July 29, 2025

Blogging vs Emailing

Have you ever wondered why I often suggest that freelancers and consultants start a mailing list, but I never suggest they start a blog?

Aren’t blogs and mailing lists basically the same thing?

Nope!

Here’s why:

Onymous—Email is a “known identity” platform by default. Unlike other decentralized publishing protocols like blogs and podcasts (i.e., RSS), email subscribers are not anonymous. You can’t contact a blog reader, but you can contact an email subscriber. Sure, someone can sign up with a fake address, but it’s not all that common, and those get pruned out pretty quickly.

Asymmetric—Email has an asymmetric privacy model at its core. I can broadcast to thousands of people with a single click, and any recipient can reply privately to me directly with a single click. Other than me reposting someone’s message, which I only do with explicit permission, subscribers know that replying to me will not be sent to the entire list. It’s private. This leads to having much more honest conversations with my subscribers than I would in blog comments or on social media.

Immutable—When you send an email, you can’t unsend it. You can’t edit it. You can’t fix embarrassing typos like “your/you’re” (OMG, do I hate those). So if I sent something lame yesterday, my only recourse is to do better today. Back when I used to blog, I’d find myself endlessly revising old stuff, which was largely a waste of time.

Here’s the thing...

Email - especially, high frequency like daily or M-F - is kinda like a performance art.

The only way to get better is to practice. You’ll never be perfect, but you can always strive for excellence.

And the more “at bats” you get, the more likely you are to hit the occasional home run.

Yours,

—J

(Looking for more info on my daily email process? Here you go: My Daily Email Process 2024)