^{Making a living as a creator shouldn’t be some elusive thing. And what’s the best way to learn how creators are making it work? To go behind-the-scenes. These bi-weekly interview issues are like having coffee with your favorite creators. If we haven’t met before, I’m Amanda Smith. I write about solopreneurship and the creator economy.}

Good morning. While traditional journalism is tanking, local media-newsletters are thriving. If you ever wanted to be a blogger, this week’s creator interview might inspire you to reimagine that dream, 2026-style. 

Let’s dive in.

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Marissa Lovell was working as a publicist and writer for a local music festival company in Boise, Idaho. This was during Covid times when live music was struggling, and Lovell was looking for a new opportunity to land local media. From Boise began with the idea to create a local live music calendar and blog, covering cool events, businesses, and history. 

From Boise immediately took off, hitting 10,000 subscribers in the first year. While she was running paid ads, Lovell knew she was onto something when the word of mouth started. Although she was selling sponsorships from year two, Lovell didn’t see it as a “real” business until year three, when she went full time on From Boise. 

This was the big inflection point for the brand. 

Lovell said succeeding with a local newsletter comes down to creating really good content that people want to share on social media. She’s grown the brand through a mix of: 

“I also love doing scrappy guerrilla type marketing. I often do the old school dog walking posters where people can tear off a little part of the flyer to subscribe. We've also done stickers and things like that that we slap all over Boise.”

She said having a presence at all things that are truly local is key, versus trying to be the first to post something new. Instead of trying to be a formal media company, Lovell prefers to position it as “we’re just your friends who are out and about enjoying the city and talking about it.” 

Although From Boise is a faceless social media and newsletter presence, that’s what works for Lovell. She’s had people tell her it won’t work because they don’t get to see her face, but Lovell doesn’t want to be an “influencer.” 

The platform is purely about and for Boise, not her. 

From Boise makes money through sponsorships, events, products, reader donations, and other local media republishing their stories. Sponsorships are the biggest revenue slice. 

Two ads per newsletter, two newsletters per week. They also do sponsored content on social media as a feed post and/or Instagram story, sponsored newsletter feature stories, and sponsorships for dinner clubs. 

“Year to date, we've made $123,000 in revenue. $107,000 of that is sponsorships, $12,000 is dinner club, $2,000 is reader donations, $1,000 is story re-prints, and the rest is products,” Lovell shared. 

In 2025, From Boise crossed $100K. In 2024 and 2023, it hovered around $60-80K. She started at $0 in 2021. She said the catalyst was figuring out a business model for this and learning how to sell, and then eventually outsourcing the sales to a dedicated salesperson. She advises other media operators to do it all themselves at the start as it helped build relationships with local companies as sponsors. 

Today, she has two contractors who cover sales and social media, as well as a team of freelance writers. For sales, this contractor handles all of the outreach, follow-ups, discovery calls, proposals, creative briefing, sponsor recaps, invoicing, pitching etc. 

As a mother, Lovell said she enjoys being able to ramp up and down efforts, depending on what’s going on in her life. 

The best local newsletters reflect the community in everything from the content to branding to voice and vibe. Being located in and immersed in the community is key. One approach Lovell has taken to get closer to the community is by launching a dinner club series once a month. She usually gets around 120 people at each event, at $16 per ticket. 

“I didn’t really know what to expect but I’m happy to report that people are making genuine friendships through these events. It’s also a really great opportunity to meet your readers IRL,” Lovell said.

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Speak soon,
Amanda

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