A long-time reader replies to my email yesterday:
===
Hey John
First – as I stated in a couple of my previous replies to your emails – I love reading yours. (I am subscribed only to two daily newsletters and one is yours)
It gives that chill vibes and interesting reading type of feelings.
And since, I like reading your emails and planning to do so as long as you write, wanted to share with you that today’s email brought a feeling of negativity (it could be me only though).
No intention to judge, just sharing the impact of your email left on me.
===
I’m not 100% sure what this reader meant to convey. If I’m reading into it, I guess he meant that negativity is negative, and negative things are negative. “Don’t be a Negative Nancy,” that kind of thing.
And yes:
It’s good idea to keep your emails light and positive. And yet…
It’s a better idea to change things up from time to time, to keep people from dismissing you by thinking they know what you’ll say next. And then…
It’s a best idea to be congruent, and to never sound like you’re trying to cover up your real thoughts or feelings, or come across as half-heartedly spinning scat into sucrose.
More on the this sensitive topic:
A few days ago, I got an unusual new subscriber to my Daily Email Habit service. I won’t name him here, because I’m not sure he wants me to.
I will say that, unlike most people signed up to DEH, this new customer is not running a typical coaching/course-selling/service-provider business.
Instead, he is a fiction author. He’s looking to sell his more of his own fiction books, and to build a tighter bond with his existing audience.
We exchanged a couple emails, and in one of them, this fiction author wrote about the unique part of writing daily emails to a fiction-reading list:
===
It’s a different beast to problem-solving markets as it disproportionately leans more on personal stories, personality, etc., which is difficult when you’ve got no pain points to leverage. Still, it has been fun to stretch myself.
===
True. People don’t really read fiction because they are looking for how-to solutions to their specific problems.
That said, people who read fiction do have problems in their lives – as we all do.
My bit of advice to the fiction author was to talk about his own problems. Not in a way of seeking pity or even asking for solutions, but simply as a means of allowing his audience to identify with him.
It took me a long while to realize the following point, because I’m a bit dense:
But the real point of telling a personal story isn’t to brag or be an exhibitionist or even to entertain.
Rather, it’s to allow other people to identify with you, to put themselves in your position in your story, and to say to themselves, “Yeah, that makes sense,” or “Yeah, that’s happened to me,” or “Yeah, that’s how I felt also.”
And so if you ever find yourself asking:
“Is this a good personal story? Should I include this bit? Is it relevant? Is it interesting? Am I just including it for the sake of ego? Is it irrelevant to the story but somehow important on another level?”
… then keep in mind that your personal story isn’t really about you, but is really about allowing your reader to have a certain kind of experience, thanks to you.
Anyways, all that’s to say:
1. Daily emails don’t always gotta be blinding sunshine and positivity
2. In fact there’s a good reason for regularly sharing frustrations and personal problems
3. Sometimes you can cram more than one point into an email
By the way, my email yesterday, which was deemed negative by at least one reader, was negative on purpose, because it was written as my answer to yesterday’s Daily Email Habit puzzle.
Yesterday’s DEH puzzle has now vanished, along with February 2025, never to be repeated.
But another new puzzle will come out tomorrow, fresh for March 2, 2025.
And if you want to use this upcoming puzzle to help you sell more of your own stuff, including even fiction books… and to build a tighter bond with your existing audience… then you may, or you may not, like my Daily Email Habit service. Only one way to find out: