How to Write a Curation Newsletter (Consistently & Sustainably)
I’ve had some sort of weekly newsletter since I started my blog in 2014.
I’ve written weekly newsletters targeted at students, church congregations, and Fortune 500 executives.
I’ve tested almost every newsletter or email service provider out there: Mailchimp, AWeber, TinyLetter, Buttondown, ConvertKit (affiliate link), Substack.
I’ve seen and sent all kinds of newsletter formats, too: short daily posts, long-form articles, and curation or link-based newsletters.
But if you’re reading this, you’re not interested in sending a newsletter for different demographics.
You don’t want any distracting bells and whistles. You want the most painless way to get up and running. You want to send a weekly newsletter, but you don’t have a lot of time on your hands.
All this without handicapping your future self, should you achieve Tim Ferriss-sized success.
Great. You’re in the right place (and you’re my kind of person).
In this article, I’ll run you through the five recommendations I have for people who want to start newsletters, but don’t have a lot of time on their hands. Briefly,
Aim to publish 25 editions of a weekly newsletter.
Use Substack if you’re starting from absolute scratch.
Use just one writing session a week for 25 weeks.
Send a curation newsletter.
Send your newsletter on Tuesday or Wednesday.
Once you send your 25th edition, you have my blessing to tweak these rules. At that point, you’ll have a better understanding of the kind of online writing you want to do.
A short message before we dive in: If you’re into creator economy, you’ll probably enjoy my weekly newsletter on web3, creativity, and the creator economy. Subscribe below to get more posts, or check out previous editions to “try before you buy”.
But until then, stick to these five rules.
I. Aim to publish 25 editions of a weekly newsletter
If you’ve never had any sort of online presence or have never published regularly online, then give yourself a goal of getting to 25 editions of a weekly newsletter. (H/T to Khe Hy.)
Why 25? In general, having a number to shoot for gives you the peace of mind that you can always stop doing this, but only after you give it a good, hard try.
25 is long enough to get into a groove and test drive what it’s like for you to write a newsletter. At the same time, it’s short enough to grit your teeth and finish, if you realize that publishing a newsletter isn’t for you.
In terms of how much time to put in each week, I recommend limiting yourself to a single 90-minute writing session.
How I landed on 90 minutes is part art and part science.
Consider that we take an average of 20 minutes to fully switch tasks. A 90-minute block leaves you with at least an hour of writing even with the switching cost. If you give yourself an hour and you’ll only have 40 minutes or less to write.
90 minutes gives you just enough time to write and publish, without the perfectionist tendencies of an open schedule.
Personally, I also found that I have an attention span of ~45 minutes. A single 90-minute block lets me take a short break between the first 45 minutes of writing and the second 45 minutes of editing & publishing.
Now back to the article.
Come prepared to this session with links because you will not be doing any new reading during these 90 minutes. Use the session to curate the links you want to share and write about why those links were significant for you. The newsletter is simply a review of what you’ve already consumed, not as a time to do more reading.
To speed up my curation workflow, I have Readwise set up with Evernote. This service adds all my notes and links from ebooks, articles, podcasts, and videos into an Evernote notebook. When I sit down for my 90-minute session, I just need to open the notebook, filter for links from the past 7 days, and I’m off to the races.
Each week, put in your 90 minutes of writing. Publish it on Substack. Share it on Twitter. Interact with people who interact with your stuff. Rinse and repeat.
II. Use Substack to start your newsletter (for now)
In the beginning, don’t think about email service providers and segmentation. Just start a Substack account, connect your Twitter account, and start publishing.
This is the fastest way to get up and running and publish week to week. If you have a Substack newsletter, you don’t even need a website. (And it’s also free!)
Substack’s editor has the most seamless copy-paste feature on the internet for newsletters right now. I can copy information from my Google Doc, Evernote, or Markdown editor, and everything — photos included! — is perfectly rendered into Substack.
Substack’s default email template — especially its default font — is beautiful and readable out of the box.
Finally, Substack maintains a running feed of your newsletter. New visitors can see all your older editions, get a feel for the community you’re building, and subscribe easily.
III. Send a curation newsletter to start
If you just want to start a newsletter but don’t know what to write about, then you should start a curation newsletter. Here are three examples of my favourite curation newsletters on the internet:
Tim Ferriss’ 5-Bullet Friday
James Clear’s 3-2-1 newsletter
The key requirement for a successful curation newsletter is a pre-existing note-taking or information capture system. Without a way to organically collect links, highlights, and notes, you waste time each week poking around your browser history or spasmodically saving links to your Evernote after the fact.
Sending out a curation newsletter is more for you than anyone else. You’re reviewing, selecting, and sharing the articles, videos, images, memes that interested you most that week. Once you get to Curation Newsletter #25, you’ll have a clearer idea of which topics generate the most interesting material for you.
The wonderful thing about newsletters is that you can change the format in the future.
Take New York Times bestselling author James Clear, for example. As an unknown blogger, he started off publishing long-form articles as a newsletter to his readers twice a week. After he published Atomic Habits, the long-form newsletter turned into the bite-sized 3-2-1 newsletter that he sends today.
For me, my newsletter blurbs spark essay ideas and turn into longer pieces. For example, writing about Ron Chernow’s Alexander Hamilton turned into an inquiry on polymaths that I featured on the 39th and 40th editions of my newsletter. Eventually, these three editions turned into my essay on polymaths.
IV. Spend no more than 1 writing session
Especially in the beginning, you want to schedule your newsletter writing time in such a way that getting to the 25th edition of your newsletter is inevitable.
Although I recommend setting aside a single block of 90 minutes a week earlier, that could still too much commitment for you. If so, I’d challenge you to prioritize a “session cap” instead of a “time cap”.
To start, spend no more than 1 writing session to get your newsletter out the door, even if that means 30 minutes on your lunch break.
Block out a recurring writing session each week. Add the deadline to publish your newsletter in your calendar.
You’ll just have to be ruthlessly efficient with that time. Done is better than perfect.
Don’t let your inner critic talk you into using up more time or more sessions than you’ve scheduled. Sticking to your session cap gives you time to work on essays, book summaries, or other writing projects you have going on.
We are all busy enough. You want this newsletter to be a fun thing you look forward to, instead of a heavy four-hour drag you do each week.
V. Send your newsletter on Tuesday or Wednesday
Although there is some evidence that newsletters sent on these days have higher open rates, there’s nothing scientific about this recommendation. I prefer sending on these two days because:
If I write the newsletter over the weekend, I want time to take a second look before I send it.
If I take the weekend off (which happens more often than not), I still have time to write the newsletter on Monday and send it out on time.
Newsletters: Paying attention to what you pay attention to
The fear will never go away. There will always be typos (this article probably has a ton). There will always be a better word you can use.
For now, the most important next step is for you to send your first newsletter. The format will change. The design will change. The content will change.
Don’t worry about quality. Quantity naturally begets quality, especially if you’re just starting out.
But the key is to start wondering and writing for yourself, then publish it online to invite others to wonder with you.