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13 Comments

What kind of newsletter do you write?

I was reading this great article from IndieMailer today which posits that most paid newsletters fall into three formats:

Blog by email

Writing blog posts and publishing them via email. A lot of Substack and Revue writers are following this format, e.g. Matt Taibbi’s Substack which I really enjoy. Personality-driven, and probably the fastest-growing in this list right now.

Curated roundup

A regularly recurring collection of links, usually to blog posts or articles, centered around a niche or topic. Peter Cooper’s suite of newsletters over at Cooperpress are a great example of this, with things like JavaScript Weekly and the newly launched Deno Weekly, which target specific developer audiences every week.

Product

In the paid newsletter space, this area is where a company offers a productized email, like premium content or deals. Scott’s Cheap Flights is a great example of this — the money I’ve saved buying tickets via SCF easily has essentially made the membership free!

What kind of newsletter do you write? Vote in the poll, and make sure to share it in the comments, too 👍 Notably, the original article is around paid newsletters, but I find that most newsletter still fall into these camps!

Personally, I’m planning Mailing List Hackers’ newsletter to be a hybrid roundup/productized newsletter, sharing great blog posts, but also sharing insights and highlights from our members-only chat community (join us!). I’ve been running Bytesized Weekly as a roundup since the beginning of this year, and I have a ton of fun finding interesting stuff to send to my list every week.

What kind of newsletter do you write?
  1. Blog by email
  2. Curated roundup
  3. Product
Vote
  1. 3

    For Rosieland I do a curated roundup and blog by email.

    I send a free curated email out every week, then articles/blog posts for paid subscribers (amongst a couple of other perks) for paid subscribers.

  2. 2

    I'm currently running a curated roundup in terms of virtual events, tools and trends. Keen to hear your feedback tho @signalnerve

    1. 1

      super cool! I put on a remote software conference so this is super relevant to me :) keep up the good work!

  3. 2

    I write a curated roundup newsletter, which, as per the poll, seems to be a popular choice!

    I have two goals for the newsletter (called Keynotes):

    First, is to offer value to my readers. I provide tools, resources, courses, podcasts, creators, etc that I think will help in their digital marketing journeys (mainly because they've helped me on mine!)

    Second, is to be representative in the products/people that I featured. This is more of a personal goal, as my passion for the newsletter is giving voices to underrepresented groups. This is especially important for me with the creators that I feature, as I want to make sure I am as inclusive as I can be!

  4. 2

    For Good First Commit, I do a curated roundup of beginner-friendly GitHub Issues every week.

    I aim to help:

    • New coders to easily discover issues that they can contribute to
    • Help open-source projects get the help they need
  5. 2

    Not sure I understand if you're interested also in free newsletters.

  6. 2

    I run the following newsletters where I send out the best hand curated links every week.

    https://www.pythonweekly.com/

    https://www.programmerweekly.com/

    http://www.founderweekly.com/

  7. 2

    For Salt Sear Savor, it is a blog by email. I'm sticking to that format for right now.

    I've thought about expanding to other formats if I end up having a paid and free version of the newsletter. Was thinking the free version would end up being a combination of Blog by email and Curated roundup. I'd like to have the paid newsletter be all Blog by email and maybe some community aspects as well. My thinking the free version could provide value and also be a good teaser of the paid version.

  8. 2

    Thanks for mentioning IndieMailer!

    As for me, on Panoply I use the curated roundup, but only of my own content :)

  9. 2

    For https://eastvc.news/ I send summary of investment that happened that week + link for each investment that I happened.

    1. 1

      Hey @Boston123 :)

      Would you be interested in a redesign for your landing page of eastvc.news? I sell easy-to-setup HTML themes on buildfaster.co and I think one that would be great is the Lightning Blue News theme. This will add more content to your landing page and give viewers a better insight of Eastvc.news's newsletter.

  10. 1

    I do a curated roundup newsletter every 2 weeks. Have set categories - clever tools, brain food, fun stuff, and a 'Pot Luck Silly' button. Covers creativity, business, personal finance, food. Nothing of the day - so no news.

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