This Idea of a Launch

How to do it.

Apr 02, 2025

This semester at Beloit College I taught an undergrad student who was a good writer and also a fashionista. Her name is India. She put together stylish, eye-catching outfits with clothes from bargain basements and thrift stores. Sometimes she sewed what she wore.

She is also graduating this spring and under a lot of pressure to find a job.

“You could start a Substack on fashion!” I told her. I logged in and showed her mine. “People will pay you to teach them about style. I’d pay you.”

A week after I left Beloit she let me know she’s decided to do it. Her first post was March 14, and she has written an essay every week since. That means her brand-new newsletter has three posts. She wanted my opinion.

I thought she should continue in this fashion until she has a handful of posts, enough that people have a taste of her work, and then she should launch her new project.

“Launch?” she said. “How would I launch it?”

Hoopla and fanfare

Launching is a kind of marketing in which you make a splash when you introduce a thing to the world.

Because what you’re reading is a newsletter about writing, I’m talking about a writing project here—a new pub, a book, a newsletter, a workshop—but lots of things are launched. In fact, we have become a society of launchers. Marriage proposals turn into elaborate launches. We launch the news that we’re pregnant. We launch a baby’s sex with “gender reveals”—remember the one in California that set a wildfire with its pyrotechnics?

You don’t have to go crazy with launching every little thing you do. However, if you’re trying to market something, launching is your first tool.

How would someone launch a paying newsletter?

Here’s what I brainstormed for my student.

Mostly we want to quickly launch something as soon as we get it done. Don’t do that. Slow down and set a launch day at least a couple of weeks in the future. That gives you time to come up with ideas and put publicity in motion.
Set a goal for the number of people you want to respond on launch day. 25 new people. 10 paid subscribers. Or whatever. Set the goal.
Write a launch post, as in, “This week is my official launch.” Say what you intend to do and how often your newsletter will arrive in their inbox. Ask people to forward your project to 5 friends.
Make a graphic and post to all your socials. Ask friends to share.
Send a personal email to 50 people asking them to subscribe and support you and your writing. Make sure you include a link so that it's easy for them to see your new project. In advance—right now!—make a list of 50 folks you think could be interested in your newsletter. Don't forget family members and friends. (I told my student not to forget her parents’ friends or professors she has enjoyed.) When these 50 are done, do another 50.
Get clear on what you're offering people. Tell folks at least 3 things they will gain from your new project.

[I came up with a little list for India:
1) ideas for their own clothing
2) thoughts on how to find their style
3) tips on shopping for used clothing
4) how to alter clothing.
However, I told her, I think the main thing you're offering is your own self-confidence as a model for others, women especially. We have been told to be small, neutral, quiet, and covered. You are saying to us that it's okay to be big and splashy and colorful and uncovered.]
Of course there are hundreds of ways to get the word out for Launch Day. Write articles that go out in other newsletters. Send posts to groups. Buy ads on social media or in newspapers. Post to your website. Tell people—invite them in person. And of course there are pyrotechnics and banners behind airplanes.

By the way, Jeff Walker has a book called Launch. I’ve read it. It lays out a very detailed, structured approach for an online launch in order to sell something. I find it too formulaic for my tastes, which is probably why he’s an Internet millionaire and I’m not.

I’d love to hear any other launching ideas I can pass on to India. And I’ll share her newsletter with you when she decides to press the button.

Yes, it’s easier to be small, neutral, and quiet. But if you want to find readers for your work, be big and splashy and colorful.

For $11 You Can Hear Clare Walker Leslie, Nature Journal Icon, Speak Online on Sunday

Join iconic naturalist and artist Clare Walker Leslie for a short workshop online in “Learning to See.” The workshop is part of my Journaling the Garden series, but I’m opening Clare’s session to a wider audience.

The workshop will be held Sunday, April 6, 2025 from 5-6 pm EDT US/Canada.

The workshop is Live via Zoom. A ticket here will get you a seat in the class. You will be emailed the Zoom link.

The cost of the 1-hour workshop is $11.

Clare Walker Leslie is a pioneering influence on the use of nature journals and is the author of many books on nature study. A self-taught naturalist, she began nature journaling in 1978. Fifty journals later she uses the concept as a means to connect herself and her students with nature and place, season by season and year by year. Her books include Keeping a Nature Journal, Drawn to Nature, A Naturalist’s Sketchbook, A Year in Nature, and many more. Her latest, How to Look at a Bird, appears in the movie The Room Next Door with Tilda Swinton and Julianne Moore. Tilda buys a copy and you see her carrying it. Clare lives in Cambridge, Mass. and Granville, Vermont.

Clare has done important, transformative work for our times. She’s an icon and a muse for many. Come hear what she has to say about nature, journaling, and life in general.

The date again is Sunday, April 6, 5-6 pm EDT US/Canada. If you do not live in the Eastern US Time Zone, please calculate when the class will start for you.

Get a Seat Here

The Memoir Course Is Open

So many folks have signed up on the waitlist for this course in writing memoir. I’ll be sending individual emails to everyone soon. For now, if you’re interested in memoir & can do it over the summer, 1 hour through lunch for 12 weeks, come on. Here are the details–

Level: Beginner to Mid-Level
Weekly for 12 weeks
Wednesdays 11 am-12 noon Eastern
June 4-Aug. 20, 2025
Live via Zoom
Participant numbers not limited
Session dates: June 4 / June 11 / June 18 / June 25 / July 2 / July 9 / July 16 / July 23 / July 30 / Aug. 6 / Aug. 13 / Aug. 20
Open Mic Night (currently set for Thursday, Aug. 21, 2025, 7 pm Eastern Time)

What you get–

A stellar summer semester spent writing
Twelve 1-hour sessions of guidance on writing structure, technique, and craft
A lesson concerning memoir each session
An engaging class that you look forward to all week
Time to write–30+ pieces of your writing by the end of the summer
Writing prompts
Pages of important, useful handouts in pdf form
Link to a Google Drive where handouts, readings, & recordings are posted
Honest, authentic interest in your story & belief in you
Opportunities to ask questions of Janisse Ray weekly
Information on printing, binding, & publishing
Engagement with other writers
Access to online Office Hours or Co-working Sessions
A chance to read your work in an online Open Mic Night
A receipt to file with your taxes, if you have writing income

Your investment–

$300
at least 1 hour at your desk each week

& a sincere desire to get your stories down on paper

Get In the Memoir Course

Two More Workshops Coming Up

Later in the month I’ll be teaching a 2-hour workshop for authors who want to think about how to market their new book. It will be affordable and full of good material.

I’m also teaching a 2-hour workshop on “How to Magic” for Writers—how to access the mysterium.

I’ll post details next week.

P.S.

Can you imagine having a passion that you think about all day & even at night during times you find yourself awake? That has been writing for me. I think about words, sentences, stories, plots, ideas, other writers, books I’ve read or want to read. The fire has never gone out. Sometimes I get tired and occasionally I feel dejected, but the fire keeps burning. It inflames me. I feel incredibly lucky about that.