Newsletter subscribers quietly perform a magical act most writers are not aware of
Newsletters have become boring.
Social media and writers eventually ruin everything. I’m on a mission to go deep into the dark caves of newsletters and see if there is another way. I want to help writers rethink everything we thought about traditional writing so we can find a different way to stand out from the crowd and reach a tiny audience we’re proud of.
Before we get started — a newsletter is simply a blog post you get via email, so let’s not get fancy or overthink it. Here is what my newsletter research has led me to. Steal a few ideas for yourself.
One newsletter subscriber is worth ten social media followers
There are layers to every online audience.
A follower is the most shallow layer. They mostly get to visit your work if they see it in their newsfeed. They click the follow button and forget about you. Clicking follow is the least emotional way to be in a relationship with a writer — and that’s okay. A newsletter subscriber is different.
Newsletter subscribers quietly perform a magical act most writers are not aware of. I learned about it when I spoke to one of the large newsletter platforms directly.
Me: “How do you market a newsletter?”
Newsletter god: “Your newsletter subscribers forward your email.”
This insight was incredible. Newsletter subscribers behave differently. It takes more effort to subscribe to a newsletter and stay subscribed with all the noise of our modern-day email inboxes.
Newsletter subscribers aren’t followers. They’re unsuspecting superfans.
Write a newsletter where you’re the sole writer and subscriber
I’m experimenting quietly with newsletters behind closed doors. This is going to sound extremely weird. I have a newsletter I write and I’m the only subscriber (by design). My unconventional approach is this.
If you can’t impress yourself, you’ll never impress an audience.
Go over the top *informal *
Online writing has become too formal, making it conventionally normal. Normal writing can feel boring.
“5 Buddha Quotes To Gently Start Your Day.”
*Clicks off the article without reading a sentence*
My unconventional approach is to experiment with informal. I was inspired by newsletter writer Khe Hy. His newsletter (also a blog post) titled "My $10 Je Journey" showed me another way to write.
Here are the components of Khe’s overly informal newsletter:
- Random Gifs (even old ones with Blackberrys).
- Short sentences.
- Punishing amounts of bold text.
- A blank line between every sentence.
- Gorgeous line breaks to section off thoughts.
- Breaking all the grammar rules on purpose in a carefree manner.
- A way of talking, occasionally, that comes straight outta Compton (Ya’ll).
- Diagrams a 5-year-old can understand.
- Going off on wild tangents for the hell of it, then coming all the way back again to the story at the start of the newsletter.
Informal writing breaks the rules. Rule-breaking stops formality that secretly signals “me, me, me.”
If I wrote using Khe’s informal techniques for the New York Times, they’d hang me up by my dumbo ears and throw peaches at my face.
Newsletters are an escape, which is why subscribers are discovering a totally different reading experience and shilling out their hard-earned dollars.
Don’t use the word “newsletter”
The word newsletter reminds me of primary school. The principal would send out a paper newsletter every week. The front page would contain the names of the best ass kissers known as “star students of the week.” So bad.
Changing labels is a way to stand out. Every man and his cute puppy dog are selling newsletters like tulip mania. Writing coach Vishnu says "Never call it a newsletter again."
So, what if you didn’t call what you do a newsletter? Tim Ferriss has the “5-Bullet Friday.” Anthony Pompliano has “The Pomp Letter.” I don’t currently call my weekly email anything because I figured out early on that readers don’t want another newsletter overcrowding their email inbox that screams at the volume of a jumbo jet “me, me, me.”
I simply email my readers once a week and skip straight to the point. “Hi, here is a blog post.” Then I go straight to the headline, and then the content. Unconventional writing simply means changing labels.
Labels limit thinking. Change them.
Make yourself the topic
The writing gurus all tell you to “niche down.”
*Puts on doctor evil voice* How about no Scott, okay?
Choosing a topic feels like having someone say to me, “Which kid you gonna keep before we take away the rest of them?” I like Peter Productivity, Janice Mo Money, Timmy Self-Help, and Johnny Entrepreneur. I can’t choose which unborn children to give away. It hurts too much.
Keep all your children. Make yourself the topic of your newsletter. To avoid sounding like a wannabe no-life influencer, you can make the format like this: “<Short Word> by <Your First Name And Last Name>.” As an example, it looks like this: Real Talk by Timmy Tucker.
You can also take all the topics you love and attach them to a theme.
I like helping people live a better life. I write about topics such as self-improvement, entrepreneurship, relationships, work and money. Guess what? All of these topics help you live a better life. Boom. Now I can go broad and still follow the writing guru’s advice of picking a niche.
The niche can be you.
Go super niche
Substack newsletter writer Lenny Rachitsky went the other way. He decided to choose a micro-niche: product management. Right from the start he has ruled out more than 80% of the population who don’t care about product management. He took his fancy job as a product manager at Airbnb and made it into a newsletter.
Here’s an unconventional tip: if you work for a brand name company then sponge off them and create a newsletter around it. Use your employer’s brand to add credibility to your newsletter. Pwahhhhh.
That’s what Lenny did. He sold Airbnb kool-aid, and then when he had a tiny niche audience, he switched the attention back to what he could offer them.
Humongous audiences are overrated.
Small niches can be easier to serve, and because there are less writers serving them, they’re often willing to pay more for your newsletter. Less subscribers … a higher monthly cost.
A newsletter is where you go to break the rules
My ex-girlfriend said it best when talking to pesky salespeople on the telephone machine.
“Can’t even talk.”
It’s how writers feel at times. It’s how I felt when I got accidentally banned from LinkedIn multiple times. A newsletter is an unconventional place you can go to break the rules. No algorithms. No content guidelines. No images being switched out. No mass-edits to your writing. No ban on swear words. No talk of the mysterious clickbait phenomenon. No ads. No stories promoted within stories. No style guide.
The goal isn’t to give up on the traditional writing world, though. The goal is to supplement traditional writing with rule-breaking writing.
A newsletter allows you full creative freedom. When you have it back the followers, money, likes, and reasons to write shifts.
Newsletter writers have become the rebel alliance against the elitist culture prestigious universities gave birth to when they made writing unnecessarily fancy and attached degree shackles to a writer’s creativity. When we rethink how and why we write, everything changes.
A newsletter can help you make up new rules, or reinvent old broken rules.