Category: WritingCategory: Writing

During a recent Substack Live someone ask about spending more time on Substack Notes to grow their subscribers, and I suggested they make better use of that time by sending an extra newsletter to their subscribers.

My job is to make great work, and maybe that’s your job, too. The byproduct is someone enjoying that work.

My work is better today because I’m introduced to great people on Substack Notes. That lead to new ideas which I can share with my subscribers.

People like Maria Popova and Jason Kottke made a career from this. They curate, inform, and share, and they’ve built an audience that supports this work. They’ve become trusted curators of inspiration by being curious, and then sharing the results of that curiosity with their readers.

You can be that trusted source, too.

I spend time on Substack Notes because of the amazing artists, writers, photographers, all doing their thing. Some of those things inform my writing. Recently Caroline’s newsletter was the basis of my last newsletter, which came from this post.

But I also find inspiration from the wide open web; I’ve got almost 100 blogs I follow in my RSS reader, and I subscribe to hundreds of newsletters.

Curate the best items you find (which most of your readers will never find on their own), and share it with your newsletter subscribers.

I opened Josh Spector’s email recently, and saw this:

“As the artist, as the creative person… I’m the lead magnet.”
​
This line from Seth Werkheiser’s Social Media Escape Club newsletter resonated deeply with me.
​
He went on to say:
​
​“People signed up for me, so they’re getting me. And if people get huffy about it and unsubscribe?
​
Bye.
​
I don’t want to hold back. I’m not a magazine. I don’t have editors. I want to write what I want to write.”​
​
Exactly.

That quote game from this newsletter, which actually came from one of the weekly Zoom calls I host every week.

This is why it’s so important to talk about your work. Like, out loud. With friends. Over dinner. In the mirror. On a podcast. Speak the things you do, refine it.

This isn’t about an elevator pitch (who buys things in elevators?), but about the depth and distance that the words you speak might travel.

If words can make us cry (from a break up), or jump for joy (“we’d like to offer you this position”), then surely our words can do the same.

Sitting down to write your next newsletter shouldn’t be painful. Not when you post a few times a week on Substack Notes, or have an archive of years of posts on various social media platforms. You might even have long abandoned blogs, or YouTube channels.

You’ve put out years of thoughts and ideas and observations into the world, never to be seen or heard from again, so don’t be afraid to revisit them!

You can copy and paste them, or just write a whole new take on an idea you had five years ago – whatever you do, it’ll work because it’s from you, and where you’re at right now.

As I said in “Writing a Newsletter Shouldn’t Beat You Up,” this doesn’t need to be hard.

“Your newsletter writing shouldn’t be a prison sentence. It shouldn’t feel like digging ditches. It shouldn’t be fraught with stress, or like dealing with a horrible boss. None of these things are desirable, and yet so many times we create these situations for ourselves.”

Maybe you struggle with sending out a regularly scheduled newsletter. You know you should send something to your subscribers, but some days it just feels harder than others.

Well, come to Thursday’s NOTES TO NEWS LETTERS Zoom call and join the conversation. One blog post, or one “webinar with a presentation deck” won’t have all the answers, but meeting with other creative people with the same struggles might help you figure this out!

NOTES TO NEWS LETTERS ZOOM CALL
Thurs, May 14 from 2:00PM – 3:00PM EDT (recording available)
Register here: https://luma.com/fku24gz8

Tweaking headlines, re-writing copy, adding testimonials, changing the color the button – you’ve done all these things, but you’re still not making the sale.

Two things – maybe your offering isn’t something that people need, or maybe there’s not enough trust yet.

I got talking about this in my conversation with Deanna Seymour, about sales pages. Well, long sales pages. You’ve seen them; two miles longs, 9000 words, and they don’t say anything.

Like Deanna says during this conversation, by the time she’s on a sales page, she already knows she wants the thing, to which I replied:

“I think it’s a trust thing. The trust that (is) built. Like, there are people that we both know, they could send a Google Doc with a PayPal button on it. Yes, I’m signing up because we built that trust. We trust them now. I don’t know that an 18-page sales page builds trust. I think the trust comes way before someone clicks on your sales page.”

You don’t fix trust with more copy. You fix trust by, well, building trust.

You build trust by showing up and doing what you say you’re going to do. By fixing the things you say you fix, and showing how you do it. Every step of the way, you’re reinforcing the belief that you’re the right person for the job.

I’ve seen a bunch of coaching websites with the “click here to book an intro call,” but not a single video showing their face, their tone, their vibes.

How do you build trust with a “book now” button?

Why would any woman hop on a call with a man in 2026 without seeing some videos?

Why would anyone sign up for a virtual yoga class without hearing your voice, or seeing how you manage an online session?

These things aren’t fixed with 5,000 word sales pages, or reading testimonials from people we don’t know. Trust is built brick by brick, by showing up as your full human self, and sometimes that includes seeing your face and hearing your voice.

Listen to “Building a Business Without Social Media with Seth Werkheiser” on Deanna Seymour’s Big Fun, Small Business podcast here.

Everything you post, big or small, can inform the next thing you post. This from Debbie Weil, emphasis mine:

“I had decided not to publish this week; my editor Erin Shetron was taking a week off to drive across country, as she moves from Oregon to Philly. So I figured I’d take a week off too. But I missed writing and publishing; I pulled out my laptop yesterday afternoon and wrote this in about three hours. It’s not deep or difficult (it’s partially based on some Notes I wrote earlier).”

Your ardent supporters are on your email list, but most will never see your Note on Substack, or a random post on Threads, so repurpose that work for your subscribers!

I’ve said this for years – if you’ve been posting on social media for years, writing your next newsletter is easy, because it’s already written.

Most of your followers didn’t see your latest social media post, so re-use the photos and text and ideas and craft them into your next newsletter, where more people will see it. Give those “random posts” oxygen, new life – you never know where they might lead with the right attention!

NOTES TO NEWS LETTERS ZOOM CALL
Thursday, May 14 at 2:00 PM EDT
Replay available if you sign up.
Pay what you want, starting at $3.00
Register for the Zoom call here: https://luma.com/fku24gz8