But First, My Second Newsletter!

Productive procrastination on Substack

The best way to start your first newsletter is to start another newsletter first.

At least, that's what I did.

I've written a few Sub Pub articles aside from this one. I like how they've turned out. But something held me back from doing a final edit and publishing them.

Fear? Procrastination? Sure. But also a sense that something was missing.

So, I thought, why not experiment with a "practice" newsletter?

The practice newsletter could be about anything or nothing. It could have any description; long or short articles; bylines or not. There's no pressure, because it's just practice.

My practice newsletter is called "A Thousand Cats Walking on a Thousand Keyboards." I've learned a lot very quickly by creating and publishing that newsletter with semi-reckless abandon.

I'm even practicing marketing with it. If no one subscribes, I'll learn something. If a thousand people subscribe, I'll learn something else.

Because it's a casual side project, I half-expect it to be more successful than Sub Pub. (I'll bet you've never heard of Odeo. But you've heard of Odeo's other project, Twitter.)

Try a second newsletter today (or anytime)! To paraphrase the Underpants Gnomes from “South Park”: Phase 1, newsletter; Phase 2, second newsletter?; Phase 3, profit.