newsletters
The C Word
“Curation” shouldn’t be a dirty word, but it is. In the last decade, it has come to mean slapped-together-links, or outright-stolen content, used to fill space and capture just enough attention to convert free onlookers into consumers. There’s a lot of truth behind that association. In fact, I’
Your Smartest Dumb Tech
If the resurgence of blogging and newsletters wants to remain sane, it should really be a resurgence of RSS. Email has new problem. For the longest time, I’ve advocated for publishing by email as the most independent, universal, and effective form of getting the word out about anything. That’
The Future of AI, Newsletters, and Your Garden
Let’s start off 2023 with some fun, get into some data, and play with ideas for how to ship more in the year to come. 1 What would it look like if creation was joyful and sane? From my swipe file of dream workspaces, this just series of tiny,
4 big questions for email marketing in 2023
I posted last week about the predictions from Litmus (based in part on research from earlier in the year). It just re-affirmed what we’ve know for over a year about the future of email as a publishing and marketing platform. It’s a great future for readers and customers,
The Stupidest Experiment
Me since 2001: Don’t revisit your Van Halen book for a third edition. It’s an endless pit of work that never makes money and invites trolls by the dozens. Me in 2022: Let’s do this thing. As always, I’ll report back with my findings on Substack,
Just putting it out there
Publish your weird ideas in public. You never know who’s listening. Back in May 2021, I posted this idea about a guitar design to Twitter, tagging EVH guitars: I asked EVH for a Nuno-style version of the guitar (which is a natural-finish ash or swamp ash guitar body with
Surviving the Ad-pocalypse…Again
Experience is a brutal teacher. One lesson, that is almost never passed along, is that creators should avoid advertising as a business model for as long as possible. Sure, most of time, it seems like the easiest, fastest way to put food on the table, especially to a younger generation
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
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
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