morning, written for outlets like Time and
Entrepreneur, and his debut book was traditionally published through Penguin Random
House.

But… why did he choose to go the traditional publishing route to begin with? If he
already had an audience, couldn’t he just sell directly to his audience and earn more
money per sale?

We suspect Clear chose traditional publishing for the marketing leverage. Here’s a
story we grabbed from a Reddit AMA (Ask Me Anything) James Clear participated in a
couple of years ago.

A Redditor asked, “Why did you choose to go with Penguin Random House rather than
somebody else? Why didn’t you self-publish?”

Clear went into the full story: he’d amassed a 200,000-subscriber audience in three
years of blogging and leveraged that audience to get introduced to literary agents.
He selected an agent and the two of them worked together on a proposal that was
eventually sent to 17 publishers. Seven were interested.

That led to a bidding war between four publishers. Penguin Random House gave Clear
the best offer and it took him two years to write the book.

So… why the publisher? We have a hunch about this one…

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Special publishing privileges

Warning: This section is pure speculation. Let’s call this a publishing conspiracy
theory.

Bidding wars in publishing aren’t all about compensation. Sometimes competitive

authors can sneak in additional perks that go beyond money—things most people
couldn’t get away with in a traditionally published book.

In Clear’s case, We think he negotiated for the ability to talk regularly about his
newsletter. He wanted to turn every bookstore into an opportunity to grow his
subscriber base. That means Amazon, every Barnes & Noble store, and all the
small mom and pop bookstores across the US contributed to growing Clear’s
newsletter.

The reason you don’t see newsletters mentioned

in the pages of every book is that email lists
are usually seen as marketing tools that don’t
otherwise add value to the reader. Talking about
an author’s newsletter doesn’t help the publisher
in any direct way.

In other words, one critical reason Clear’s

newsletter exploded from 400,000 subscribers
to over 1 million in just over two years is that his
book landed in the hands of over 4 million people
during that same period.

And every book contained multiple direct calls to

subscribe to his newsletter.

(Conspiracy theory over.)

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The shareable newsletter

Source: JamesClear.com

We chose to make Clear’s newsletter the focus of this playbook. We could have chosen
unique website visitors (he receives 10 million per year) or his book marketing tactics
(4 million sales). So why did we focus on his newsletter?

Probably because James Clear does, too.

AppSumo | 1 Million Email Subscriber Playbook 22

Clear’s newsletter, called 3-2-1 Thursday, is the heart of a lot of his attention. He links
to it from his social channels and promotes it at the bottom of every blog article. Clear
mentions the newsletter in his professional bio and routinely talks about it throughout
his best-selling book.

So, what’s the big deal about his newsletter, anyway?

From what we can tell, the newsletter is Clear’s ultimate business and marketing
engine.

How James Clear leverages his newsletter

“I still think email moves people [to buy] better than the other outlets.” — James Clear

The power of Clear’s newsletter has four primary components:

Easy distribution: Clear structures his weekly newsletter with Tweet-sized ideas
and stories. Every week, he includes a click-to-tweet link beneath most of these
short posts, making it easy for anyone to share their favorite quotes on Twitter.
Clear has an automated marketing machine built into every newsletter.

Republishing: The newsletter is broken into several small, mostly unrelated parts.
This makes it easy to republish his newsletter into several posts across multiple
social media channels. Every small section can (and often does) become a tweet
and an Instagram story.

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Direct contact: The newsletter allows Clear to engage his audience without the
friction of a social media algorithm. While places like Facebook, Twitter, and
Quora can change Clear’s reach at any moment, a newsletter always appears in
someone’s inbox in the order it was received.

Audience leverage: The larger and more centralized Clear’s audience becomes,
the easier it becomes to leverage that audience for further career opportunities.
He mentioned in the Reddit AMA that he leveraged his audience to receive a book
deal. And he currently leverages his audience on his keynote speaking page.

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TL;DR — Key takeaways from James Clear
about building a massive blog and newsletter

“ „

So what does all of this mean for your newsletter?

Here are the key takeaways we got from researching Clear’s rise to blogger fame.

Write and publish consistently: Clear published two articles per week for three
years. Every article helped him market the one that came before. His audience
grew with each new article.

Do your best work: Clear was meticulous with his writing. He often spent more
than twenty hours writing a single blog post. He focused on quality so that every
idea had the best chance of being shared.

Leverage major media: Over the years, Clear spread his ideas and blogs online
through a combination of traditional and social media. In the case of traditional
media, Clear used guest posting and syndication agreements to get his work
featured in major publications.

Focus on what works: When you’re just beginning, it’s okay to experiment with
many distribution ideas and writing topics. As you grow, you should double
down on what’s working. Test and invest. Ruthlessly cut out the tactics that don’t
produce results.

Find the game no one else is playing: What techniques are your competitors
ignoring? Clear likes to look for opportunities where everyone else isn’t. In his early
blogging days, Clear facilitated syndication agreements with large publications,
before that strategy was popular in the blogosphere. (#hipster)

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Become a good storyteller: Clear has interviews going all the way back to his
first year of blogging. He gives dozens of keynotes every year. Plus, he’s a popular
guest on podcasts and YouTube shows. His secret? Clear is a great storyteller.
For Clear, telling good stories means writing often. The more he writes stories, the
easier they are to tell when the mic is hot.

Look for social media with high promotional upsides: Early adopters of social
media channels often get the benefit of higher reach. Clear has used this to his
advantage, leveraging platforms like Quora and Reddit to go viral and drive tens of
thousands of visitors to his blog.

Repurpose your content: Clear is a master of repurposed content. He uses

content from his newsletter to generate many weekly tweets, Instagram stories,
and more. Plus, he intentionally writes short content that is easy to quote and
share.

Leverage your audience: Clear has amassed a large following over the years. He’s
used that audience to earn speaking engagements and a major book deal with a
Big Five publisher.

Prioritize your newsletter: Everywhere you look, Clear is promoting his newsletter.
From his Twitter profile to pages in Atomic Habits, Clear obviously believes in the
power of an email list. He isn’t afraid to promote it.

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Start a newsletter in 2021

Growing a newsletter to 1 million subscribers would likely have sounded absurd to

Clear in his first year. Maybe it was his secret goal all along—but even as a goal, it
must have felt like a total moonshot.

And if you think about it, the things that helped Clear achieve success all come
down to his core message of forming powerful habits.

In other words, it didn’t matter what Clear’s goals were when he started blogging in
2012. What mattered most was his willingness to show up regularly for years to
do his best work.

Or as Clear puts it, “You do not rise to the level of your goals. You fall to the level of
your systems.”

That’s all, folks.

AppSumo | 1 Million Email Subscriber Playbook 27

Sources

How a Self-Help Blog Generated 100,000 Email Subscribers

Think Traffic interview, 2012

James Clear “About” page

The North Star Podcast

Noah Kagan Presents

James Clear annual review

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