How to Start Writing a Newsletter and Succeed
The secret that got me 19K subscribers in 9 months
If you are struggling to start a newsletter, this is the guide you need to get started. When I started in September’23, I was a social media recluse. However, I found my way to 19.3K subscribers. It was a journey with a lot of learning that I want to share with you. I have shared the same tricks and tips with many budding writers to grow their newsletters successfully.
❓Figure out WHY you want to write
The journey to writing online can be long and hard if you want to increase your readership. So, you need a solid motivation. If it is a whim, then it won’t last long.
My reasons when I started writing
I have played a TL role for 7 years and mentored many engineers to grow into a TL role. So, I had a lot to share and wanted to explore writing during my paternity break last year.
Get better & faster at writing.
Get 1K active subscribers to feel good.
My reason now
I see Techlead Mentor becoming a brand. While I don’t have any near-term plans for it, I see it as an enabler for bigger things in the long term.
So, find your reasons and remind yourself of those when things seem hard.
Back to actionable tips that will help you grow sooner.
🎯 1. Pick one audience
Cater your first 20 articles to one audience. It can be tempting to write about LLMs first, then interview tips, and then leadership. When you flip-flop between topics, your audience will flip-flop, too. I found that writing about similar topics helps build a loyal audience.
Know what differentiates you and stick to those topics. For example,
if you grew quickly in tech, then share your journey
if you are a fast/persistent learner, then share when you learn new things
if you switched job profiles (lawyer to software engineer), share what that was like.
My audience is people who want to hear a Staff engineer at FANG share his leadership experience and actionable tips for their growth.
🎨 2. Initial topic corpus
When I started writing, I outlined my 12+ year career and annotated the ups & downs. I also relived the key situations where I mentored others through their difficulties. Soon, I found a list of repeated problems that formed my topic corpus. Examples
How I got vague feedback OR how one of my mentees got vague feedback
Struggles I saw every upcoming TL encounter
How convincing some stakeholders was hard and why
My difficulties with writing good documents
Interesting stories that taught me valuable lessons
Keeping it close to my experience saved me time researching the topics.
💡 3. Add value
Nobody likes reading a 1000+ word article that doesn’t
Tell an interesting/inspiring/captivating story OR
Teach something difficult OR
Give actionable tips for relatable problems.
So, when you plan an article be very clear about - what problem you are solving with your article and the benefit to the reader. For example, for my articles
5 mistakes that made my document terrible: the value was a framework that helps engineers write good documents.
My career story from Intern to Staff: the value was sharing an inspiring story that most aspiring Staff Engineers can learn from
📋 4. Topic backlog management
Having a healthy topic backlog gives me confidence that I can keep writing. I have a master list of topic ideas. Whenever I get an idea I jot it down in this list.
Topic ideas are vague and notoriously deceptive. It isn’t clear whether the topic is a good article unless I expand on it. So, periodically, I do the following for each unexplored topic idea.
Write the article's core message and a five-bullet point version. (raw bullet points only)
If I realize a topic has more hidden topics, I will add those to the master list.
For example, when I considered writing “poor communication blocking promotion,” I realized I should write articles on improving written, verbal, and nonverbal communication.
Put current favorites on the calendar for upcoming weeks.
🕰️ 5. Cadence
Don’t exhaust all your articles in a short span of time. I used to write 2 articles a week in my first month. It wasn’t sustainable in the long run. You should balance the following:
Your work-life balance overall
Quality of writing
Do you still have enough to keep writing for the next 6 months?
Like many, I found writing one article a week to be sustainable for a long time. However, due to recent life events, I have been contemplating a more relaxed cadence.
So, find what works for you and stick to it.
🌐 6. Newsletter website
Where to host?
When I started, I chose Substack without much thought. However, I love the decision because:
It is a platform with a network and the recommendation system helped boost my growth.
Provides options to customize my layout.
Reasonable metrics for my usage.
If you don’t have a preference, just go with Substack. However, don’t try to host your website when you start. Driving traffic to it will be harder.
Aesthetics
Pick a newsletter name that describes what you write about.
Add an “about” page that introduces what you write about.
Add a logo so that people recognize your brand.
I picked a custom domain to give it more credibility.
Include your top articles in your intro email when a new subscriber joins.
🖊️ 7. Writing process
Writing can feel hard when you first start. The biggest mistake I made was not setting a deadline for an article. I would spend hours just sitting with a topic and then feel agitated when I made no progress. Over time, I realized I needed to block a contiguous chunk of time (2 hours is great) to have a productive writing session.
What I do when I start to write an article:
Identify the person I am writing the article for.
For example, this article is for one of the many budding creators who have asked me for tips.
Play out a conversation in my mind where I share tips with this person.
I take raw notes of that conversation.
Create an article outline.
Using the notes and the outline, I write a fresh article.
If the draft doesn’t look good, I will archive the current version and repeat steps 4 & 5. A fresh reattempt can do wonders instead of trying to fix the earlier draft.
🎣 8. Good hook
A hook is an opening to your article that should grab and hold the reader’s attention. This includes the title and the first paragraph. The reader will decide in the first few seconds if they should continue or not.
Title
A good title should tell the reader what they will get and if this article is for them. Some good examples,
How I read books with limited time: This is targeting folks who are struggling to read many books, and the title promises that it will share valuable hacks.
5 Mistakes That Made My Documents Terrible: Most engineers find it hard to produce good documents, so the title promises to share 5 of those mistakes and implies that it will share actionable tips to avoid them.
The Intro
The first paragraph should get straight to the point. Look at the first paragraph of this article. It tells you who this article is for and what will be covered. Additionally, it tells you why you should listen to me.
A common mistake here is to beat around the bush or provide too much context. A bad intro would have been to talk about the newsletters, go into the background of Substack, share top newsletters, or engage in other distractions.
✍️ 9. Quality writing
Write direct and simple.
A common misconception is that using flowery language and fancy quotes will make you sound smart. However, readers just want to get value, and they want to get it with the least cognitive load.
Use the Hemingway app to gauge how simple your articles are to read. You should try to target grade-6 readability.
Optimal layout for readability
Highlight important words/sentences in bold.
Use shorter paragraphs
Use bullet points wherever applicable
Images
Each article of mine includes at least one image. I create my own pictures instead of using stock images. I think personalized pictures give more authenticity to your articles, and the audience appreciates the effort.
🤝 10. Networking
Like it or not, networking is important to building an audience. Your audience won’t magically show up. The typical way in which it works is:
people you know like & share → people they know like & share
If one of them is a big creator, it can have a multiplicative effect. So, building up your network is important, as it increases the likelihood of your articles being shared broadly.
How?
Build a real connection with other creators in your domain.
Add valuable comments to their LinkedIn posts and Substack. This can kick off meaningful conversations and put you on their radar.
Pro tip: don’t do this for the sake of it, as it will put you in a bad light.
Send a private message introducing who you are and what you write about. If you loved any of their articles, then let them know. You can even seek feedback for your writing if they have time.
As an introvert, I avoided doing this for a long time. Luckily, Anton Zaides reached out to me, and asked me about my struggles and interests. That was pivotal to my growth. After that, I messaged many creators and built real connections with some of them.
👥 11. Collaborations
The key to networking was selfless collaboration. I genuinely supported fellow creators in their endeavors, helping review articles or courses or bringing more eyes to their efforts. I still do whenever I can without expecting anything in return.
Over time, I got opportunities to partner with other creators on various things that boosted my growth. Especially, I cherish the following collaborations:
With Jordan Cutler on a joint article and our long discussions solving world problems 🙂
With Ryan Peterman on publishing my career story
I love that I can do the same for budding writers now. Re: Collaborating on Akash Mukherjee’s career story
Recommendations
It may be easier to collaborate with creators who are in a similar place as you in the journey. If you contact Gergely Orosz for a collab, that may not work out.
Do a guest post if there is a mutual benefit. You can approach a creator with topic ideas.
If you are not camera shy, start a podcast with fellow creators. That will boost your visibility.
📤 12. Share your articles
Growth happens when you get new subscribers. So, you need to post your articles at places where new people can read them. Things that I do:
Share my articles on LinkedIn with a sneak peek.
Pro tip: Use short URLs to track the click-through rate. I use short.io for this, as it is free.
Share on Reddit. Note: Reddit can be mean sometimes, but if something goes viral, it can attract many new subscribers.
A couple of my articles went viral there and got me 100+
I tried Hacker News and Twitter for a bit but gave up because they didn’t give me good results.
🚀 13. Invest in your growth
Just like any skill, you need to hone it to get better. Here are the things I did:
Read books that improved my writing. I would recommend:
Experimented with my writing style to see what resonated with my audience.
Over time, I realized my “How to” articles with personal examples got a great reception.
Took a course on image creation that helped me create quality images
I pay for Grammarly premium to make inline corrections, which saves a lot of time.
I analyzed better creators around me and saw what they were doing well to take inspiration on quality writing.
Parting Note
Starting as a social media recluse and getting to where I am took a lot of smart and hard work. The process needed patience, resilience, and never-ending hustle. Most importantly, it wouldn’t have been possible without the support and mentoring I got from fellow creators. So, this article is my way of giving back to the community.
Let me know if you have any questions or want to write a guest post on my newsletter.
If you enjoyed this article, then hit the ❤️ button. It helps!
If you think someone else will benefit from this, then make sure to 🔁 share this post.
Great advice my friend!
For me, the biggest shift was not writing for an audience, but for a person. Imagine your ideal reader profile, and keep them in mind for every article you write.
These are incredibly valuable tips! Thanks for sharing!