Newsletter Features I Like

The Small Bow

I love this newsletter. It's chock full of inspiring bits.

Let's take a look, starting at the top.

I like the handwritten header at the top.

It gives a nice personal touch, and it breaks up the rigidity of typeface and digital feel.

Scrolling down, the next thing we see is this:

1. I love the illustration. I love how it's a bit off to the right and not centered. I love that it has a handmade feel and not digital.
2. Probably a good idea to prompt readers to upgrade and remind them of how helpful and appreciated the support is.
3. Good idea to ask readers to share. I'll have to think about whether or not it's a good idea to put #2 and #3 at the top of every newsletter, but it's interesting and I'll continue to give it some thought.

Continuing to scroll down, we begin getting into the body of the newsletter and we see this:

Again, I love the illustration.

I think it adds a nice touch.

I'll think about how I can incorporate illustration elements into what I'm doing.

I also enjoy the writing.

The author is sharing very personal anecdotes about recovery.

He's not afraid to share his inner experience.

Not afraid to be vulnerable.

Then beneath that, he has an illustration of Nick Cave and includes a series of his quotes on the subject of grief.

I love just making up a section that's something that could the author's interest that week and is only going to ever occur one time in the newsletter.

The illustration is a great touch that adds a lot.

Then continuing to scroll down, he has a section on things he has read this week:

And a section on notable fears from the week:

And, love this, a notable daily gratitude list:

Then he includes his favorite poem he read this week.

After that he gets into something I really like which is a list of little stats from his week:

This is probably my favorite element he's put in here.

I'm going to have to find a way to do my own version of this.

It's worth mentioning that each of these little sections usually has its own illustration at the time, which really does add personality and flavor.

Also, he does Zoom meetings:

Love that, and might have to poke my head in on one of those.

Here's what they're about:

Then below that he's got some quotes from the week:

Great newsletter! Love it. Very inspirational.

Subscribe here: The Small Bow

Platformer

This is a massive newsletter with a very different audience than mine, but they're doing some things I like.

At the top of their newsletter, they have an image, and the caption of the image shows the prompt they used to create the image with AI:

Also, rather than naming each of the different sections of the newsletter (something I have been doing) and struggling to come up with a perfect and appropriate name for each section, they're simply giving each section a Roman numeral.

Simple. I like it.

Then at the bottom of the essay portion of the newsletter, they have an extensive series of links.

The links are categorized in sections.

Here are a few of them:

Simple, clean, packed with information.

After this, he includes a series of Tweets and Instagram posts. But unlike the way I've been doing it (embedding the actual post in the email), he's just including a screenshot of the post and then linking to the original below.

He seems to be posting more from BlueSky (the new app aiming to replace Twitter) than from Twitter/X:

And they close out their newsletter with a prompt to upgrade to paid:

Bram Adams

Bram does a thing I really like where he shares the books that he is reading and also the percentage of the book he has read according to his Kindle stats.

I don't always read on my Kindle, but I do sometimes - and love this idea.

In addition, when he completes a book, he gives it a rating.

Also, he includes quotes and comments when inspired.

Check out Bram's blog here.

That's it for now.

I'll keep adding new ones to this page as I come across them.