I Quit Writing for NewsBreak After Hitting 100,000 Followers
Here’s why.
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Over the past decade, I’ve built a multiple six-figure “business” growing a rouge’s gallery of tiny income streams…
One by one.
There’s no big corporate “vision,” world-changing product, fancy office, or employees.
Just one person with a laptop willing to try just about any opportunity that comes my way.
If something works, I add it to my “portfolio” of income streams.
If not, it gets the boot.
Sometimes, an opportunity is awesome at first…
But fizzles out over time.
That’s exactly what happened with me and NewsBreak.
“You know, it used to be mad love. But baby, now got bad blood.” — Taylor Swift
Just kidding.
I have nothing against NewBreak.
It just stings to be dumped after a three-year relationship.
If you’re unfamiliar, NewBreak is an app that claims to focus on local news stories.
Anyone can sign up to be a writer.
Once you get 100 followers, you can join their monetization program.
The Beginning
In 2021, they were recruiting writers like crazy and offering big incentives.
When they came knocking on my door offering a guaranteed amount per article, I took the bait.
Hell, yeah!
I repurposed a bunch of old blog posts, which they allowed, and got paid a silly amount for doing next to nothing.
It was awesome.
The Change
A year later, NewsBreak changed its revenue model.
Now, writers would be paid based on how many views their articles got.
Many writers jumped off the NewsBreak money train at this point, seemingly upset by the lack of “reliable, consistent pay.”
Out of curiosity, I stuck around.
And I’m glad I did.
What a lot of people didn’t realize was just how easy it was to get views on NewsBreak back then.
Here are my stats spanning from early 2022 to the end of 2023.
I accumulated over 33 million views and 100k followers during this two-year period.
And I’ll be honest — I wasn’t putting in much effort.
I spent maybe two hours a week on this.
I mainly wrote about businesses opening and closing in cities across the country.
Each article was three short paragraphs of facts I’d plug into a template I created to maximize efficiency.
It wasn’t groundbreaking journalism — but I was operating within the rules.
At the peak of my NewsBreak experience, I was pulling in high four figures per month (I’m not supposed to share the exact amounts.)
It seemed way too good to be true — and it was.
The Crash
Around the summer of 2023, I started noticing the decline.
Views and impressions slowly dwindled with each passing month.
Paychecks got smaller and smaller.
Things finally came to an abrupt halt on December 28, 2023.
That day, I went from getting thousands of views per story to 50–100 despite having over 100,000 followers on the app.
For example, here’s what I earned on a story from early February 2024 versus a similar story from 2022:
Quite a difference there.
The NewsBreak writer’s group is filled with similar stories.
Unfortunately, this opportunity has run its course for me.
And that’s okay.
I’m grateful to NewBreak for the good times.
Thank u, next
Takeaways for Creators
- Don’t be afraid to test new things — you don’t know what can happen if you don’t try.
- No opportunity lasts forever — NEVER rely on one platform, company, etc., for all your income.
- Don’t get too emotionally invested or attached — things change quickly these days.
- Always be on the lookout for NEW income streams.
- Grow your money “roster” — diversification is the key to stability.
