Evolving My Newsletter

10 Feb 2021 | ~3 minute read

I decided to start my newsletter around 8 months ago. To be honest, I didn't think it through properly and the whole thing was somewhat of an aimless exercise.

But over the last 8 months my newsletter has grown an identity and I now have a much better idea of where I want to do with it. So with that, I've been spending some time re-writing and re-designing the newsletter page on this site.

Newsletter changes

If you have been subscribed to my newsletter for more than a month or so, you will likely remember that it used to be called Craves Coffee. Like I said - it was all a little aimless.

Last month I renamed it to The Meta Letter and I've taken some time to actually think about what I want to include in future issues. So from now on, here's what will happen with The Meta Letter:

• New issues will be released during the last week of each month.
• Each issue will be split into 3 sections:
  • 📝 From my blog
  • 👨‍💻 Around the web
  • 🧐 Meta Picks

📝 From my blog

This section will include a couple of sentences about highlights from my blog over the last month. The list won't include everything, because let's be honest, I write a lot of 💩 on this site!

This is likely to be the shortest section of the newsletter since most people who subscribe are likely to already be readers of my blog.

👨‍💻 Around the web

I read a lot of stuff online; blogs, RSS feeds and places like Hacker News & Lobsters are where I usually hang around looking for content to consume. I also subscribe to a number of excellent newsletters; TLDR, Tedium, MasterWP and Benedict Evans' newsletter.

From these various sources I tend to find a number of hidden gems (or not so hidden, as the case may be). This is where the Around the web section of my newsletter comes in. It's a collection of posts, essays or articles that I've found particularly interesting that month.

🧐 Meta Picks

Finally we come to Meta Picks, these are useful or interesting ‘things' I have found in the last month. It could be an interesting or cool website, an application, a GitHub repository, or something else entirely.

Meta Picks is basically my catch-all for anything that has piqued my interest but doesn't fall into the other buckets.

✅ Subscribe to my newsletter

So far my newsletter has been way more successful than I thought it was going to be, and I'm really enjoying producing it. If you think you will find any of the above interesting, you can subscribe via RSS, or using the form below.

Issues are released to the RSS feed around 3 days after they are delivered to email subscribers.

If you want to know more information about The Meta Blog, check out this page which talks about The Meta Letter in more detail.

I hope to be invading your inbox very soon!

• Web