In which I do something fabulously stupid and enjoy the hell out of it.
Some day scientists will isolate the part of the brain that thinks it’s fun to ignore the very sensible, practical things that everyone tells you.
You know — the rebellious part of the brain whose job it is to release joyful chemicals when you’re doing something that goes against all common sense and advice to the contrary. And they’ll probably give it a really cool name.
I have to say, I get a big crazy rush when this part of my brain takes over. It doesn’t happen that often but when it does, wheeeeee!
Two possibilities …
There are two ways this kind of decision can play out.
One is disastrously.
This is what is often known as “the stupid streak” — a phrase I took from one of my all-time favorite novels, Richard Russo’s Nobody’s Fool.*
[Aside: If you’ve read Russo’s Empire Falls and thought “A Pulitzer? Meh”, go read Nobody’s Fool. It’s the one that should have gotten the Pulitzer. I really don’t know why they never ask me. Just saying.]
“Such sudden sensations of well-being … were, in fact, leading indicators of the approach of a condition that Sully had come to think of as a stupid streak, where everything he did would turn out wrong, where each wrong turn would be compounded by the next, where even smart moves would prove dumb in the particular circumstance, where thoughtlessness and careful consideration were guaranteed to arrive at the same end — disaster.”
Ah yes. I think we all know what that feels like.
On the other hand, the other way this thing can go is fabulously.
This is the gambler’s high. You go against the grain. You take the leap. You mix your metaphors. You do the thing you know you have to do and it ROCKS. Cue cheesy end-of-bad-hollywood-movie music.
That’s what I’m talking about, baby.
Anyway, I’m in it right now.
I’m doing something that is the exact opposite of every single piece of business advice I’ve ever received from every single person I respect.*
* Except for Naomi-my-internet-crush (who is also mad as a hatter) and my designer (who just really likes it when I’m happy).
It could be a stupid streak. But it feels more like wheeeeee!
Because no nooz is good nooz.
I’m sick of writing the noozletter. There. I said it.
It used to be a highlight. One of my favorite parts of having a business. Twice a month I got to put on my writing cap and be a writer. In an active “look, I’m doing the thing!” kind of way.
Obviously in my heart and head I’m always a writer. Just never got to be in writer-mode all that often. So writing the nooz was really fun.
Plus people really, really love it. Every time I send one off I get mad fan mail — just sweet, personal contact from the awesomest people ever.
It is a mystery to me how my readership seems to be entirely made up of really bright, thoughtful, inquisitive people, but wow. I’ve gotten to meet some of my favorite people ever through the noozletter.
But a lot has changed since December 2005 when I started writing it. For one thing, I wrote a bunch of ebooks and have other fabulous writing projects in the works.
For another, I has a blog. Which means I get to write all the time. And blogging? Way more fun than noozletter writing. The thing no one tells you about blogging is that it’s basically free therapy. It rocks.
So I began noticing resistance and “do-not-want”-ism showing up — and I started thinking about the life cycle of passion.
The life cycle of passion
My nooz is almost three years old. That’s really old.
Well, it is in internet years — where a blog that’s been around a couple months can already be a freaking establishment for crying out loud.
Here are the life stages of my baby:
1. Baby nooz is unsteady on its feet. Makes a very uh, select few people happy every month or so. I feel nervous and excited and hope I won’t drop it on its head.
2. Toddler nooz is already off-to-school nooz. I’m sharing techniques that I use with clients, and people are using them! Weird. Awesome. I feel curious and a little tired.
3. Nooz comes out every two weeks like clockwork. It’s totally its own thing with its own personality now. It’s separate from me.
I stop trying to give people big techniques and start focusing on little mind shifts that can help them do stuff a little differently right now. I’m meant to do this. I am a writer. I feel elated and giddy.
4. Teenager nooz has its own friends. People email my duck. Seriously. Anything I write will automatically get a ton of email responses. Which is cool. But ack! Responsibility. Adulthood kinda sucks. I feel conflicted.
5. My nooz is all grown up and off to college. I start blogging. I discover that writing every day or almost every day is more fun than doing it just every other week.
So what to do now?
Anyway, this is where I was as of last week. Pre-stupid streak. I mean, pre-ecstatic-high.
I was feeling frustrated because I knew that the noozletter was becoming a “should”. And oh boy, I don’t work well when I’m in resistance.
So on the one hand, I really needed to know I could trust myself to a. be there for the people who depend on me and b. do the right thing for my business.
And on the other hand, I was needing some reassurance that my life wasn’t going to have the fun sucked out of it. Because shoulds are bad for your mental and emotional health. And they’re bad for business.
There was some hair-tearing.
And then I started asking everyone I know for advice. Which was a mistake. Because they all told me what I didn’t want to hear.
Here’s what everyone said:
They told me what I already knew. That you gotta have a list. That writing a noozletter is how you connect to the people you want to help so that they can get help from you.
And so they can feel safe and comfortable with you, so that should the time come when your products and services are useful to them, they feel excited rather than anxious.
And then I would say:
Okay, but having a bunch of blog subscribers, while not as much of an intimate connection, is actually better. Because they do that whole interactive thing.
And then they would say: You have to have a newsletter. You have a relationship with the people on that list. You can’t just dump it.
And then I’d say: Well, I think the wave of the future is going to be blog-based relationships. People will use lists more like fan-clubs — as a way of giving people special attention — but the weekly or bi-weekly article is on its way out.
Et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.
I realized that we could go back and forth until the cows are already home and tucked in bed, but it didn’t change the basic fact that I just didn’t want to write the noozletter.
It was clearly time to turn down the input from the logical part of my brain and check in with the other parts.
Here’s what my body said:
Blech. Yuck. Ack. Ptooey.
It said: resentment and resistance aren’t good for you. You know what’s good for you? A relaxed, happy state of mind is good for you. Writing is good for you. Creating is good for you. Go do some more of that.
And then I did some meditation and stuff and realized: my goal is still to help as many of the people I’m meant to help as possible. And the nooz just no longer feels like the right way to do it. The way to do it is to go where the mojo is.
I felt better.
So much better in fact that I yelled “OMG, I’m dumping the nooz!”
And that’s when the buzz kicked in. Wheeeeee!
Stupid streak? Maybe. But I don’t care.
The thing I’m taking from this.
My noozletter has grown up. It’s moving on.
It’s not old. I am not saying that my noozletter is old. It’s not wearing frumpy clothes. It’s not like we’ve reached “stick this baby on an ice-floe” time or anything …
It’s just that I’m done with it. Things are changing and shifting. I’m going with what feels like the right way rather than what sounds like the right way..
Here’s what’s going to happen. I’ll still get to hang out with all or most of the smart, wonderful people that I adore. All the teachings, the lessons, the insights, the goofiness — they’re not going away. They’re just going to be here — on the blog.
I’ll still use my list to connect up with because I adore them. I’ll give them special prices on my stuff and send out some case studies and things that I think are useful and important. But the every-other-week nooz is no longer a thing.
Maybe it will start a trend and all sorts of biggifiers will start dumping their noozletters too. Or maybe I’m an idiot and this is the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever done to my business. I doubt it, but it’s possible.
In that case? Oh, well. Then we’ll rethink things and change course. Or I still won’t care. In which case you’ll find me right here. Writing up a storm.
P.S. Special thanks and a big fat kiss to my wonderful designer for the many gorgeous old-timey nooz designs. Showcased here: some of my favorites.
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You are just so far out crazy, girl. I toldja this would be a bad idea, and now where are you? Huh? No noozletter, that’s where! And in the dark, lost, alone, except for your…
blog…
Can’t believe you did something as crazy as just listen to your heart. Next time, listen to all the warnings, the shoulda’s! You’ll be better off.
Next time, toe the line. I meanz it.
Mark Silvers last blog post..Feeling tender, nervous, uncertain
Excellent. I never understood newsletters, but then, I never understood outrageously long “sales” pages either, yet I see them all the time.
Blogs win because they are even more “opt in” than email, more interactive (and fun), more measurable from a traffic and comments perspective, and ¡important! indexed by search engines, therefore findable by people who don’t already know about you.
Value locked up in email is no value at all.
Email alerts still have a place, but more for specific marketing purposes like “we’re launching a new product and you’re super secret pre invited because you’re awesome” type stuff, and not for “hey, here’s some news or something”.
Your final newsletter will be like “Hey, here’s how FluentSelf works on RSS/Feedburner email”, right?
Nathan Bowerss last blog post..Another broken modal dialog
@Mark – I knew I could count on someone whose entire business is heart-centered to tell me to ignore all my feelings. We should totally launch a repression-based business advice service.
We’ll make dozens of dollars!
@Nathan – you’re so awesome.
And wow, we live in such different worlds. I want to hang out in yours more. No, I’m moving in.
Alas, pretty much everyone I know has a nooz because that’s what you do. I’m subscribed to about a gazillion. And if you’d launched your online helper-mouse-based business say, five years ago you’d probably have one too.
Also: crap! Forgot to write a “here’s how to subscribe” nooz. But I did put up two (TWO!) explanatory pages.
One is a basic “how to subscribe by email” (How to subscribe) and the other is for brave noobie souls who want an answer to the question: Argh! What is this rss thing of which you speak?!. Hoping that will be helpful ….
Haha! Your noozletter is so old it wears Mom jeans.
OK, I have a theory. Never ask for advice unless you are paying the person you’re asking.
And you’re not crazy. Well, you’re totally crazy, but it has nothing to do with nooz. (You’re so crazy, it’s old nooz. Get it? Nooz. Fuck, never mind.)
And besides, it’s not like you’re burning the list. You still have the peeps.
And I can’t believe you went with “no nooz is good nooz”. You’re my hero.
Uh, Nathan, I wouldn’t really say “blogs win.” For many of the folks in my crowd, for instance, RSS still doesn’t make sense. Many of them are too vulnerable to post a comment in a public area, and if they did subscribe, they might never see it, simply because they don’t use feeders, and wouldn’t remember to go look at the feeder if they did.
For instance, me. I do read, and comment on, blogs. And yet I can forget to look at my feeder for weeks. Oops.
Don’t mean to get my hackles up in Havi’s little vestibule, but it’s not a contest. It’s about what makes the most sense for who you’re talking to, and what feels the best to your own heart.
And switching to strictly RSS, while great from a heart-perspective, clearly right for Havi- I still bet she loses a significant number of people that don’t follow her here, because they are email people, not blog people.
Enough with the EMAIL vs. BLOG thing. Maybe I should blog and email about it. 🙂
Mark Silvers last blog post..Feeling tender, nervous, uncertain
Have to disagree with you Mark. Blogs win because:
1) They’re indexable hence discoverable via search engines. Having years of posts out there is powerful stuff and tends to aggregate value over time.
2) They serve as an archive of your ideas, something you can point to in order to build a body of work. Sort of restating point 1 above, except for humans, not search engines.
3) Allow social proof: “Look how many people comment on this blog”, “Wow, this person has been blogging a long time”, etc.
4) Are more measurable.
5) Are conversational.
6) Allow for browsing/lurking, but also allow deeper interaction via comments. Plus comments add value that everybody can learn from.
That said, I do agree that RSS is scary/difficult and that making the transition might cost some readers, but there are ways to mitigate those points (prominent email sub buttons and making sure to tell people about the move come to mind).
If someone doesn’t love you enough to seek you out and subscribe to your new way even after you’ve spelled out how to do it, then do you really need them? Permission Marketing = “Customers who get pissed when they *don’t* hear from you”.
Of course, everybody has to do what’s right for them, there is no “one way”, but I say think twice before sending an email to do a blog’s job.
Nathan Bowerss last blog post..Another broken modal dialog
@Nathan – Mmmm … here’s the thing. You’re right for someone who’s starting out. You’re right statistically.
But Mark is right about nooz and blog being two separate groups that don’t always have a lot — if any — overlap.
Put it this way. Best case scenario, I just said goodbye to 600 people. At least.
Which is sad. I’m hurtin’ here too in this break-up. I love these people and some of them aren’t coming along for the ride.
For Mark, it isn’t even a question of doing the crazy thing that I just did. He has a huge, huge list that is (I’m guessing) composed mostly of women over 50. They’re not going to subscribe to his blog. Some of them probably only recently figured out how to subscribe to a noozletter.
It doesn’t matter how good the reasons are for blogging winning out over nooz-writing. If those are your people, it doesn’t matter to them. And when there are a ton of them and they rely on you for support and comfort and they pay your mortgage payments … you can blog too but you’re not going to give up on the thing that works.
Unless you’re me and you’re going on a stupid streak. Which is why I repeat: Wheeeeeeee!
If newsletters pay the bills, better keep doing them. I’m just saying that email doesn’t scale: other blogs can’t link to it, and it’s invisible to search, so if at all possible, put more energy into blogging.
Obviously the best thing would be to export your newsletter email list to FeedBurner, but unfortunately FB doesn’t support that (they have concerns about spammers using the service and getting FB blacklisted). Hope they get that sorted out somehow, seems like a big hole in their service.
Curious though, why not send out a “weekly digest” of posts (like title links with summaries) to people on your old list?
Nathan Bowerss last blog post..The 3 pillars of good email marketing are…
@Nathan – you can archive your newsletters just like a blog, so that’s not any different for humans. For SE’s blogs win b/c of all the RSS syndication. But you could technically make an RSS feed out of your newsletter too if you wanted to just for link juice.
I agree that blogs win on the RSS and the public-commenting, but also that @Mark has many valid points. I think it’s important to have a contact form that goes directly to you for people who don’t feel comfortable commenting publicly like @Mark said. And to have an easy way for people to subscribe via email to your blog so it’s kinda like a newsletter for people who are email-people. And to have one of those “tell me when people reply” plugins like of course Havi has because she is awesome.
But yeah, I know at least one of the noozletter services will automatically send a weekly newsletter and feed in blurbs of all your posts in the last week. That’s the best of both worlds perhaps? Eh? Eh?
Emma
Emma McCrearys last blog post..Do You Need to be Aggressive to Get Sales?
Oh drat, the thing I *really* wanted to say before I got all caught up in the blog vs nooz debate was THANK YOU for being such a brave soul as to quit the nooz.
I want to have a helper mouse biz someday and I already was dreading the nooz “shoulds”. Everyone does it, everyone says it’s fantastically important, blah blah blah. But the idea just did not appeal to me. My body said bleahhh.
Geez, I would never have lasted 3 years – more like 3 days. Now I don’t have to start. I can just focus on my blog, which is what I wanted to do anyway. Sweet!
But, pondering all this, I will probably have a auto-blog-blurb nooz thing for people who like noozy type stuff. I do believe in giving people what they want in a format they can digest.
As long as I can make it super palatable for me to create as well.
Total awesomeness.
Emma
Emma McCrearys last blog post..Do You Need to be Aggressive to Get Sales?
darn, i had just discovered the newsletter. ah well, i’ll just have to practice letting go then! at least we still have the blog and much loved RSS are always there waiting for me to read them.
i always had a feeling that shoulds were bad for me, and last week my homeopath told me that this month i’m not allowed to tell myself that i should or have to do anything. guilt-free. eeewk. scary. i’m not used to being nice to myself. so i got sick. cough cough sneeze splutter. i’ll get there though!
love your blog!!!!
tatocas last blog post..irelandness
To keep the regular, active contact with your list, how about sending out a “Weekly Wrap” of your blog posts? Not the whole post, just the headline and maybe the first sentence or two. That way, you’re regularly contacting your customer base with your writing, but making use of your blog to do it. You’d have to talk to someone more into the technical details, but I suppose it’s possible to automate the whole thing (Set up RSS to feed an auto-emailer or something?).
Just an idea from out here in IdeaLand.
Brandon Watkinss last blog post..5½ Books Everyone Should Read
And, I should add, that I do post my newsletter to my website every week, so people can and do link to it, and I get some groovy SEO juice from it as well.
Blogs have lots of advantages, which is why I blog, and will amp up my blogging. But even the collection of blog posts… I’m just curious whether it would really meet the needs of someone who is looking for/expecting a “newsletter” (please pardon the English-dictionary-authoritarian spelling).
Especially if they don’t have always-on internet. Which, many, many people do, and many, many people still! don’t.
Anyway, I like crossing pens with you, Nathan. Thanks for pushing back.
Havi, you rock. Thanks for being brave and stoopid.
peace
Mark
Mark Silvers last blog post..Feeling tender, nervous, uncertain
From one of the four people you didn’t ask for advice (and I’d have said the same thing if you’d paid me for counsel):
BEST. DECISION. EVER.
Did you notice that’s what your cold was trying to purge?
Your 600 friends will be delighted to follow you over to blogland, it’s bringing them into the present, which plenty more of what they want and got from your nooz. AND the bonus of the comments! Maybe one last tip to them on how to make that easy… [I love my “morning coffee” which is a plug-in on my Firefox browser that opens my favorite blogs, all lined up in a row, to check in on before I check my RSS reader (love the Google Reader) over lunch at my desk.] Some little tip like that might help them “come on down!”
And let me be the first to WELCOME YOU NOOZLETTER READERS — to the comments section of your new date with Havi. Glad to have you, chime on in, any friend of Havi’s is a friend of her blog’s audience; actually, not an audience as much as a class: come to hear mellow music that’s new to you, stretch out on comfy mats in a lovely space, and let your mind and lungs take deep breaths. Glad to have you join us.
Depending upon who you used for your newsletter, you could just set up your newsletter to be a feed of your blog. Like a once-a-week email that has the last posts you did that week, or whatever. Then you don’t have to write anything else, but people who want email delivery get it. (you can do this through aweber.com)
~ Elizabeth
Ya know, I started a newsletter a few short months ago and I just wasn’t diggin’ it. Like you said, it didn’t feel right, even though the conventional advice was “of course you should have one.”
I dumped it, but I’m keepin’ on keepin’ on with my blog. It’s just more fun and not as much work as thinkifying ways to get people to sign up on my silly web form.
I’m not going to debate the use of either one, because I do get newsletters that I really like reading. Really.
Havi: Say Goodbye to Hollywood, say goodbye my ba-ee-bayyyy…
Did that make you sad?
Davids last blog post..They just don’t get it, do they? Ghosts in the machine…
I headed over here because Mark tweeted it, and I had a heartstopping moment thinking you had actually dumped the list.
But you didn’t, so it’s all happily ever after. Life is too short to drink bad wine or write nooz when you no longer want to write nooz. Congrats on freeing your heart up! And you’ve got updates by email, so those who like email can still get the goodness.
I love the autoresponder part of my newsletter, which is all timely and useful and makes me look fabulous. Once the string runs out, my noozies realize what a horrible, horrible flake I am. Ah well.
Sonia Simones last blog post..Beatrix Kiddo’s Guide to Making It Happen
Oh, you guys are the best.
@Brandon & Elizabeth – I definitely see the appeal of the digest idea and appreciate the suggestion, and at the same time can’t imagine doing it. Seems like it would be annoying for people who made the move to subscribe to the blog.
And anyway, as I always say, asking people to click a link is the offline equivalent of asking someone to run down the street and buy you a sandwich. Link-clicking is construed as way more work than just reading.
But maybe I’ll change my mind on that.
@tatoca – you’re not allowed to have any shoulds?! Man, that sounds like another should. You should at least be allowed one or two shoulds, right? Talk about going cold turkey.
Go slow with the change … being nice to yourself is hard and weird so don’t push it too much! 🙂
@GirlPie, Emma, David, Sonia and everyone, actually – Thanks so so much for being all sweet and supportive. I’m still feeling a bit vulnerable/terrified along with elated and liberated, so it’s really awesome to have all you guys cheering for me. Mwah!
I don’t want to belittle the whole breakup feeling, because that must be hard. But it seems to me that the whole point of running a blog/business is so that you can do what you love and not have to listen to other people tell you how to do it (i.e. your stupid boss who is only there because he/she brown-nosed his/her way to the top and is obviously way out-classed by yourself and why doesn’t anyone else seem to notice this?)
Congrats on following your heart and what you believe to be true.
Whoah, two Dunfords in a day? A double-dunford? Score.
Jack can’t type yet, can he? Because the day I get the coveted Dunford Triple is the day my blog is famous.
Oh, sorry, back to you. Thanks for chiming in, Jamie — and for the vote of support. Love it.
What? Permission to dump the anvil-should of newsletters?
Rad!