Articles

Articles are the editions of your newsletter. You write them in the dashboard and send them as a newsletter to your subscribers. They also appear online on your own Lettership page, in your archive.

In short

• The title is your subject line: the most important line of text in your entire newsletter.
• The Subscribe action and Link button blocks help your newsletter grow.
• Continue doesn’t send anything yet. You first get a preview, a test email and the option to schedule.
• Choose a fixed rhythm. It’s the sum of your newsletters that counts.

The overview

Go to Articles. The overview opens on the Live tab, with your published articles. All your articles, drafts included, are under the last tab.

The editor

Click New article. You get a title, a subtitle and the text.

Title

The title is the subject line of your email and the most important line of text in your entire newsletter. Really think about this one. Because the purpose of a subject line is not to inform the reader, but to make people pick your email out of all those emails to read.

No clickbait

Do make sure you live up to the expectation the subject line raises, otherwise it’s clickbait.

Subtitle

The subtitle is visible after the subject in many email clients. Use it to explain a bit more, so people know what’s in the email and feel like opening it.

The text

• Make it scannable with headings and lists, because people read quickly in their inbox.
• Address readers directly, as if you’re telling them a good story in the pub.
• If you don’t know something, ask them. You’ll almost always get an answer. Did someone say something valuable? Thank them by name in the next edition.

Blocks that help your newsletter grow

Besides the usual formatting (bold, italic, headings, quotes, lists, tables) the toolbar has a few buttons that help your newsletter grow.

Subscribe action

Subscribe action puts a sign-up form in your article. You should always assume people are reading your newsletter online without being a member yet, because someone sent them the link. This block gives them the idea. Add a short, personal text.

In the email

In the email itself only that text is shown. The form appears in the web version.

This is how my September edition opens on the site:

Link button

Link button makes a button in your accent colour, with your own text and a link. I use it, for example, for a “Buy my book” button when announcing a new book.

A button can also open an email: under Link, choose Email instead of Web and enter your email address. Handy for a button like “Send me a message”. With Phone, readers call you directly.

And also

• Footnote is for things that go too far to mention in the text itself, but that you still want to pass on. They appear at the bottom of the article.
• Image adds a picture, with a caption that is shown in email and on the web. Because newsletters are so personal, I often use photos I took myself.
• YouTube, Spotify, SoundCloud and Instagram: paste the link and the embed sits in your article.

This is what it looks like in the editor, with a Subscribe action at the top, a SoundCloud embed and a button at the bottom:

Feel free to link to your own work

Feel free to link to things you’ve made before. If I find what you do interesting, I don’t consider it spam when you link to an article of your own. But do pull out one thing that’s enjoyable on its own, even if someone doesn’t click through.

Post settings

Via the Post settings button you set the web address of the article and upload a cover image. That cover isn’t in the email or in the article itself, but it’s visible in your archive on Lettership, on social media and in search engines. It draws attention there, so it’s worth it.

Size

Crop to 1.91:1 (for example 1910 by 1000 pixels). You can do that in the dashboard itself.

Sending

Nobody dared to press the Publish button, which is why it’s now called Continue. It needn’t be scary: that button doesn’t send anything yet. It opens a screen with your email exactly as your readers will get it, with at the top how many subscribers will receive it. Nothing goes out until you click Publish in that screen.

Below the preview are two things I always use.

Send test email

Sends the edition to yourself, with [Test] in front of the subject. I do this with every newsletter:

• I click all the links.
• I check whether the subject comes across well and isn’t too long.
• I go over the formatting. On desktop and on my phone.

Schedule for later

This lets you pick a day and time. Choose a fixed rhythm that works for you, so your readers know what to expect.

• Weekly is ideal; that’s the fastest way to build a bond.
• Every other week works too, if you can’t manage weekly.
• Monthly works as well. One of my newsletters is monthly, because I think it’s more important that it’s doable for me than that readers hear from me every week.

Such a rhythm also keeps you honest. Occasional newsletters are fine, but then it all comes down to your discipline, and your readers don’t know what to expect. It’s the sum of your newsletters that counts, not the individual editions.

Online only, without an email?

Putting an article on your site only, without emailing it, isn’t possible yet. If you want something online without an email, make it a page. We’re going to offer this option.

Your emails go out gradually

After sending, your emails go out gradually, as with every provider. With a large list that can take a while, and with your first edition after a move it goes extra carefully, because we protect our sending reputation.

After sending, the Reading stats show how your edition was read.