Hello Reader,
There’s something a little ridiculous about telling people who write for a living that the answer to growing their business is more unpaid writing.
Starting a blog, posting on LinkedIn, and publishing a newsletter are all good tactics, though. The question is which ones deserve your time.
I like newsletters, obviously. You’re reading one. But I also think “you should have a newsletter” isn't always good advice. Before you add another publishing commitment to your business, sit down and have yourself a good thinking session. Make sure you understand what you’re getting out of it, what your readers are getting out of it, and whether committing to a regular newsletter makes sense for you.
And please don’t assume having a newsletter means writing an endless series of articles explaining why businesses should hire a writer. There are much more interesting things to do with yours.
Let’s look at the benefits, the drawbacks, and how to decide whether you actually want one.
What do you get out of having a newsletter?
A newsletter gives people a way to stay connected with you beyond the first introduction.
Think about what happens after someone reads a social post, visits your website, or has an interesting conversation with you. They enjoyed your work or liked talking to you, but they don’t have a reason to hire you today. Without another point of contact, that’s often where things end.
A newsletter gives them a reason to hear from you again. Each issue adds to their understanding of your work, your interests, and the way you think. When a relevant project comes along, they have something more substantial to remember than “I met a writer somewhere.”
It also gives the people who already know you something to share. A referral partner doesn’t have to explain all the reasons you’re good at what you do. They can just forward issues of your newsletter as examples. I've had more than one person do that. I'll get a forwarded newsletter with a message like, "Hey Treasa! We were talking about this the other day. I think this person could help you."
There’s value in writing a newsletter for you as a writer, too. Your newsletter gives you a place to develop ideas that don’t fit your current client work. If you spend your working hours writing in other people’s voices, this is somewhere to use your own. You choose the subject, the approach, and how much you want to develop the idea.
And then there are the conversations.
Suppose you write about a problem you regularly solve for clients, and a reader replies, “We’re dealing with this, but we’re stuck.” You now understand something about their situation that you didn’t know before. There’s an opening to answer a question, recommend a course of action, or discuss your services when that makes sense. Offer value!
The tricky part is when people write to you as a result of a newsletter, you have to respond! If you invite people to reply and then leave their emails until you “have time,” those conversations tend to disappear to the bottom of your to-do list. Reading and responding to replies should be included in the time you set aside for the newsletter.
Your newsletter shows people your skills
Clients care about more than whether you write "good" sentences. They want you to understand their situation, know what’s important, ask questions, and produce a finished piece that meets their needs.
Your newsletter gives you somewhere to demonstrate those abilities. Choose a format that shows the work you want more of from your clients.
For example:
If you want interview-based assignments, interview people. A short profile of a local business owner shows how you find a story, choose quotes, and give readers context. It also gives you a relevant sample to share with an editor.
If you want to write about complicated subjects, explain one. Take a development in an industry you know and walk readers through what changed, who it affects, and what they need to understand about the situation. That demonstrates research and judgment as well as clear writing.
If you want more opinion or thought-leadership work, develop an argument. Explain what you think, why you think it, and where the usual advice falls short. Give readers enough substance to evaluate your position.
If you want storytelling assignments, tell stories. Use a real event, an interview, or an observation to create a piece with a clear focus and a satisfying ending.
This is especially useful when the work you want differs from the work in your portfolio.
A newsletter also gives you a place to practice and refine your writing.
Bonus: If you offer newsletter writing to clients, you’re getting firsthand experience with the decisions they face when they have one.
What are the drawbacks?
Having a newsletter takes effort, and the writing is only part of it.
There’s also researching, editing, formatting, checking links, finding readers, and responding to them. A weekly schedule means making room for that every week, including the weeks when clients need everything at once.
Before committing to a frequency, put one issue together from beginning to end and track the amount of time it takes. That gives you an idea of what you'll need to plan for. A monthly newsletter that fits your workload is a better choice than a weekly one when you don't have time.
You also need a way for people to find it. A signup link on your website, relevant social posts, and personal invitations to people who have said they're interested gives you places to start. Just know that publishing alone doesn’t bring subscribers. Audience growth is a big task!
A newsletter takes time to produce business results, too. If you need a paying client this month, following up with former clients and referral partners is probably a better use of your time. Building a publication from scratch adds work before it brings work.
There’s another drawback: your newsletter demonstrates the weak parts of your work as well as the strong.
The newsletter has your name on it. People will use it to form an opinion about your standards.
If your draft says, “Good communication is essential when working with clients,” give the reader an actual situation. What needs communicating? When? What would you say? An example of an email explaining a missed deadline is more useful than three paragraphs about the importance of transparency.
If you’ve used AI while developing the piece, check the claims, examine the reasoning, and replace generic examples with something relevant and accurate.
Before sending, ask yourself: What does the reader leave with that they didn’t have when they opened this?
That’s a useful quality check whether you’re sharing advice, analysis, or a story.
Choose something you want to write about
A newsletter that supports your writing business doesn’t have to talk about writing services.
I think this assumption makes a lot of writers’ newsletters less interesting than they could be. We decide the newsletter is a marketing activity, put on our imaginary professional hat, and start explaining things nobody asked us to explain. (Sorry if I've done that!)
Meanwhile, the subjects we can get excited about never happen because they don’t seem businesslike enough.
Give yourself room to be more imaginative.
A newsletter about the independent shops in your town gives you the opportunity to interview people, tell stories, and explore what makes a local business work. Each issue might feature one shop, the person behind it, and something interesting about how they got started.
A newsletter about old houses gives you material for research, history, design, and strong opinions about someone painting gorgeous woodwork. One issue devoted to a particular house, architectural detail, or renovation decision gives readers a reason to come back for more.
A food newsletter offers plenty to explore beyond recipes: family traditions, the people growing the food, how a particular ingredient reached your community, or what it takes to keep a neighborhood restaurant open.
Those are subjects both you and the reader can enjoy while you're demonstrating those awesome skills of yours.
If attracting clients is part of the purpose of your newsletter, make the connection easy for them to see. Include a short description of your work and a link to your portfolio or contact page at the bottom. For that local-business newsletter, a footer along these lines does the job:
I’m a freelance writer covering small businesses and the people behind them. If you need profiles, customer stories, or reported features, here’s how to work with me.
You don’t have to force a sales pitch into every story. Nor should you. People are tired of constant promotion.
And if you want a newsletter simply because you love a subject and want to find other people who love it too, that’s great! Do it.
So, should you have one?
I’d make the decision by looking at four things:
You know who you want to write to. You need a sense of the people who would enjoy or benefit from the publication.
You have something you want to share with them regularly. Write down three issue ideas. Specific ideas help you see whether you’re interested in producing the newsletter itself.
The time you'll spend on it fits your life. Draft one issue, prepare it as though you’re going to send it, and look at the time it took. If it's doable, choose a schedule that still leaves room for your paid work and everything else you need to do.
You know what would make it worthwhile. That includes client inquiries and referrals, but it also includes creating samples for a new kind of work, developing your expertise, enjoying your writing, and connecting with people who share your interests. Be honest about which results matter to you.
If those four things work for you, you have a good reason to try a newsletter.
If you have an interesting idea but no room to produce it, share it on social. If you have availability, but no interest in the writing, choose another way to stay visible. You don’t need to add another publishing obligation just to prove you take your business seriously.
The opportunity you have is to create something people enjoy receiving and that you enjoy making. Done well, it also gives them a much better understanding of what you bring to the table.
If you started a newsletter about something you actually enjoy, what would it be about? Hit reply and let us know. And if you already have one, send us the link so we can check it out.
Have a wonderful weekend!
Trudy and Treasa
