The PR pro-turned-creator teaching self-employed people to get seen

^{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. When you think of a high-profile PR coach helping people get seen, you probably don’t think of a mother of three in the European countryside. 

This week’s creator turned her back on agency life in London to strike out on her own to service the self-employed who needed PR the most. Her work is a wonderful mix of online and in-person offerings, designed to bring big PR agency smarts to small businesses. 

Her story is a playbook in going from service provider-to-creator. 

Let’s dive in.

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Lucy Werner longed to be a journalist. At 17, she landed an internship at a PR agency and couldn’t believe jobs like that existed. While it wasn’t a newsroom, it had all the flash and fun. She’s worked in PR ever since – in-house at creative agencies, start-ups, and big companies. 

There came a point where she was promoting “all the bad stuff” like cigarettes, gambling and alcohol, all the while her friends were running cool businesses that needed PR but couldn’t afford a $5K retainer. So, she set up her boutique agency, The Wern, to service small businesses and entrepreneurs. In the first year, she was already doing six figures and had a team. But Werner soon realized there were still people who needed PR and couldn’t swing even the reduced fee. 

She scanned the market for resources but noticed a lack of PR literature written by women. All the books were either penned by men or female journalists (which missed the business strategy side of PR). Werner wrote and released Hype Yourself, then started doing workshops and speaking gigs to promote it. 

But again, she realized that unless those readers came on as clients, it was the end of their story together, which crystalized her vision for a DIY arm. After dabbling in online courses, she landed on a newsletter model. Werner fired all her PR clients, moved to rural France with her husband and kids, and went all in on monetizing her profile. 

It helped that her revenue streams also served as promo to her products. E.g. speaking gigs at universities, creative accelerators, and social enterprises. 

Within six weeks of joining Substack, Werner became a best seller and within six months, she was one of the top 50 global business writers. “It wasn’t the PR stuff that performed the best. It was my journey building a business. I was sharing all the ways I make income, the products you could create as a service business or vice versa, and how to raise your profile as a founder,” she said. 

While landing press is part of it, Werner also taught how to collaborate with brands, newsletters and podcasts, host workshops, and get in front of different audiences. 

The newsletter included directories that aggregated all the PR callouts she came across. These did really well, because people struggled to find and vet opportunities to pitch themselves. 

After Werner famously accidently wiped out her Substack trying to delete the podcast section, she had a hard time reviving it so moved across to Ghost – which turned out to be the best move for her business. 

She prefers that Ghost is a non-profit and raves about their customer service. In the midst of this, Werner wanted to add another income stream to safeguard her business, so started promoting a creative writing retreat in rural Provence, France. She’s hosted one, sold out the second in June, and close to capacity for September. 

Werner makes her money via her paid newsletter, book sales, 1:1 mentoring, masterclasses and speaking events, brand partnerships (e.g. Adobe Express ambassador), retreats, and story commissions. 

Here’s the breakdown: 

She’s about three years into her paid newsletter. “I used to get hung up on the paid subscribers but by having the ecosystem of offerings means that I’m making more income with less subscribers.”

Her secret to doing it all? “French affordable childcare,” she laughed. 

To manage her multiple offerings, Werner uses a wall chart system. “I start every year by marking off when my husband is traveling for work and the children’s holidays. My kids are off for two weeks every six weeks, as well as Wednesdays.” 

Once she knows when she can’t do, she maps out her big sales months/stunts and key dates such as a live class or a directory launch etc. She’ll schedule more social media around those moments. She leans on her free content to maintain her audience (from normal churn). 

It’s more of an ecosystem than a funnel. 

“People might hear me on a podcast and read my newsletter, then buy my books and upsell to a paid newsletter subscriber. Standalone sales pitches don’t work well for my audience, but if I’m writing something in the public domain I’ll also sign off at the bottom with "if you're new here, here are the ways you can work with me.” 

“Most people join the paid newsletter after they’ve known me for a bit, then might upgrade to the 1:1 mentoring when they’re launching something or in a muddle.” While she has sold a retreat spot from a Reel, most folks hang out for a while before they upgrade to something high-ticket. 

Werner likes to keep her PR muscle strong by spending time pitching herself, doing podcast and newsletter interviews, and guesting for other memberships. 

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Amanda

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