I'm a designer who turned into a writer who turned into a startup CEO. My mission is to help creators earn a living. Subscribe for essays on building an audience and earning a living as a creator.
Lessons from Buzzfeed
Here it is, my last newsletter of the year. I didn't quite finish my 2020 review post, but that will be coming next week.
THE GROW YOUR AUDIENCE CHALLENGE
Grow an audience in 2021 and win $10,000
If you have growing an audience as a goal for 2021, then I've got a fun contest for you. Each year we run the Grow Your Audience challenge to give away $10,000 to a creator who creates a great landing page and reaches at least 100 subscribers by January 31st.
FROM ART OF NEWSLETTERS
How to turn your newsletter into a business
Dan Oshinsky was the Director of Newsletters at both Buzzfeed and The New Yorker. Today he runs his own email consultancy called Inbox Collective. Dan has seen newsletters from the early days, and has been instrumental in developing the newsletter strategy for some of the largest publications around.
In this fantastic interview, Dan shares takeaways for large newsletters and indie creators alike. He shares how his newsletter led to the Buzzfeed job, and how, once there, he discovered the building blocks that make newsletters resonate with their audience (spoiler: cats ARE involved).
Dan also warns us of the danger of obsessing over open rates (or any “silver bullet” metric), and how Job #1 for your newsletter is to earn its place in people’s inboxes.
Listen to the full episode »
If you just want to see clips from the episode, check them out on Twitter or Instagram.
NEW AT CONVERTKIT
A few new smaller features
All of these are small but helpful tweaks, and we hope they make users experiences that much better.
- Advanced date functions in liquid: ability to generate timestamps, convert to a specific time zone & count the days until a specific date.
- Subscriber exports now include tags and location data.
- An unsubscribe action in automations. You can unsubscribe someone automatically when they reach a certain part of your automation. This is great for cleaning up cold subscribers.
WHAT I'M WATCHING
The Banker on AppleTV+
I loved this movie. The Banker is based on a true story from the 1960s. A young black man growing up in Texas decides he wants to be a real estate investor and has to confront the huge obstacles created by systemic racism in some really creative ways. Anthony Mackie and Samuel L. Jackson are both awesome in this and the story is just incredible. Both heartbreaking and uplifting at the same time.
Happy New Year!
Nathan Barry
I'm a designer who turned into a writer who turned into a startup CEO. My mission is to help creators earn a living. Subscribe for essays on building an audience and earning a living as a creator.
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