Yesterday, I was sitting on the couch trying to work.
The girl who was sitting next to me had her phone out. Suddenly, it started blaring with an English woman’s voice:
“I came into office at a time of great economic and international…”
I waited for a second, hoping that the noise would die down. The phone continued to blare:
“… instability. Families and businesses were worried about how to pay their…”
I frowned, both at the level of noise and the level of fluff. “What is this?” I asked the girl.
“It’s breaking news,” she said. “The UK’s Prime Minster just resigned.”
“Who cares?” I asked, hoping she would get the hint and turn the noise down.
“It’s breaking news!” she repeated.
I’m telling you this not to highlight how little I care for breaking news, though that’s certainly true.
I’m telling it to you to set up the fact that yesterday, when the UK’s Prime Minister resigned, was Thursday October 20.
Today, as I write this email, is Friday October 21.
And tomorrow, when this email will actually be sent out so you can read it, will be Saturday October 22.
In other words, I am a day ahead in my emails. I have an extra email written and scheduled — for the first time in something like 18 months.
The last time this happened was during my trip to Colombia in January 2021.
I was traveling with friends, and I was unsure that I’d have time each day to sit down and write a new email. So when I did find time to sit down, I’d write several emails at a time. By the end of that trip, I ended up with a surplus of a few days’ worth of emails.
The same thing happened this time.
I was traveling to London with a friend this past weekend. Again, I was unsure when I might have time to sit down and write. Again, as a result of this, I wound up with an email surplus.
Which brings me to the paradoxical mathematics of email copywriting:
I find it’s often easier to write two, three, or 10 emails than to write one.
I can think of a few diff reasons why this is:
* More time spent on research…
* Less time spent on fiddling…
* And an overall tighter, clearer, faster structure for the emails in a batch of 10 than for a lone, lonely, and possibly bloated single email.
So my takeaway for you is, if you’re having a hard time writing a single email, set yourself the goal to write 10. Paradoxically, you might have an easier time of it.
And now, here’s some real breaking news:
Next week, I will be releasing my amazing Copy Riddles program for all the world to marvel at. I’m planning to throw a big and loud launch party in this newsletter, starting next Thursday and ending next Sunday. Maybe it will be a costume party, and if it is, I’ll dress up as Po the Kung Fu panda.
In case you’d like to be invited to that party, you can sign up for my daily email newsletter. Click here for the application.