Why all filmmakers should have their own newsletters (30 Reasons Why)

What's holding you back? The evidence is out there.

don’t be an ass, as beautiful as the beast may be; launch your newsletter today!

Did you read my post “Build Your Audience, Own Your Future”?

It was essentially my notes for a panel I participated in at Cannes this year. I thought about the subject a lot more than I had time to speak about it.

Build Your Audience, Own Your Future

If you did read it, and you are a filmmaker, or an artist or entrepreneur of any sort, you probably already had the realization that at least from a strict business sense, you should launch and maintain your own newsletter. Know what? I agree with you.

So why aren’t more filmmakers doing it? Who are the best known directors who already made the leap? Ava DuVernay. Joseph Gordon Levitt. Justin Simien. Gary Hustwit. I am very thankful they are doing it, but who else? Where are the actors? The editors? The cinematographers. And the producers too; we always need more of those.

And yeah, no one wants the big names to crowd out everyone else. But we do love how a rising tide lifts all boats. Sure there are always growing pains too, but one of the things I am loving about FilmStack is how open and questioning people are, along with how well intentioned and hopeful. Frankly, I always grow tired of the voices I know — even my own — and welcome what I anticipate is an ever expanding and ever welcoming community here.

In that earlier post I shared 20 reasons why you should build your own audience, but I didn’t do it in handydandy TL;DR list format, so I initially thought that would be what I would do for you now. But then something started to happen… I started to add to that initial list, but something else occurred to me. I thought I should lay out the adjacent reasons why you should have your own newsletter both as a means of building your own audience but also why a newsletter makes additional sense, beyond the obvious business sense that you already see. And that’s what this post became.

“Thanks, Coach Ted.”

You are welcome, champ. I know you are going to win this game for us.

Now get out there and play. Show them what you are made of!

I will save the Expanded TL;DR List for a later post. There is so much to look forward to, so many new skills we can gather and master.

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30 Reasons why newsletters are a necessary tool to have in the artist/entrepreneur kit (be it to help build audiences or otherwise).

1. You want a direct relationship with your audience — not something you are dependent on any platform to maintain. You need the thing they can’t diminish or throttle or ever take away from you. You need the thing that is stable in a world of change. In a world of cheats and greed, you need the thing that is true.

2. You need email addresses. Newsletters are email lists.

3. Newsletters shouldn’t be called “newsletters”; the name implies a text dominant form of communication, but they are media rich, conducive to image, video, audio, and conversation, both live and recorded.