Hello Reader,

It’s funny how many published authors I know who have a hard time sending out an email newsletter.

They like to feel guilty about it. 'If I could write a whole book,' they reason, 'why is sending out a regular newsletter so difficult?'

I’ll tell you why: these are two very different kinds of content.

They require different types of speed and momentum - it's like the difference between a marathon, and a sprint.

The endurance and dedication that it takes to collect and organize your thoughts into a book-length manuscript is very different from the endurance and dedication it takes to send a weekly newsletter.

Runners prefer one style over another, and so do writers.

I’ve been sending a weekly newsletter for more than 15 years, and I take breaks. I don’t feel guilty about it, because I know I can always pick right back up when I’m done. I happen to like the cadence of producing a new article every week. This pacing works well for me and my style.

When I wrote my first book, Marketing Yourself, it was much more difficult. It took me five years to write that 185-page book. To be fair, I wrote it a number of times, so that's why it took so long. Every week, it seemed, I was revising the whole thing.

This makes me think that, conversely, when book authors miss a week sending out a newsletter, it feels to them like they cut a chapter from their book-in-progress. So, why continue?

Here's a magnificent trick I've used many times, both for myself, and for clients: you can swipe from longer-form writing to make new newsletter articles. If you have already written a book, you can strip out a lot of the stories and sections into newsletters, anytime.

Why Books Make Great Newsletter Articles

📚 Ready-Made Content: Your book provides a wealth of content that’s already written, and covers a topic you already talk about.

🌟 Consistent Quality: The content from your book has already been edited, and polished, and refined for publication.

🧠 Brainstorming Shortcut: You can repurpose existing material instead of developing new ideas from the ground up.

🔄 Maintaining Relevance: Your newsletter stays aligned with your primary area of expertise.

🔍 Reducing Research Time: Using your book as a content source eliminates the need for extensive additional research, because you’ve already done it ahead of time.

🗓️ Facilitating Content Planning: With a book as a source, you can easily plan your newsletter content in advance, laying out a content calendar that draws from different parts of your book.

Case Study: 14 Newsletters from 1 Book Manuscript

When I talked with the culture strategist Meredith Wilson, she told me, ‘I don’t have time to write newsletters!’

So I told her, ‘Give me your book manuscript, and I will write all of your newsletters for 2024.’

In one month, I produced 14 monthly newsletters (it’s like a baker’s dozen, but even more so), written in her voice, set up in her email service provider, with a new template design that she can continue to use into 2025.

Here's what she had to say about working with me:

Do you need some help with your email newsletters, content production, or marketing automation?

Reply to start a conversation with me.