How long does it take to put a newsletter together?
I’m republishing some of my social media content - this was posted on LinkedIn earlier this year.
Someone asked me the other day how long it takes me to put together the content for my newsletter. My response: it varies.
Some articles come to me in a burst of inspiration, almost fully formed. They still take a while to write and edit - maybe a couple of hours in all.
Others take longer, and need to be worked on and researched. I've tinkered with some for 6 hours or more before thinking they're ready to go.
The reading list curation takes hours, too, because it's not just finding the articles; it's writing an intro for each, pulling out quotes, and making sure it makes sense as a whole (believe it or not, the order in which I include articles sometimes matters).
The podcast for paid subscribers is deliberately short, and it’s often where thoughts that won’t make a whole article end up. Ironically, sometimes the act of doing that can lead to an article after all - go figure! Although the episodes are short, it takes about 30 minutes or so to create it, check and edit the transcript., and write the other bits that go with the episode.
The monthly letter for paid subscribers maybe takes an hour or so, depending on what I include.
The interviews take more than an hour but less than two, as they’re submitted via a Google Form and require minimal editing.
That’s just writing time - you can add a bit for creating graphics and uploading and final tweaking. The reading list upload takes time because of all the links.
None of that accounts for the emotional labour caused by tackling some of the topics and reliving some of the incidents. Sometimes my first draft is me venting, and I have to let it sit for a while before I go back and turn it into something publishable. And sometimes those pieces never make it into the public eye. At least a couple of those will be in my next book.
Though I do this work to educate, motivate, inspire action, and provide a platform for others, I also believe that work that takes time and emotional energy should be compensated. When you consider that last year, I published 125 pieces of content in my anti-racism newsletter, the subscription price ($100 a year or $10 a month) equates to less thant $1 per article. For that, you also get access to another 180 pieces published between 2020 and 2021. I think it’s more than worth it.
If you agree, the link you need is below:
