newsletters
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.
The great personal newsletter migration
For the third week in a row, about a dozen of my favorite indie newsletters have landed in the spam folder — newsletters I’ve opened and click-through hundreds of times. What gives? I love how Apple, DuckDuckGo, Neeva, and others are making our online lives a little more private and
35 Lessons from 35 Years of Newsletter Publishing
My first newsletter was about ninjas in 1987. I was 12. Since then, I’ve been obsessed. I’ve created small newsletters for my own projects, and big newsletters for corporations. What ties them all together? Probably hundreds of things, but I’m lazy, so let’s start with 35.
Mies van der Rohe Marketing
Have you heard about the latest “trend” in online marketing? It’s not really a trend — good publishers have been doing it all along. But with the recent privacy changes at Apple (and soon many others), online publishers have had to resort to some old-school methods of getting the word
Experiments Check-In 2
I have a few updates since my last 2021 experiments update [https://www.cjchilvers.com/experiments-check-in/]. I do these mostly for myself, but I figure they may help others on similar journeys. The Good * Readership and follows are still going up across all platforms, but especially the newsletter [https://www.
A Good Philosophy for Personal Publishing
From Om Malik [https://om.co/2021/05/31/some-changes-2/]: > “I have often lamented that the ‘why’ of blogging got overtaken by the ‘what’ and the ‘how,’ with the tools and format becoming the primary focus. Ironically I made the same mistake with my newsletter. I don’t work
The Problem with Newsletter Advice
I started following a bunch of new newsletter publishers recently to see what advice they were giving out to young people. I don’t disagree with the things they say, but I usually disagree with the context. Personal newsletters should have no rules. They are where you find your audience,
Generosity Comes from People
Fom Josh Spector [https://twitter.com/jspector/status/1386759740772999176?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw]: > “No one wants a newsletter from a company, but lots of people would like a newsletter from a smart person who works for that company.” This is where everything is going, especially as data from email
Ghost Resurrects, Haunts Substack
Ghost has doubled its revenue this year, by focusing on reader/creator experience. From founder John O'Nolan [https://www.indiehackers.com/post/whats-new-nonprofit-blogging-platform-ghost-hits-3-3m-arr-48787565ad] : > “Nobody needs to know what Ghost is. I want people to know the creators that we power, instead.” This is what platforms like Substack
Trust Without Metrics
From Maneetpaul Singh [https://world.hey.com/maneetpaul/why-metrics-are-hurting-creators-6a209d83]: > “Our inboxes are a sacred place. As someone who’s purchased several digital products before, I buy from people I trust. Being thrown into an automated sales sequence is the last thing that builds trust.“ The problem is that it