Sunday, October 18, 2015

Thinking of Starting a Newsletter...

I've been reading some advice on writing and marketing's ones books (like Your First 1,000 Copies) and listening to the Sell More Books Show podcast. Something that's come up a lot is to have an e-mail newsletter. My writing-group cohort Alex Hughes has a newsletter, as does small-press rock star (I didn't come up with that moniker) William Meikle.

I worked with MailChimp for a film-company internship and later for a client not long ago, so I've created an account with them. However, I have not yet sent anything out via said newsletter, in part due to a bunch of real-life obligations.

(I had the first inklings of the idea months if not years ago, but never got around to it. Let this be a life lesson--if there's a period in your life where you've got a lot of free time, don't waste it. I could have had the template set up by now and just plugged in new stuff as I went along.)

So, dear readers, I've got a question. What kind of content would you like to see in a hypothetical e-mail newsletter from me? The only ideas I've got so far are news articles gleaned from Twitter or from my blog (probably lots of movie reviews), and links to the film podcast I'm part of when new episodes appear. Alex has included original short fiction in her newsletter, which is certainly an option. Your First 1,000 Copies recommends I focus on what's in it for the reader, but a lot of the ideas there (like free workout tips) don't seem relevant to the content I can easily produce or the audience I'd like to build.

Let me know. I can take suggestions via comments on this post or via Twitter at @MatthewWQuinn.

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