3 Things I Learned From Writing a Newsletter

Have you heard the good news?

Newsletters are cool again.

In spite of the media apocalypse (happening because of, you know, the regular apocalypse). In spite of Tik Tok. In spite of again, the regular apocalypse.

There’s a text renaissance in digital media.

Other people say so too.

The future of communication is asynchronous — there’s never been a better time to write things down.

It’s an even better time to write things down and send them to other people, ideally people who have consented to receiving written things from you.

This is also known as a newsletter.

The Newsletter:

This is the graphic! I’m not either of these guys.

I’ve written 65 installments of my newsletter, Notes on Feednet since 2018.

I have 137 subscribers, + ~35% open rate (which I think I should work on, as I talk about below).

Feednet started as a quarterly way for me to rant about digital communications in organizing, share links about emerging technology + low cost resources, and avoid my impending burnout for another six months.

Since then, it’s morphed a lot — or at least, I morphed a lot.

What is Feednet About?

Here’s a pic of me + Feednet morphing.

Feednet can be all over the place both in terms of content + niche, from creating an online media spokesperson course to writing mandates for a Buffy reboot to diagramming un-cooptable narrative shift goals,

I’ve gone from burnt out organizer to half assed entrepreneur to amateur audio producer to “I don’t know, maybe a science fiction writer? or a journalist? I tweet a lot.”

In terms of ideology, at this point I have quoted an equal number of militant Communists and Forbes Magazine headliners in Feednet.

Here are some things that I’‘ve learned from running a newsletter for 3 years (and a few things I want to get better at in the years to come).

1. People Are Cool, Fun, and Generally Interesting

This is the original logo. It’s crooked because it’s screencapped. It’s also blurrly because it’s screencapped. Hahah ahhhhh.

What’s cool about having a weekly newsletter is that you get to talk with a lot of people who are interested in the same things you are.

Whether it’s tips on dealing with insomnia, book recommendations, social media tools, or TV shows to watch, I have learned so much from the people who respond — former coworkers, mentors, friends, clients that I like but don’t get to talk about fun things with very often, and other people I wouldn’t otherwise connect with.

For better or worse, a newsletter is kind of like sending a Christmas update, but about hyperspecific science fiction or emerging technologies instead of pictures of your dog (note: Feednet does sometimes have pictures of my dog).

2. It’s Embarrassing When You’re Weird (But That’s a Good Thing).

Weirdly, writing 500+ words on Dr. Bronner’s is not one of the things I consider embarassing.

Here’s the catch: at least 45.1% of all the Feednets I have written are deeply embarrassing.

When I was trying to launch a media spokesperson course without a real sense of how or why — I sent a ton of ‘launch emails,’ ‘survey requests” + various impersonal automations, random unscheduled trainings, and other miscellaneous bad ideas (oh no, are people still getting birthday emails…?!).

When I started producing a science fiction podcast out of nowhere, without much audio background, that also went to the Feednet list.

And as I’ve exorcised some of my anger around activist culture + digital organizing, I write less about specific digital tactics + terrifying tech developments, and more about narrative + meaning in media, especially fiction.

This means that, for better or worse, I’ve sent everyone on this email list something they probably didn’t want to receive, as I morphed and Feednet morphed too. So… sorry about that, you guys.

The good news is that for people who want to build a stronger writing muscle or want to push themselves to make better decisions, there is nothing like writing a weekly newsletter to help you clarify what you want to do, why you want to do it, and how you want to do it in a way that lives up to your values.

…Eventually, once you fail in embarrassing ways, a lot.

3. It’s Worth It If It’s Fun. (That Includes The Extra Stuff).

Example: I will always write about digital security because digital security stock photos are SO MUCH FUN.

There are a lot of gimmicks in marketing. As we move closer and closer to a Terminator (or at least, ScarJo in Her) AI world, automation tools that make audience growth, mass personalization, courses, and other newsletter functions easier than ever mean that starting a newsletter can also feel like starting a marketing company. CRMs like Mailchimp don’t help with this.

Should I start running Facebook Ads to my grandmother’s best friends?

Should I create a 5 day e-course designed for my top openers?

Should I ask all of the people on this list what their favorite breakfast foods are and store this in a custom tag?

While running Feednet, I have created weird automations, reports on everything from open rates to subscriber birth months, surveys, trainings, + an email e-course, custom tags, segmented lists by a lot of different things, IG/Facebook Ads (just to see what happened! nothing interesting), and 3 zillion launch pages.

Some of these experiments have worked, and many, many of them have not. Either way, the ones that were worth it were worth it because I wanted to know if it work or not, and I found it fun to create, rather than achieving any specific outcome.

A good rule for most newsletters is to ask what’s worth trying for your readers, and then to ask what’s worth trying for you.

Or, barring that, asking will it be fun?

1 Thing I Want to Get Better At: Being A Normal Person (Not a Bot)

Unfortunately… they might Turing over some versions of Feednet.

In the midst of my existential entrepreneurial crisis, I sent a TON of surveys.

What do you think about this course? What do you want this course to be?

When do you want this course to come out?

Do you think I should change my hair?

Though many diligent and thoughtful friends filled these surveys out (THANK YOU AGAIN), a better, less spammy option was always available.

That option was: asking specific people in real life.

I sound (and feel) like a QAnon bot when I spam the individual people who I really care about + have good consistent conversations with on this list.

I want to work harder to have deeper conversations with the people I care about — and respectfully make it easier to opt out for the people whose lives/interests are not consumed by, say, Twitter’s algorithm + conspiracy theories, or if Emma Goldman is a super villain, (or who are obsessed with one of those things but not the other).

Do You Have a Newsletter?

What’s working? Which parts are you finding harder to figure out?

Let me know — I will subscribe! I will even fill out the extra tags.

Subscribe:

You can subscribe to Notes on Feednet here.

You can also read the last Notes on Feednet here.