Creating Novel Newsletter Content
/Pun completely intended 😜. Today’s post is brought to you by my good friend, Tamara (she’ll introduce herself in a moment) and all about creating new and interesting content for your newsletter. Take it away, Tamara!
Have you ever stared at that irritating little black line on your screen, blinking away on an empty page, just waiting for inspiration to strike? Have you ever wondered if all the hours you spend on writing out the perfect content is even worth it? I know we all experience writer’s block and struggle with wrangling in all the deceptively cute plot bunnies, but I’m actually not talking about writing books. Today, I’m talking about writing newsletters. Oh yes, that.
Tamara Beard, founder of WrappedUpWriting.com
Hi, my name is Tamara Beard and I offer what I like to call post-writing services—things like editing, proofreading, and content writing. When I’m not chasing after a plot bunny or trying to convince my landlord that a dog would absolutely make a great editing assistant, I love catching up with friends on all things personal and business. And one of those fantastic friends happens to be Dana! Recently, Dana and I spoke at length about newsletters and how so many authors struggle to create them. She then asked me if I would be willing to share some tips and tricks about newsletter content writing with you! And how could I say no to you (or Dana!)? So, here I am today to hopefully share a thing or two you didn’t already know about great newsletter content, and my goal is that, after reading this, you will be more motivated to write a newsletter full of content that your readers really want to know. Are you ready?
Before we really dive in, let’s clarify what we will be talking about and what we won’t be talking about. First, if you don’t have a newsletter or you don’t feel like they are important, you should definitely stop reading and hop on over to Dana’s post on that here first. Once she’s convinced you that a newsletter is definitely necessary, come back and keep reading.
The second thing I won’t be talking about today is newsletter swaps. To be honest, I hate newsletter swaps and highly discourage my clients from participating in them, but I don’t want to spend too much time today telling you what not to do. Long story short: I used to offer newsletter swap services, but I decided at the beginning of this year to discontinue them because it’s important to me to provide services that are unique, high quality, necessary, and relevant^.
^I worked with newsletter swaps for several years, and last year, I began to notice a downshift in the quality of and desire for these swaps. After digging a little deeper, I concluded that swaps weren’t very unique or necessary anymore, and it was becoming exceedingly more difficult to make them high quality and relevant. I believe newsletter swaps (outside of pre-established groups of friends and author cliques) are slowly on their way out. To clarify, I’m not saying you shouldn’t share a friend’s new release or a book you really enjoyed—I’m specifically talking about making an agreement with another author to share their book in your newsletter (and vice versa) for the sole purpose of both parties getting clicks.
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Okay, now that that’s out of the way, let’s get into the good part… When someone subscribes to your newsletter, what do they want to read? What will bring in more subscribers, generate clicks, and ultimately lead to dedicated fans and steady sales? The answer is way simpler than you may think—content!
The saying content is king is so overused, but it really is true. I don’t work with authors on advertising copy, SEO, affiliate link masterminding, or any other overt marketing strategies.
But Tamara, how are your clients making a profit?
The simple answer is kick-butt content. When you’re building a new house, you need to first build a rock-solid foundation and the structure of your beautifully designed house before you can begin painting and decorating, right? Your newsletter works the same way. When you’re just starting out with a newsletter (no matter how new or well-known of an author you may be), you need to make sure you have great content before you start adding all the bells and whistles of marketing to it.
So, if we strip away the SEO and the advertising copy and even all your buy links and book blurbs, what are we left with? You! Your writing. Your life. Your dreams. Readers usually subscribe to your newsletter because they liked one of your books enough that they want to know more about the author who created it and they want to be kept up-to-date on more creative works by said author. Now that you have people who are interested in you and your books, you now need to work to keep their attention.
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I want you to go get a notebook and pen (or open a Word document, if you prefer). We are going to do a little activity together. I want you to create two lists. In the first list, I want you to write down things in your life that are important to you. To generate this list, ask yourself questions like:
Who do you care about or love?
Do you have another job that you’re passionate about outside of writing?
What are your hobbies?
What are your dreams?
Take a few minutes to write ten things down.
Now, I want you to set that aside for a moment and move on to your second list. Write down recurring motifs from your writing. This one is a little trickier. By motifs, I mean general things that one or more of your characters interact with in some way (even if they are insignificant to the plot or only happen once or twice!). Examples might include:
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Food & Drinks: Do your characters eat specific foods or drink anything special at any point? Does somebody cook or bake something?
Places: Is there a lot of traveling in your book? Do characters come from different places? Or do they all come from the same town and for that reason know a lot of lesser known attractions or secrets?
Favorites: Through the story, do readers come to find out the favorites of one or more character? This can include favorite food, color, place, animal, etc.
Facts & Events: Are there any fun facts about a place or history that are somehow relevant to your story or come up at any point in the book? Are there any historical or current events that are mentioned in the book? Does one or more characters attend any kind of event in the story or even in the past and it is mentioned in the story?
There are many other examples, but these are the major groups to look out for. Now, think about these kinds of motifs and consider what is present in your stories. Again, take a few minutes to write down approximately ten things.
If you were able to successfully come up with a total of roughly twenty bullet points between your two lists, congratulations are in order! You now have enough content to fill your newsletter for months. Yes, months.
Don’t believe me? Take a closer look at your list. Those are the things that make you and your writing unique—those are the things your subscribers want to hear from you. Now, how do you turn a bullet point list into newsletter content? You can turn historical events relevant to your story into fun facts for your readers. You can share a product that reminds you of one of your character’s favorite things. The possibilities are endless, but turning your list into content can get tricky.
And this is where I come in.
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At this point, you need what I refer to as a Roadmap to Your Newsletter Content Concepts. Long name, I know, but essentially, this combines your desired newsletter frequency, newsletter branding, and your two lists to create a strategy which you can follow every time you create a newsletter.
You can of course create your own roadmap. To do so, you’ll need to sketch out your newsletter branding. Consider how you will organize your static content—this should include your header, footer, and one to two sections that always handle the same topic (like events or book news)—and your rotating content—two to four sections that rotate through different topics each time. Your rotating content should be grouped in a way that brings similar topics together, ensures good flow and style, and consistent tone and length.
For example, Rotating Section #1 might always include topics about your personal life and Rotating Section #2 might rotate between the aforementioned Places and Facts & Events motifs, but you don’t want to put Facts & Events in Rotating Section #1 at any point. This is because doing so would disrupt readers’ expectations of the tone and style of each section. If a reader finds a paragraph about your new puppy with pictures in the area of the newsletter which they would normally expect a two-sentence fun fact, it won’t be as pleasing of an experience—either consciously or subconsciously (Pro Tip: Grouping similar things together also means that you’re usually inherently grouping similar lengths of content together, which makes your formatting work way easier every month).
The best way to decide how many sections (both static and rotating) you should have—and how many topics should be grouped in each rotating section—largely depends on your desired newsletter frequency. Simply put, the less frequent your newsletter is, the longer it can be. That means that somebody who wants to send a newsletter once a week should have fewer sections with more rotation than someone who sends a newsletter four times a year.
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I know this is a lot of information to take in, but it is doable and your newsletter will be more unique and effective if you follow these steps. If you’d like access to an expertly designed roadmap created specifically for you and your newsletter, I’d love to work with you! If you send me an email at and mention how awesome Dana is, I will provide you with a roadmap and one-hour consultation call for 10% off my usual price!
For more information on my services or if you have any questions on how to navigate your newsletter creation process, please don’t hesitate to contact me or visit my website at wrappedupwriting.com! And in the meantime, comment below with any questions or ideas you think might be helpful for others as well!
I look forward to hearing from you and reading your comments. Until then, happy writing!
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Dana Fraedrich / www.wordsbydana.com participates in affiliate advertising programs designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to amazon.com, Audible.com, and others. This page contains affiliate links.
