What to write about in your newsletter

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So I started this newsletter recently, and I've only sent out one post, which was basically a blog post. My initial plan was to have this newsletter just be a way to send out every blog post I wrote, which I would also put up on my own website. I'm not so sure if I should do this anymore. Let me explain.

I was watching a video from Ali Abdaal (How To Start An Email Newsletter That Changes Your Life) when I started writing this draft. If you're thinking about getting into content creation, writing a newsletter, or just writing and learning online in public, I would give it a watch. Even if you haven't thought about that stuff, I would watch it and I recommend anyone to start writing online, whether that's a newsletter or a blog.

Something I've wanted to do more of is curation, and as Ali mentioned, a newsletter is a great place to do this. Just look up Tim Ferriss's Five Bullet Friday and the success of that - millions of subscribers. I've also always enjoyed Blake Robbins' monthly reading lists. I know a ton of other people curate in many ways, but these are my two direct inspirations.

I'm still not sure exactly how to write this newsletter, but that doesn't really matter as of now because no one is subscribed yet. I'll definitely put updates on any new blog posts, but I'm still deciding if the newsletter should just contain the blog post on its own (if that makes any sense - sort of what my previous post was like, for reference). However, I'm leaning towards writing about whatever is on my mind, whatever interests me at the moment - so somewhat of a mix between a blog, a journal, and any interesting links and recommendations to cool things I found that week, whether that's articles, blog posts, videos, podcasts, tweets, or even products. In that sense, I'm leaning towards separating the newsletter and blog, in terms of the type of content, but they still serve a similar purpose for myself and readers.

While I want to include a curation aspect, I still want to use this newsletter to improve my writing skills, using it in a similar fashion as I would a blog. I may mix in some aspects of what I think about recent news. I'm thinking a mix of newsletters you receive as updates (like Morning Brew, Milk Road, Publish Press, Exec Sum, etc.) as well as more blog/essay style newsletters (like Young Money and my first newsletter post). I tend to think of Fred Wilson's AVC in this regard.

I also plan to eventually make YouTube videos very similar to, and inspired by, Mogul Mail from Ludwig and theweeklyslap from Schlatt. That might take some time to start, but I think this newsletter and my blog can serve similar purposes.

Most of my writing is for myself as of now, and probably always will be to some extent (see Morgan Housel), but if this newsletter and my blog/website ever gets any readers, I'm always open to suggestions about what the audience wants. I just hope to grow and improve in all areas.

This is just me thinking out loud about what type of content I hope to create and the channels to publish them on. It'll be a mess early on with no real restrictions, but I think I'll figure it out over time as I actually start to push out more content and curation. If you've made it this far, thanks for reading, and hopefully you've subscribed! It would mean a lot - and please reach out (you can DM me on the bird app), I'd love to chat about literally anything.

Noah's Picks

• Logan Paul's 99 Originals video

  • The one word that came to mind: inspiring. I'll probably write more about this in the future. I definitely have some thoughts as I've been interested in crypto/web3 for a while now as well.

• Frost's Rust videos, particularly the scripted ones, are amazing. A friend recently introduced me to these and I've been binging some Rust videos from a few creators now. I've never played, but it's damn entertaining and my friends and I plan to play eventually now.

  • He's straight-up making action movies in a video game with his writing, acting, narration, cinematics, and editing. I'll go more in depth in the future on this topic of new media and Hollywood as well - we're seeing it in other places with DreamSMP and GTA role-play.

• Bill Gates and Wordle - if you're still into Wordle (and Quordle) like I am, although I do it randomly these days, I learned about Octordle and Nerdle from this, which are just more offshoots and fun puzzles to do that I think help stimulate and keep your brain active.

FYI: my plan is to send out this newsletter once a week, on Tuesdays. I think once a week is a great starting point and the right amount of content for both myself as a writer and curator, as well as for anyone reading.