Blog & Newsletter Writing is a 10-week workshop, which includes lectures, exercises, and the critiquing of student projects. It’s for beginners or anyone who wants to brush up on the fundamentals. Farther down, you can view a syllabus for this course.
The beauty of a blog or newsletter is you can start one up without anyone’s permission. But how many are well written? Truly interesting or entertaining or useful? Maintained on a regular basis? Enjoyed by a wide circle of people? Precious few.
The key is to write blogs or newsletters so good even total strangers will be drawn to read them.
Here you’ll learn the specialized craft of writing for blogs or newsletters. Creating a concept. Writing with structure, voice, credibility, and a point to each post. Also, setting things up and attracting an audience.
Whether your purpose is to establish a platform, promote a business, or just to spread your creative wings, we’ll show you how to win over readers time and again.
Notes
This course does not cover content marketing, but focuses on blogs and newsletters that favor voice and originality.
This course gives you a firm grounding in the craft of blog and newsletter writing. Course components:
- Lectures
- Writing exercises
- Workshopping of student blog/newsletter posts (each student presenting work two times)
Online classes
- Week 1
- Concept: Defining blogs and newsletters. Key features of blog/newsletter writing. Finding and focusing topics, audience, uniqueness, name. Author platforms. Blog/newsletters for businesses.
- Week 2
- Point: The importance of a point to each post. Finding a fresh or interesting point. Ways to make your point.
- Week 3
- Structure: Types of structure—inverted pyramid, feature article, story, meandering, numbered list, other options. Planning a structure.
- Week 4
- Voice: Defining and achieving voice. Exploring various voices. Stylistic tips—rhythm, verbs, interesting words, senses, emphasis.
- Week 5
- Credibility: Demonstrating expertise—knowledge, accuracy, provability, specificity. Demonstrating excellence through good writing and professionalism. Crafting an About page.
- Week 6
- The Flow of Ideas, Part 1: Exploring frequency and length of posts. Techniques for generating ideas.
- Week 7
- The Flow of Ideas, Part 2: Types of post to consider—recurring features, questions/discussions, profiles, guest posts, digests. Using curation to create and augment posts. Creating a podcast to complement your blog/newsletter.
- Week 8
- Headlines: Types of headline—clear, coy, cryptic. Subtitles. Subject lines. Crafting the best headline.
- Week 9
- Setting Things Up: Setting up a blog. Setting up a newsletter. Adding a visual element to your blog or newsletter.
- Week 10
- Audience: Techniques for increasing visitors and subscribers. Interacting with your audience. Ways to earn money. Transparency about payment and freebies. Final inspiration.
Note: Content may vary among individual classes.
About
- The Online classes bring students from all over the globe to Gotham—New York City’s most famous writing school.
- The Online classes happen asynchronously—not in “real time.” You can participate in class any time, day or night, but the classes advance week-by-week, and certain things should be accomplished within that week-long session.
- You can take an Online writing class from anywhere, as long as you have an internet connection. The majority of our Online students are located in the U.S. but we also draw students from practically every country in the world.
- Tech support will be available.
- Aside from the convenience of time and location, you have a record of everything that transpires in class, which you can print out and keep for future reference. (The material is text and image, not video.)
