[BCC 01] Building Craftsman Creative

Why newsletters?

If you've been paying attention the last 6 months or so, newsletters are having their heyday.

Tons of people are signing up for their own substack accounts, debating whether or not the loss of SEO or domain authority is important, and competitors like Revue, Ghost, and Medium are all vying for new people to start writing and publishing to their audiences.

But, why?

I've probably asked myself that question dozens of times over the years.

I've been writing emails or newsletters for over a decade. Sometimes consistently, other times more infrequently.

So I wanted to answer the question for myself: Why newsletters?

For me, it's because it's one of the most direct ways to reach people who have given me permission to serve them.

I can send a thought, a lesson, an insight, with a few clicks of a button, and land in the inboxes of over 1,000 people.

That statement in and of itself is kind of crazy.

It's different than social media. Twitter and Facebook and Instagram, to me, feel more like shouting into a void.

No engagement, no feedback, no sense that any of it is landing.

Yet with every email I send, I get responses, from real people that I've known for years, thanking me, sharing their thoughts, giving feedback.

That's the answer.

I write for two reasons.

1. To synthesize and figure out what I actually think about a subject

and/or

2. To share something I feel is valuable or important with the people who have told me it's ok to share those things with. A way to contribute, even in some small way, to the lives of others.

The reason I choose newsletters, aka emails like this one, and love them so much more than social media, is because I can see that they are valuable to those who receive them. I don't know that I get that - at least not often - from my posts and pictures.

The reason you do anything is important to understand before you start doing that thing.

• Why are you starting that company?
• Why do you want to make a movie?
• Why do you need a million dollars?
• Why do you make what you make?

If you don't know, take time to figure it out. Because as soon as you discover your reasons, then the way you approach the work changes. It now has purpose. A mission. And you will feel pulled to do the work.

With that in mind, I have two newsletters that I've decided to start publishing on a more frequent basis. You don't have to do anything to get them, since you're already subscribed, but if you don't want to receive them, you can always click the links I'll include to remove you from that list.

My hope is that they're valuable enough that you stay subscribed to them.

Once per week I'll publish a newsletter called First: Principles, where I take the things I'm reading about business, economics, finance, investing, and money, and drill down on the important underlying principles, and explain or put it in a context that makes more sense for creatives and artists.

So much that is out there on the topic is insanely important, but it's not written for us. My hope is to help people understand what's going on and how it affects them.

The second is the newsletter you're reading right now. BCC in emails stands for blind carbon copy. It's a way to include someone on an email without revealing that email address to anyone else on the email.

I like the idea of secrecy, or peeking in on something without others knowing.

So, I'm keeping the idea, but changing the acronym. BCC stands for Building Craftsman Creative, or even Becoming a Craftsman Creative. It's a newsletter about building my company, and myself. A behind-the-scenes look on what I'm learning, and trying, and doing to build two successful companies over the next few years, both started this summer in the worst economy I've ever experienced.

The hope with this newsletter is to help other creatives and artists make a great living doing what they love. Simple as that.

Thanks for being on the ride with me. It often feels like we're companions on the path.

I'm excited for what's to come.

Daren

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PS - What are YOUR reasons for doing what you do? What did you get from this email today? Hit reply and let me know!