Skip to content

Blog

Members Public

You’re Doing Email Marketing Wrong

The time and money invested in email is going to the wrong places. Investing for the long-term with relationship and content marketing is the best use of your funds. But short-term-focused marketing emails still represent the vast majority of spending. As long as that’s true, where should that spending

Members Public

Why move to Ghost?

I got a lot of messages after my move to Ghost Pro from Squarespace (after being there almost 15 years). I figured it made sense to post the reasons publicly. So, here goes. Better Experience Yes, you pay a lot more. But, you’re paying for the time saved toward

Members Public

The Most Useful Book Cover Constraint

Love plain linen hardcovers. Wisdom without hype. pic.twitter.com/nlvHCAWcMe — Derek Sivers (@sivers) September 6, 2021 I can’t tell you how many hours and how much money I’ve spent on book cover design. But, for nonfiction, nothing beats the stamped, cloth cover. It somehow adds more weight

Members Public

A Lesser Minimalism

Minimizing your processes is more important than minimizing the amount of your objects. Objects are often just the byproduct a process and a reflection of its health. But there are painful places where the two ideas meet. One of the first nerdy courses I bought, many years ago, was MacSparky’

A Lesser Minimalism
Members Public

Be everywhere. But be your best here.

The biggest trend in branding this year appears to be one of the oldest trends — signature models. From shoes to guitars, old-school brands are flooding the market with products stamped with a creator’s personal brand. A “brand” is just a “reputation.” The bigger you get as a company, the

Members Public

Ghosting to Improve Relationships

This post is my first on my new host, Ghost. They were kind enough to port my 15+ years worth of blog posts and newsletters over to kick the tires. My former host, Squarespace, was built up by word-of-mouth during the second golden age of blogging, and evangelized by bloggers

Members Public

New Newsletter: How to Enjoy What Doesn’t Exist

Why particles don’t exist, the best title ever for a haunted house book, and inspirational garden offices — it’s all in the latest issue of the newsletter [https://www.cjchilvers.com/email/issue-277-how-to-enjoy-what-doesnt-exist].

Members Public

New newsletter: How Spring Break Broke

The great personal newsletter migration, text files aren’t forever, and why boredom is exciting — it’s all in the latest issue of the newsletter [https://www.cjchilvers.com/email/issue-276-how-spring-break-broke].

Members Public

A New Brand of Unsubscribe

A few weeks ago, I downloaded the Substack app. I didn’t like what I saw, so I deleted it. That action unsubscribed me from every email newsletter on Substack. Fast-forward a few weeks. This is what I just received. Notice: 1. Substack newsletters are now just email “notifications.” 2.

Members Public

Is plain text best?

Derek Sivers [https://sive.rs/plaintext] and Patrick Rhone [https://www.patrickrhone.net/11399-2/], two of my favorite writers, have just posted about how the simple text file is the most stable, malleable format for storing your thoughts and work. This is probably the most widely accepted truth among nerds