A year ago, I was writing in the margins of someone else's dream.
I was a freelance copywriter in tech and AI, writing for other people's brands and other people's briefs. It funded a life I loved, but I wanted something that was mine. A corner of the internet where I could explore the topics that lit me up. So I launched a Substack with zero subscribers, no email list, and no idea what I was doing.
Ten months later, Petal + Hearth hit the Substack Bestseller list. Within a year, I'd taken it full-time, with 23,000+ subscribers, 600+ of them paying, and a Substack coaching practice full of writers I adore. Today, about half my income comes from paid subscriptions, and half from the offers built on top of them.
I took the leap before I felt ready, and I'd do it again in a heartbeat. What I didn't have was a map. This course is the one I wish someone had handed me on day one.
Here's what I know about where you are right now.
You're showing up. You're publishing. Maybe you have a few hundred subscribers, maybe a few thousand. But something isn't clicking.
The growth feels slow. The paid conversions feel like a mystery. You watch other people's publications take off and quietly wonder what they know that you don't. And the path from "a newsletter I love writing" to "an income I can actually live on" still feels foggy, like there's a door somewhere you haven't found.
The truth: You don't have a talent problem, and you don't have an ideas problem. You have a strategy problem.
The good news: strategy is completely teachable.
Imagine six months from now.
You sit down to write and you already know exactly what to post, because the system does the deciding for you. New subscribers come in every week from Notes, no begging for shares, no waiting to go viral. You have a paid tier people actually want to join, and you make money whether you're working from the French Riviera or out for coffee with your best friend. You're not guessing anymore. You understand how the platform works, so every move you make is on purpose.
This is what happens when you stop winging it and start building in the right order.
What this course is.
It's the exact system I used to take Petal + Hearth from zero to full-time, broken into lessons and handed to you in an order that works.
We start with your foundation: your why, your reader, your pillars, the positioning that makes you recognizable. Then we set up your publication so it looks like something worth paying for. We build a content engine so you never stare at a blank page again. We grow your audience intentionally, through Notes and engagement, the same way I grew 95% of mine. We turn that audience into income with paid tiers, founding members, sponsorships, and your own offers. And we finish by setting you up to actually run this full-time: the money, the workflow, and how not to burn out.
Every lesson comes with a short video where I show you the strategy applied, not just explained. And every lesson has a matching workbook page, so by the end you're not holding a pile of notes. You're holding your whole business plan, written in your own words.
In short: every lesson ends with something done, not just something learned.
Curriculum
What you'll walk away with.
✔️ A publication set up to convert visitors into subscribers, automatically
✔️ A content strategy you can actually sustain, even on a busy week
✔️ A Notes practice that brings in new subscribers every single week
✔️ A paid tier worth paying for, built around community and transformation instead of just more content
✔️ A founding tier that earns real money from a handful of your biggest fans
✔️ A clear, honest plan for the leap to full-time, with the exact numbers and the readiness checks
✔️ A full library of templates, scripts, and worksheets, so you're never building from scratch
Plus lifetime updates. Substack changes constantly. Every time a major feature or algorithm shift lands, new lessons get added, so your playbook never goes stale.
This course is for you if:
✨ You've been on Substack a while and feel like you're doing everything right, but still not growing the way you want to.
✨ You're ready to take your publication seriously and build something that can actually pay your bills.
✨ You want a real roadmap from someone who's done exactly this, with the receipts to prove it.
This course is not for you if:
✖️ You're looking for a get-rich-quick formula.
✖️ You're not willing to show up consistently and give your publication time to compound.
✖️ You want theory without implementation.
Pricing
One time payment of $299
aka 12 fancy dinners
aka 7 months of someone else doing your laundry
aka 7 impulse Sephora trips you won't remember
aka 12 Uber rides to the airport
aka... you get the point 😉
One paid subscriber tier, built and filled the way I'll show you, can earn this back in a month. The course is the cheapest part of going full-time.
Your instructor
I'm Olivia Wickstrom, bestselling Substack coach, living in the south of France.
I took Petal + Hearth from zero to Bestseller in about 10 months, and full-time within a year. Today I have 23,000+ subscribers, 600+ paying members, and a Substack coaching practice that makes up roughly half my income. About 95% of that growth came from Notes, the exact practice I teach you here.
I'm not teaching from theory. I'm teaching from a life I built one experiment at a time, on the exact platform you're trying to grow on. Clear positioning, content strategy, the growth channels that actually work, pricing, conversion, retention, all the playbooks that got me here.
I care a lot about writers owning their audience and earning a real living from their words. I built this course to make the leap to full-time feel practical, sustainable, and genuinely exciting.
If you have questions before enrolling, reply to any Petal + Hearth email or send me a DM. I read everything.
Love, Olivia