8 Things I'd Do *Today* to Build a Bingeworthy Newsletter Even Tina Fey Would Want to Read

You know how everyone’s like “you need to build an email list!” and you’re like “oh, that’s original 🙄,” and they’re like “no, but REALLY,” and you’re like “I don’t even know what I’m DOING WITH MY LIFE YET,” and they’re like “but it’s 40x more effective than social!” and you’re like “would you please go pee in a cup somewhere???”

I know. I know. You want to tell me to go pee in a cup somewhere. You see that delicious run-on paragraph and you’re all, ‘jesus, is this lady on drugs???’ 💊

I don't do drugs, but I am on a prescription called 'knocking you on your ass.' Which is only partially true, because I only do it via email. My sole purpose with this newsletter is to make you do all the stuff you know you want to do / are dying to do, but don’t, because you feel like an imposter with digital B.O.

Should we change the name of this newsletter to “Digital B.O.?”

Or perhaps “Ash Made Me Do It.”

Highly considering.

So! I’ve been having the *best* time with The Farmhouse Sessions—the one-on-one, 3-hour brainstorming sessions I’m doing with clients for a limited time (waitlist here), and some common themes keep coming up:

1. Sex, bad sex, sex jokes, sex sex sex, food, sex, farts, and sex
2. Ice cream
3. And how the frig to build an email list so you can sell whatever it is you make

I don’t think the latter is related to either of the former. For most of us, anyway. But, I can tell you that building an email list is literally THE dark weapon, ace in the hole, secret advantage, x-factor that you are completely underestimating.

Or, maybe you’re not underestimating it, but you just haven’t ~done it~. Like me, with that swanky-ass Farrow & Ball wallpaper I’ve had for months. IT REALLY ISN’T THAT HARD, ASH. YOU JUST GOTTA MOVE YOUR ARMS.

And, the same applies to email marketing! It really isn’t that hard. You just gotta move your…fingers? Whatever, same appendage.

So, without further ado, here are the top 8 super-duper strategic things I’d do today if I had to build an email list from scratch—and make it so bingeworthy, even Tina Fey would want to join:

1. Make a Substack already. ⬇️

   Start a Substack

   
   I KNOW, I KNOW. But, hear me out: it’s presently one of the easiest & fastest ways to grow your email list without having to sell your soul to satan’s socials. 😈
   
   Reasons I like it:

   1. Good vibes.

   2. Long-form blogging = LOVE.

   3. A “notes” feature that’s like Twitter, but for smart writerly internet people.

   4. A “subscribe” button next to any notes you publish. (That means a one-click subscribe to your newsletter, hello.)

   5. Easy as hell to start without needing a website.

   6. Your subscribers are 100% yours (you can export your list anytime).

   7. Other Substacks can automatically recommend you to their subscribers. (Huge growth here.)

   8. Built-in smart features like referral rewards to encourage peeps to share your newsletter & get something free in exchange.

   9. Paid subscriptions dead easy.

   10. New paid subscribers are automatically prompted to tell you why they’re supporting your work, making for a super easy way to get testimonials.

   11. Substack automatically offers your audience discounts and incentives to upgrade, without you having to do anything extra on your end.

   12. They also handle any chargebacks and deal with credit card companies on your behalf.

   13. There’s a QR code people can scan to join your newsletter. (Super useful for advertising. Slick!)

   14. You can even just paywall your archived content, which is awesome for any content that lends itself to a “library-type arsenal” people may want to reference. (This means they’ll get every email you send for free, but then it’s locked after, say, 24 hours so if they want to get to other ideas from your other posts, they’d have to upgrade.)

   15. Easy way to organise your writing into different categories. (GREAT example of this here.)

   16. You can start a live chat with only your paid subscribers. (Like having a Whatsapp group, but for paid subs only.)

   17. Your paid subs can start threads, too.

   18. You can limit who can respond to your emails—paid subs only, all subs, or no one.)

   19. You can also do the same with comments, which is really great if you have PTSD from trolls / exhaustion from social.

   20. You can add a podcast in, like, 2 minutes!

   21. You can also paywall just your podcast.

   22. Or just paywall your voiceovers of you reading your posts.
       
       Ugh, there are so many pluses to this platform—I’m a fan.
       
       The drawbacks are these:
       
       You can’t set up email automations. You can’t just email your audience, it will also post whatever you write to your publication. (Weird when sending launch emails.) You can’t set up waitlists. You can’t tag people. You can’t see who bought what. (Assuming you have other products to sell beyond a paid subscription). Basically, it’s not an email marketing platform, it’s a publishing platform with email capabilities. And, it’s serving its purpose beautifully and is one of the hot spots that advertisers are starting to look at when they want to sponsor newsletters.
       
       HOWEVAH, if you still need the advanced email marketing capabilities? I have a workaround. Ready? Here’s step two.
       

2. Get a Kit account.
   Here’s how it works: You write to your audience on Substack regularly, just like you always would. Anytime you have something to launch or promote, you link them up to a Kit form—a waitlist, an opt-in, a download, a webinar, whatever. Then, you can tag those people. And, you can set up automations. And you can continue to have that specific conversation to your most interested subscribers…without bugging the hell out of the others. It’s sort of like having a secret club for anyone interested in JUST THIS THING.
   
   Also?! I’m really, really, really, really liking the UX of Flodesk, another email marketing tool that’s known for really beautiful forms & emails. I didn’t recommend them in the past because they didn’t have certain features, but they are moving on up in the world! Believe it or not, even having a really pretty joy-to-use workflow makes writing emails so much better! It’s, like, fun to make forms with them. Crazy, right? When you’ve done this as long as I have, clunky is your worst enemy. It’s why I always was sad about Active Campaign: amazing features, super slow and clunky UX. Flodesk is the queen of making pretty emails—the only thing I wish they had was an API so they could integrate with Sparkloop so you could offer a referral program for people to share your newsletter (and get rewards when they do, so you grow faster). Kit does have this integration, FYI, and actually offers you free Sparkloop access when you upgrade to their Pro plan. 💥
   

3. Come up with a stuuupid clear name so people can easily tell what the friggin’ thing is and immediately know if it’s something they need. (I promise this will help you. Ask a girl who’s had the vague brand name THE MIDDLE FINGER PROJECT for 15 years. 🤣 )
   Think: What to Cook When You Don’t Feel Like Cooking (247,000 subs, tens of thousands of which are paying $5/month). French With Amélie (21,000 subs, hundreds of which are paying $24/mo). The Department of Salad (74,000 subs, with thousands paying $7/mo). Paris By Mouth (79,000 subs, with thousands paying $15/mo). Write With AI (50,000 subs, thousands of which are paying $20/month).
   
   You can see Substack’s leaderboards for paid newsletters by going to the category you’re interested in, and viewing the leaderboard on the right. Then, “see all.” Like here.
   

4. Create a hyper clear one-sentence pitch that clearly describes your point of view.
   This is literally the hardest part. But also, the most important part, because one sentence can determine whether your newsletter flops or flies. The more clearly you look at a topic through a specific lens, the more subscribers you’re going to get—and the better subscribers you’re going to get, because they’re going to be well-aligned with your work. THERE IS NO LOSING WHEN YOU WRITE A CLEAR, CONFIDENT PITCH THAT HAS A STRONG POV.
   
   Your point of view is how you differentiate yourself from every other hamrod on the internet, talking about the same stuff.
   
   For example, What to Cook When You Don’t Feel Like Cooking’s POV is sharing recipes that “dirty minimal dishes and requires under an hour of time.” That’s the point of view this publication takes. It’s clear what this is about. That’s the lens through which she looks at food.
   

   

   She doesn’t also publish lavish Thanksgiving recipes that take all day: that would break the promise of the publication. And her readers are subscribed because of that specific promise.
   
   Or, take Story Club with George Saunders. I know he’s George Saunders, but see how tight his pitch is? We immediately know this entire newsletter is about writing SHORT STORIES. That’s his POV.
   

   

   
   Sometimes you see other successful newsletters that have weak, vague, squishy pitches. The reason these work, when they do, is because the author already has a profile—and subscribers are coming because of the person, not the pitch. You can see with Emma’s, she’s leaning heavily on her past achievements and accolades and people knowing her from her popular books and famous podcast and long-standing career in magazines.
   
   Do not recommend unless you have big profile energy.

   

   
   

5. Make a legit logo in Kittl.
   Am really enjoying their app! It’s like Canva for logos, except every design is submitted by a marketplace of pro designers, and you can edit any one of ‘em. (Notice all of the above leading newsletters have legit logos. This is worth doing.)
   

6. Double down on two places: Threads and Substack Notes.
   Threads is HUGE right now, and is basically taking the place of what Twitter used to be. The vibe over there is so good, so casual, so chatty, so fun, so human. It’s not inundated with people selling things, and 100,000 posts about online business, and influencers with their shop links, and affiliate this and that. It’s still wholesome! Get in while you can! 🤣 It’s a really great place for text-based sharing—without the pressure to be on video. Plus, Threads is getting people mad reach right now: people from around the world actually see your threads.
   
   Ditto for Substack Notes: they have a very similar tool—text-based social sharing—and the vibe is equally delicious. There are lots of writers there using it, which is nice (because writers are readers and readers read newsletters), and Substack Notes has this AMAAAZING feature where people can one-click subscribe to your newsletter straight from a note you post. 😍 (That’s a game-changer.) On the downside, it does feel more isolated than something like Threads, because its reach is really just within the Substack network at this stage. However, as Substack continues to grow, so will this. And, it’s a dead simple + fun way to grow your newsletter, just by showing up and having the conversations you’re interested in! Good people over there. You’ll like them.
   

7. Grow your newsletter by advertising in—drum roll!—other newsletters.
   Again, the best people to subscribe to your newsletter are people who read newsletters. It stands to reason, then, that your best source of advertising is going to be other newsletters, and for multiple reasons:

   1. Newsletters produce more conversions than any other platform.

   2. You can target the perfect newsletters where your dream subscribers 🤤 are already hanging out.

   3. You can easily track how many subs you got from another newsletter just by using special tracking links. (Sparkloop has a free tool called Magic Links that lets you do exactly that!)

   4. Readers are likely to actually read. That’s important. :)
      
      
      My FAV place for finding newsletters to advertise in??????

      ****This freaking place.****
      
      I loooooooove what they’re doing. You can pick newsletters & creators and immediately see their niche and their stats and buy slots in their newsletters. 💃 So good!
      
      Bonus: you can also sign up as a creator, and have other brands buy ads from you. 💰
      
      

8. Learn how to write fun, effervescent, memorable content & newsletters that make people LOVE YOU. 💥
   
   This is the #1 thing you can do to have success here: HAVE FUN WITH IT. Be your weird, wacky, true, wonderful self. And learn how to do it with flair, via your writing. 📝
   
   And, big, fun news! If you’d love to learn how to write fun-to-read, bingeworthy-like-Netflix content that’ll make ‘em love you, worship you, and buy from you, my best-selling course, Creative Writing School for the Internet, has now been updated, added-to, given a major glow-up, and is now jam-packed full of cool video trainings where you can watch me write over my shoulder! 👀 ⏯️ 📝
   
   It’s re-launching on December 6th, 2024, but as a paid subscriber of The Middle Finger Project, I’m offering you a chance to pre-order now for a huuuuge discount that’s 40% cheaper than it will be at launch—and $100 cheaper than our public Black Friday sale. (Note: past students will automatically be given access to the upgraded 2025 version, hoorah! 💃)
   
   Come learn how to write fun, binge-worthy content with me! ⬇️
   
   Take 40% off now for my paid subscribers only using code SUBSCRIBERMEAT, muahahahahaha.

   
   

   MAKE YOUR WRITING BINGEWORTHY!

   
   
   (Yes, that’s really the code.)
   
   I hope you haven’t wanted to walk into the ocean yet today.
   
   ’Til later this week, with hilarious farmhouse updates!