Use this Simple Framework to Write *Your* Newsletter
And the ChatGPT prompt to help you get started
Hey Part-Time Creator,
Take this newsletter and apply it to your business daily, itâll help you build your business smarter. This is a paid post. If youâre a busy professional with an ambition to sell a product or service on the internet, consider going paid. Youâll learn the business lessons to:
Many subscribers expense this newsletter. It works out at about $0.50 per growth hack (a worthy investment if youâre serious about building something).
Three months ago, I shifted gears on this newsletter. Since then, itâs become a new, nearly 4-figure income stream for me.
Today I wanted to talk about how I think about delivering value in this newsletter every day to keep it growing and thriving, so you can do the same.
Letâs dive in. đ
Slugs eating squash
I was out in my greenhouse yesterday. Iâd just had a highly successful weekend finally finishing off the door, the sides and everything else that got destroyed last year in the Gail-force winds (it was an emotional but Iâm over it now).
So for months, my little seedings have been growing indoorsâon windowsills, on the kitchen table, on shelves, anywhere I could put them. A few weeks ago I had a week off work and spent a day building a (very handmade) shelf-tower for them that, for weeks, has sat next to my patio doors.
Basically anywhere with light, a surface, and no carpet, there were seedlings.
And itâs been a mixed bag of growing. Total elation, when seedlings pop through the soil after days on end of nothing, to total frustration when, after weeks, you have to admit defeat and resign yourself to the fact that despite your best efforts, something has gone wrong.
Yesterday, though, I walked into my greenhouse and couldnât believe my eyes.
A slug latched onto my (beautiful) squash seedling. Not only was it latched on, but in actual fact, upon closer inspection, it had munched through the entire stem.
I stood in shock for a second.
How had it gotten in?
When did it get in?
Slugs have teeth?!
So I removed said slug, booted it over the fence, and reassessed the damage.
In one hand lay the stem of the beautiful seedling I had grown for the last 2 weeks, the joy I felt when I saw it pop through for the first time, the perfectly green leaves, the curved edges, the thing was (once) so full of life.
And in the other, the little pot that housed a bunch of soil and a tiny spec of a stem with teeth marks barely peaking out of the soil.
So I headed straight back into the kitchen, grabbed the empty egg shells Iâd been storing away for this very moment, crushed them up, and sprinkled them all over the remaining squash seeds.
This was war, and I was going to defeat the slugs.
That story might not seem a natural link to writing, but it is (or at least I think so and itâs my newsletter so I get to write the rules).
Writing, after all, is about understanding your readers (and their context), understanding their problems, understanding the associated pain, and solving those problems in the right way. Which means, at the right time, in a way that is frictionless and straightforward, and in a way that makes you an *only*, not a âbetterâ.
Every newsletter I write, Iâm thinking like this:
Timing (part I): When in somebodyâs day do they need this information?
Timing (part II): Where in their *journey* are they, and how can I best serve them aka are they just starting or are they an expert?
Problem: What is the *actual* problem they are facing?
Pain: What is the associated pain? Be super specific â itâs not âfeel frustrated because I canât gardenâ (thatâs too broad), itâs âfeel frustrated because slugs are eating my squash seeds!â
Solution: Does it solve their problem? Eggshells, beer traps, and midnight slug picking are the options for getting rid of slugs.
Ease-of-application: Each of those solutions above is different degrees of difficulty and requires a different thing from the person at the other end; youâve got to think about that when youâre delivering a solution.
Step 2: Application
Letâs go through each bit by bit and how I think about it for the Part-Time Creator Club, so you can apply it to your thing.
Timing (part I):
The people I write to are busy professionals who donât have tonnes of time but want to build something on the internet. So they might have 2 hours a dayâmax. I write to them in the morning (typically I try to send my newsletters at 10:43 â Iâm not sure why itâs that time specifically), but it means because I write to people all over the world, itâs in most peopleâs inbox in the morning. So when they go to write/build before the start of their working day, they can use that as something to spark inspiration.
Timing (part II):
Itâs hard to write for everyone, what you have to do is apply general themes, accepting that sometimes you wonât always get it totally on the money. I talk about different parts of the creator journey and then listen for signals. Where Iâm getting more interaction, more paid subscribers, and more interest, I use that as the place to invest my time. And that is a constant battle, constantly learning, just because youâve seen one thing one week, doesnât mean it applies to every week.
Pain:
The pain is very important. Write from a pain and you orientate your writing, making sure you are delivering for somebody at the end of this, not just rambling on (sometimes thereâs a good reason for a ramble though!) I tend to anchor myself around one pain a day, which might be positioning, inspiration, idea generation, or content quality. That is then reflected in the title, and I aim to solve that problem the best way I can.
Solution:
A solution means different things to different people. One solution for one person barely helps another, so you have to bear that in mind. But there are lots of things you can do to maximise success â and for the Part-Time Creator Club, I am aiming to improve the way people are thinking about their business. So, here are some things I do to maximize my chances of that: Actionable steps, step-by-step guides, evidence-based writing, GPT prompts for duplication, daily newsletters and mix up the sectors I talk about. ÂŤAll of that stuff aims to put me in the category of the *only*.
Ease-of-application:
Those things above mean that itâs easier to implement the solution, and that has led to more and more people signing up for the newsletter. The way I think about this is âhow can I maximise the chances of someone using the information in the newsletter?â So thatâs about making it really good content and then making it very easy to apply.
And if you whenever is the right time for you, here are more ways I can help:
The Medium Blueprint â used by over 600+ writers, the exact strategy I used to go from 0 to 90,000 followers on Medium.
The Part-Time Newsletter School â used by over 100 creators, everything Iâve learned from my MSc in behavioural science, and application of my product-led strategy to turn subscribers into paying customers.
PS, if you join the founder member of this newsletter, you get both as part of your subscription :)
Step 3: The lesson
The competition for high-quality newsletters has never been higher.
You have to think of your writing as a product that delivers something to your reader. And all newsletters do this, even if on the surface it feels like they donât. Even if on the surface the writing feels like a personal diary or highly opinionated writing, that is a product that solves a problem.
Itâs just not a problem you can see immediately.
Writers donât always solve in the way you think. I came across a newsletter yesterday, one post had a staggering engagement. The piece was essentially about the overwhelm and disillusionment of time. I read through the comments, and the thing that stood out over and over again?
People felt like they had finally read something that made them feel understood. Before, they had felt like they might have been the only person feeling like this. Now, they felt validated and no longer alone.
Loneliness, isolation, frustration â theyâre all emotions and all problems to be solved. Of course, theyâre not as straightforward as âslugs are eating my squashesâ ,but nonetheless, they solve a problem.
Remember, people have emotional and logical problems. You can solve one or the other â or both. But all are worth exploring.
Step 4: The newsletter writing prompt
The step-by-step positioning prompt for writing a high-quality newsletter. Of course, this isnât everything, itâs a starter for you if youâre stuck.