Category: sethwCategory: sethw

Life should inform the writing on your website, your newsletter, your creative output.

This from Lyly Dhommar, from a recent Email Guidance exchange.

Uncle Seth aka Lord of Social media escape club, confirmed that yes, connections and actions in the real world are the way I should live now. Then, I’ll write about them if something happens, not the other way around.

Do all the things. Go to the shows. The art openings. The ice cream stands. The hikes. The book shops. Live in the world as much as you can withstand, read, draw, dance, and dream.

Then, when it’s time to write your newsletter, you’ll have a rich life to pull from.

I hear “my inbox is overflowing, I can’t keep up” all the time, and how that somehow means that your newsletter will get lost in your subscribers’ inbox and your creative project is then doomed to obscurity.

Now that’s some stinking thinking!

I subscribe to lots of newsletters. I have over 100 unread newsletters right now. But there are names in my newsletter folder that I’ll always read. Names that make me smile.

You can be that for someone else, trust me.

Some people will make time for you. Not everyone, but a handful. That’s how it works.

Alert fatigue is a real thing. Subscription fatigue, too. If people don’t open your emails, or they need to unsubscribe, cancel, or leave your community, let them.

“You need to trust your members enough to know they can decide what’s best for themselves,” said Kristen Tweedale in our recent talk (listen below).

“You’re not a mommy or a daddy—you’re an adult community leader. So act like it. You’ll be a better leader when you give your members agency. The more trust you give, the more you get back. When you treat people like the adults they are, they usually show up as the adults you want them to be.”

Send the email. Heck, send two. Who cares? You’re the artist. Make your work, and then occasionally yell about it. No one is paying as much attention as you are. If it’s too much, or too loud, they’ll unsubscribe great – bye. For everyone else, welcome home.

According to YouTube CEO Neal Mohan at this years Cannes Lions International Festival, “YouTube Shorts is now averaging 200 billion daily views.”

On one hand, that 200 billion daily views is temping because we could start posting videos there and maybe get seen by some of those people.

On the other, we could skip it entirely and focus on the people already in our creative orbit. The people who read our posts and subscribe to our newsletter and listen to our music. Instead of chasing more, what happens when we chase impact and richness with the people right there in front of us?

I hear it all the time – “my inbox is overflowing, I can’t keep up,” which usually leads to the idea that your newsletter is going to get lost in the shuffle of your subscribers inbox.

I subscribe to a lot of newsletters. I’m drowning, too. But there are names that pop up in my Newsletter folder that I will absolutely read. Names that make me smile. Newsletters that I know I will read and get something from.

You can be that for someone else. Believe that.

If you’ve got four subscribers, 40, or 400 – there are a certain number of people that will make time for you, week in and week out. Not everyone, but a subset of your total subscriber count. That’s the way it works.

So don’t be dismayed by the numbers, the trends, whatever – celebrate the few people who love the work that you do.

People are getting tired of all the notifications from news apps, even to the point of uninstalling them from their phones. This from The Guardian:

Too many alerts could cause problems for the whole industry. The big smartphone software operators such as Apple and Google have routinely warned publishers about sending too many alerts. This has led to concerns that these platforms could further restrict or mediate their notifications in the future.

You couldn’t accuse most artists from sending too many emails. The general vibe is “I don’t wanna be too spammy.” So then many in the creative world end up sending once a month, or even more infrequent.

There is a balance to be found – for your personal bandwidth, and what your audience will tolerate. Everyone is different, and every audience is different.

But keep the “alert fatigue” in mind – it’s not that what you’re sending is too much, but you’re message, your post, your invite – it’s easy to get lost in the unending torrent of everybody else’s updates.