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CJ Chilvers

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The best things in life don’t scale.

The best things in life don’t scale. I wrote this past week about how the same is true in marketing. I’ve come up with a list of examples since writing that post, but I’d love to hear yours. Feel free to respond and I’ll share the

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Do shit that doesn’t scale.

I get questions from marketers all the time about what to do as more and more of their work is eaten by AI. They see their clients happy with AI content, even if conversion rates and sales go way down. Why? The amount of cost-cutting involved is so massive, the

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Blogs aren’t quite dead yet.

According to long-time content strategist (and 2025’s YouTube viral breakout) Pat Flynn, SEO is dead. According to newsletter guru Matt McGarry, ad-based newsletters are dead. So, what’s alive? If you’re an AI company, it’s the lowly blog. According to NP Digital, blog posts are the #1

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Keeping a daily journal since 2010

I went on the Day One podcast to talk about my daily journaling habit. I've been journaling every day since 2010, and in Day One since...day one of the app, I think. Every Single Day: C.J. Chilvers on Journaling as Reflection and MeditationC.J. Chilvers has

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Stop asking me if I exist.

Is this true for you? I keep getting emails from newsletters asking me if I’m still around. Maybe it’s because I use Apple products, which emphasize privacy, and mask a lot of opens and clicks that newsletters (still?!) use to determine engagement, as if we were living in

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Be weird. Save Lives.

We don’t deserve dogs.  So, I got a new puppy. I figure the lack of sleep and constant cleanups will eventually get me close enough to deserving this dog.  This past week I wrote about how the rest of the newsletter world is waking up to the fact that

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This newsletter model is dead.

Matt McGarry just posted about what he’s calling Newsletters 3.0. “If you’re running a ‘newsletter business’ the way most people do, you’re doomed to fail.” His post could be mistaken for a summary of the topics in my book on newsletters, but his take is from

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Be weird. Save lives.

There’s been a flood of great “create for the fun of it” content in recent weeks, that I desperately wanted to link to — but I feared I’d be repeating my message a little too much. Then, I saw a video pop up on YouTube that said the same

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Daydreaming about Publishing

Since the last post, I spent a week in Mexico (above). I learned two things: 1. All I ever need from a “break” is time away from urgency. We rarely get that, even on a vacation. 2. When I did get a real break, I thought about how I could

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Where does blogging fit in your newsletter strategy?

I got this question from a reader recently: “Have you written about how a blog and a newsletter could interact together? Two problems: 1. We’ve monetized each newsletter. Can I monetize the blog? 2. Can I train my audience to visit a ... blog (?) ... every day?” I moved my blog