Category: WorkCategory: Work

My friend Bradley Spitzer sent me this, from David Hieatt:

A newsletter is playing the long game. But it is a good game. The more you can help your readers, the more they trust you.

Around 2 years ago, I started a paid for newsletter.

98% of your free newsletter readers won’t sign up for it. 2% will.

That’s enough.

Then make sure you put a ton of effort into writing it.

And just keep going.

Your biggest talent is you won’t quit.

You don’t have to out run a bear, you just have to out run your friends.

From Clarissa We, who wrote “Made in Taiwan, Recipes and Stories from the Island Nation (A Cookbook),” which “earned out in two years and has sold far more copies than I have social media followers.”

“Don’t confuse virality with value. Follower counts are just noise. Quality is what actually sells.“

We don’t exist in a meritocracy. The best stuff doesn’t always “win.” But as they say, you don’t need to outrun a bear, you just need to outrun your friends.

You don’t need to be the best in the world, you need to be the best for 10 people, then 100, then maybe a 1000. Your mileage will vary.

But we’re not gonna win anything with mediocre work, or cos-playing as a social media manager and expecting great results.

The work comes first, and it’s a good practice to make it great.

I’m not on Twitter, Instagram, Threads, Facebook, Bluesky, Mastodon, or LinkedIn.

How will I ever meet new people?

Yet a few weeks ago I spoke with an interesting designer on Zoom because their LinkedIn request ended up in my email inbox.

Instead of reactivating my LinkedIn account, I did some detective work, found their email address, and we planned a call.

How will you ever meet new people or find new things?

Stop scrolling and pick up a magazine, a book, watch a YouTube video, subscribe to a newsletters, a blog, a zine, a radio station.

Behind every cool thing is a cool person.

And you can send them an email.

I spoke with Cody Cook-Parrott ahead of the release of their new book, The Practice of Attention. We also talked about the messy and imperfect journey we’re all trying to figure out, too. Buckle up.

Cody deleted Instagram, and they also left Substack for Buttondown, returned briefly, then left again and lost their paid subscribers in the process.

“I felt a little flippant, almost. Like, oh, I can just build it back. And it’s like, it took me four years to build that many paid subscribers. It wasn’t like it just happened one day. And so I’ve been really thinking about how precious it is to have — I would like to think I would never delete my email list as a whole. I see people making quick decisions without really realizing how it might affect their self-employment landscape.”

We talked about social media, of course, but arrived in a new place.

(more…)

Carly Valancy was our guest on a recent Escape Pod Zoom call, talking with our community about the art of reaching out.

This isn’t about cold emailing, or bulk mail, but gentle, direct, thoughtful messages to people for the various desires you seek (“would you write a blurb for my upcoming book?”, or the blessings want to share (“I love your work”).

Some take aways from the 75 minute Zoom call:

Your subject line can be direct: You don’t need to beat around the bush or be fancy. Your email is competing with 1,000 other emails in someone’s inbox, so stand out by being 100% you, which can include asking for the thing you want. Managing our inboxes takes time and energy – make it easy:

“Go for it. Just say what it is that you want, because it’s okay to want something. When you’re asking for something in an email, you’ll often try to make the subject line dance around the thing you actually want. What if you just said it?” Carly Valancy

Be honest. Someone on the call admitted that they hold back from reaching out because they’re not on social media, so they’re worried they might not appear to be “legit.” Carly’s advice is to just just say that. Write something like, “I almost didn’t reach out because I’m not on social media,” and then show your work.

(more…)