Like most beginners, I made a lot of mistakes when I first started writing my newsletter.

But the biggest one, by far?

Not having a specific topic

Here's what happened:

When I first started writing, I was (more or less) writing for myself. I would put together things that I found interesting, and hope that others would too. That's okay to a point, but if you're writing for everyone, then you're really not writing for anybody.

I then narrowed it down three of my favorite areas; music, soccer, and aviation. That helped, but it was still too broad for a single newsletter. Music fans didn't care about new route announcements, and avgeeks didn't necessarily want to read about the latest power pop EP. And soccer fans? They didn't want either of those. It all meant for a scrambled product with no real specificity or direction.

And no real traffic.

But, it's also worth acknowledging that making this mistake taught me a ton.

By narrowing down to just music, it not only helped me focus, but also gave readers an idea of what to expect. That's still a broad topic-and I've narrowed down even further since- but the point remains.

Use data to find a topic that resonates with people and double down on it.

It took a few months for me to figure that out, but it's been a great lesson to learn.