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CJ Chilvers

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Review: Ted Templeman: A Platinum Producer’s Life in Music

Ted Templeman: A Platinum Producer’s Life in Music [https://amzn.to/2Lfskwu] by Greg Renoff is the rare, all-encompassing autobiography that never drags. Ted explains what it was like to work with Van Halen, Aerosmith, and The Doobie Brothers, and how he helped shape their songs and albums.

Review: Ted Templeman: A Platinum Producer’s Life in Music
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Newsletter Issue #252: 14 Diversions

Patton tells you to get weird, the worst solo ever, and the origin of the blurb — it’s all the latest issue [https://mailchi.mp/cjchilvers/issue-252-14-diversions] of my newsletter from this weekend. Sign up here [https://www.cjchilvers.com/subscribe] to get it before it’s

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The Era of Perfection

YouTuber/Record Producer Rick Beato mourns the loss of imperfect music [https://youtu.be/L-8EbHkc8tc]: It does seem that there’s a new generation of anxiety-filled, perfection-seekers topping the charts. But what’s topped the charts has rarely been what’s interesting to the devoted fans/evangelists

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"Suggestions for Staying Safe While Shopping"

Today, Kottke.org [https://kottke.org/20/03/grocery-store-worker-offers-suggestions-for-staying-safe-while-shopping-during-the-pandemic] highlighted a grocery store worker’s video and her suggestions for safe shopping during a pandemic. On the list was (item #3) was, “Go to the bathroom at home.

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Further Reading on Newsletters

This is the last post in my month of daily blogging on email newsletters [https://www.cjchilvers.com/daily-posts-newsletters/], so I thought I'd sign off with a recap of the most interesting links to keep you inspired. Articles On Newsletters * How to start your own good

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Examples of Newsletters Doing It Right

I keep a folder of well-designed newsletter examples going back years. Here’s some of my most contemporary favorites. Here’s a great sign-up form from James Clear [https://jamesclear.com]: The copy on this is form (located above the mast for entire site) so well-considered. It’

Examples of Newsletters Doing It Right
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The Future of Privacy in Newsletters

There's been more momentum towards email privacy in the last month than in the last decade. It's such a strange coincidence that it's all happening while I'm taking a month to blog daily on newsletters. I had prepared all kinds of posts

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Ask for testimonials.

If a reader doesn’t actively seek you out, and stumbles upon your newsletter’s subscribe page, the top two questions on their mind will be: 1. What is this about? 2. Why should I care? Answering the first question is copy that you will keep editing for as long

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Pick a day, any day.

I recently attended a meeting in which a certain humungous marketing and sales company (which starts with an “S”) was advising our marketing department to send email on Tuesdays and Thursdays because that when people are most likely to open more email in general. I’ve been hearing that advice

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Strategize long before you monetize.

I don't want to discourage you, but I want you to realize that for the great majority of newsletters, monetization is byproduct, not the product. I get all kinds of questions about monetizing email newsletters, so I'll make some generalizations and say: don't worry