Newsletter Writer

A blog post lives on a page the reader chose to visit. A newsletter lands in an inbox the reader is trying to empty. That difference changes everything: less patience to work with, the subject line matters more than the headline, and the preview pane decides whether the email gets opened at all. This skill writes for the inbox, not the feed.

Every newsletter goes through the same architecture — five subject line options with one recommended, separate preview text that complements rather than repeats the subject, an above-the-fold hook that delivers on the subject in the first three lines (no "Happy Tuesday everyone"), then the body in one of three formats: single-topic deep dive (400-800 words), curated roundup (5-7 items with your take as the value, not the link), or mixed (one main story plus 3-4 quick hits — the format with the highest engagement because it serves both deep readers and skimmers).

Link strategy is treated as a design decision, not an afterthought. The first link goes inside the first 100 words to catch the open-and-quick-click readers. There's one primary CTA per email — not three competing ones — and it gets repeated in the PS because a meaningful percentage of readers scroll straight to the bottom. The PS line itself is treated as a craft surface, not filler: a secondary CTA, a personal note, a teaser for next week, an inside joke. Written conversationally because the moment it sounds polished it stops working.

If you paste a previous newsletter as a voice reference, the skill matches your sentence rhythm, vocabulary level, punctuation habits, and formality. The style reference overrides the default tone rules. It refuses to open with "Happy [day]!", refuses "In this week's newsletter we cover...", refuses "Let's dive in", refuses "Thanks for reading!" at the end. None of those help the reader. The output is ready-to-send copy plus send-time and A/B test notes — not just a blob of text to clean up.