I'm Juned Jabbar. Right now I'm doing one thing: talking to independent newsletter creators about how their businesses actually work.

I run Perpetual Press, and yes — eventually I want to build software for creators. I've just watched too many tools get built from a guess about what creators need, and I'd rather not add another one. So before anything gets designed, I'm spending my time on conversations: twenty minutes each, with people who publish week after week, about where the hours really go and what's actually working.

From the outside I can see a fair amount — I read these newsletters every week, I can see who publishes what, how often, which formats keep coming back, and what the good ones do that the rest don't. What I can't see from out here is the part that decides whether this is a good business: how you choose what's worth putting in front of your audience, how the money really breaks down, and why one issue comes together in an afternoon while the next one eats a weekend. Nobody answers those from a distance, which is why I'm asking instead of guessing.

Two creators have already been generous with their time — Stacie Vaughan of Simply Stacie and William Tang of Going Awesome Places. They're most of the reason I know how much I'm still missing.

If you've received an email from me, it came from a real person who reads your newsletter — not from a list or a sequence.