Why Creative People Should Start a Newsletter

Creative Daydreams

When it comes to the creative business you’ve always imagined for yourself, it’s easy to just plan and plan what your new, shiny life is going to look like. One day, you’ll write that book. One day, you’ll start that shop. One day, you’ll have time to do it. But in the meantime — you’re so busy planning and imagining it that you never get started.

Back in 2020, I quit my soul-sucking corporate sales job to pursue a more creative work life. Now, while I still feel very much like a work in progress, my days very closely resemble the daydreams I used to have from my cubicle. I spend most of my time thinking, writing, making videos, curating ideas, and building a business.

Social Media Isn’t Always the Answer

Social media is an obvious platform to share your creative work — many people start accounts for their creative hobbies or side businesses as a way of making it real. Because when you create an Instagram account for your idea, it feels like you have to now do something about it.

Some hit the algorithm lottery and find success, but the more common experience is that you share you work a few times, nobody really cares, and then you never post again.

But even if the algorithm gurus tell you that this is your fault, it’s not the whole picture. You don’t just need to make better content, post more frequently, or niche yourself down more. You may just need a better outlet — like a newsletter.

A New Kind of Newsletter

If you’re having trouble conceptualizing what it means for a regular person to have a newsletter — remove it from the e-commerce context, and think of it as simply a weekly delivery to someone’s inbox. It doesn’t have to be any fancier than that.

A newsletter can be made up of anything:

• updates on your life, career, or progress toward something

• pieces of writing from your notes app or journal

• a roundup of your favorite quotes from movies or books

• niche photos of your city (like cool restaurant signs)

• interesting ideas you have on your hyperfixation of the month

• curated lists of weird things you care about (like magnet fishing)

• recs for an audience you know well (single moms, retired collegiate athletes, fans of romantasy books)

A newsletter doesn’t have to sell products, have calls-to-action, or be a literal letter addressed to the reader. If you don’t like writing, it can be entirely made up of images. Or links to other places on the web. There are no rules. I fully believe that absolutely anything can be turned into a newsletter — in fact, I almost started a trivia newsletter. Still might!

Start a newsletter to give yourself a way to explore your interests, to throw shit at the wall and see what feels good. It’ll teach you to show up to a creative routine consistently, share your ideas with people, and keep going. If you’ve always wanted a creative practice, but have always struggled to commit to one and stick to it, starting a newsletter will require it of you.

But I’m Shy 👉👈

If you’re concerned about this level of visibility, I get it — it’s kinda scary knowing judgey Aunt Rita and your high school bully can see what you post.

The great part about having a newsletter is that you fully own and control it. You can see who signs up, and you can remove them if need be. You can also see who opens the email, providing a level of transparency most social platforms can’t.

An email list feels much friendlier, cozier, and more approachable than a social media audience.

And when people inevitably unsubscribe, it’s a great opportunity to practice being okay with it. In our newsletter, Internet People, we have between 5-10 unsubscribes every time we hit send. I used to scroll through the names and see who we must have personally offended, but then I remembered that I unsubscribe from things all the time. It’s not personal, it’s just preference. You want people to unsubscribe because it means your audience is weeding themselves out. The people who stay are the ones who want to be there.

Ultimately, you have to care more about your creative expression and development more than you care about the hypothetical opinions of hypothetical unsubscribers.

Consistently sending a newsletter helps you get into a groove of putting your ideas out in front of people, and you may even start to enjoy it eventually. The idea posting on social media may not feel as intimidating once you’ve identified what you want to say and have practiced saying it to your email list.

Planting the Seeds

If you eventually wants to build your own brand or business, a newsletter is a great way to baby-step your way there. It keeps you moving toward that life you want, regardless of how slowly you go. It helps you sharpen your creative practice and figure out what you really want to do.

Then, you can use your existing email to benefit your new business in so many different ways, like:

• Selling your own products or service

• Getting a book deal or self-publishing and selling to your audience

• Asking for specific feedback or input on your next project

• Landing sponsors!

• Finding collaborators and connecting with people who are your kind of weird

• Generally opening yourself up to opportunities

Starting a newsletter before you feel fully ready means you’re planting seeds for future you. When you commit to putting yourself out there, it becomes way more likely that a random offer will land in your inbox — all because one person on your email list knows somebody who knows somebody. All because you decided to show up without knowing what would happen.

A quick note on newsletter platforms:

We actually started our newsletter on Flodesk, which is a beautiful product that’s easy to use, and we loved it!

But as writers, eventually it started feeling like we were putting a lot of care into weekly emails that were disappearing into the black hole of people’s inboxes — so we moved over to Beehiiv. Now, we can archive our newsletters and even post separate blogs, like this one!

While Substack and Mailchimp are also great options, Beehiiv is positioned for building a business — with tons of different ways to build your newsletter, fun ways to engage your audience, and endless customization options.

If Beehiiv sounds like the right fit for you, we’ve got a 30-day trial for you and 20% off your first 3 months!