What does real newsletter success look like?
"She paid recipe developers full market rates from day one and broke even in six months—starting from zero subscribers."
I mentioned this story to two people who immediately said, "I want to hear about that." So naturally, I asked my friend if she'd be willing to do a Substack Live where we could talk about it properly.
She's a former Eater restaurant editor who isn't just sharing family recipes—she's defying the "gotta go viral" newsletter trend.
Hillary is quietly running a profitable food publication that pays contributors real money without needing 10,000 subscribers. (Though big numbers are nice, she’s about to get a Substack Bestseller badge. 🥉)
Our conversation opens the recipe book to her refreshingly grown-up approach to success—thoughtful planning, realistic expectations, and exactly zero massive growth hacks.
She generously walked me through her minimum viable newsletter approach that made The New Family Table sustainable before most newsletters even found their footing.
For the reading-over-watching crowd (I see you and respect your choice), I've plated up the complete transcript below so you can digest all the details at your own pace. And if you're not on Substack, no need to leave your inbox—this conversation is being served right where you are.
(Also, this is quite long—but so worth it— so you may have to click on the email to read everything in your inbox.)
From Cookbook Proposal to Sustainable Newsletter
Jen: Hillary, start by telling me a little bit about your background and why you started The New Family Table.
Hillary: I started The New Family Table in September 2024, so it's just about six months old. I launched the newsletter because after my decade-plus of experience in national food media—I was the longtime restaurant editor at Eater and prior to that, worked in the New York City restaurant world—I was ready for my next chapter.
When my daughter was born almost five years ago, I experienced such a shift in how I was cooking at home. I felt there weren't enough recipes that actually worked for me and what I needed for my family.
I had initially planned it as a cookbook proposal. I had an agent interested, but the finances of cookbooks are, for most people, not a sustainable income. You get paid once, and that's kind of that. I saw the newsletter as a path to a more sustainable way to make money rather than one big payout during the advance.
Jen: Let's talk about the finances because I feel like that's so interesting, and not enough people are talking about the actual costs, especially when you have to start small. You started with zero subscribers and had to build, but you come from a world where you understand that breaking even is a win.
Hillary: That's hugely important context. Even the biggest food media players—your Bon Appetit, your Eaters, your food sections at newspapers—if you are breaking even, you’re winning. That's honestly true of most media enterprises at this point.
But there are a lot of costs with food media. If you're producing recipes, you're testing; you're paying for ingredients, photography... it has overhead. When I was preparing to launch, I talked with friends, former co-workers, and others in the newsletter world. Everybody gave me the same message: if you're breaking even, if you're not spending to create it, that’s a success.
Creating a Mini Magazine with Fair Pay
Jen: So, how did you figure out what to put behind the paywall and how to pay contributors a market rate?
Hillary: I knew from my concept and vision that I wanted to have contributors, so it wasn't just my voice. I wanted to create a mini magazine. One of the things I love about food magazines is recipes from different people.
Fair, equitable, and prompt pay for writers, chefs, and recipe developers are important personal values.
I went to a few friends doing lots of recipe development work and asked about going rates for development, photos, and testing. I put together my sense of market rate, which was on target.
The market rate for a good recipe developer these days basically starts at $275. For that, I expect a recipe that gets handed in as functional and accurately written. Then it gets tested, and we solve problems, but that's what the fee covers.
One way I keep costs under control is by being the tester and photographer for everything, whether I’m assigning it or making it myself. Photography isn’t in my budget.
A Minimum Viable Approach
Hillary: Knowing I wanted to pay about $275-ish plus ingredient reimbursement, I figured out a minimum viable version of this newsletter. How much do I need to invest to give this a proper shot at succeeding while knowing it will cost some money?
I landed on a number that made me feel comfortable investing and potentially losing: $3,000. Were I not to get a single paid subscriber, I was comfortable spending that down to zero to try to build this thing. Had I not gotten paid subscribers, I would have stretched that $3K as long as possible and then pivoted how I was doing contributor content.
Jen: For the first six months, how many contributor articles did you get a month compared to the content you were doing?
Hillary: I took 3,000 and divided it by 300, and that's about how many articles I could conceivably get. My subscription model is that paid subscribers get two new recipes a month. So I knew I could do about 10 recipes, which is about one a month from contributors. I send out four newsletters a month, two of which are recipes, and usually, one of those recipes is from a contributor.
Building the Right Paywall Strategy
Jen: How did you determine the paywall from the beginning?
Hillary: I knew I wanted to launch with a paywall from the jump because I see the paywall as inherently connected to my mission of fair pay. Because I was paying out of my investment for the content I assigned before the newsletter existed, I needed paid subscribers to put their $5 a month toward the next recipe assignment.
It's a transparent subscription: you pay for recipes, I pay people to create the recipes, and you get them in your inbox. That's the ball game.
I wanted my readership to know from the jump that this is what you get and how it works. At this moment, on the internet, where you can find anything for free, I'm trying to build a publication built on good recipes that cost money to produce and, therefore, cost money to consume. There's a bit of reader education here—good recipes take work and are worth paying for.
Smart Launch Strategy Pays Off
Hillary: One of my launch strategies was announcing the newsletter was going live about four weeks before launch. I gave myself a four-week runway to promote it and had some recipes on standby.
So, I only had about four weeks of letting people pay when they weren't getting anything yet. At a $ 5-a-month subscription, that's just five bucks while they waited. Announcing that I was doing the newsletter was a big moment for generating those initial subscriptions, including paid subscribers and founding subscribers. That really helped get things started.
The Gift Guide That Boosted Growth
Hillary: There have been a few interesting moments in my growth. In November, I published a gift guide. One of my jobs at Eater that I always loved was creating gift guides, so I knew I wanted to do one for the newsletter.
After I published it, somehow, it got onto Substack's radar and was included when they rounded up the best gift guides on Substack. That was a huge moment for my traffic, growth, and subscriber rates. I got about 30 new subscribers just from that one feature.
I have theories about why my gift guide was good, but I couldn't tell you how someone at Substack noticed it. But it shows how, even when you're small, getting featured by the platform can give you a nice boost.
Building a Recommendation Network
Hillary: Another key factor in my growth has been my network of recommendations. Writers I knew before being on Substack have recommended me, and I've recommended them. Substack recommendations account for about 20% of my new subscribers, which is very high.
Between my network of writers, friends from writing groups, and the organic Substack recommendation system, I've been able to grow steadily without importing any email addresses. It's all been organic growth on Substack.
Strategic Approach to Free vs. Paid Content
Hillary: While recipes generally exist behind the paywall, I'm very strategic about when I send them out to everyone for free. My promise to paid subscribers is that they get two a month, but that doesn't mean nobody else ever gets those recipes.
I'm willing to give away a recipe I developed for free. However, I’ve only released a free contributor recipe in my first newsletter. That makes sense to me—if I'm paying contributors, I need that content to be behind a paywall.
I do two things for my paid contributors: when their recipes go live, I comp them a subscription so they can always access their work. I use the toggle on Substack for their audiences to allow readers to redeem one free post. That way, if you're following a chef or recipe writer and they produce something for you, you can still get it through that free post feature.
The Trader Joe's Recipe Files: A Smart Content Strategy
Jen: Tell people about your Trader Joe's recipe column because it's so good.
Hillary: I call it the Trader Joe's Recipe Files. We take a Trader Joe's product and turn it into a family meal. It's like upcycling Trader Joe's. 😋
The first one I published was a recipe I developed—a dumpling noodle soup I make is one of my daughter's favorite dinners. I didn't put it behind the paywall because I thought, well, this is just something from me, and I know people are really going to like it. It's a good chance for people to find the newsletter.
That one generated a bunch of subscriptions and performed really well in Google. Later, my friend and former coworker James Park developed a garlic-soy chicken tenders recipe for the column. He's a paid contributor, so I put the recipe behind the paywall, and it's still one of the most trafficked posts I've had. 🍴
Small Numbers, Big Impact
Jen: What's really interesting about your numbers is everybody's always looking at the big numbers for free subscribers, thinking they need thousands. You've flipped that on its head with a little over 500 free subscribers but close to 100 paid subscribers, and 100 is a bestseller. 🥉
Hillary: Obviously, I want big numbers for both—that would be amazing. But I designed this to work very lean and defined success very practically and intentionally.
I broke even and earned back my payments for that initial 3K before New Year's, within the first few months of the Substack. But I didn't then say my operating budget for 2024 is now $6,000 (the 3K I invested and the 3K I earned). The operating budget for 2025 is still 3K. We're still in that minimum viable newsletter mode.
I'm close to 20% of my audience paying, which, again, these are small numbers, but they're the right numbers.
When I was at Eater, I was used to huge numbers on the projects I was editing. But I knew that with newsletters, it's a totally different game. It's fine to be small if it's highly engaged. My open rates are well over 50%—these are important signs that I have a healthy newsletter.
From Cookbook to Community
Hillary: I'm an old-school blogger who can produce at a rapid clip. But with this newsletter, I had to take a big, deep breath and tell myself that it could get better as I go. My only regret is not starting sooner—I allowed myself to have so much fear and anxiety about not having a perfect newsletter the day I hit go.
Jen: Insanely valuable content, like the Trader Joe's column, can be a really simple idea.
Hillary: The recipes people tell me they've made the most are the Trader Joe's stuff because it's the absolute lowest barrier to entry. I’ll continue to occasionally send those out for free because people love it.
And if I do the developing, I don't feel bad about making it free.
Learning from Editorial Experience
Edward (from the chat): What do you think was the thing you did at the beginning that made the most difference to getting readers on board with your Substack?
Hillary: I think there are probably a few things. I had a really clear explanation of what my newsletter was and what subscribers would get—recipes and expert tips from chefs and food writers. I had that mapped out clearly from the start.
It also helped that I had established authority in the food space. Among my subscribers are high-quality people—food media insiders, chefs, very food-savvy folks—along with supportive friends and family who wanted to be part of this.
Jen: That makes sense. Having watched you go through this process, what stood out to me was how clear you were about the value for your readers and who your readers were. That really came across.
I also admire how you brought your editorial professionalism to the newsletter. Behind the scenes, Hillary is an editorial pro—this was her career—and she applied that work ethic to her newsletter. She has an editorial calendar, knows what she's assigning to contributors, and publishes consistently every week.
Hillary: I appreciate you pointing that out. It's easy to discount our own expertise, but part of why this works is that I've been in food media for over 10 years at a high level. I have content strategy knowledge I could apply.
When the pandemic happened, Eater had to pivot to home cooking for the first time, and I launched Eater at Home. I created the content calendar and approach for that, so I've had experience spinning up new editorial products.
While that specific experience isn't necessarily replicable, everyone has their own expertise they can bring to their project. I have systems as a writer—I deliver copy on time, I tell readers something's coming to their inbox every Wednesday at 9 am PST.
I've never missed that deadline. Even though readers probably wouldn't care if it arrived on Thursday instead, my Type A personality makes it important to me that we publish right on schedule every week.
We're All Content Strategists Now
Jen: That’s a really important point for people listening to take away from this conversation. When you have a newsletter, you're essentially a content strategist whether you think of yourself that way or not. It's a mindset that everyone is learning.
When you want to put something out regularly, you need to think, "Okay, let me figure out who my reader is, put myself in their shoes, and have some strategy around it."
That approach is generous to your readers and yourself. It makes the whole operation run more smoothly, and people enjoy the experience more.
That's why I'm calling this series of video interviews "The Content Strategists" because regardless of how you think of yourself if you're on Substack—you're writing for an audience. Sometimes, you gotta put that strategic hat on and think about your reader.
As my conversations with newsletter creators continue, I'm consistently struck by how many paths there are to building something worthwhile. Hillary's approach—steady growth, fair pay practices, and realistic expectations—offers a refreshing alternative to the "growth hacker" mentality.
What resonated most with you from Hillary's story?
Was it her minimum viable newsletter approach, her commitment to paying contributors fairly, or perhaps her Trader Joe's recipe hack? I'd love to hear your thoughts in the comments.
Hillary's newsletter, The New Family Table, celebrates the practical art of cooking for families through high-quality recipes, thoughtful content, and fair compensation for contributors. If you're interested in family-friendly recipes that are both easy and delicious, you can subscribe to The New Family Table.
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