The question behind your newsletter is the question behind everything you do: What is it for?
Many writers will suggest you run a newsletter as a hedge. “What if you get kicked off your favorite platform? You’ll always own the list! The money is in the list!” Those are weak arguments.
You might own the list, but you don’t own anyone who’s on it. You’ll always depend on people choosing to interact with you. To open your emails. To read them. To click, buy, share, and support. You can’t make them. Just like you can’t make them follow you on social media. The list is just another platform.
The money, meanwhile, is not in the list. It’s where you deliver the most value. You can create free stuff and put ads on it. You can ask people for donations. You can sell ebooks, publish behind a paywall, or even charge for your emails directly. If people find what you make worthwhile enough, they’ll pay for it — it doesn’t matter where it’s made and how you deliver it.
I ran a weekly newsletter for over two years. Eventually, it was holding me back. It stopped serving its purpose. So I quit. No more weekly emails! It was one of the best decisions I ever made.
I took back my creative freedom. I gained breathing space in my life. Now, my interactions feel more genuine and personal. When I do decide to send something, I strongly believe in it, and I’m excited to give people an update.
This is one of three great reasons to run an email newsletter. Here they are.
1. A personal connection with your audience
I don’t think of the people on Nik’s Newsletter as subscribers. I think of them as friends. I send them emails like I send postcards to my family. “Hey, hope you’re doing well, this is what I’m up to.” I sometimes include pictures.
I also make sure what I’m sharing is a high note in my creative symphony. I won’t just share the latest. No, it has to be good. Maybe even popular. It definitely needs to feel like I turned a page when I wrote it. Otherwise, it’s not good enough. After all, it’s not for anyone. It’s for my friends.
A newsletter where you share tiny pieces of your personal life and send out breakout accomplishments has value because it gives your most dedicated fans a behind-the-scenes experience.
If you write long enough, your readers don’t read for the words. They read because the words come from you. They don’t just want your essays. They want a connection with you.
You’re a person, remember? That’s your official capacity here. And that’s all it needs to be for this kind of newsletter to be valuable.
2. A promise with a valuable outcome
When you first visit Empty Your Cup, right on the front page it says, “Learn to live a balanced life.” That’s a promise. The only goal of each email is to deliver on that promise.
In my case, I try to live up to that commitment with a short, daily weekday email. It’s not important who sends the email. What matters is that each email is a new chapter in the story, and that, as the story advances and the reader buys into the narrative, they get closer to the initial promise.
Maybe the email makes you think. Maybe it calms you down. Maybe gives you a spark of motivation, or inspiration, or simply makes you feel good about tackling the day.
Whatever it is, the point of the email is to be an act of service above all else. If it’s a valuable service, if you manage to deliver a certain outcome to your readers, your promise could warrant payment all by itself. No externals needed. No affiliate deals or course launches necessary. Just great emails.
Just a promise to readers that matters — and that you deliver on time and again.
3. A feature of a larger product or service
At Four Minute Books, we publish a new, free book summary every single day. That’s 365 reasons a year to visit the site — but we can also make your life easier and just send them to you.
On our newsletter, people can choose whether they want to receive just the weekly roundup with links to all seven new summaries and short previews of what they’re about or if they also want each summary individually via a daily RSS feed.
This newsletter isn’t about personal connection. On its own, it doesn’t solve a big problem for you. If you view it as a feature of the service at large, however, it becomes a nice little add-on. A nice-to-have that might make the difference between someone reading three summaries per week or five. Or two instead of one. Or one instead of zero. That’s a big deal.
Of course, this newsletter also allows us to promote what we might also promote on the site and tell people about our additional, paid offerings and products. In that sense, it’s an intermediary.
It’s not as useful as the service-email and not as meaningful as the personal one, but it still enhances the experience of the product it’s integrated with — both for the company and the reader — and that makes it valuable.
Emails can just be emails. I remember when the technology first came around. Each one felt like a handwritten letter. This version of email still exists, and it can greatly expand the connection you have with your audience.
Emails can also be of service. Words can change the world, and they can definitely change humans. It’s a private, 1-on-1, powerful channel, and if you use it to make a difference in your readers’ lives, it can be a self-sustaining business.
Finally, emails can be notifications. A nice-to-have, saved-some-time, thank-god-I-didn’t-have-to-look. Even if the benefit is tiny, it still adds up if it’s provided to many.
Your email list is not your most valuable asset. It’s not a printing press for money, and it won’t absolve you from your dependency on people. It can, however, be an instrument of purpose.
All you have to do is answer one question when you set it up: What is it for?