Perhaps you’re one of those people who think you do better off-the-cuff when it comes to your newsletter. Not for you are the schedules, the folder full of great ideas for upcoming issues, or even a regular template to follow.

You’re a “free spirit,” you say, creative, and unrestrained by the ordinary bounds of other folks.

Hogwash!

Let’s say you’ve been called to give a presentation to 10,000 people. Every one of those people in the audience will be ready to hang on your every word, buy the products you promote, and rush up to you afterwards to congratulate you on a job well done.

Or, they might just throw tomatoes.

Wouldn’t you take the time to prepare what you’d say in advance? If you were smart, wouldn’t you carefully craft your presentation so you could take advantage of every single second to really drive your message home?

A newsletter provides you with an identical opportunity. You have the audience, sitting at the ready, waiting to read what you’ve written.

You can either give them something outstanding–something that will have them flocking to your site to buy, email you with congratulatory feedback, and sending the newsletter out to everyone who might be interested…

Or, you can simply send them whatever you’ve whipped up this week with very little thought. Just be prepared for them to throw tomatoes.

Sure, there are professional writers who boast of *never* rewriting a single page of their bestselling tomes. But in all but a handful of cases, they either have a talented editor to do the rewriting for them, or their writing suffers for the lack.

(Yes, there are those writing geniuses who come along every few generations who churn out brilliant prose–I feel entirely confident in saying that you are not one of them, any more than I am.)

Writing is re-writing. Writing is planning. And truly great writing is a choreographed event in which each and every word is chosen with supreme care.

Perhaps you’re wondering why your readers are really deserving of well-crafted writing. After all, your newsletter’s just a throw-away piece that readers will glance at and quickly delete (wait a minute… that doesn’t seem right, does it?).

To counter that, I could argue that you owe it to your readers and you owe it to yourself to only distribute writing you’re really proud of–writing that will stand the test of time.

But, I know there’s one especially wonderful reason for you to think *bigger* about the writing you do–and that’s the impact it’ll have on your bottom line.

I’ve seen clients easily double and triple their sales simply by taking their newsletters more seriously.

So, taking a new approach to your newsletter will have an enormous impact on your bottom line.

It’ll do other things for you as well–get you raving fans who can’t stop talking about how brilliant you are, get you invites to print publications, speaking engagements, and swanky events, and, perhaps, if you’re really lucky, a carefully-crafted newsletter could even transform you into a world-known bestselling writer.

There are five guidelines of publishing planning that, when followed creatively, passionately, and expertly, will transform your newsletter. Follow them or prepare to be doused in tomatoes.

1. Choose quality topics. The topic is like your fundamental ingredients in a really great recipe. Nothing will mask sub-par ingredients–not skilled technique, or additional flavoring. It all starts with the brilliant topic.
2. Write it your way. Way back when you were in school, you were taught not to start a sentence with “and,” or “or.” And then, as you started writing for more public consumption, people told you to throw those rules out the window. It’s true, casting aside the rules of formal grammar makes your writing seem more conversational, BUT it only really works if that’s how you speak. If you tend to be a more formal type, making your writing less formal will seem forced. Instead, write in the way you’re most comfortable with–pretend you’re talking to your very favorite customer in your writing.
3. Polish, polish, polish. If you’re not setting aside each issue for at least 24 hours and going back to revise before it goes out, you’re sending out garbage. Pure and utter garbage. No one writes as well as they rewrite, and don’t buy into claims that off-the-cuff is more energetic. Digging into a bowl of pasta with one’s hands might be similarly called “energetic” or “enthusiastic.” But I’d just call it gross. There’s nothing wrong with a little restraint.
4. Put the craft first. If you want your newsletter to be really effective (read: make sales) you’re going to have to craft it carefully. You don’t want readers to feel like there’s little value in your newsletter–rather you want to entice them with such value that they can’t help but hunger for more. It’s rather like a bite of really delicious cheesecake–wonderful on its own, but leaves most people hungering for more.
5. Don’t write it if you don’t mean it. If you don’t really think what you’re saying is true, you shouldn’t be saying it at all. I’m not telling you not to lie (although that’s probably a good idea, too), but rather to avoid those topics you feel lukewarmly about. If you can’t stand behind what you’re saying 100%, fully present, you shouldn’t be saying it in your newsletter.

Next time you’re preparing to take the newsletter stage, instead of picturing your audience in their underwear, visualize them with tomatoes at the ready. *Now*, what are you going to tell them so that you don’t wind up covered in sauce?