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This is the latest release of my serversforhackers.com newsletter. I'm hoping for improvements / comments on configuration if you have any! (Otherwise, hopefull

This is the latest release of my serversforhackers.com newsletter. I'm hoping for improvements / comments on configuration if you have any! (Otherwise, hopefully you learn something useful :D )

chatmasta 12y ago
Nice job! You've got a lot of quality, consistent writing going into this. I assume you're trying to build a readership. Have you considered curating links to supplement your writing? I recently subscribed to Pycoder's Weekly [0] and really enjoy the curated content they sent out every week. They have a big user base, too, and have been able to monetize it with job postings. It seems like you're in a complementary niche and could probably apply many of the same principles. [0] http://pycoders.com/ http://pycoders.com/
- fideloper 12y ago
  Yeah! I get pycoders, postgres, data science and devops weekly newsletters! What I've found is that I skip over the long list of links, thinking I'll get to them later. However, I never do! I wanted to make this one have fewer topics, but get more in depth with them.
  - chatmasta 12y ago
    I think one problem you might face is that when people subscribe to weekly newsletters, they are usually looking for bite sized content. This long form writing is great, and very informative. However, tutorials are more suited to "pulling" readers to the content, rather than "pushing" the content to readers. If you are deploying HAProxy, you'll google for tutorials about installing it. But is you're not deploying HAProxy, why would you read a long email about it? In the case of receiving an email at random time on a Monday, wouldn't you prefer it contain a list of links for you to skim, and if you so choose, a longer article on the intricacies of setting up long form content? Look at it this way: 100% of weeks, I'm interested in receiving links. It's a much lower percentage of weeks that I'm interested in reading a long form tutorial. Of course, during those weeks, it's great to have. But I think you risk losing a lot of interested readers by focusing only on long form content. My advice: stick to the tutorials as a feature of each week's email (but no big deal if you miss one!), and fall back on a set of 5-10 interesting links. This way you will retain more readers and also reduce the pressure on yourself to write a long article every week.
    - fideloper 12y ago
      The content is on the site rather than the email. The email is really just a form of communication about the article, except I publish articles every 2 weeks along with the newsletter.
adamors 12y ago
This looks really cool, thanks for doing it.

This is the latest release of my serversforhackers.com newsletter. I'm hoping for improvements / comments on configuration if you have any! (Otherwise, hopefully you learn something useful :D )

chatmasta 12y ago

Nice job! You've got a lot of quality, consistent writing going into this. I assume you're trying to build a readership. Have you considered curating links to supplement your writing? I recently subscribed to Pycoder's Weekly [0] and really enjoy the curated content they sent out every week. They have a big user base, too, and have been able to monetize it with job postings. It seems like you're in a complementary niche and could probably apply many of the same principles. [0] http://pycoders.com/ http://pycoders.com/

fideloper 12y ago
Yeah! I get pycoders, postgres, data science and devops weekly newsletters! What I've found is that I skip over the long list of links, thinking I'll get to them later. However, I never do! I wanted to make this one have fewer topics, but get more in depth with them.
- chatmasta 12y ago
  I think one problem you might face is that when people subscribe to weekly newsletters, they are usually looking for bite sized content. This long form writing is great, and very informative. However, tutorials are more suited to "pulling" readers to the content, rather than "pushing" the content to readers. If you are deploying HAProxy, you'll google for tutorials about installing it. But is you're not deploying HAProxy, why would you read a long email about it? In the case of receiving an email at random time on a Monday, wouldn't you prefer it contain a list of links for you to skim, and if you so choose, a longer article on the intricacies of setting up long form content? Look at it this way: 100% of weeks, I'm interested in receiving links. It's a much lower percentage of weeks that I'm interested in reading a long form tutorial. Of course, during those weeks, it's great to have. But I think you risk losing a lot of interested readers by focusing only on long form content. My advice: stick to the tutorials as a feature of each week's email (but no big deal if you miss one!), and fall back on a set of 5-10 interesting links. This way you will retain more readers and also reduce the pressure on yourself to write a long article every week.
  - fideloper 12y ago
    The content is on the site rather than the email. The email is really just a form of communication about the article, except I publish articles every 2 weeks along with the newsletter.

adamors 12y ago

This looks really cool, thanks for doing it.