TA #100: 🎊 New Ebook for You: 'How to Newsletter.' Plus: My (Mostly Fun) Writing Process.

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Welcome to the 100th (!) issue of Total Annarchy, a fortnightly newsletter by me, Ann Handley, with a focus on writing, marketing, living your best life. I'm glad you're here.

Boston, Sunday, November 21, 2021

Hullo, Gorgeous!

MASSIVE HIGH-FIVE & WELCOME to Total Annarchy #100! Today marks the "centennial" issue of this 3-year-old toddler of a newsletter! Feel that party in your inbox?!

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I launched this newsletter for the joy of making something for others.

But something unexpected happened, too: Writing to you every 2 weeks for 3 years has made me a stronger, better, more confident and riskier writer.

Smug-Me from 3 years ago didn't expect that. I already considered myself a pretty solid writer. I thought this newsletter was my gift to you. Who knew that the bigger gift would actually be to me?

(Certainly not Smug-Me, the sweet little dumdum. We laugh about it now, Smug-Me and Actual-Me. She's grown up a lot.)

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This week I'm sharing How I Write This Newsletter, because my process has evolved over 3+ years.

"Process" sounds as much fun as scrubbing dirt from beets. But have faith, friend! It's more fun that it seems.

I hope seeing my process helps you as a writer, too, even if Smug-You already feels pretty good about your own skills.

A Gift For You: I've packaged the previous issue (How I Grew This Newsletter) with this week's in a free ebook titled How to Newsletter. It includes a useful checklist to help your own newsletter live its best life.

>>> Download How to Newsletter here. <<<

Subscribers like you get first access to the beta version of How to Newsletter before I release it to the public later this year. AND YES—you can post freely and share widely with your friends, family, subscribers, Twitter followers, colleagues, teammates, pet goldfish with content marketing career aspirations.... share away.

You get it first because I like you. I appreciate your support.

And because a party without presents is just a meeting.

Can a PDF be party? Heck yeah! PDFs were boooorn to par-tay!

That link again: GET IT. And now lezgo....

* * *

How I Write This Newsletter

This is how I write every newsletter. Hour by hour.

Last issue, I said I spend 8 hours writing this newsletter.

Do I spend those 8 hours in a row, chained to my desk? Slaving over a hot laptop? Sweating out each word and collecting them like precious nectar before distilling them (plink!) onto the page?

Nah. I would die. You would die reading it. It would feel like beet-scrubbing to us both.

The 8 hours aren't consecutive. And they never *feel* like 8 hours. Because I get in that flow zone you get to when you're immersed in something and then you look up and you realize you haven't eaten for eleventy hours and Holy what? Where did the time go?

Note: I wrote this schema in the second person ("you") vs. my own point of view ("I"). I want it to be useful for you. So I wrote you right into it.

Try this on.
See what works for you.
Trash what doesn't.
Adopt what might.
Adapt as you wish.

By the way, I'm talking about writing newsletters here. But you can adapt this process to write almost anything.

🕐 Hour 1: Pay all your bills. Catch up on any movies or TV series you've never gotten around to streaming. Change the oil in your car. Invest your time in scrolling Instagram. ("Invest" LOL.) Commit to making something really complicated for dinner. Attempt to source something called "katsuobushi" for the recipe?

It might seem like you're avoiding writing with all these procrasti-stractions.

But NO! You are not avoiding!

In between all the bill-paying, binge-watching, katsuobushi-sourcing... you've been sorting a few ideas in your head.

You've been thinking about a question that one guy asked you. An experience you had that stuck in your noggin. A conversation.

Some nugget of insight or half-scrap of an idea you jotted down during your daily romp with your diary. (Trouble keeping a daily journal? Try How to Build a Daily Writing Habit.)

You were mulling during that procrasti-staction-ating.

You were thinking, whether you wanted to or not.

Your fetal ideas were starting to sprout limbs and grow tiny, powerful muscles.

Thinking is pre-writing.

And pre-writing is the key to writing.

🕑 Hour 2: Close your door. (<<< This is important. Why in a sec.)

You pluck one idea to explore in this week's newsletter.

You adhere bottom to chair. Open up laptop. Affix hands to keys with permanent adhesive.

Move them around so the letters form words and the words form longer strings of words.

Full sentences? Structure? Flow? Grammar? What-stinkin'-grammar-where! None of it exists!

You're writing—even if it feels like your a writing mime. Pretending.

🕒 Hour 3: Forgive yourself.

Hours 2 + 3 can be brutal. You expect beautiful and graceful gliding across the keys. You expect elegant. Or at least... good?

Instead you get the writing equivalent of a baby learning to walk. But way less cute.

Your writing is stiff-limbed and unsteady, Franken-stepping across the page. About to crash horribly at any moment.

Keep going. Do not move butt from chair until you've got 999 words.*

*(The exact number I use. 999 feels easier than 1,000. Just like $.99 is way less than $1.00. Brain science? Ridiculous head games? Both?)

You won't use all those 999 words. Most will be isht. That's okay.

Keep those Franken-steps lurching forward.

Did you leave all your awkward baby steps on the dance floor?

This is Draft 0. This is The Ugly First Draft.

Walk away. Give it overnight.

🕓 Hour 4: Draft 1 starts to come alive.

Your door is still closed. Take Draft 0 from yesterday. Read it through in your head. Feel it in your hands.

Breathe on it. It's not so bad, is it? Help it become Draft 1.

> Key idea. Is the main point there? Is it obvious? And right up front?

> Logic. Does it flow? What do you need to move around to help the flow?

> What's missing? Do you have data? A point of view? What information would make your piece feel comprehensive? Fair? Real? True?

> What can you cut from your newsletter team this week? What's a distraction? What's indulgent? What feels too precious, like you're trying too hard? Nurse... Scalpel! Cut it.

➡️ What you cut is often the opening, when you spend too much time setting up the newsletter instead of getting right into it.

➡️ Sometimes you fall in love with a phrase or word or sentence. You can't bear to cut it, even if you know you should. I have a file in Google Docs for this purpose. It holds things I wrote and am proud of, and can't bear to delete forever. The file is titled "Darlings."

🕠 Hour 5: Draft 2 opens the door to let Fun in.

See who is standing there? Your subscriber. ("Hi, Petunia!") Invite Petunia in. With her come fun and lightness.

Did you notice how just one subscriber is standing there—not your entire list? That's because the landing outside your door isn't big enough to hold all those people. Rewrite to one person. One Petunia.

Draft 2 is Petunia's point of view. Step into her shoes. Slip on her skin. See through her eyes.

The most important part of a newsletter is the letter, not the news.

At the top of the newsletter, write: "Hey Petunia!"

Or Dear Stuart. Hiya Octavia. Yo, Mama. Petunia is a proxy for your subscriber here; but use whoever you're thinking about.

You are putting a pillow over the face of anything with a whiff of "Dear Valued Customers."

You're writing to one person in one inbox—not a room full of people crowded around a shared inbox, right? (I'm stating this "one person" stuff twice and in two different ways because it's THAT important.)

Does Petunia...

> Immediately understand the key idea?

> Follow your logic?

> Does she feel a flash of recognition? Did you deliver an It-Me! Minute?

> Is she enjoying the read?

> Did she LOL at least once?

🕡 Hour 6, 7: Draft 3 layers on voice, style, fun, sparkle, humor, fizz & ginger with abandon!

My fave hours! If I didn't have a deadline I'd spend forever in these hours.

> Count the number of Yous. If you run out of fingers... you're doing great.

> Consult RelatedWords.org to help inspire word choice or lively metaphors.

> Add context with anything curated. "Here's why I'm sharing this useful thing with you; here's why I believe it's important."

> Sprinkle in questions. "What do you think?" Audience feedback allows you to grow/adjust your focus. (Again: Letter. Not news.)

> Create momentum inside each newsletter. Judge each sentence with a harsh love. Do you need all those words? Does each propel Petunia forward?

>> Short sentences. Short paragraphs. Long sentences don't work in an inbox. White space is your newsletter's BFF.

> Add open loops. An open loop in writing is a teaser. It's the start of a story. An unanswered question. Experiment: Maybe ask a question at the start, and answer it toward the bottom. Maybe you start with a story Petunia wants to hear the ending to.

> Create clear copy hierarchy through white space, bullet points, images.

> Think bridge, not tower. You newsletter is a bridge to your other Marketing. Your social media, especially. Do you have a LinkedIn or Facebook group? Highlight questions or discussions in the newsletter. Have an Instagram? Share its images in the newsletter. It goes both ways, of course: Let social show your newsletter some love, too.

Finally:

> Trust Petunia. Don't over-describe or over-prescribe. Leave room for Petunia's imagination to curl up in your writing.

> Relax. Have fun. Loosen up your fingers. Open your heart. If your newsletter still feels like you're writing with a taser aimed at your sensitive nibs... you're doing it wrong.

🕗 Hour 8: Run Draft 4 through an AI writing tool. I like Grammarly. But Hemingway Editor is fun, too, if only for the Ernest name-check.

Adopt or reject AI's suggestions. It's so satisfying to be confident enough in your writing to reject a robot's fixes.

Send Draft #4 to your longtime editor. All writers need an editor. Even Smug-Me knew that.

🕗 Hour 8 ½: Load Final Draft into your newsletter platform of choice.

Tweak again within the platform.

Schedule. Tee it up.

Get up in the middle of the night to tweak again before it mails in the morning. (Kidding.) (Kind of.) But then…

Let go with love.

Your newsletter is no longer yours. It's out in the world, standing on its own two pixels.

Hour Now: Joy + Regret.

These two things happen post-send for me, simultaneously:

Regret. It's not exactly what you wanted to write. It's not exactly what you envisioned when you planned this in your head.

Forgive yourself (again). It's the best you can do right now. See you next time.

Joy. HIGH-FIVE YOURSELF. You're gorgeous. You're killing it. You're doing GREAT.

Writing—like life—is complicated.

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Here are a few more things worth sharing this week:

B2B MARKETERS: I NEED YOU! [SURVEY]

The average (AVERAGE!) organization spends $2,000 per sales rep per year for training and education. Meanwhile, Marketing is challenged to "Go viral!" with an occasional brown bag lunch'n'learn and a $5 budget.

MarketingProfs is digging into the state of B2B Marketing Training. We have a bigger goal: to help Marketing get the respect and cashola it deserves. If you are a B2B marketer, will you take this survey and share your experiences?

Take the survey here.

THANK YOU LOVE YOU.

DEPARTMENT OF SHENANIGANS

Is this you?

EVENTS

12/14: How to Get Your B2B Content to Rank. This is for you if your boss constantly asks, "Why aren't we on the first page of Google?
12/15: Human + Machine = The Future of Content Is Coming. Join Paul Roetzer, our friends at Persado, and me in a conversation about how Artificial Intelligence is changing content, messaging.
12/16: B2B Marketing Trends: LinkedIn Live with Marketers. LinkedIn has been running thought-provoking conversations with Marketing leaders all year. Carla Johnson, Alex Rynne, and I close out the series with a look at the year that was as well as What's Next, B2B homies?

LOVE LETTERS

Shouts from around the internet.

💌 To Louise Linehan at Buzzsumo for featuring me as #4 in this list of top 100 content marketers.
💌 To Andy Thornton at Noisy Little Monkey for the love for both this newsletter + MarketingProfs in his list of the Top 11 Best of the Best.
💌 To Kristina Proffitt for the love from my recent talk at Atomicon in the UK.
💌 To the Signal of Santa Clarita Valley for the shout for Marketing experts you should follow.
💌 To the fab Liz Willits writing at Dyspatch and including my thoughts on my fave email campaign of 2021.
💌 To the wonderful Anna Furmanov for hosting me on her podcast, Modern Startup Marketing.

💌 To Lane Ellis at TopRank for featuring me in his how-to on creating top-notch newsletters.
💌 To Rob Starr at Small Business Trends for paying attention to my LinkedIn.

QUICKIES (+ their Really Excellent Puns) will return next time

* * *

Thanks for reading this far. Thanks for your kindness and generosity.

Stay safe. Stay sane. You're doing great.

I'll be back on December 5.

P.S. If you like this newsletter and want to support it, you can:

1) buy a book.
2) Get yourself some $WORD coin. (Read more about creator coins here.)
3) Simply forward this newsletter to a friend with an invitation to subscribe right here: www.annhandley.com/newsletter.

SPECIAL THANKS to AWeber for being the provider of choice for Total Annarchy. If you are looking to up your email game, give them a shout.

Ann Handley is the author of Everybody Writes and other books.
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Ann Handley

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TA #100: 🎊 New Ebook for You: 'How to Newsletter.' Plus: My (Mostly Fun) Writing Process.

Older messages

TA #99: 🎉 How I Grew This Newsletter: What Worked, What Didn't, Weird Metrics I Use

TA #98: 🐏 Sheepish Storytelling; Content Strategies for 2022; How to Avoid Writing by Committee

TA #97: 🐥 Real People at Last! Also: How to Send Better Email

TA #96: 👟 Brilliant Creative on a Shoestring Budget; the World's Most Hilarious Press Release

TA #95: 💪 Brave Enough to Suck at Something New; Is Memorable Copy More Shoppy?

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